A bunch of players are joining the game following the Hytale announcement

[Teh Pizza Lady]

27 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

some people should not be playing this game.

games should not try to appeal to everyone, its nearly impossible to make a game super simple and super in depth at the same time, it just aint gonna happen.

 

I've read your post like 3x now and I cannot figure out how it relates to the person you're replying to. Can you clarify what you mean a bit for me, please?

[Echo Weaver]

7 hours ago, Faona said:

I start a new game, wander around for few seconds and a popup asks if i want help figuring out the game

i hold K as instructed for help to figure out the game

Dur, is that a 1.20 thing? I don't remember that level of hand-holding when I started playing on 1.19. I haven't started a new game in quite a while, though, so I likely don't know what I'm talking about. I learned about H-for-handbook from the forum.

Speaking of confusing mechanics, my daughter and I both read through the survival guide instructions and managed to assemble and connect a helve hammer about a dozen incorrect ways, and we're still confused on how to interact with it (though, admittedly, we finally got the dang thing working just before signing off yesterday, so we haven't done much yet.

Edited July 7, 2025 by Echo Weaver
before signing off, not after

[LadyWYT]

10 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Dur, is that a 1.20 thing? I don't remember that level of hand-holding when I started playing on 1.19. I haven't started a new game in quite a while, though, so I likely don't know what I'm talking about. I learned about H-for-handbook from the forum.

It's been that way since at least 1.18, which is when I first started playing.

 

11 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Speaking of confusing mechanics, my daughter and I both read through the survival guide instructions and managed to assemble and connect a helve hammer about a dozen incorrect ways, and we're still confused on how to interact with it (though, admittedly, we finally got the dang thing working just after signing off yesterday, so we haven't done much yet.

Helve hammers are fairly simple--you use them to refine iron/steel blooms into ingots, or to hammer ingots into plates. When you pop an ingot onto the anvil, it will still give you the choice to start making something else, but if you select anything aside from "plate" it's not going to work.

[Echo Weaver]

19 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Helve hammers are fairly simple--you use them to refine iron/steel blooms into ingots, or to hammer ingots into plates. When you pop an ingot onto the anvil, it will still give you the choice to start making something else, but if you select anything aside from "plate" it's not going to work.

It does turn out that there is an impressively large number of ways to assemble the parts that doesn't result in it being powered. And also removing a part and placing it differently doesn't always result in power flowing even if the parts are in the right place. (This is in 1.19. Yes, I know I should upgrade.)

When you put a bloom on the anvil, what do you expect to see? Does the bloom need to be heated? Do you need to be holding tongs? How many bangs does it usually take to output an ingot?

It's useful to know that you'll get options to select things you can't actually make.

I admit that my teenager was the one who actually tried to used the hammer when we finally got it powered and banging on the anvil. I'm not sure what she saw. It might actually be obvious to me.

Edited July 7, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, traugdor said:

I've read your post like 3x now and I cannot figure out how it relates to the person you're replying to. Can you clarify what you mean a bit for me, please?

no I am sorry I do not think I could phrase it any differently that would make it more clear, sorry about that. I am not that great with words.

 

[Myo]

On 7/3/2025 at 7:20 AM, Omega Haxors said:

They just announced they're quitting on today's stream 

I don't blame them either, they got stuck in a death loop on their first light temporal storm even though they were doing everything they possibly could to stay alive. I don't get why this game feels the need to make temporal storms more and more unplayable with every update while never giving the players any real means of pushing back. The lore has people dying to stuff like starvation but if the gameplay was anything to go off of, they all got one-tapped by an enemy spawning on top of them during a light breeze.

Take it from a veteran player: Temporal storms are bullshit and enemies should still follow some spawning restrictions during it. The fact that enemies can spawn literally on you and immediately attack you without advance warning is bullshit. Doesnt help that tier3 and tier4 spawns will immediately oneshot you for not having strong armor already. It is for this reason that i use a mod, even now still, to make this particular part of the game easier and all it does is enforce the regular 25(?) block radius spawn exclusion around the player to continue during storms. Storms still bypass light and other restrictions, but not that one, not anymore.

