Vintage Story bad for the eyes ?

[Gimlog Odim]

Hello fellow players , dears developers.

I played a lot these days and early this year it was on VS.

During that period I notice that my eyes had a hard time to look into the distance. For the past 4 months I stop playing VS but didn't stop playing overall and my eyes are as good as new.

I'm thinking of playing again ( this game is so good !) but I'm thinking at my/our eyes and feel that I should share this experience.

I'm playing mostly in 3 p view because the game is easier this way , It may be the cause.

Share your experience and I'll update this post after this new session.  

[radfast]

It's a strange thing to report!

Do you think you are playing VS for very long periods without a break, like several hours continuously?   Maybe longer periods than other games?

[Disclaimer: I am not a doctor, this is not medical advice]

For any game it is strongly advisable to take a break from the screen sometimes:

• first to rest the eyes instead of holding them at a fixed focus for a long time
• second for ergonomic reasons, because you probably hold your hands and shoulders forward to operate mouse and keyboard, can give you 'mouse shoulder' etc
• third for cardiovascular reasons - literally you could get DVT if you sit with your legs down and still for many hours, it's the same reason why people should get up and walk around at least every hour when taking a long flight (or else do ankle pump exercises or similar), otherwise you are risking this life-threatening condition

I am wondering if VS has an additional effect, for you, because the game is so immersive, and simulates the open world with nature etc - maybe your eyes are "tricked" into thinking you are outdoors with a long focus when you are actually sat at a desk?    Try making small changes like change the FoV slider

 

[KiaYaha]

What do you mean having a by having hard time? Do your eyes hurt afterwards or do you have to strain yourself to look into the distance? Or both?

[NeutronCoffee]

Sitting in front of a screen for extended timeframes can hurt your eyes, take breaks. Similar to working at a computer for a job, gotta get up and move around a little to prevent leg issues too sitting for long periods. 

[Gimlog Odim]

I do know all of those.

 I end up reporting this because the days I didn't play VS , I  did see the difference ( @KiaYaha My vision is blurry in the distance and I can feel the struggle of my eyes to focus )

And has said, I did played the same way on other game so it's has probably something to do between me and VS. But I let it know in the event that I'm not the only one.

 

[Thorfinn]

IRL, your brain is used to having to focus -- things are either in-focus near or far but never both. VS and similar eliminate that by presenting everything 0-infinity in focus. Essentially, you program your brain that it does not need to focus to see details, so it starts generalizing that. VS's level of detail enables lazy brain. Alas, if you find that happening to yourself. you need to take more frequent and longer breaks. Time not staring at anything a foot away, looking at things in the distance.

Edited May 8, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Oofishy]

From what I know eye strain from dark environments or focusing on something close for too long is temporary and doesn’t actually damage your eyes 

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

IRL, your brain is used to having to focus -- things are either in-focus near or far but never both. VS and similar eliminate that by presenting everything 0-infinity in focus. Essentially, you program your brain that it does not need to focus to see details, so it starts generalizing that. VS's level of detail enables lazy brain. Alas, if you find that happening to yourself. you need to take more frequent and longer breaks. Time not staring at anything a foot away, looking at things in the distance.

2 hours ago, Oofishy said:

From what I know eye strain from dark environments or focusing on something close for too long is temporary and doesn’t actually damage your eyes 

This and this; I'd also chalk some of it up to a drawback of getting older(that is, out of the early 20s and into your early 30s). Taking longer or more frequent breaks is a good idea, and taking a couple days off from the computer entirely usually clears it up. Getting more sleep at night and cutting back on caffeine can also help.

That being said, if you take steps to reduce eyestrain and its still not clearing up or seems to be getting worse, you might consider seeing a doctor, as it could be a symptom of something more serious.

[dakko]

What you describe can also be the result of "Dry Eye" which is a medical condition. It has several possible causes, one of them being that the meibomian glands are not functioning properly. An optometrist or ophthalmologist can tell you if this is what you are dealing with, although one that specializes in Dry Eye will have diagnostic equipment (for imaging the meibomian glands and testing tear quality, among other things) to be specific as to what is causing the problem, and they will also have the equipment for treatment.

