Do we really need a combat overhaul? What are your opinions on it?

[Vahtapor Allconquer]

31 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am confused. Are you saying that combat changes will ONLY affect multiplayer and only the majority of players who like to build but never acquire any materials for the building? If so it would be helpful to make that super clear. Because the demographic you are talking about is extreemly small

Regarding the fact that I do not think any player in any context would never make a spear and as such all players will be impacted by combat changes, I do not understand your reply to that assertion.

and again, 'affect' does not mean negative or positive, it just means well affect.

yes, you are confused as I said if players play solo, they need to play as all roles including combat and homesteading. Your mentioned playstyle is only possible in multiplayer servers as otherwise you have to do all yourself including combat

My assertion is if all players built armor and spear in each game regarding their playstyle, it means all players are interested in combat which means people who are interested in combat overhaul are not 'minority'
 

[Azi Karnage]

8 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I do not know exactly what combat changes you guys are talking about but two things.

1. I bet the vast majority of people who play this game play it for the building and crafting not for the combat threats. So for 'those that like to homestead' you are talking about the overwhelming majority of the player base.

2. combat changes affect my acquisition of ALL materials in the game to place any and everything. Clay, dirt, trees, all rocks, all ores, leather, hide, fat, meat, husbandry.. all of it. Its impossible for a combat change to not affect all players.

Now I will indulge and point out the word 'affect' does NOT by default mean its a negative impact or a positive impact. Also to repeat, the players who 'like to homestead' are without question the overwhelming majority of Vintage Story players and that should be obvious.

 

To bring this point home a bit, do any of you know anyone who plays VS solo all the way to end game without ever making a spear or amour? 

Combat changes affect if you swing your sword left to hit a sheep and kill it instantly or if you swing it right to kill it instantly, and has absolutely 100% zero affect on anything outside of killing things to farm so in other words only hunting for which you literally use a bow anyway, any and all creatures wouldnt be able to be blocked like a melee slasher anyway so the combat for that is still the same of hit it and try to weave out of the way, the only possible differences is maybe your swing does a little more damage if you lean into it or one swing has half an inch more range than the other but it wouldnt actually matter. 

[Azi Karnage]

8 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am confused. Are you saying that combat changes will ONLY affect multiplayer and only the majority of players who like to build but never acquire any materials for the building? If so it would be helpful to make that super clear. Because the demographic you are talking about is extreemly small

Regarding the fact that I do not think any player in any context would never make a spear and as such all players will be impacted by combat changes, I do not understand your reply to that assertion.

and again, 'affect' does not mean negative or positive, it just means well affect.

Also YES the demographic is MINISCULE because we spend 20 bucks on the game, hop on expecting that more detailed survival experience we were promised only to find a slightly complicated minecraft demo with no combat or system in place for survival with pvp and its really just a distraction for them to show you the cool story, so then we stop playing, I made the foolish mistake of getting really hyped for this game and hoping to see truly impressive civilizations with mechanics incentivizing every role so I bought 20 whole copies to start handing out to my friends and clan mates (I did get a massive bunch of money so it was mildly less dumb of an impulse buy). Every single one of us but like 3 though have stopped playing the game. A combat overhaul does absolutely nothing to you but does absolutely everything for us. And again, this is all pretending it did affect acquisition of materials, which it doesnt.

[CastIronFabric]

10 hours ago, Azi Karnage said:

Combat changes affect if you swing your sword left to hit a sheep and kill it instantly or if you swing it right to kill it instantly, and has absolutely 100% zero affect on anything outside of killing things to farm so in other words only hunting for which you literally use a bow anyway, any and all creatures wouldnt be able to be blocked like a melee slasher anyway so the combat for that is still the same of hit it and try to weave out of the way, the only possible differences is maybe your swing does a little more damage if you lean into it or one swing has half an inch more range than the other but it wouldnt actually matter. 

again, this is immutable. If you are 'homesteading' (like all players of Vintage Story enjoy doing) if you want to get any materials at all to build your base INCLUDING hitting a sheep to get the sheep into  your pin, combat changes WILL affect your game play

 

