Wolrd gen is holding back the game

[LoveWyrm]

11 minutes ago, Dobromir Bogatev said:

I get your point. However my original point was never to make the terrain like an amusement park or epic. However the terrain of vintage story is kind of repeatable and non distinctive. This is my point. If we compare it to IRL for example, there is uniqueness to the places. Wherever you live if you just get out and take a few photos you will find landmarks and interesting terrain. My point is that no matter what direction you take in Vintage story its always uninteresting and kind of the same.

Oh, sorry, no worries, wasn't meant to deride you or anything...

My concern is in the system, you know, the actual worldgen... it's procedural, and procedural usually means "small function, huge effects" and tweaking that I can see getting out of hand real quick, turning the world into a curiosity show. That's why I brought up a post processing step rather than the core generation, but yeah. I do agree with you, etc.

[Dobromir Bogatev]

No no Im not offended or anything. Just trying to explain my point.
And yeah procedural is usually not that distinctive and then again many procedurally generated games find a way to work around this.

Here is an idea:
- First off we need much more biomes so they dont just repeat. They dont need to all be super distinctive. Maybe you can have like plains, hills, extreme hills, mountain, high mountain and have rules that allow them to connect in a logical way and flow into each other. Doesnt make sense to have a bog into the mountain unless we have mountain bog biome which allows for bogs that are at high elevation. Stuff like these.
- Second we need landmarks and distinctive features. I know the game has such things, but they are too few and important. We need stuff that are decor most of the time. Lets say leftover camp. Maybe like a small abandoned shack. A hole dig as if from a player, a river cutting through the biome, a single hill on otherwise flat biome, a big tree. Stuff like these. With some time and imagination we can quickly think of about 50 things and we can categorize them. Some can be rare, some can be pretty common, some can be specific for a biome, some can be often paired with others.
- Third we need more NPCs. Villages, maybe some random guys like the trader. Maybe a guy who has a small house and plants stuff. Maybe sells some seeds. Maybe a guy hunts fishes. Stuff like these add soooo much life.

I am fully aware that this is actually a lot of work. However back to my original statement. Since the world gen is holding back the game, I think the work should be towards stuff like these.

[Thorfinn]

This game does not use biomes per se, like the other game does, though the roadmap has something that if you squint just right, can be interpreted as if there may be some biomes in the sense you are thinking..

The closest to what you are talking about in the current world gen is "landforms". There are currently 48 such landforms. The problem is likely not too few, but rather too many. Depending on the RNG, "very flat lands with occasional bumps" may look much like "Very flat lands near sea level" which looks much like "flat with small and big bumps" which looks much like "Flat lands with very thin small hills", etc. It can take a lot of practice tinkering with terrain generation to know how to distinguish betwixt them, and not just think it's repeating. 

Check out the wiki page on how this game does world generation for a good overview.

Do note that most of this is on the roadmap. I think that's why Tyron asked a couple months back what we would like them to be working on. I never did tally up the answers or anything, but my impression was that the general feeling was dejank, mechanical power, animals, and cooking, more or less in that order.

In the meantime, Better Ruins does a great job of adding landmarks and decorations and there are several mods for terrain. Which parts of those are closer to what you like?

[Dobromir Bogatev]

Be it landforms or biomes, just the fact that you cannot distinguish between them is enough. I tried better ruins and it certainly adds to the vibe, but I think its like a cherry on top. It needs more concrete plan than this.

[Thorfinn]

When I play with map, I find it fairly easy to see the borders between the regions. Even without a map, when you know what to look for, you can usually see the transition from tall ladders, and sometimes from the ground. I find it a little unnatural at how abrupt many of these transitions are.  Gives it more of a fantasy vibe than I like.

FWIW, I believe that's what the roadmap is talking about with regions of distinct flora/fauna. Because of the huge range of climate most life can inhabit, it's probably going to take something more like the other game's biomes to define a particular set of life for that region.

I just don't see that as what is "holding back" the game. I know there are improvements on the roadmap, and looking forward to them,  but until then, a somewhat unrealistic terrain generation requires less suspension of disbelief than Dave or any of the other lore.

[Morndenkainen]

Having played the game for a couple weeks now, I can see what the devs are aiming for and they've done pretty good with it.

Ever driven through Kansas before? that's like 400 miles of boring, flat, repetition that doesn't need to exist, yet it does. And true to life, the mountains give way to hills that give way to flatlands... It's not something that's obvious or happens at a definitive line in most cases..

My only real gripe with the standard world gen is that biomes are a bit on the small side, lakes are too common, and oceans are just big lakes you can swim across or walk around... But, they've given us a way to adjust that in the worldgen settings. Which is nice, because by default, the boat is practically useless... With reasonable size oceans and landmasses, the boats become necessary for travel.

IDK, if anything, I'd like a "continental" setting where each continent was comprised of at least X number of generic biome (4 plains, 4 forests, 4 hills, 2 mountains, Enough space to support 3-4 players per continent. Whatever, you get the idea) of 1-2 main rock types separated by around 750-1500 blocks of ocean. That way you had plenty of land and all the basics you need, but need a boat to really get around with if you want to really expand. Anyone know some worldgen settings that will do that?

