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

[Shotai]

12 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

That's where we are never going to line up. You hate some gameplay. I love that gameplay. You think that keeping said gameplay is bad for attracting new players. I say that the game is written for people who like that gameplay.

But what are you arguing against right now? What gameplay do you enjoy that I've described beyond vaguely saying it's generally unappetizing? How do you debate something without an argument? How do you diagnose without a list of symptoms?

You've entirely skipped "What makes you feel that way" and gone right into the "this is how I feel, I don't care what you think, if you don't like it; the game isn't for you. It's for me, and this select group of people" on a discussion page dedicated to the title: "A bunch of players are joining the game following the Hytale announcement".

[Echo Weaver]

8 minutes ago, Shotai said:

But what are you arguing against right now? What gameplay do you enjoy that I've described beyond vaguely saying it's generally unappetizing? How do you debate something without an argument? How do you diagnose without a list of symptoms?

I'm saying that, in general, I love early gameplay. If you have some very specific things that you consider unappetizing, you don't need my permission to list them. 

I'm pretty sure Tyron or other devs are monitoring this thread. Convincing me or others on this thread is really irrelevant. If they think you have a point, they'll take it under consideration.

8 minutes ago, Shotai said:

You've entirely skipped "What makes you feel that way" and gone right into the "this is how I feel, I don't care what you think, if you don't like it; the game isn't for you. It's for me, and this select group of people" on a discussion page dedicated to the title: "A bunch of players are joining the game following the Hytale announcement".

OK, maybe I have indeed misunderstood. Are you saying:

1. Vintage Story default mode should change to be more appealing to Hytale fans.

or

2. Vintage Story is looking seriously at creating a new game mode with Hytale in mind. Here are some things it should take into account.

If you're saying #2, then that sounds like it could be useful to the devs.

Edited July 14, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Shotai]

6 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I'm saying that, in general, I love early gameplay. If you have some very specific things that you consider unappetizing, you don't need my permission to list them. 

I'm pretty sure Tyron or other devs are monitoring this thread. Convincing me or others on this thread is really irrelevant. If they think you have a point, they'll take it under consideration.

OK, maybe I have indeed misunderstood. Are you saying:

1. Vintage Story default mode should change to be more appealing to Hytale fans.

or

2. Vintage Story is looking seriously at creating a new game mode with Hytale in mind. Here are some things it should take into account.

If you're saying #2, then that sounds like it could be useful to the devs.

I'm not entirely sure who Tyron is, I'm assuming it's a developer. I'm not advocating against a difficult game, I'm advocating against gameplay elements that make the game unbearable for new players. So far the solution to temporal storms is "just afk lol". Engaging stuff. Oh, you just started the game and got shot 1 time for a bow guy that you couldn't see or hear? Here's one easy trick to fixing that: find the nearest body of water, drown yourself, and start a new game. Or risk getting 1 tapped by anything else in tall grass. Or be a good player and just afk in your little hut without clay because you got a bad map generation.

This isn't "oops, I made a mistake. Now I am getting punished for my mistake" this is "wtf, that was bullshit. Can't believe I have to tab out and watch extinctzoo for 20 minutes because of some aimbot asshole I couldn't even spot".

You don't even need to take away the difficulty of the ranged enemy or the damage it deals. Just make the sound more clear that: "hey, you're about to die bro. Listen to this noise". Fixed, you get to keep your difficulty.

You don't need to take away the difficulty of sustaining yourself through your first winter. You can make a quick bubble appear once you've equipped a torch to say "hey dude, you're literally starving yourself holding this torch. Put it on the ground." and another bubble for "bro you're gonna die if you keep wearing your armor indoors lol, take it off".

You don't need to take away the difficulty of the temporal cog spinning around. You can just make a bubble appear that says: "Hey bro, you're gonna die if you stay here. Also, by the way, this spinning cog actually means something. Check out this essay on how it works in the manual."

All of these things are perfectly good methods of retaining your comfort and happiness while being more approachable for people who have less of an iron stomach like we do for some bullhocky. Most of what you're describing like metalworking, leathermaking, claymaking etc is enjoyable to do. But the elements required to get to that point is undeniably horrendious for a lot of newcomers.

[Echo Weaver]

9 minutes ago, Shotai said:

I'm not entirely sure who Tyron is, I'm assuming it's a developer.

Tyron is the creator of the game and the person who has the vision of what is being created.

10 minutes ago, Shotai said:

You don't even need to take away the difficulty of the ranged enemy or the damage it deals. Just make the sound more clear that: "hey, you're about to die bro. Listen to this noise". Fixed, you get to keep your difficulty.

(And several other issues that involve the game giving you more information when it's relevant.)

I think almost everything you said seems very reasonable. It sounds like you're talking about adjustments to player tutorial rather than any change in the gameplay loop.