The idea that there is a large demographic of players of Vintage Story who do NOT like to work on their homestead/crafting is of course absurd. Those features make up the overwhelming majority of this game by a long shot. Additionally the only way combat changes could not affect your gameplay is 1. if its multiplayer and 2. if you have someone else gather nearly ALL your materials, all your clay, all your wood, all your stone, all your ore, oh and ONLY if someone has your back during the early game until you or someone else can build you a home to live in. The need for combat affects everything. You would nearly have to live in a well lite building 100% of your game play in order for combat changes to not affect you.

and of course the argument that everyone builds a spear becasue everyone likes combat is of course not only absurd but also circular to the entire argument that there are players who do not want combat because clearly that would be zero given that argument.

this entire thread needs to be locked its filled with far to much sophistry 

 

Edited December 24, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[LadyWYT]

14 hours ago, Azi Karnage said:

hop on expecting that more detailed survival experience we were promised only to find a slightly complicated minecraft demo with no combat or system in place for survival with pvp and its really just a distraction for them to show you the cool story

With all due respect, the game's story is one of the major reasons that Vintage Story exists, not PvP. The focus is as stated on the homepage: surviving in the wilderness and uncovering the story of the events that wiped out past civilization and caused certain current events. The fighting that is involved is against monsters and wildlife, not human/humanoid enemies.

That's not to say that PvP is impossible in Vintage Story, but a player will need to seek out that kind of experience on a server built specifically for that kind of gameplay, as that playstyle doesn't really play well with other styles at all. It's also worth noting that the minute PvP becomes a development focus, it will absolutely be a neverending cycle of balancing armor, weapons, and tactics to address the complaints about whatever the current meta is. That takes time and resources away from other things that could be developed instead. For a game that's not at all focused on PvP to begin with, I think it's better to just not even worry about that kind of gameplay and leave it up to the server owners to curate whatever specific PvP experience they want via mods and their own rules.

Edit: For what it's worth, you can probably get refunds for the friends who didn't enjoy the game. I'm not really sure how refunds for gifted copies work, but the policy is rather generous so it's definitely worth asking about.

Edited December 24, 2025 by LadyWYT

[Teh Pizza Lady]

15 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

That's not to say that PvP is impossible in Vintage Story, but a player will need to seek out that kind of experience on a server built specifically for that kind of gameplay, as that playstyle doesn't really play well with other styles at all. It's also worth noting that the minute PvP becomes a development focus, it will absolutely be a neverending cycle of balancing armor, weapons, and tactics to address the complaints about whatever the current meta is. That takes time and resources away from other things that could be developed instead. For a game that's not at all focused on PvP to begin with, I think it's better to just not even worry about that kind of gameplay and leave it up to the server owners to curate whatever specific PvP experience they want via mods and their own rules.

Came here to say this but also add:

fighting damages your weapons and armor. Some of it can be repaired, but it's not easy and is a significant resource sink. If you spend the game fighting each other because "MuH pVp!1!!", then you're going to find out really quickly that your time is better spent just playing the game.

[CastIronFabric]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

With all due respect, the game's story is one of the major reasons that Vintage Story exists, not PvP. The focus is as stated on the homepage: surviving in the wilderness and uncovering the story of the events that wiped out past civilization and caused certain current events. The fighting that is involved is against monsters and wildlife, not human/humanoid enemies.

That's not to say that PvP is impossible in Vintage Story, but a player will need to seek out that kind of experience on a server built specifically for that kind of gameplay, as that playstyle doesn't really play well with other styles at all. It's also worth noting that the minute PvP becomes a development focus, it will absolutely be a neverending cycle of balancing armor, weapons, and tactics to address the complaints about whatever the current meta is. That takes time and resources away from other things that could be developed instead. For a game that's not at all focused on PvP to begin with, I think it's better to just not even worry about that kind of gameplay and leave it up to the server owners to curate whatever specific PvP experience they want via mods and their own rules.

Edit: For what it's worth, you can probably get refunds for the friends who didn't enjoy the game. I'm not really sure how refunds for gifted copies work, but the policy is rather generous so it's definitely worth asking about.

I beg to differ a bit.

I have seen about 4 or 5 videos of players talking about the difference between VS and MC and in none of the videos does story or lore ever come up. That is not to say story/lore is not ONE of the reasons but I still think the primary reason is the complex crafting/building processes involved. aka I agree with the videos I saw on this question (and yes..before I watched them). 

