Combat is absolutely awful

[Thorfinn]

3 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Temporal storms in 1.19 were fun to me.

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the storms ramped up a little more gradually.

There's no reason you can't have your old temporal storms back. Some time ago I explained to someone on these forums how to do so, changing only about a half-dozen numbers. Someone even published such a mod, IIRC.

[Krähenwolf]

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

 but I do not see anything close to 80% bowtorns. I'm almost certain that the bowtorn hordes are for one reason -- while drifters will wander (usually away) if you are only 20 blocks away, boworn seek you out up to 30. That's a huge difference. If you aren't actively killing/despawning them, they will build up to the point you may well not be able to survive. At least without some protected means of getting out of their range like a tunnel or a bridge or a lane or something. But you can use their orders to stay in range against them with some creative fencing and a somewhat largish base.

I hate to admit it, but I am not a big fan of Bowtorns myself. Every enemy right now has certain problems (Wolves jump right through you, dealing damage while staying untouchable; shivers spend most of their time inside you, merging their hitbox with yours; Bears are...fine, but as every animal too silent; etc.), but Bowtorns are extra annoying. No matter where I sleep, at least one bowtorn makes camp right in front of my exit, enough feet away that I have to do a mad sprint through somewhat coverless terrain at them. At least they die very quickly.

I don't know. Maybe its just the fact that they do high damage when you are not wearing armor. Five points is a lot when you are just learning the game and braving your first night. Once I have armor, they become far less of a menace because of the low damage tier. Teaches you to wear armor all the time...but then again, I kinda enjoy running around without armor in the summer, at least when I am tending to the farmstead. Drifters are less problematic, and I do not have that many issues with Shivers.

Maybe a solution would be for them to do less damage (like 3 instead of 5), but have a higher damage tier. That would not be so problematic in the early game, but still make them dangerous in large swarms when going deep caving. Or maybe cap their maximum spawns like the shiver. I have yet to see true swarms of them, but occasionally, a rift spawns 3-4 of them that scatter in every direction, making cover impossible to seek.

Bit of a rant, sorry. I like the general concept, but the execution seems...lacking.

[Krähenwolf]

7 hours ago, ifoz said:

To anyone talking about how wolves are OP, keep in mind that wolves are currently bugged. The way they are meant to work is that wolves have three potential attacks, they choose one, then it has a 1.5 second cooldown. However, all three attacks have *separate* cooldowns, meaning they can spam attacks really quickly and shred you like a chainsaw.

Oh, THAT'S whats happening! I knew I wasn't imagining single wolves bashing against my shield as if there were three of them! Thank you!

[Zane Mordien]

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I think some sort of Jonas tech weapon or two might offer an interesting solution to the problem. 

Something... just give us something to make it feel worth wild. I still think you should get loot from the story locations that with a few jonas parts makes something interesting. It doesn't have to be game breaking.

 

 

7 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Personally, I wouldn't mind if the storms ramped up a little more gradually.

There's no reason you can't have your old temporal storms back. Some time ago I explained to someone on these forums how to do so, changing only about a half-dozen numbers. Someone even published such a mod, IIRC.

I wish the storms were somehow tied to your progress in the game or story. As you become more of a "threat" the rust dimension reacts to you.

I know..  I know, but I'm annoying that way. I don't know if it needs to be the same, but the tier 4 bowtorns and shivers just make it too much IMO. I think the game should make sense in it's vanilla format. I've been tilting that windmill for far to long in my life, so I should know better. As stated before, I don't feel it hurts anything to give the feedback. The game is still in development, so maybe someone considers the feedback or maybe I'm just the anomaly. 

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, Krähenwolf said:

Maybe a solution would be for them to do less damage (like 3 instead of 5), but have a higher damage tier.

Make it so.

Use your favorite text editor to open bowtorn.json in .\assets\survival\entities\land, scroll through for something that looks like it might be damage related, until you get to (currently) line 264:

Quote

                        projectileDamageByType: {
                            "*-surface": 5,
                            "*-deep": 6,
                            "*-tainted": 7,
                            "*-corrupt": 8,
                            "*-nightmare": 9,
                            "*-gearfoot": 10,
 

Change those values to whatever you think appropriate, save, test.