 

Another change i would be happy to see is the spawns not instantly showing up, but there a rift or somesuch opening on their spot for a sec or two before the enemy steps out of it.

Edited July 7, 2025 by Myo

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

When you put a bloom on the anvil, what do you expect to see? Does the bloom need to be heated? Do you need to be holding tongs? How many bangs does it usually take to output an ingot?

You won't have an interface when you pop a bloom onto the anvil, since the only output is an ingot. Like any metal, you will need to heat the bloom/ingots to a workable temperature(which varies depending on the metal) in order to smith it into anything useful, which also means you'll need tongs to handle it. As for how many bangs it takes to reach the final product...I've not counted to get an exact number, but it does take several hits. The best time to use a helve hammer is in a strong wind, as that ensures it'll finish tasks in a timely manner, without a need to reheat the work item.

Edited July 7, 2025 by LadyWYT

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

You won't have an interface when you pop a bloom onto the anvil, since the only output is an ingot. Like any metal, you will need to heat the bloom/ingots to a workable temperature(which varies depending on the metal) in order to smith it into anything useful, which also means you'll need tongs to handle it. As for how many bangs it takes to reach the final product...I've not counted to get an exact number, but it does take several hits. The best time to use a helve hammer is in a strong wind, as that ensures it'll finish tasks in a timely manner, without a need to reheat the work item.

FUN FACT:

Because the only output is an ingot you can actually help the helve hammer knock the scale off with your own hammer. While it's working the ingot, you can be heating another bloom. works best if you have several forges all heating blooms so your helve hammer never rests until you're done working the blooms. It's not a waste of coal either since you can only ever heat one bloom at a time in a forge anyway.

[Herald Rejn]

simple guide book with recipies and maybe  something like story what this item do and where it came from like clins would be enough to guide new players. And add depth to this items/buildings 

Edited July 9, 2025 by Herald Rejn

[CastIronFabric]

23 minutes ago, Herald Rejn said:

simple guide book with recipies and maybe  something like story what this item do and where it came from like clins would be enough to guide new players. And add depth to this items/buildings 

you mean like a handbook?

 

[Enjen]

2 hours ago, Herald Rejn said:

simple guide book with recipies and maybe  something like story what this item do and where it came from like clins would be enough to guide new players. And add depth to this items/buildings 

This feature is actually already in the game! ^-^

If you pres 'H' on your keyboard it brings up the "Handbook" and another cool feature of this is if you hold 'SHIFT' and then press 'H' it will give you info about a block your looking at!! 

[FlareUKCS]

The team is not above taking information from players, I am sure they know there is some parts that could be improved, just a case of how to do this without spoiling the game... I mean we could have a forced intro, but no one likes that but at the same time a intro that someone could use, will not be used as hey we all played MC so we know what to do.

Its not too easy to guide new players, but not spoil the game, and not take control away.

I learnt the game via a few YT video's , but I am a person who doesn't mind being spoilt... I just wanted to play the game.

[Faona]

On 7/7/2025 at 5:34 PM, Echo Weaver said:

Dur, is that a 1.20 thing? I don't remember that level of hand-holding when I started playing on 1.19.

I also started in 1.19 and the tutorial popup was there already then

[Scorpixel]

You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

Many players just won't look at the help presented to them, no matter how in-your-face it is. They will skip/ignore it and/or complain that it's preventing them from playing already, then complain once lost not knowing how to play. That is how it is, short of flashing yellow paint on everything important there is nothing to be done (VS at least isn't as much of a Wiki game as most thanks to the efforts put into the handbook, even as a WIP)

For the most straightforward comparison, see how a median let's player engages with games vs a median streamer. The former has all the time in the world and doesn't mind "dead" time as much due to the format, while the later needs content now immediately and whose attention is split between interacting/reacting and playing.

And that's it, both approaches have success but don't always overlap for the same games. Good luck having an actual Outer Wilds stream or any fps/tps LP that isn't just clips.

Same for regular players, staring at a map for fourty hours watching the Philippines conquer the Asia-Pacific is the opposite of entertaining for a majority of people. You could have a hundred games/levels of anything else instead.