Edited May 8, 2025 by dakko

[StrixBit]

Might be a consideration to acquire blue lens glasses.

[Thorfinn]

30 minutes ago, StrixBit said:

Might be a consideration to acquire blue lens glasses.

This, plus a ZZ Top beard. Because ZZ Top.

Welcome to the forums, @Gimlog Odim, @StrixBit

Edited May 8, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Grummsh]

Might not be the case but I would aswell check Your FOV setting in Vintage Story - and maybe try to change it to a wider one 90-105 works best in most cases.

[Daev]

As @StrixBit stated, might be blue light causing strain.  I got blue light filtering glasses since I use a computer at work often (and Hunt Showdown is VERY heavy on blue light) VS is definitely a warmer game in terms of color but screens still use a considerable amount of blue light typically.  Most games don't give me issue but Hunt Showdown certainly does and it isn't the only game I play that uses a lot of blue light.

[Askys]

For me UI Scale and FOV needed to be changed when i first got VS.

 

UI was to small on 4k so i had to strain to read it, and the FOV made it all look weirdly zoomed in. Not sure if that'l help but its a easy thing to check ^-^

[LoveWyrm]

Hmm, a peculiar thing.

 Motion sickness I can see happen, yes. But the monitor is a more or less flat plane, if you mess with anything regarding your eyes focus then the screen will either be sharp (in focus) or not.  I don't think a 3d game on a flat 2d plane that doesn't use any fancy stereoscopic effects that require you to go crosseyed  or out of focus etc can be "extra bad" for your vision.

So, maybe you just have some general eye fatigue, cause I don't see VS having any property that could further cause damage.

I'd personally get a bloodworks test to check for any hypo or hyper whatsits in the blood/body before I wondered if it's a game issue.

You might also have allergies ...or something else, high eye pressure, medication side effects etc. I get tinnitus from one of my creams lol. So yeah.

If this has been a sudden thing, then maybe it's a problem that is not that big of a deal and can be fixed with something simple...but if you can, I'd check that with a medical professional. Humans can both survive with metal pipes pierced through their head ...if they get somehow lucky, but they can also have mega cramps if they dehydrate a bit too much and the potassium gets out of whack. Etc.

Again, I don't think VS has an attribute that can bend your vision so to speak... at most it could maybe give you a seizure from flashing images or motion sickness, but not via 'focusing'. perhaps it's just so good of a game to you that you get extra absorbed and blink less etc.

I had that with factorio...saw the belts in my dreams, man... in my dreams.... last time I had that was 04803 billion years ago with tetris on the original game boy lol.

[wasa]

not quite the describer as you are having, but i also have gotten headaches à la motion sickness even in short play sessions when only playing this game in the past. more specifically, i believe its noisy textures in a blocky game environment that triggers mine, since i've gotten the same issue with "realistic" texture packs with shaders in minecraft. you mention playing in third person helps, to me this says either 

a. view bobbing (very common)

b. you are using your character as a "grounding point" to mitigate motion sickness.

view bobbing can be disabled in accessibility menu, while the grounding point issue is more complex, i think running the game in windowed mode with a smaller screen (i.e. not taking up your entire monitor space) could help with this but i'm not too sure. beyond those two possibilities, as others have said, changing FOV can help alot, but i would also suggest to try disabling mouse move smoothing in the mouse settings, disabling waving foliage, disabling all of the post processing effects/shadows, ambient bloom, dynamic color grading, shadows, literally anything to "gamify" the game more could help. even playing with a smaller view distance might help. it's impossible to say which of these (or if any of these) will help, so i'm just saying all the options that might help.

personally, i would definitely suggest disabling view bobbing first, if that doesnt help, then try disabling as much as you can in the graphics making it look as crappy as possible, if the symptoms go away, then you can probably attribute it to being an issue unique to the game instead of a general health problem and start experimenting with what exactly triggers it.