Initial thoughts of 1.21 -- Two months in

[Thorfinn]

Because most of the gameplay has not changed, I'm going to focus on what has.

Bear armor is awesome. Would be nice if there were a way to repair it, but bears seem even more common, so it's not that big of a deal. All it means is you don't end up with as many trunks full of leather with no use. No, I don't have that much yet, but now that I have gambeson...

More ground placement is great! Early game, anyway. Not sure if it's still worth it to make 4x crucibles, 3x for nugget storage or not.

Falx definitely worth using, at least on rusties. The auto-looting is very nice, and gives a great excuse to despawn in storms rather than kill, since you have already looted everything they have.

Bears and wolves much less scary. Now if you want to kill them, you have no choice but to chase them down. They are still aggressive when undamaged, but I'm guessing you can't cheese them with fences now. I should check, I suppose, but if they flee when there's not a fence betwixt you, I can't see why they would stick around if there were.

Love the sea. Still needs sharks and squids and octopodes  and such, but the schools of particle fish are very appreciated.

Great job on the ruins. Still think basements are a thing of myth and legend, but I figure myths and legends had some basis in fact.

Terrain seems to be a lot more traversable. Possibly just a lucky seed, but I am spoiled for options to settle. Might also be the new default 500% scale? I haven't fiddled with changing defaults too much yet, other than the obvious stuff.

Healing. I don't know what to think of this. You can't jump or even change Z-levels while applying poultices, which makes them far less useful for when you really needed them in the first place, when you got mauled and are just trying to get away. The run time on the healing I'm mostly indifferent to with the proviso that it is going to make the RA a much different thing. If you needed poultices to get through it, you need to come up with a different plan, because there is not a lot of area you can just run around in which is both outside of his range and does not change Z.

Obviously, I have not yet seen any of the story changes, but what 1.21 I've seen, I'm really liking.

 

Your thoughts?

[Maelstrom]

You must be caught in a temporal storm if you've played 1.21 for 2 months.  It's only been a week for the rest of us.

 

On 6/23/2025 at 8:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Bears and wolves much less scary.

Bummer.   Thems being so aggressive was a rite of passage.  I guess we'll now have old farts and new farts in VS going forward depending on how aggressive the wildlife was. 

[Moltrey]

Sounds good so far, I am waiting for at least the RC version to muck around myself.

The bears and wolves were more annoying wrt their "auto-attacks", so if that is solved, fine. It can always be tweaked later if too much. As an aside, wolves should be afraid if you have an active torch and it would be nice to pull a Weathertop Aragorn with one as needed IMO. Animals really don't like fire (yes, it's not Earth- got it).

I am OK with the healing only working when standing still. If the wound code gets more sophisticated in the future, perhaps a simple cloth bandage or rag could be applied on extremities while walking, but that's an awful lot of contingencies. With the new bear and wolf code, maybe it will pan out OK.

Just had a thought; maybe in the future wolves and bears would retain a "hunger ticker" that would affect their aggressiveness as it waxed and waned between snacks. Might be interesting and keep us all on our toes!

Excited for all the new stuff! 

Edited June 24, 2025 by Moltrey

[Thorfinn]

4 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Thems being so aggressive was a rite of passage.

Oh, they are still aggressive when you first encounter them. Near as I can tell, always. It's just they seem to flee way earlier. So little as a single hit and the bear went over the mountain. Quite a bit more challenging if you are intending to melee them, because when you catch up, your attack might cause them to turn on you, or they may turn on you mid-chase for no reason at all, and there's not a lot of time to react by dropping your shield or backpedaling before that big ol' paw comes around.

Don't know whether this is new or not, but I've heard a lot more bear noises before aggro, too.

[EDIT]

Oh, another change. Wolves leap a lot more often. Or that's what I'm perceiving. Ran into a case where I was being pursued by 3 at once, and it seems one of them was always in the air.

Edited June 24, 2025 by Thorfinn

[LadyWYT]

Bleh, finally have internet back.

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Bears and wolves much less scary. Now if you want to kill them, you have no choice but to chase them down. They are still aggressive when undamaged, but I'm guessing you can't cheese them with fences now. I should check, I suppose, but if they flee when there's not a fence betwixt you, I can't see why they would stick around if there were.

I will note that I haven't had a chance to take a crack at any of the new stuff, but my initial reaction based on description is this is a good change. Predators still sound like they'll be hostile, but smarter about how and when they decide to pick a fight with you. I'm guessing if you intrude on their turf they'll obviously defend themselves, but if you put up a fight then they'll back off in order to avoid dying themselves.

3 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Bummer.   Thems being so aggressive was a rite of passage.  I guess we'll now have old farts and new farts in VS going forward depending on how aggressive the wildlife was. 

I think that's just part of being a cranky old VS veteran.  I also think wildlife will still be plenty aggressive in the future, and very likely harder to deal with since creatures will have more unpredictable patterns than "if player is too close, make a beeline for them and don't stop attacking until dead".