Regardless, one thing we both can agree on, for people who want high impact combat and pvp, this is not the game they would select. Tarkov and Arama 3 are two examples of games that are just fine filling that combat/pvp feel for sure.

Also, I think we need to stop pretending like the VS story is something like the mini series 1883 or Better Call Saul, maybe lets give that a bit of a rest. I doubt there really is that much to the story, lets me honest here.

Edited December 24, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[QueenGeeBee]

Yes, the game needs a combat overhaul.

There, Ive solved the thread. We can close it now.

[CastIronFabric]

16 hours ago, QueenGeeBee said:

Yes, the game needs a combat overhaul.

There, Ive solved the thread. We can close it now.

yeah it does not anymore than MC needs one.

 

[Vahtapor Allconquer]

6 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

yeah it does not anymore than MC needs one.

 

Mc needs 100% percent, so you just saying VS needs less than 100% 

[CastIronFabric]

49 minutes ago, Vahtapor Allconquer said:

Mc needs 100% percent, so you just saying VS needs less than 100% 

 MC is doing just fine, its the best selling game of all time, it just fine. thanks though

[Vahtapor Allconquer]

3 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

 MC is doing just fine, its the best selling game of all time, it just fine. thanks though

Best selling game but 100% players complain about lack of updates and state of the game lol

Even devs have combat experiment snapshots xd, you are the only one who thinks mc combat system doesnt need overhaul haha

Edited December 25, 2025 by Vahtapor Allconquer

[CastIronFabric]

13 hours ago, Vahtapor Allconquer said:

Best selling game but 100% players complain about lack of updates and state of the game lol

Even devs have combat experiment snapshots xd, you are the only one who thinks mc combat system doesnt need overhaul haha

lol..yeah

best selling yet a lot of complaints just bring it down right? talk about a massive contradiction

anyway, its a building game not Escape from Tarkov 

[Vahtapor Allconquer]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

lol..yeah

best selling yet a lot of complaints just bring it down right? talk about a massive contradiction

anyway, its a building game not Escape from Tarkov 

Who told you best selling means there is no complaints haha lol

And building is one aspects of minecraft, not the only feature lol there are many players who arent builders yet play minecraft, you dont even have an idea about minecraft but somehow have opininon about vintage story xd

[Teslov]

Man, people have so many ideas for all the new grand mechanics and stuff and here I am just wishing animals stopped sliding around at mach 7 up and down a hill and enemies clipping through you and bugging out while you can't hit them as they spin like a windmill...

Sure, when everything works as expected the current combat is simple and easy, but we need some clunk reduction, no?
Even without any new mechanics.

[CastIronFabric]

18 hours ago, Teslov said:

Man, people have so many ideas for all the new grand mechanics and stuff and here I am just wishing animals stopped sliding around at mach 7 up and down a hill and enemies clipping through you and bugging out while you can't hit them as they spin like a windmill...

Sure, when everything works as expected the current combat is simple and easy, but we need some clunk reduction, no?
Even without any new mechanics.

I would much rather have trains then any of this stuff personally.

[Diff]

8 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I would much rather have trains then any of this stuff personally.

Jank is usually due to tech debt, and tech debt spreads, calcifies, and gets harder to deal with over time. Even if you personally don't care about farming or lore beasts, I imagine you'd care when your train spirals off a straight track and phases through the hillside.

Edited December 27, 2025 by Diff

[DragonGrimoire]

Combat is fine, it mostly needs better hit detection, less janky glitchy stuff,  to be a bit more rewarding, and more weapon options.

Edited December 28, 2025 by DragonGrimoire

[CastIronFabric]

14 hours ago, Diff said:

Jank is usually due to tech debt, and tech debt spreads, calcifies, and gets harder to deal with over time. Even if you personally don't care about farming or lore beasts, I imagine you'd care when your train spirals off a straight track and phases through the hillside.

1. I do not know what 'Jank' is.

2. Opportunity cost means while you are spending time working on lore you are not spending time building trains regardless of how high the tech debt is. So the amount of tech debt involved in making trains is not related to the Opportunity Cost of not working on it.