If you feel obligated to increase the tier, the very next block lets you do that,. Change their seeking range, their health, their cooldowns, their drops, pretty much everything. I don't believe it would tinker with animations or priorities, not until you understand the implications of how that will affect the AI, but by all means, make the game yours. There wouldn't have been a JSON front end if that were not the intent.

[LoveWyrm]

The new changes simply made me stop (worrying) playing about hardcore one life playthroughs and I have accepted the aspect that the lanky blue aliens are fodder to be sent back to the temporal gear spot every now and then.

I mean a billy goat can kill em with a few headbutts to the ass. They are unworthy of life and must suffer. They don't wanna live. They're like pandas.

Accept their demise. Disable you 10k spawn radius on death, enable infinite lives again, and set the temporal gear spawns to 20 and enjoy the game.

 

Playing safe is already too annoying at this point. So...don't overdo on it. Let the paper mache aliens get wrecked. They don't matter. The structure you are building ...THAT one matters. THAT one is gonna be the legacy, not the lanky neutromorph blue alien with a detuned tuba stuck in its throat and a gormless expression on the face.

[LadyWYT]

18 minutes ago, LoveWyrm said:

The new changes simply made me stop (worrying) playing about hardcore one life playthroughs and I have accepted the aspect that the lanky blue aliens are fodder to be sent back to the temporal gear spot every now and then.

You might give this mod a try for a variation on the hardcore experience: https://mods.vintagestory.at/temporallife

Limits you to one life only, unless you have a temporal gear. Then you get one extra life per gear.

7 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

Something... just give us something to make it feel worth wild. I still think you should get loot from the story locations that with a few jonas parts makes something interesting. It doesn't have to be game breaking.

Yeah, I do agree that loot for the story locations could be a bit more interesting. I wouldn't call what we have now bad, exactly, but it's not terribly exciting either. The more exciting part is just enjoying the atmosphere as you complete the content. I'd also say that part of the reason the loot is a little underwhelming is that there's not yet a lot that you can do with Jonas parts; once we get more Jonas tech options, then finding those parts will be a lot more exciting.

7 hours ago, Zane Mordien said:

I wish the storms were somehow tied to your progress in the game or story. As you become more of a "threat" the rust dimension reacts to you.

Ironically, we already somewhat have that in the game, and it runs counter to what's presented about the storms in lore. According to a certain dear old friend, the temporal storms were a lot worse post-calamity than the ones we have today, which suggests that temporal storms are calming down as time marches on. However, in actual gameplay, the temporal storms actually get worse as time passes, which makes sense from a gameplay standpoint as that gives players time to prepare themselves.

Otherwise, I'm okay with the way the storms are currently implemented. They're an unnatural disaster that the player has to deal with every so often, and help drive home the point that something dreadful happened to the world. I daresay whatever turned the players into seraphs in the first place is what caused the storms, so after a fashion they are a "reaction" from the Rust World to the "threat" that the players pose. I don't think I would make it a more direct reaction though, partly because it's clearly stated that the player is not the only seraph in existence and the player seems to be operating as an "everyman" sort of hero, instead of a "chosen one". Likewise, the lack of direct focus on the player for the temporal storms and associated things makes those entities feel a lot bigger and properly esoteric. Typically when I think "Lovecraftian" or "eldritch" I tend to think of enormous ancient entities that are so drastically foreign that normal things are beneath their direct attention, if even noticed at all.

[LoveWyrm]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

You might give this mod a try for a variation on the hardcore experience: https://mods.vintagestory.at/temporallife

Limits you to one life only, unless you have a temporal gear. Then you get one extra life per gear.

 

I don't think I'll go back to any of that. I play on pretty punishing world settings, and I try not to die , but I think I'm pretty done with trying to make it one life. I can do it, but I don't enjoy it anymore lol.

[Maelstrom]

@Dealman You do realize this is early access, right?  Best estimate has this game at 25% complete at this point.  While I agree combat can be better, there's bigger issues; like the 1.20 update having more issues than previous updates.  I'll take the current combat with a more polished update than better combat and the game issues 1.20 is currently suffering.  Given Tyron (until recently the sole full time developer) has recently added some help, it seems like 1.20 is showing some growing pains in bug/issue squashing.