When I started playing Minecraft, I had to spend a lot of time googling specific recipes or survival information. VS comes out of that tradition. OTOH, other great difficult survival games like Green Hell have a much more involved tutorial system, and it makes for a much smoother introduction -- you still die horribly a lot, but you almost always know more about why it happened.

29 minutes ago, Shotai said:

So far the solution to temporal storms is "just afk lol". Engaging stuff.

I would totally not say that.

If you have no armor and only stone-age weapons, you should probably hide. But honestly, I built a pit trap (just a 2-deep pit) and killed a lot of drifters in the trap with a spear right after storms for quite a while before I considered myself ready to take them on. It worked pretty well and got me some temporal gears I wouldn't have found otherwise.

30 minutes ago, Shotai said:

Oh, you just started the game and got shot 1 time for a bow guy that you couldn't see or hear?

Bowtorns are polarizing. There are so many argument threads about them from serious fans of the game. I installed a mod to make them actually despawn after a storm like all the other rift foes. It seems like they really do need more adjustment.

I just can't reconcile what you're saying here with the stuff I quoted about it being, "some of the most boring, mundane gameplay I'd ever experienced in a video game; period" or, "Convincing even experienced survival nerds to sit in a body of water for 30-60 minutes holding one button down while desperately trying to convince themselves to not jump out their bedroom window on their 70th floor suite is a difficult conversation to have." I assume that last is a reference to panning, which is a totally option game mechanic I'd never advise anyone to focus on.

So does this sound like your concerns are heard? What are you looking for from the forum?

[Shotai]

6 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

So does this sound like your concerns are heard? What are you looking for from the forum?

I'm simply pointing out that it's a harmful mentality for any community member to say that the game is for a specific demographic and if somebody doesn't like it, they should just get lost. It's damaging to growth, which this discussion is entirely about. Forums are for discussion, but there's very little discussion in "I like it, also, it's my toy, get your own". If VS wants to see growth, then conversation is a part of that growth.

@omega haxors had the intention of pointing out to developers to take this opportunity to see what exactly is painful for new players to endure when they first start the game. But confrontations appear to be built on the glass house of "me, myself, I and us".

The conversation essentially devolved from an initial "we should check and see what outsiders think of our game and improve upon it" to "I personally love vintage story, and the difficulty isn't even that bad for me. Read the guide. Sounds like the game is . . . hard. :JimHalpertFace:. Skill gap, this game isn't made for you; the game is made for people like me."

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Shotai said:

@omega haxors had the intention of pointing out to developers to take this opportunity to see what exactly is painful for new players to endure when they first start the game.

the thread derailed so fast, I thought it was just a drifter-rock-throwing fight from the get-go. Should I put my fresh batch of my finest Andesite stones away?

[Enjen]

4 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Bowtorns seem to be the biggest issue, and they probably could do with another round of balancing.

FUNNY ENOUGH, I actually think the Bowtorns are the easiest to deal with! The Shivers are monsters sent from Hell for me  

With Bowtorns I can hear their screech and then like a second or two later, I hear their arrow fire. It's a good enough indication for me to dodge after getting hit a few times when I first started the game LOL

[Echo Weaver]

2 hours ago, Shotai said:

The conversation essentially devolved from an initial "we should check and see what outsiders think of our game and improve upon it" to "I personally love vintage story, and the difficulty isn't even that bad for me. Read the guide. Sounds like the game is . . . hard. :JimHalpertFace:. Skill gap, this game isn't made for you; the game is made for people like me."

If you have valuable feedback about your experiences, just post it. Don't argue about whether or not to post it or complain that other people don't agree with you. If you actually want to help the devs, explain your experience for them to read and then, if you don't want to engage in a general conversation, go away. You're not going to get a red carpet experience for having feedback.

OTOH, if you say something specific, like the tutorial could be better of the Bowtorns have problems, plenty of long-term players are going to agree with you. The fact that other people disagree with you is also not insulting in and of itself. It's not saying your opinion doesn't matter. It's just expressing a variety of opinions. It turns out that healthy conversation involves differences of opinion.

I'm sorry if your concern is that we like a game you don't like, but this here is exactly what your statement above is saying.  If you say you don't like something, other folks who do like that thing are going to say so. That's how conversations work. It doesn't mean that your feedback is not valuable. It just means that it's not universal.

 

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, Enjen said:

FUNNY ENOUGH, I actually think the Bowtorns are the easiest to deal with! The Shivers are monsters sent from Hell for me  

With Bowtorns I can hear their screech and then like a second or two later, I hear their arrow fire. It's a good enough indication for me to dodge after getting hit a few times when I first started the game LOL

Let's TOTALLY derail this thread onto another Bowtorn showdown. I AM HERE FOR IT.