[Kaldo]

I have to admit that I haven't found many memorable landmarks on my first map. It's mostly a flat area with many lakes and very small forest clumps on the sides. I regret not seeing all the comments about reducing landmass sooner, and configuring a "continental" map during world gen tbh, but then again I'm not sure if that would mess with ore generation and deep mining too much.

[Obison]

For me its not the biomes that bothers me, and i know more for that is in the works. Its the way the world generates as I put in my most recent post. There is some really messed up land generation going on that is nothing but annoying and really doesnt make any sense at all.

[Emeal]

I think what irks me the most about Vintage Story WorldGen is that the world that is generated is not something that I see in the real world.

There are seemingly no clearly defined islands or land or continents. I think I would be more satisfied if that was implemented.

Edited May 6, 2025 by Emeal

[Thorfinn]

On 5/3/2025 at 4:18 AM, Kaldo said:

I have to admit that I haven't found many memorable landmarks on my first map.

Huh. As someone who plays without a map, landmarks are essential, and I've had no problems finding them pretty much everywhere. Granted, there are not a lot of "OMG, I've got to get a screenshot of this," but "OK, snowcapped mountains off at about max view distance to the east, chert mountains in the mid range to the north, there should be a swale over... there it is, then follow the valley west to the forest." are all over the place.

Welcome to the forums, @Emeal

There is a lot you can do with playing around with mapgen parameters, but, ultimately, the problem is the  landforms are just too small in scale to be realistic. The Great Plains are 1000 miles across. Much further north to south. That's 1600 km, or 16,000 1,600,000 (see? another problem with janky units!) blocks -- half again the current default world size.  And people are already complaining about things being more than 1000 blocks away.

Balancing the ones who want realistic terrain against those who want everything within a day's walk is not possible.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Thorfinn
Cuz metrik

[Maelstrom]

On 5/2/2025 at 3:52 PM, Morndenkainen said:

IDK, if anything, I'd like a "continental" setting where each continent was comprised of at least X number of generic biome (4 plains, 4 forests, 4 hills, 2 mountains, Enough space to support 3-4 players per continent. Whatever, you get the idea) 

Might I suggest Settlers of Cataan?

 

>ducking for cover!<

[Grummsh]

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Might I suggest Settlers of Cataan?

 

>ducking for cover!<

Daaaamn this brings back some memories... Lord of Sheep they used to call me!  

[V1ncent]

On 5/3/2025 at 5:52 AM, Morndenkainen said:

Having played the game for a couple weeks now, I can see what the devs are aiming for and they've done pretty good with it.

Ever driven through Kansas before? that's like 400 miles of boring, flat, repetition that doesn't need to exist, yet it does. And true to life, the mountains give way to hills that give way to flatlands... It's not something that's obvious or happens at a definitive line in most cases..

My only real gripe with the standard world gen is that biomes are a bit on the small side, lakes are too common, and oceans are just big lakes you can swim across or walk around... But, they've given us a way to adjust that in the worldgen settings. Which is nice, because by default, the boat is practically useless... With reasonable size oceans and landmasses, the boats become necessary for travel.

IDK, if anything, I'd like a "continental" setting where each continent was comprised of at least X number of generic biome (4 plains, 4 forests, 4 hills, 2 mountains, Enough space to support 3-4 players per continent. Whatever, you get the idea) of 1-2 main rock types separated by around 750-1500 blocks of ocean. That way you had plenty of land and all the basics you need, but need a boat to really get around with if you want to really expand. Anyone know some worldgen settings that will do that?

While I do not know if the worldgen can be configured similar to degree of some strategy game(the explanation in wiki give me a feeling that the process is more randomly process generation than ticking checkbox defined by preset), there is at least the mod continental world that ensure the lands are massive continent rather than broken islands.

[Thorfinn]

On 5/2/2025 at 4:52 PM, Morndenkainen said:

IDK, if anything, I'd like a "continental" setting

That would be fine with me. However, I would not be a big fan of an "incontinental" setting.

[Maelstrom]

You don't like your continents leaking their liquid contents?  

[YunaVerse]

i just wish i can build a beach house and fishing dock next to a long strip of sandy beach.. ya i can keep trying to create worlds to find a limestone sand spot but that is also hard to find

[Tabbot95]

On 4/15/2025 at 7:38 PM, Dobromir Bogatev said:

Before I start I want to say that I'm no here just to hate on the game.I love Vintage story. It has so much systems that I always wished Minecraft had. I love the direction. What I want this to be is my opinion why the game wont reach the heights of Minecraft.

In my opinion the world gen is what is holding the game back. This becomes apparent simply by going creative and flying around. I tried quite a few mods that improves the world generation, but the variety and uniqueness of biomes is just lacking for proceduraly generated world. Just by flying around you can see how its lack of variety produces a world that is highly repeated and looks kinda bland and boring in my opinion. I think the game needs more variety in places, but more importantly in biomes. I think it also needs much more things, like the trader that can serve as landmarks.
I am saying this because in the end what makes me come back to Minecraft is exactly this. If the worldgen was interesting I wouldnt even come back to MC.
What are your opinions on this? Are you happy with the worldgen?

the way to fix this is to ditch the "Just In Time"/""Infinite"" worldgen and instead have "All at Once" Worldgen.