[SubtleOrc]

I'd like to second the comment about wolves competely destroying herbivore populations, if you don't take care of them.

In any ecosystem, if the predators get too numerous, they die of starvation until the prey numbers recover.

Prey numbers never seem to recover in this game.

Wolves / Bears / Bowtorns etc go from nightmare menace to an inconvenience once you get Gambeson Armour. Its just a facet of the game

[MagpieOAO]

11 hours ago, SubtleOrc said:

I'd like to second the comment about wolves competely destroying herbivore populations, if you don't take care of them.

In any ecosystem, if the predators get too numerous, they die of starvation until the prey numbers recover.

Prey numbers never seem to recover in this game.

Wolves / Bears / Bowtorns etc go from nightmare menace to an inconvenience once you get Gambeson Armour. Its just a facet of the game

Huh, I had noticed a few places I wandered through seemed a lot more barren and I've found a few carcasses. 

Do trees respawn either? Mushrooms and the like? 

[Maelstrom]

Trees do not respawn (unless you plant seeds), but mushrooms do respawn automatically..

[Zane Mordien]

On 5/5/2025 at 5:03 PM, LadyWYT said:

 

Otherwise, I'm okay with the way the storms are currently implemented. They're an unnatural disaster that the player has to deal with every so often, and help drive home the point that something dreadful happened to the world. I daresay whatever turned the players into seraphs in the first place is what caused the storms, so after a fashion they are a "reaction" from the Rust World to the "threat" that the players pose. I don't think I would make it a more direct reaction though, partly because it's clearly stated that the player is not the only seraph in existence and the player seems to be operating as an "everyman" sort of hero, instead of a "chosen one". Likewise, the lack of direct focus on the player for the temporal storms and associated things makes those entities feel a lot bigger and properly esoteric. Typically when I think "Lovecraftian" or "eldritch" I tend to think of enormous ancient entities that are so drastically foreign that normal things are beneath their direct attention, if even noticed at all.

I agree the player is insignificant, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't react to us. Similar to how the white blood cells react to threats. We don't consciously decide to deploy white blood cells, it just happens. From the lore and chapter 2 story, people can cause a direct reaction from the rust realm so it doesn't seem out of place for the rust to respond to us. 

[Moltrey]

On 5/6/2025 at 3:26 PM, Maelstrom said:

@Dealman You do realize this is early access, right?  Best estimate has this game at 25% complete at this point.  While I agree combat can be better, there's bigger issues; like the 1.20 update having more issues than previous updates.  I'll take the current combat with a more polished update than better combat and the game issues 1.20 is currently suffering.  Given Tyron (until recently the sole full time developer) has recently added some help, it seems like 1.20 is showing some growing pains in bug/issue squashing.

I agree with Maelstrom here.

No one at Anego Studios is "leaving" the game like this current build. I am currently vexed with Boars as the telltale squeal of piglets (snort, snort!) puts an extra charge in my shorts and yeah, there is a whole thread on combat redux, etc. This stuff takes time and I am certain that Tyron has an outline, but things go sideways a lot in programming, so as they said in "Battle of Britain", I'll leave strategy for those with egg on their hats.

I can say much the same regarding 7 Days to Die. The Huenink brothers get flack continuously, but it is their game and they can choose to develop it as they like. I don't see Vintage Story evolving all that much different. While one hopes it won't involve a decade-long Alpha/Beta, I have made peace with it all. You know what? They only charged me once for 7DTD and The Long Dark and both are still going strong with independent studios and small teams. Maybe, just maybe they are all on to something? 

It certainly won't come in the player base's preferred timeframe, but Anego will get there.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Moltrey

[Daev]