 

Edited December 28, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Diff]

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

1. I do not know what 'Jank' is.

In the context of this conversation, I'd point at this example specifically:

On 12/26/2025 at 3:37 PM, Teslov said:

here I am just wishing animals stopped sliding around at mach 7 up and down a hill and enemies clipping through you and bugging out while you can't hit them as they spin like a windmill

 

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

2. Opportunity cost means while you are spending time working on lore you are not spending time building trains regardless of how high the tech debt is. So the amount of tech debt involved in making trains is not related to the Opportunity Cost of not working on it.

Nobody mentioned lore. Animals warping up a hill at mach 7 is a practical consideration, not a lore consideration, and fixing bugs in the physics engine has positive effects in far reaching areas of the game. Lots of things touch physics, including trains. As I said, you may not care about bowtorn sniping you through a solid wall, but the same batch of bugs and broken assumptions could also cause trains to be less fun and usable when they unexpectedly launch themselves into orbit.

More maintainable code makes it easier and faster to add features, so your opportunity cost argument makes little sense as we are not talking about lore, we are talking about jank/clunk/bugs/tech debt. Sometimes it's faster overall to spend the time to build a better tool than it is to keep chipping away slowly at a task with an inferior one.

Edited December 28, 2025 by Diff

[CastIronFabric]

10 minutes ago, Diff said:

The opposite of polish. In the context of this conversation, I'd point at this example specifically:

 

Nobody mentioned lore during this tangent. Animals warping up a hill at mach 7 is a practical consideration, not a lore consideration, and fixing bugs in the physics engine like that has positive effects in far reaching areas of the game. Lots of things touch physics, including trains. As I said, you may not care about bowtorn sniping you through a solid wall, but the same batch of bugs and broken assumptions that caused that could also cause trains to be less fun and usable when they unexpectedly launch themselves into orbit.

I do not know what any of this has to do with my observation so I will just repeat it.

I would rather them work on trains rather than the jank you are refering to. Jank is not global to all game features, its feature specific so fixing the jank on animals is not going to make trains any better.

Edited December 28, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Diff]

Just now, CastIronFabric said:

I would rather them work on trains rather than the jank you are refering to. Jank is not global to all game features, its feature specific so fixing the jank on animals is not going to make trains any better.

Physics is global. Jank in physics is also global. Does that clarify?

[CastIronFabric]

13 minutes ago, Diff said:

Physics is global. Jank in physics is also global. Does that clarify?

no it does not clarify.

In some cases jank can affect everything but more often than not if you have jank in a few specific cases its not because of the global physics.

More over, as the game sits right now its 'jank' level in my opinion is stable enough that I would rather them focus on other things like trains, tempering etc.

My opinion on this is immutable and not up for debate with me. I was just sharing my view.

 

EDIT: oh and by the way, I am willing to bet you that the global jank you are refering to is literally MC code

 

Edited December 28, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Diff]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

My opinion on this is immutable and not up for debate with me. I was just sharing my view.

We're not talking about opinions, we're talking about facts, ones that you self-admittedly lack critical background information on. But this ends that discussion either way.

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

EDIT: oh and by the way, I am willing to bet you that the global jank you are refering to is literally MC code

This game used to be a Minecraft mod in a past life, but in this life it shares no code with Minecraft. Minecraft is written in Java and is not licensed in any way that would allow others to use its code like this legally. Vintage Story is written in C# and hails from a project called Manic Digger that was released into the public domain. But I'm not sure what this changes. Tech debt is tech debt, no matter who took out the loan. I'm not criticizing anyone when I talk about tech debt. It (can be) a choice with consequences, and sometimes it is the right choice for a situation.

Edited December 28, 2025 by Diff

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Diff said:

We're not talking about opinions, we're talking about facts, ones that you self-admittedly lack critical background information on. But this ends that discussion either way.

This game used to be a Minecraft mod in a past life, but in this life it shares no code with Minecraft. Minecraft is written in Java and is not licensed in any way that would allow others to use its code like this legally. Vintage Story is written in C# and hails from a project called Manic Digger that was released into the public domain. But I'm not sure what this changes. Tech debt is tech debt, no matter who took out the loan. I'm not criticizing anyone when I talk about tech debt. It (can be) a choice with consequences, and sometimes it is the right choice for a situation.

my position is immutable, I would perfer they work on the examples I gave over anything else in the game. I am not changing my view on this so maybe stop responding.

Edited December 28, 2025 by CastIronFabric