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Love the sea. Still needs sharks and squids and octopodes  and such, but the schools of particle fish are very appreciated.

I vote diving bell. No, not the kind that actually helps you dive.

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Great job on the ruins. Still think basements are a thing of myth and legend, but I figure myths and legends had some basis in fact.

I don't know about any new ruins, but I know the ones in 1.20 do have basements sometimes. There's usually not anything really exciting in them aside from an aged torch holder on occasion.

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Terrain seems to be a lot more traversable. Possibly just a lucky seed, but I am spoiled for options to settle. Might also be the new default 500% scale? I haven't fiddled with changing defaults too much yet, other than the obvious stuff.

I think the old default was 100%. If the new default is 500%, I'd wager terrain feels more traversable because it spreads everything out a lot more. That is, when the game generates flat/gentle terrain, it'll cover a much larger area, so you can travel much farther before you encounter mountains, swamps, or other difficult terrain. That being said, I'd also expect some parts of the world to be much harder to traverse as a result, since the difficult terrain will also cover larger areas.

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Bear armor is awesome. Would be nice if there were a way to repair it, but bears seem even more common, so it's not that big of a deal. All it means is you don't end up with as many trunks full of leather with no use. No, I don't have that much yet, but now that I have gambeson...

Even if it's not currently reparable, I'm still really excited to hear about this! Trophy armors are a great idea, and even better if some pieces can be equipped in clothing slots instead to serve as cosmetics(or maybe that's how it already functions, not sure). Plus I daresay someone will end up writing a mod to allow the armor to be repaired.

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Falx definitely worth using, at least on rusties. The auto-looting is very nice, and gives a great excuse to despawn in storms rather than kill, since you have already looted everything they have.

It was worth using prior, but the auto-loot feature for the monsters sounds like it will a nice change for temporal storm fights. Harvesting with a knife wasn't too bad, but it could get frustrating when you were busy trying to loot and the storm insisted on dropping more nasties on top of you.

On 6/23/2025 at 9:27 AM, Thorfinn said:

Healing. I don't know what to think of this. You can't jump or even change Z-levels while applying poultices, which makes them far less useful for when you really needed them in the first place, when you got mauled and are just trying to get away. The run time on the healing I'm mostly indifferent to with the proviso that it is going to make the RA a much different thing. If you needed poultices to get through it, you need to come up with a different plan, because there is not a lot of area you can just run around in which is both outside of his range and does not change Z.

At a glance, I think it's a much-needed change that will take some additional tweaks in order to perfect. One tweak I would make, assuming it's not already been implemented this way, is to make higher quality bandages restore health more quickly. That way story locations don't become a nightmare slog for players needing to rely more on bandages. It also helps push players to use the better bandages too, instead of just relying on the cheapest bandages possible because of their convenience.

 

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, Moltrey said:

The bears and wolves were more annoying wrt their "auto-attacks", so if that is solved, fine.

Should be easy enough to mod, but no, they still "auto-attack". Might be the increased idle noise is enough to remove the annoyance.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

I vote diving bell. No, not the kind that actually helps you dive.

I smell something familiar in here... *sniff, sniiifffffff* ... smells like fear.

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, traugdor said:

I smell something familiar in here... *sniff, sniiifffffff* ... smells like fear.

Not really. The more I think about the idea, the more I like it. Even if it's a monster I would hate dealing with, lol.

[Thorfinn]

31 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Bleh, finally have internet back.

?

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, Thorfinn said:

?

I moved recently and the new ISP had to install a line to the house. Unfortunately, since the area has also been hit hard by some of the recent storms, the line crews have been busy cleaning up the damage so there was a delay on installing the line.

[Maelstrom]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

It's just they seem to flee way earlier.

Yep.  This is what separates the old farts from the new farts.  I recall fleeing from a wolf for nearly 1,000 blocks in 1.16/17.  Now?   I'm lucky if they give chase more than 50 blocks.

[FlareUKCS]

I would say the one thing at this time is for the team to make Bears and Wolves/Hyenas a bit more vocal or mobile, damn ninja bears be sneaking up on me. I find it a bit hard a bear can 'sneak' up on anything, let alone a seraphin with headphones on... please add more noise and mobility to the animals, especially those that want to eat my bones.

I also would love fishing, I am a bit of a waterbaby, I love water features near me in games, and so want to just chill at a pond after a day being chased by silent bears, and just fish on my chair and flip that nasty rift the bird, and quaff my wine/mead.

[Guimoute]

On 6/23/2025 at 4:27 PM, Thorfinn said:

Healing. I don't know what to think of this. You can't jump or even change Z-levels while applying poultices

Wait, what do you mean by this? Does it cancel the applying animation? From the changelog, I thought poultices were applied as fast as usual but their effect was spread differently. 

