1.20.8-rc.1 Mob spawn balancing

[Tyron]

Dear Extraordinary Survivalists 
v1.20.8-rc.1, an unstable release, can now be downloaded through the account manager.
 

"Wall", shared by Kotsu on discord #screenshots

Some things just don't pan out as one would hope them to, pun intended

1.20.7 broke falling blocks in some cases so this update should remedy that. In the process I also finally tackled the excessive new mob spawn during temporal storms, as well as the missing mob spawns during nights in summer. I have marked the release as unstable because it might throw off the mob spawn balance again. Radfast added some fixes to the "other" dimensions.

Game updates

• Tweak: New Summer Stroll music track now also plays in summer. No longer exclusive to the Resonator
• Tweak: Improve localized messages sent to players, global messages are sent in the server language where player specific ones are sent in their language
• Fixed: Several issues in other dimensions
  • Blocklight from light sources should now spread correctly
  • For trunks, the right-hand element had wrong Block HUD info and wrong pickblock result
  • Fixed rare block breaking issues and excessive EntityItem spawned in some cases
• Fixed: Server-side error when player attempts to place faded crumpled letter on the ground
• Fixed: Invalid blocks created from falling blocks
• Fixed: Properly fix temporal storms sometimes spawning huge amounts of the new mobs
• Fixed: Mobs not spawning in summer nights. Rift tweaks.
• Fixed: Should fix butterflies turning in place for a minute at a time
• Fixed: Rare server-side exception if the disconnected player was not yet loaded
• API Tweak: Added IHeldHandAnimOverrider collectible interface to prevent a held idle animation being played based on an item held in the other hand

 

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[DUCATISLO]

I hope we get a combat update, at least adding physical weapon contact like in the combat overhaul mod as a start tbh

Minecraft has better combat than VS bruh...)

 

[Voldemort]

10 hours ago, DUCATISLO said:

I hope we get a combat update, at least adding physical weapon contact like in the combat overhaul mod as a start tbh

Minecraft has better combat than VS bruh...)

 

Tyron is not trying make next Minecraft, this is totaly different game.

[Voldemort]

15 hours ago, Tyron said:

Dear Extraordinary Survivalists 
v1.20.8-rc.1, an unstable release, can now be downloaded through the account manager.
 

"Wall", shared by Kotsu on discord #screenshots

Some things just don't pan out as one would hope them to, pun intended

1.20.7 broke falling blocks in some cases so this update should remedy that. In the process I also finally tackled the excessive new mob spawn during temporal storms, as well as the missing mob spawns during nights in summer. I have marked the release as unstable because it might throw off the mob spawn balance again. Radfast added some fixes to the "other" dimensions.

Game updates

• Tweak: New Summer Stroll music track now also plays in summer. No longer exclusive to the Resonator
• Tweak: Improve localized messages sent to players, global messages are sent in the server language where player specific ones are sent in their language
• Fixed: Several issues in other dimensions
  • Blocklight from light sources should now spread correctly
  • For trunks, the right-hand element had wrong Block HUD info and wrong pickblock result
  • Fixed rare block breaking issues and excessive EntityItem spawned in some cases
• Fixed: Server-side error when player attempts to place faded crumpled letter on the ground
• Fixed: Invalid blocks created from falling blocks
• Fixed: Properly fix temporal storms sometimes spawning huge amounts of the new mobs
• Fixed: Mobs not spawning in summer nights. Rift tweaks.
• Fixed: Should fix butterflies turning in place for a minute at a time
• Fixed: Rare server-side exception if the disconnected player was not yet loaded
• API Tweak: Added IHeldHandAnimOverrider collectible interface to prevent a held idle animation being played based on an item held in the other hand

 

 

View full record

 

Also, fire needs some tweaks or fixes. When you burn down a forest, a lot of leaves just stay in the air.( forever )

[DUCATISLO]

7 hours ago, Adnyeus said:

Tyron is not trying make next Minecraft, this is totaly different game.

i know but how is combat in VS any better compared to minecraft vanilla combat?

[Maelstrom]

4 hours ago, DUCATISLO said:

i know but how is combat in VS any better compared to minecraft vanilla combat?

Why keep comparing VS to minecraft?   These are two different games.  You might as well try comparing apples to uranium.  We might as well ask why doesn't minecraft have seasons or more realistic animal husbandry/taming.

Not everyone that enjoys this game is combat saavy and would likely stop playing if combat got dramatically harder.  If you don't like the combat of vanilla VS then look for a mod that scratches your itch or find a different game that is more combat focused.  For the time being VS combat is what the devs have made it to be.  They may have desires to improve it in the future, but that has not been publicly stated and what has been publicly released about upcoming updates does not include combat tweaks, revisions or overhauls.

[DUCATISLO]

2 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Why keep comparing VS to minecraft?   These are two different games.  You might as well try comparing apples to uranium.  We might as well ask why doesn't minecraft have seasons or more realistic animal husbandry/taming.