I also have no idea what I'm talking about because my teenager made me mod them out of the game we're playing together (she's heavily into range attack and didn't want the competition), so you could say that I'm VS-experienced blank slate for everyone's take.

I have heard so many opposites. Folks say:

You're just standing around and taking damage, and you have no idea why because they can fire accurately from so far away.

You can hear them with plenty of warning to dodge.

They don't despawn after a temporal storm like the other rust monsters, and you end up with like 40 of them hanging out around your base at an inconvenient distance, waiting to overwhelm you with arrows when you try to go anywhere.

They actually do very little damage if you have any armor at all.

They're easy to chase down, and their melee combat stinks, so they're easy to kill.

 

I feel like there's a play style issue here between the Bowtorn-fun crowd and the Bowtorn-horrific crowd, and I'm curious to get more detail.

[Shotai]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

If you have valuable feedback about your experiences, just post it.

Ok, I'll do th . . .

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

Don't argue about whether or not to post it or complain that other people don't agree with you. If you actually want to help the devs, explain your experience for them to read and then, if you don't want to engage in a general conversation, go away. You're not going to get a red carpet experience for having feedback.

. . . at.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

Folks say:

You're just standing around and taking damage, and you have no idea why because they can fire accurately from so far away.

You can hear them with plenty of warning to dodge.

They don't despawn after a temporal storm like the other rust monsters, and you end up with like 40 of them hanging out around your base at an inconvenient distance, waiting to overwhelm you with arrows when you try to go anywhere.

They actually do very little damage if you have any armor at all.

They're easy to chase down, and their melee combat stinks, so they're easy to kill.

Just to add something to this list--I've also noticed that bowtorn aren't very intelligent when it comes to figuring out where and when to shoot. They're good at detecting players, yes, but when it comes to actually figuring out whether or not they have a clear shot at their target, they're pretty dumb. As long as the bowtorn can "see" you, it'll just fire away. Likewise, once they make the screeching noise as they load their shot, they will fire before they do anything else, though to be fair that behavior seems to apply to drifters as well.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

They don't despawn after a temporal storm like the other rust monsters, and you end up with like 40 of them hanging out around your base at an inconvenient distance, waiting to overwhelm you with arrows when you try to go anywhere.

They *STILL* do this??? Even on the latest version of the game? If so, please submit a bug report here so the devs can see it! https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues

[Echo Weaver]

28 minutes ago, traugdor said:

They *STILL* do this??? Even on the latest version of the game? If so, please submit a bug report here so the devs can see it! https://github.com/anegostudios/VintageStory-Issues/issues

I don't know if it's the most recent version, and I shouldn't be the one to report because it's hearsay. I saw folks complaining about it very recently, though, so I think so?

It's good to know that this isn't intended behavior. There's also a mod about it: https://mods.vintagestory.at/zippysbashfulbowtorns. It seems to consider itself necessary for the most recent version.

On the subject of bugs, my daughter experienced a hilariously bizarre bug in our game. She put a partially worked iron ingot on the helve hammer anvil, left the room, baked a pie, came back, and found that the helve hammer had produced a bismuth bronze prospector pick.... 

Edited July 15, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[dakko]

42 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

There's also a mod about it: https://mods.vintagestory.at/zippysbashfulbowtorns. It seems to consider itself necessary for the most recent version.

Looks like it is for 1.20; @traugdor, are you speaking of 1.21-pre2 as the most recent version?

[Teh Pizza Lady]

6 minutes ago, dakko said:

Looks like it is for 1.20; @traugdor, are you speaking of 1.21-pre2 as the most recent version?

I meant 1.20.whatever... 12 now? idk I'm on 1.20.7 right now

[Teh Pizza Lady]

51 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

On the subject of bugs, my daughter experienced a hilariously bizarre bug in our game. She put a partially worked iron ingot on the helve hammer anvil, left the room, baked a pie, came back, and found that the helve hammer had produced a bismuth bronze prospector pick.... 

I'm no expert, but I don't think it's supposed to do that.....

[Myo]

On 7/14/2025 at 5:00 AM, Rudometkin said:

Sounds like....temporal storms are dangerous.

Aren't they supposed to be dangerous? I'm new, and I know it is possible to lock yourself in a 2x1 hole during a temporal storm to stay safe from the danger.

One reason I totally love this game is because I'm reading about veteran players complain about the challenge. That is a good uncompromising wilderness survival game.

"Well it's unfair"

Yeah it's uncompromising that's what you bought!

I got struck dead by lightning and was satisfied that I was delivered the game I was sold on.

Sudden and random death does not make a challenge to overcome. Its just random death. And no, the 2x1 hole isnt any safer. They can spawn in your hitbox and immediately attack. Maybe you like this, but i sure dont. Call me a loser, a weakling, a realism hater, but i dont like having the equivalent of a stroke or heart attack in my game.