Honestly I find the combat serviceable.  I'm about 60ish hours into the game over some months and am about 20 hours and some change into my third world after some test worlds to get a hang of mechanics and find the world gen settings that I like.  Not to discount any criticism for the combat, it is not the best but it is hardly the worst.  Wolves are hard at first but they are, in my experience, a worthy and even fun threat once you've learned the behavior and know how to use your seraph to their best.  I play as a malefactor, not at all a combat oriented class, but I can still take on wolves with makeshift armor, flint spears and a crude shield - I've even been able to whittle them down from afar with my sling before close engagment to great success.  Granted the Malefactor does get a reduced aggro range that can be used to great effect in separating unaware threats and I have been using the combat overhaul mod because I find the hitboxes and hit detection in vanilla to be a mix of too hard for me and just enough jank to be a hinderance, not impossible, but occasionally annoying.  I fully believe that if I gave vanilla combat more dedication I wouldn't need the overhaul mod, however, combat isn't the main point and I think that some critics are putting WAY too much stock in it - the game advertises itself as being for the journey, not the arrival and boy is the journey great! I agree that combat needs some love but I want the devs to take their time with it and deliver on their vision for the game while giving us a quality product, yes I also agree the storms should have a bit more pay off but I also think overall the loot balance is sufficient given the combat takes a backseat in this game - even more so than That Other Block Game - and that was, personally, what caused me so much grief in the beginning because I treated it as Minecraft combat that takes a seat closer to the front than in VS.  Once you treat the eldritch horrors more as a environmental hazard best avoided until after the early game as @LadyWYT has stated it is MUCH more enjoyable.  There's more consideration to the approach of combat rather than the act of combat itself.  I know quite a number of people seem to think that cheese is mandatory but I haven't found that to be the case personally, I have only used some cheese once because I REALLY wanted to kill a bear because it had wandered too close to home (terrible choice, I was overconfident since I felt more capable against wolves and thought I could spear it and sling it from a tower so easily).  Sorry for the long reply, didn't think I'd use so many words. 

TL;DR I think the core of these critiques are valid but the sentiment of it being unbearable I believe is more to do with how much stock individuals place in the combat respective to the devs vision of where combats place is in actuality.  Combat would benefit from polish or even a rework but I would not say it is THE problem or that it's near unplayable and that it is a mechanic that can be sat on until other more essential aspects/mechanics are polished/introduced such as steam power or certain behaviors with spawning animals and enemies or certain processes for progression items being bugged or unbalanced.

[Maelstrom]

I like how you stated the combat is a component of the story in this game.  You put to words exactly what I feel.  The story is the important part and they have written/developed this game as if Lovecraft himself was heading the project.

[Dealman]

On 5/6/2025 at 9:26 PM, Maelstrom said:

@Dealman You do realize this is early access, right?  Best estimate has this game at 25% complete at this point.  While I agree combat can be better, there's bigger issues; like the 1.20 update having more issues than previous updates.  I'll take the current combat with a more polished update than better combat and the game issues 1.20 is currently suffering.  Given Tyron (until recently the sole full time developer) has recently added some help, it seems like 1.20 is showing some growing pains in bug/issue squashing.

Okay, so just because a game is in early access we should entirely stop criticizing things we dislike and think could be improved? We should only raise the positive things and not let the developers know what we think could and should improve?

In the end, it's their game. Whether they take our feedback into consideration is entirely up to them. But as a fellow game developer, any and all feedback is good feedback. Even feedback that may not be constructive, is of value.

Stop gatekeeping feedback just because you disagree with it. I love Vintage Story - me, my girlfriend and some friends have been having a blast over the last few weeks. But we all strongly dislike the combat, we want it to be there - we can see what they want it to be, and it overall adds to the game. But so many of the mechanics and balancing are so poorly implemented that it genuinely is just baffling.

But if what was previously stated is true about the wolves, then that explains a whole lot as to why they feel broken. Bears I can relatively easily kite and whittle down, even in melee. Wolves are almost entirely out of the question for melee unless armoured, because they're so much faster and easily navigate lush terrain. In the open, it's a bit easier. But the real problem is the sheer damage and attack speed.

If I get mauled by a bear, I can accept that. They're massive animals with an unimaginable amount of strength, but if one wolf tears through me like a chainsaw in 2 seconds - yeah, that's just utter bull. It's not realistic, it's not fun - it's just bad.

It may be harsh, but it's our genuine opinion. It doesn't make for good first impressions either, which for a game trying to grow can be quite damaging.

 

Now I'm curious though, as we started playing during 1.20, what issues are still standing that are of much higher priority than fixing the combat system in your opinion? I mean, judging by the lore stuff that was recently added - it seems like combat is a rather large part of the game now. Surely it ought to be due an overhaul soon, because it does NOT live up to the standard of everything else.