Not everyone that enjoys this game is combat saavy and would likely stop playing if combat got dramatically harder.  If you don't like the combat of vanilla VS then look for a mod that scratches your itch or find a different game that is more combat focused.  For the time being VS combat is what the devs have made it to be.  They may have desires to improve it in the future, but that has not been publicly stated and what has been publicly released about upcoming updates does not include combat tweaks, revisions or overhauls.

fun fact: you cant hit a rabbit thats standing in a grass (block)

[StCatharines]

On 4/2/2025 at 7:20 AM, Tyron said:

• Fixed: Should fix butterflies turning in place for a minute at a time

I thought that was a mod conflict on my end! Good to know.

[Facethief]

On 4/3/2025 at 3:52 PM, DUCATISLO said:

fun fact: you cant hit a rabbit thats standing in a grass (block)

You can hardly hit anything in grass in TOBG. Your point?

[LadyWYT]

On 4/3/2025 at 12:04 PM, Maelstrom said:

Not everyone that enjoys this game is combat saavy and would likely stop playing if combat got dramatically harder. 

I mean, we had how many players complaining combat was too easy prior to 1.20? Only for the complaints to flip entirely with 1.20's release and rail about how combat was now too hard. Personally, I do like combat, but that's not why I play Vintage Story and I do agree that if it were made dramatically harder a lot of current players would quit. I'd also wager that while we might see an uptick of combat-focused players, most of them aren't going to stick around because combat still isn't the focus of Vintage Story and there are plenty of other games that do combat better. Combat could be the focus, but that would be a major shift in the game's direction, and at that point it's not Vintage Story anymore.

On 4/3/2025 at 7:21 AM, DUCATISLO said:

i know but how is combat in VS any better compared to minecraft vanilla combat?

Minecraft combat is pretty much point-and-click. You don't need to worry about weapon or armor materials, you just get netherite and then enchant it to make it even more effective, and there's no downside to wearing your armor all the time unless you want to be invisible. The only thing that might be a "challenge" is figuring out how to shoot long distances/moving targets, or the mechanics behind the mace(which to my knowledge are simple anyway).

In contrast, equipment material matters quite a lot in Vintage Story--it determines how long your equipment will last, what it can protect you from(armor), and how much damage you can dish out(weapons). Not all armor is equal either; the more protective it is the more drawbacks it has, and wearing your armor all the time may not even be ideal. When it comes to ranged combat, you not only need to account for shot trajectory, but you need to release your shot at the right time too in order to get the most power and accuracy. For shield blocking, the material of your shield in VS again makes a difference in how much protection it offers, and VS shields also allow you to passively block some projectiles as long as you have the shield equipped.

I'd also note that VS enemies tend to be more intelligent, on average, since they may attempt to flee when low on health, or otherwise keep their distance/hit-and-run. They're also not limited to one kind of attack either; most will either have both a melee and ranged option, and a few may have more than one kind of melee attack.

Last but not least, I write all of the above looking at it from a PvE standpoint, not PvP. Once you introduce human opponents, things go bonkers quickly, as human opponents are very good at developing strategy on the fly and won't hesitate to try some very unorthodox methods to achieve their goals. I think to truly balance PvP, you need to either develop the game for predominantly PvP to begin with, or otherwise leave it to the individual servers to do their own balancing via mods.

[Never Jhonsen]

9 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Minecraft combat is pretty much point-and-click.

Which is why Vintage Story has better combat than Minecraft. You spam the mouse button and everything is dead.

I think Vintage Story's combat system should stay how it is. Besides, there are more important things that need attention, like fire pit temperatures resetting, enabling chickens to be the omnivores they are, or even allowing map locations and schematics to be stored on a scroll rack  

[LadyWYT]

I think one thing that would help VS combat, aside from perhaps tuning some timers and hitboxes, is just adding a few more sound effects. They did as much with the shields, and now shields are very satisfying to use because they sound properly protective, even if they didn't actually get a buff to their stats. Now I certainly don't expect monsters to start shrieking in pain(I don't think they can really feel much to begin with), but having some more varied grunts and things would probably make your hits feel more productive.

[Thorfinn]

On 4/6/2025 at 9:09 AM, LadyWYT said:

I don't think they can really feel much to begin with

They do respond to being on fire...

On 4/6/2025 at 6:22 AM, Never Jhonsen said:

fire pit temperatures resetting

I think what needs to be done here is just treat it as if it were taking place in a crucible or cooking pot -- the whole thing finishes at once, but the time is dependent on how large a batch you are cooking. Tossing flint into a campfire doesn't really work, as you need to keep oxygen away from it. Turn it into a crucible task and the process for lime and calcined flint are fairly easy to tweak.

[EDIT]

This strikes me as completely reasonable, now that we have the concept of contaminated cooking pots. And speaking of which, maybe soaking them in a barrel for 8 hours then refiring them could restore them to food quality?

[/EDIT]

 

On 4/6/2025 at 6:22 AM, Never Jhonsen said:

chickens to be the omnivores they are

That should be an absurdly easy mod. I would add to it that throughout the summertime, they get a chance of finding bugs or insects and don't need to have food provided at all. I would proposethe percentage insect particles currently form in that biome multiplied by the number of tiles in the pen, multiplied by a constant, or that's always going to resolve to zero in a reasonably sized pen.