Edited July 10, 2025 by Scorpixel

[Facethief]

14 minutes ago, Scorpixel said:

You can bring a horse to water but you cannot make it drink.

If you’re willing to lose a horse, you sure can.

[Shotai]

On 7/2/2025 at 1:18 AM, Omega Haxors said:

It's less that the learning curve is so big, it's that the game does not let you have fun until you overcome it.
The whole discussion of game difficulty being conflated with punishment.

Perfect example of this is how the cooking system is ridiculously overtuned to the point it completely trivializes the game once you unlock it, but it's absolute hell before. Newer players will spend more time before unlocking cooking so thus get punished harder by this design. Experienced players will know to rush cooking and therefore the bad design goes mostly unnoticed by the community at large.

Speaking from personal experience, I was brutally punished by not knowing about cooking that I started getting used to the gigantic difficulty of having basically no inventory and having to spend almost 100% of my time collecting food (which was made harder by not having inventories) Learning how to make hand baskets was what I consider a reasonable jump in power (though requiring the player to make 4 is just grind for the sake of grind) as it gave me more time to do other things, but once I had the cooking pot set up, the game basically reverted to minecraft with a 64x texture pack. I was glad I could finally start to play the game, but i've been missing that early game experience ever since, and i'm sad that I will never get a chance to finish the game under those constraints.

To comment on this, a learning curve is not being thrown to wolves and told to "get over it".

A learning curve is understanding the nuances of a game through the process of learning. You don't learn by being thrown into a pool and drowning. Anybody who advocates for that is irresponsibly selfish in the glib manner in which they assert themselves.

Having hidden modifiers isn't a learning curve. Like holding something in your off hand starving you. Or wearing armor starving you. Or just expecting the player to know that, hey, you know that clock that spins around in your inventory? That actually means something, scotty boy. Or that, hey dummy dumb head; just because you killed 20 guys doesn't mean shit because the enemies can spawn infinitely. The majority of the people who bought this game will not be going onto this forum and asking bizarre questions to figure out each rhyme and reason why something is happening in the way that it's happening.

Hell. I remember spawning into the game onto ranged enemies with nothing and getting 2 tapped repeatedly until I stopped the game. Went to the main menu. Deleted the save file since it was night time. Booted up the game, and googled: 'Vintage Story ranged enemy killing me' just so I can find out that they indeed introduced a ranged enemy into the game. Day 1.

When you have no shield. No way of recovering HP. That is frustrating. That is not going to attract people for long. And that's the crux of your argument that another was trying to downplay. IMO, making the game attractive is probably something we should aspire to do. Not make an 'uncompromising' hellscape to chase away new players.

But then again, that's just, like, my opinion, man.

[Rudometkin]

20 hours ago, Shotai said:

To comment on this, a learning curve is not being thrown to wolves and told to "get over it".

A learning curve is understanding the nuances of a game through the process of learning.

Yes but surviving the wolf is the nuance you understand through learning.

.....Guys, can I say it without being wolfbaited?

Eh, I don't care.

.....Learning curve.

Edited July 13, 2025 by Rudometkin
added smile for lightheartedness

[Shotai]

1 hour ago, Rudometkin said:

Yes but surviving the wolf is the nuance you understand through learning.

.....Guys, can I say it without being wolfbaited?

Eh, I don't care.

.....Learning curve.

21 hours ago, Shotai said:

You don't learn by being thrown into a pool and drowning. Anybody who advocates for that is irresponsibly selfish in the glib manner in which they assert themselves.

[BossGalaga]

On 7/2/2025 at 1:18 AM, Omega Haxors said:

It's less that the learning curve is so big, it's that the game does not let you have fun until you overcome it.
The whole discussion of game difficulty being conflated with punishment.

I dig the punishment. I just got back into Minecraft after a decade then I heard about Hytale getting canceled. After seeing all the updates to Minecraft, I wasn't as excited about Hytale as I was originally. I also heard about VS after the Hytale cancellation and this is just what I've been looking for. Minecraft is fun, but VS is a challenge. I'm a rogueliker and this has a RL feel to it. Honestly, I haven't felt this much excitement and gratification from a game in a long time. 