[Gun Gryphon]

I've only played for about 9 hours total so, but I'd like to weigh in from the "fresh player" perspective. The constant ambushing by wolves (and occasionally other wildlife), regardless of where I'm at or what I'm doing, iced much of my will to keep playing. They show up regardless of if I'm out exploring or just gold panning at my house. More often than not, the first time I'd hear the wolf is when its already going in for the attack (if they are napping, they won't howl when the player enters the area). At that point it was basically too late to do anything. I'd already lost any possible terrain preparation advantage and would be dead in two very fast, startling hits. I couldn't even "pillar up", as some video guides suggested, as they always got the first hit off, knocking me down.

My frustration reached the point that that the only way I could keep playing was to use admin commands to teleport the 800 block distance back to my house, smite the wolves guarding my corpse with divine wrath, and purge their remains from existence before changing the gamemode back. It simply wasn't worth the time to trek back on foot and die repeatedly trying to recover my stuff since these encounters happened 1~2 times an hour. The RageQuit button earned it's name.

I really do enjoy the crafting, progression, and lore aspects, it's what kept me going despite taking 5 hours to locate my first clay deposit, or getting hopelessly massacred on the temporal storm and having to wait the rest of it out in the re-spawn prompt. I appreciate challenges that I can build up to overcome, but it didn't feel that anything I could do or make mattered. Instead of feeling like a hard fought encounter, it often just felt like a cheap loss. Maybe I could "get good" as the kids say with enough time, but I only get a handful of hours to spend on games after work and family responsibilities, usually on the weekends. I'm just an engineer, I love making stuff and solving problems. I just have to accept that the game is intended for a different audience.
Anyhow, it's currently 5AM and the sun is coming up, I should really get some sleep...

Edited May 11, 2025 by Gun Gryphon
grammar fix

[Daev]

2 hours ago, Gun Gryphon said:

I've only played for about 9 hours total so, but I'd like to weigh in from the "fresh player" perspective. The constant ambushing by wolves (and occasionally other wildlife), regardless of where I'm at or what I'm doing, iced much of my will to keep playing. They show up regardless of if I'm out exploring or just gold panning at my house. More often than not, the first time I'd hear the wolf is when its already going in for the attack (if they are napping, they won't howl when the player enters the area). At that point it was basically too late to do anything. I'd already lost any possible terrain preparation advantage and would be dead in two very fast, startling hits. I couldn't even "pillar up", as some video guides suggested, as they always got the first hit off, knocking me down.

My frustration reached the point that that the only way I could keep playing was to use admin commands to teleport the 800 block distance back to my house, smite the wolves guarding my corpse with divine wrath, and purge their remains from existence before changing the gamemode back. It simply wasn't worth the time to trek back on foot and die repeatedly trying to recover my stuff since these encounters happened 1~2 times an hour. The RageQuit button earned it's name.

I really do enjoy the crafting, progression, and lore aspects, it's what kept me going despite taking 5 hours to locate my first clay deposit, or getting hopelessly massacred on the temporal storm and having to wait the rest of it out in the re-spawn prompt. I appreciate challenges that I can build up to overcome, but it didn't feel that anything I could do or make mattered. Instead of feeling like a hard fought encounter, it often just felt like a cheap loss. Maybe I could "get good" as the kids say with enough time, but I only get a handful of hours to spend on games after work and family responsibilities, usually on the weekends. I'm just an engineer, I love making stuff and solving problems. I just have to accept that the game is intended for a different audience.
Anyhow, it's currently 5AM and the sun is coming up, I should really get some sleep...

Yeah, that was my experience on the first couple of test worlds I made and I did also have a recent bear encounter on my current world that required me to do some commands to get back in the fight - and fight I did - that said it is something that can be overcome.  The amount of caution needed around dense foliage, especially forests, is much but once you learn the ways after much agony it is a very enjoyable experience and manageable.  Even for someone like me who has the spatial awareness of roadkill can typically get through any exploration mostly unscathed.  I would recommend potentially using Malefactor because of the reduced detection range from wildlife (it has been a HUGE help for me and combat is still doable but mostly avoided and carefully considered) that said, most would agree that there's some polishing that can be done for the predators and animals in general but I do think what is currently presented is acceptable and still enjoyable after unlearning some old ways and learning new ways.  I hope you continue to find enjoyment in VS despite the pain because I do think the gains are very much worth it!  