 

On 4/6/2025 at 6:22 AM, Never Jhonsen said:

allowing map locations and schematics to be stored on a scroll rack

Again, pretty easy, but you either need to change "use" to something other than R-Click or change "place" those particular scrolls to something like Shift-R-Click. Any solution is going to have the uniformity purists howling, "Why do I R-Click to use/place X, but not Y?" 

Edited April 7, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Never Jhonsen]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I think what needs to be done here is just treat it as if it were taking place in a crucible or cooking pot -- the whole thing finishes at once, but the time is dependent on how large a batch you are cooking

I am all down for that actually. 8 flint taking roughly twice as long to reach temps as 4 flint in a firepit. I think that’s a much better idea than what the mod Better Firepits does, which simply keeps the temperature from resetting.

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

That should be an absurdly easy mod.

If someone mods it then I will gladly download it

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

I would proposethe percentage insect particles currently form in that biome multiplied by the number of tiles in the pen, multiplied by a constant, or that's always going to resolve to zero in a reasonably sized pen.

I think that is a good proposition. Chickens love insects, and since we now have them running all over the place as of 1.20.0, that would be a good combination.

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Again, pretty easy, but you either need to change "use" to something other than R-Click or change "place" those particular scrolls to something like Shift-R-Click.

Like you’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t see how it would be too different from a regular scroll or piece of written paper; Maybe give the schematics/lore maps the same code that a scroll has in terms of using them? 

Edited April 7, 2025 by Never Jhonsen

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Never Jhonsen said:

If someone mods it then I will gladly download it

Just add protein to the section of chicken-hen.json

	attributes: {
		creatureDiet: {
			foodCategories: ["Grain"],
			foodTags: ["fruitmash"]
		},

As an example, you could simply steal the whole line from wildpig-female.json, since our chickens got all of that plus dairy.

		creatureDiet: {
			foodCategories: ["Grain", "Fruit", "Vegetable", "Protein"],
			foodTags: ["fruitmash"],
			skipFoodTags: ["rice", "parsnip"]
		},

 

1 hour ago, Never Jhonsen said:

Like you’ve mentioned in the past, I don’t see how it would be too different from a regular scroll or piece of written paper; Maybe give the schematics/lore maps the same code that a scroll has in terms of using them? 

The Cliff's Notes version is that scrollrackableByType is hardcoded. Try it yourself. Open lore.json and find:

		scrollrackableByType: {
			"lore-scroll": true,
			"lore-paper": true,
			"*": false,

Change that last line to 

			"*": true,

and see how the game deals with those items.

Edited April 7, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Thorfinn]

3 hours ago, Never Jhonsen said:

I am all down for that actually. 8 flint taking roughly twice as long to reach temps as 4 flint in a firepit.

I was thinking about this. If I were to make such a mod, I would leave the vanilla method but add the new. However, I would not make it faster than vanilla. In fact, since limestone can be calcined as low as 900C, but takes longer, I'd consider making it work with peat, but takes, say, twice as long as vanilla. But since you are burning peat, who cares, right?

Edited April 7, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Khornet]

On 4/3/2025 at 2:21 PM, DUCATISLO said:

i know but how is combat in VS any better compared to minecraft vanilla combat?

It is not. You're correct in your claim that combat is one of Vintage Story's weakest gameplay aspects, and one of the most notoriously mentioned flaws since... forever.
At the very least we could get knockback and hitbox issues fixed. Adding more enemy diversity in the latest content update was a great opportunity for that. Instead, it brought more issues (Bowtorns having RIDICULOUS sniping skills and knockback on ranged attacks, Shivers having very buggy movement etc.).

Anyone saying that "Minecraft and VS are completely different games and it makes no sense comparing them" is utterly ignorant and/or delusional.

Quote

Vintage Story is a standalone voxel survival game developed by the same creators as the Minecraft mod Vintagecraft

It is a completely fair to make comparisons between these games, despite the many changes they've gone through since 2016.

I expect Vintage Story to be "better", or at least to be "more" wherever it can. When it comes to combat, it is clunkier, less fluid, less satisfying, and less rewarding. 

Edited April 15, 2025 by Khornet

[QueenGeeBee]

I wonder if they're working on a 1.20.9 or if all effort is on 1.21. Ive just been waiting for this rc to go live but idk it feels like they might be making a second release candidate

[StCatharines]

23 hours ago, QueenGeeBee said:

I wonder if they're working on a 1.20.9 or if all effort is on 1.21

I, too, have been wondering! Generally there's a 1-3 week gap between a RC and stable, and we're certainly in the latter part of that usual time period.

[Voldemort]

On 4/17/2025 at 10:36 PM, StCatharines said:

I, too, have been wondering! Generally there's a 1-3 week gap between a RC and stable, and we're certainly in the latter part of that usual time period.

I mean they cant fix glass lighting bug and wierd glitch from fire that leave trees leaves on air. from 1.19 so i idk