Edited July 14, 2025 by BossGalaga

[Rudometkin]

@Shotai All I did was show the logical conclusion that being thrown to a pack of wolves can be learning curve, by your own definition. Your definition says it can be part of the learning curve.

Quote

You don't learn by being thrown into a pool and drowning. 

This is far too assumptive and simplistic to be generally accurate. Of course you can learn by being thrown into a pool and drowning. But also, the game is not even guaranteeing you will drown.

So you are adding the "drowning" part, and judging the game by a part you are adding. That's my take

 

[Shotai]

1 minute ago, Rudometkin said:

@Shotai All I did was show the logical conclusion that being thrown to a pack of wolves can be learning curve, by your own definition. Your definition says it can be part of the learning curve.

This is far too assumptive and simplistic to be generally accurate. Of course you can learn by being thrown into a pool and drowning. But also, the game is not even guaranteeing you will drown.

So you are adding the "drowning" part, and judging the game by a part you are adding. That's my take

 

. . . I didn't add anything. That was. In the. Original. Post. That you would have had to have read to respond.

[Rudometkin]

On 7/2/2025 at 2:12 AM, traugdor said:

On 7/2/2025 at 1:49 AM, Rudometkin said:

Do you think it's the game's fault if people don't read the instructions? It literally supplies you with a book that contains knowledge for the necessities.

100% yes. The game should make it obvious for a first-time player
1) that there even IS a handbook
2) how to use it

This is wild to me. It's 100% the game's fault that people don't read. Did I fall into a rift? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

It is obvious. It was for me. As soon as I spawned, it was right there on my screen, saying to press a key to open the handbook.

Is the handbook supposed to slap the player in the face? If it becomes that obvious, it better deal damage.

[Shotai]

2 minutes ago, Rudometkin said:

This is wild to me. It's 100% the game's fault that people don't read. Did I fall into a rift? I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.

It is obvious. It was for me. As soon as I spawned, it was right there on my screen, saying to press a key to open the handbook.

Is the handbook supposed to slap the player in the face? If it becomes that obvious, it better deal damage.

I'm beginning to see why you made a public declaration to 'take a break'. This isn't an argument that's taking place, it's an ego defending itself; or so it seems to be that way. Hiding behind a Ben Shapiro act isn't really helping anybody aside from yourself. This conversation is about the emotional appeal to the game to new players that are coming to enjoy it. But you seem hellbent on reasurring yourself that you're right and everyone else must be wrong; which is probably why OP left the conversation to begin with.

You can't even afford the people you're downplaying and downtalking the time and decency to read through what they have to say; given the context of our interaction so far. It always seems to be about you and your own experiences, at least from what you've exposed to the community to so far.

Shame on you.

[Rudometkin]

16 minutes ago, Shotai said:

I'm beginning to see why you made a public declaration to 'take a break'. This isn't an argument that's taking place, it's an ego defending itself; or so it seems to be that way. Hiding behind a Ben Shapiro act isn't really helping anybody aside from yourself. This conversation is about the emotional appeal to the game to new players that are coming to enjoy it. But you seem hellbent on reasurring yourself that you're right and everyone else must be wrong; which is probably why OP left the conversation to begin with.

You can't even afford the people you're downplaying and downtalking the time and decency to read through what they have to say; given the context of our interaction so far. It always seems to be about you and your own experiences, at least from what you've exposed to the community to so far.

Shame on you.

I don't think that's a fair assessment of me.

Why have you not addressed either of my main arguments? It's like you're only interested in making an assessment of my character. Like an ad hominem fallacy.

 

Quote

This isn't an argument that's taking place

Well gee wilikers, no wonder you haven't addressed the arguments. You don't see em!

Edited July 14, 2025 by Rudometkin

[Teh Pizza Lady]

17 minutes ago, Shotai said:

I'm beginning to see why you made a public declaration to 'take a break'.

some people don't take their own advice. #jussayin