[Thorfinn]

7 hours ago, Dealman said:

Stop gatekeeping feedback just because you disagree with it.

Why is voicing his opinion "gatekeeping"?

I get that you think wolves are OP. I thought so too, when I first started playing.

Now, not only do I play Wilderness (the hardest default setting) but anymore I adjust the settings up because they are no longer a challenge. Even though they could one-shot me, it's been a long time since it happened, unless I'm being deliberately incautious.

This is a bit weird, though. People keep wanting more options in world creation, then don't use the ones that are already there. Turn them down to 25% damage. You can nearly double your HP. You can increase your run speed. There is so much you can do to make the game playable at your skill level.

[Maelstrom]

15 hours ago, Dealman said:

Okay, so just because a game is in early access we should entirely stop criticizing things we dislike and think could be improved? We should only raise the positive things and not let the developers know what we think could and should improve?

>snip<

Now I'm curious though, as we started playing during 1.20, what issues are still standing that are of much higher priority than fixing the combat system in your opinion? I mean, judging by the lore stuff that was recently added - it seems like combat is a rather large part of the game now. Surely it ought to be due an overhaul soon, because it does NOT live up to the standard of everything else.

Every single release someone comes on the forums and comments how bad the combat is.  Seems like there's no effort to research the topic before the keys start flying.  Your comment was literally less than a week before or after someone else made a thread on the exact same topic.  Anego is a small studio.  Until recently Tyron was the only full time coder with a couple of sporadic part timers to help.  There's only so much he can do and I get tired of seeing posts that seem to expect the development capabilities of a AAA development company.  When I started in 1.14 there were no pit kilns, steel had just been introduced to the game and drifters were melee only critters that spawned anywhere coz rifts were two updates away.  Animals could escape their pens during the winter unless fences were two tall or had a roof of some kind.  Since then about the only change to combat (apart from new mobs) is addition of the falx with a slower swing time.  Before the falx one just mashed the mouse button and wade into a sea of drifters and mow them down.

Which issues/things are higher priority?  Ultimately, that's Anego's call in whatever comes out in the next update.  For me?  I'd like to see animal breeding be based off of a month rather than hard coded days.  To my understanding animal gestation is hard coded to a specific number of days whereas the time crops grow adjusts according to the length of the month.  I'd also like to see the mob spawning de-janked so that there aren't random drifters spawning during the day regardless of rift activity.

[LadyWYT]

17 hours ago, Dealman said:

Okay, so just because a game is in early access we should entirely stop criticizing things we dislike and think could be improved? We should only raise the positive things and not let the developers know what we think could and should improve?

17 hours ago, Dealman said:

Stop gatekeeping feedback just because you disagree with it. I love Vintage Story - me, my girlfriend and some friends have been having a blast over the last few weeks. But we all strongly dislike the combat, we want it to be there - we can see what they want it to be, and it overall adds to the game. But so many of the mechanics and balancing are so poorly implemented that it genuinely is just baffling.

Voicing complaints is fine; so is voicing positive feedback. When posting either on a public forum, it's not unusual for others to push back with counterpoints. It's fair to offer constructive criticism on aspects one doesn't enjoy so the developers can potentially make changes, but it's also fair to offer feedback on the parts one does enjoy so the developers can see what's not an issue.

10 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Why is voicing his opinion "gatekeeping"?

I get that you think wolves are OP. I thought so too, when I first started playing.

Now, not only do I play Wilderness (the hardest default setting) but anymore I adjust the settings up because they are no longer a challenge. Even though they could one-shot me, it's been a long time since it happened, unless I'm being deliberately incautious.

This is a bit weird, though. People keep wanting more options in world creation, then don't use the ones that are already there. Turn them down to 25% damage. You can nearly double your HP. You can increase your run speed. There is so much you can do to make the game playable at your skill level.