[Thorfinn]

Check it out, @FlareUKCS. I think bears are more prone to making noise, but I have not really paid attention to the wolves. They can't be used for armor, which would also be cool, and in so many colors... Maybe some day. Then I'll hunt down the various colors. No idea about hyenas. Haven't been anywhere nearly that far south yet. Yet. I still need the sun bear and panda armor. Got the rest.

@Guimoute, it adds a progress bar to the middle of the screen as you apply the poultice. I'd believe this bar counts up about the same amount of time as it took to heal before, but it resets if you jump or if you step down a block. I think it also stopped when I tried to active block, which is not terribly surprising, I guess. It works the same as it ever did if you are just running across a flat plain. Once it is applied, then the healing starts. Seems to take a little longer to heal than it did to apply. All told, healing takes maybe 2.5-3x as long? So long as you don't change Z.

Edited June 25, 2025 by Thorfinn

[FlareUKCS]

At least dont need to strip to heal, I think its a good difference to complete heal in full plate to need to show off the skivvies to heal, as you still have movement issues in full plate so have the option to go full skivvie and run, but not needed to wall in just to heal, you can I guess but dont need to. Could do with another pass at some later time though, heal over time is ok but now we have no reason to not being in the best armour, the armour variety is wasted as most the game stuff needs the 'best in slot' stuff, there is no reason to use anything less.

I will think on this issue a bit and suggest a change, its one thing I am decent at... ideas

[Thorfinn]

Hadn't occurred to me until just now, but this may also a downside to StepUp. I just run parallel to the step while waiting for the bandage to finish applying before I jump, but StepUp would probably reset the timer.

[MattyK]

I love 1.21, I just wish I could make pies, damn bug. XD

Quirks of starting near a decent sized grasslands biome chock full of berry bushes is we have fruit for days but no way to really turn it into anything other than juice and wine and maybe the occasional hearty stew. Haven't found any local beehives yet to gather so we can make jam.

I've definitely noticed the behaviour changes in wolves and bears though, makes me feel like the apex predator when I toss a spear at one and it scarpers, as I proceed to chase it down like a wrathful god. That said, a pack of wolves is still bloody scary, and while I'll be able to pick off the stragglers when the others retreat, I'm not thinking about diving into a mob of them anytime soon. 

The auto-loot on the Falx is nice, what's not so nice is the fact that accidentally hitting a corpse with one opens the looting menu, which can really hinder combat in close quarters having to constantly hit escape to close the loot menu (fortunately they typically break down and despawn after that, but when you have a bunch of drifter corpses in a cave, it can become a nuisance and a quick death). 

There's a bunch of other small QOL things I haven't really noticed as much, but the gameplay overall feels... Smoother. 

[CastIronFabric]

2 months in??

 

[MattyK]

Ingame months perhaps? XD

[Guimoute]

23 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

All told, healing takes maybe 2.5-3x as long? So long as you don't change Z.

Thanks for your explanation. That's definitely going to change the eidolon fight because he keeps propellingplayers in the air.

23 hours ago, FlareUKCS said:

but now we have no reason to not being in the best armour, the armour variety is wasted as most the game stuff needs the 'best in slot' stuff

I don't really agree. Plate is sufficiently annoying to make and repair that you don't want to waste durability on it. I find tailored gambeson way more comfortable overall as you only have to spend a little flax to fully repair it, can even repair it in expeditions since drifters drop fibers, it doesn't slow you down, it doesn't make a bunch of noise constantly. In fact, I only recently made a set of steel plate armor to explore a specific cave and it's the end of year 15. Metal shields are super strong too. 

To be precise: I disagree on the "best in slot" part but I agree variety is wasted. Copper and bronze armors are a waste of resources and time in my opinion as they only really protect against wolves and low tier drifters. 

[ineedfriends123]

so about the houses that spawn with traders in them...is it intended for us to be able to take stuff from them?  i found a treasure hunter's house and swiped a bronze falx and an obsidian knife out of a tool rack.  they also had a bronze axe leaning up against the wall, and i could take that too. couldn't break things like the boxes, flags, or lanterns, but thiungs that didn't have a breaking animation could just be taken with no problem

[LadyWYT]

37 minutes ago, ineedfriends123 said:

so about the houses that spawn with traders in them...is it intended for us to be able to take stuff from them?  i found a treasure hunter's house and swiped a bronze falx and an obsidian knife out of a tool rack.  they also had a bronze axe leaning up against the wall, and i could take that too. couldn't break things like the boxes, flags, or lanterns, but thiungs that didn't have a breaking animation could just be taken with no problem

Welcome to the forums! That doesn't sound like intended behavior. I recommend checking the bug tracker and reporting it, if it hasn't been reported already.

[FlareUKCS]

I am trying a new world, this time with Sols seed 'ThisisaWendys' , with 80% and 300% ... and got a nice world with a LOT of water/sea but it seems to be different from Sol's game, probably most of the land is underwater...eh I ask for more sea so far I am living , got to copper via some panning but overall seems ok.

I have a lot of sea, or at least huge amounts of water spaces... so I based where I can make a port and see what I can see of the sea