1 hour ago, Maelstrom said:

Every single release someone comes on the forums and comments how bad the combat is.  Seems like there's no effort to research the topic before the keys start flying.  Your comment was literally less than a week before or after someone else made a thread on the exact same topic.  Anego is a small studio.  Until recently Tyron was the only full time coder with a couple of sporadic part timers to help.  There's only so much he can do and I get tired of seeing posts that seem to expect the development capabilities of a AAA development company.  When I started in 1.14 there were no pit kilns, steel had just been introduced to the game and drifters were melee only critters that spawned anywhere coz rifts were two updates away.  Animals could escape their pens during the winter unless fences were two tall or had a roof of some kind.  Since then about the only change to combat (apart from new mobs) is addition of the falx with a slower swing time.  Before the falx one just mashed the mouse button and wade into a sea of drifters and mow them down.

Which issues/things are higher priority?  Ultimately, that's Anego's call in whatever comes out in the next update.  For me?  I'd like to see animal breeding be based off of a month rather than hard coded days.  To my understanding animal gestation is hard coded to a specific number of days whereas the time crops grow adjusts according to the length of the month.  I'd also like to see the mob spawning de-janked so that there aren't random drifters spawning during the day regardless of rift activity.

Agreed, and also why it's entirely fair to point out that Vintage Story is still very much in early development. There's still a lot on the roadmap, that would likely solve a lot of the complaints once those things are implemented, but to be honest most complaint threads(and several suggestion threads too) I see don't seem to take the roadmap(or related things like dev team size) into account. Likewise, it doesn't seem like a lot of those threads consider that perhaps the developers have a specific vision for Vintage Story, that doesn't necessarily fit with what's being requested in the thread. To use combat as an example...the system we have currently is solid and ties the monsters into the setting nicely as a believable threat/environmental hazard, rather than the mobile loot boxes a lot of videogame monsters end up being. Combat is required in certain instances, yes, but given what I've seen of Vintage Story so far I don't get the impression that players are intended to be actively picking fights whenever they can, so I don't really see the system changing that much outside of tweaking hitboxes and collision and the potential addition of temporary traits/status effects.

The other thing I've noted about many complaint threads is that there's often already a solution to the issue at hand with the tweak of a few world settings or the addition of a mod or two. Unfortunately it's not unusual for such threads to discount those solutions and instead insist that the gameplay standard be changed to meet their specific wants.

[Thorfinn]

2 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Every single release someone comes on the forums and comments how bad the combat is.

I was one such.  I made at least one "nerf the wolves" suggestion.

10 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The other thing I've noted about many complaint threads is that there's often already a solution to the issue at hand with the tweak of a few world settings or the addition of a mod or two. Unfortunately it's not unusual for such threads to discount those solutions and instead insist that the gameplay standard be changed to meet their specific wants.

Amen. Like I said above, I whined about wolves (and other things) before bothering to find out how easy it was to adjust the game for the skill level I was at that point. Sure glad they didn't listen to me...

[Dilan Rona]

On 5/4/2025 at 4:17 PM, Thorfinn said:

My big complaint about wolves is their respawn rate. They kill all the herbivores before I can off them all

dont have that problem tbh, if at all. if i see a wolf, i let them chase me into a near by pit trap, to be dealt with later in the year. Doesnt really work with bears, so when I see them, its "hunting season open" time for me. As for the occational herbevore that falls into a wolf pit trap, it keeps them fed (with the occational pup that spawns), and I just retrieve whats left of the carcass.

[Feycat]

1 hour ago, Dilan Rona said:

dont have that problem tbh, if at all. if i see a wolf, i let them chase me into a near by pit trap, to be dealt with later in the year. Doesnt really work with bears, so when I see them, its "hunting season open" time for me. As for the occational herbevore that falls into a wolf pit trap, it keeps them fed (with the occational pup that spawns), and I just retrieve whats left of the carcass.

I mean, they're also incorrect. Wolves ONLY kill small animals like rabbits and chickens. Animals like deer and pigs are only killed by bears. I usually end up with a pig or two wandering into my growling pit and nothing happens to them unless a small critter drops in.

Also... just keep an eye out. My hunter is constantly hunting, I hunt wolves and bears on purpose. All you need to do is find a nice place to have a lookout - you can build one or just find a hill - and scan around. I haven't been surprised by a wolf or bear in forever.

ETA: You CAN put bears in the growling pit and it works to suppress spawn!

Edited May 20, 2025 by Feycat