[Echo Weaver]

10 minutes ago, Myo said:

Sudden and random death does not make a challenge to overcome. Its just random death. And no, the 2x1 hole isnt any safer. They can spawn in your hitbox and immediately attack. Maybe you like this, but i sure dont. Call me a loser, a weakling, a realism hater, but i dont like having the equivalent of a stroke or heart attack in my game.

Does this happen to you a lot? Maybe I haven't played 1.20 long enough. I thought that rust monsters needed a 1x2 block of air to spawn, but it could be right beside you or above you. I generally fight temporal storms from 2-tall tunnels so that they can't spawn above me, and none ever have.

I would consider the ability of a foe to spawn literally on top of you to be a bug, and I would report it. They may be supernatural creatures, but that doesn't even make sense.

Edited July 15, 2025 by Echo Weaver
changed "on top of" to "above" for clarity

[Zane Mordien]

Okay, I feel this has just devolved into arguing just to argue. I just want some cool new features.  I don't care how it is achieved.  Let the ends justify the means.

[Rudometkin]

5 minutes ago, Myo said:

Sudden and random death does not make a challenge to overcome. Its just random death. And no, the 2x1 hole isnt any safer. They can spawn in your hitbox and immediately attack. Maybe you like this, but i sure dont. Call me a loser, a weakling, a realism hater, but i dont like having the equivalent of a stroke or heart attack in my game.

I wouldn't call you those things.

Sorry, I was told by another veteran player that a 2x1 would guarantee your safety from them. I trusted them.

But in a sense, providing the chance for a drifter to spawn in your hitbox does not remove the greater challenge to overcome the storm. The challenge to overcome is to survive the temporal storm. Did you overcome it? The answers are yes or no. If it's no, then it was still a challenge for you to overcome.

And then, maybe you could have had better armor? IDK. I like the possibility it could happen.

[Myo]

13 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Does this happen to you a lot? Maybe I haven't played 1.20 long enough. I thought that rust monsters needed a 1x2 block of air to spawn, but it could be right beside you or on top of you. I generally fight temporal storms from 2-tall tunnels so that they can't spawn on top of me, and none ever have.

I would consider the ability of a foe to spawn literally on top of you to be a bug, and I would report it. They may be supernatural creatures, but that doesn't even make sense.

They can but its really rare on account of how specific that circumstance is. The reason people suggest the 1x2 hole is because that reduces the spawn places where they are a threat to you to just 1, out of however many many are around you. But its never 0 and that is a issue to me. Remember the time where drifters couldnt spawn on boulders and so people filled their shelter room with the boulders? That alone suggests to me theres a issue with the mechanic already. Temporal storms just up the spawn rate and remove all spawn restrictions, letting them spawn in light, in player proximity... and yes, on players, because thats a function of the proximity spawn exclusion.

I dont mind the light restriction being lifted, but i take issue with the proximity restriction. Not just because of the possibility of spawning on you, but because hiding and waiting out a storm should be a realistic option that doesnt enforce afk cause you're in a 1x2 hole to minimize the risk. The spawning on you issue is just the speartip of the problem, the point where the mechanic is at its very worst.

 

 

 

And of course somewhat more recent with storms is the issue that bowthorns dont despawn like other drifters do- From my observations it seems like drifters can only follow one routine at a time- one of which is the flee routine, which may lead to a despawn given sufficent distance covered. It seems to me that the flee routine has following triggers: Hurt by a player OR close to a player AND its bright. Because of the behaviour bowthorns have, they arent typically close enough for the flee behaviour to engage without the player attacking the bowthorns. You can watch it pretty easily with the regular surface drifters actually: Before they despawn they approach you and once close its like they changed their mind. Only then they flee and despawn.

Edited July 15, 2025 by Myo

[Echo Weaver]

1 minute ago, Myo said:

I dont mind the light restriction being lifted, but i take issue with the proximity restriction. Not just because of the possibility of spawning on you, but because hiding and waiting out a storm should be a realistic option that doesnt enforce afk cause you're in a 1x2 hole to minimize the risk. The spawning on you issue is just the speartip of the problem, the point where the mechanic is at its very worst.

I totally agree.

It was definitely true in 1.19 that rust monsters needed to spawn in air. In fact, you could cheese this by placing stones on the floor, which you could walk over as if they were air but did not count as air for the spawn calculation. I totally did this.

If it is true that they no longer need to spawn completely in air, I take issue as well. Hiding should always be an option.

It's never happened to me, and I'm not going to stop playing or stop loving the game, but I agree it's a problem.

[Myo]

9 minutes ago, Rudometkin said:

And then, maybe you could have had better armor? IDK. I like the possibility it could happen.

In essence the point is that there should be more counterplay than making sure you have strong armor before you encounter any storm. Hiding should be a valid approach. Not just valid, but safe. Storms are dangerous and i would never want them not to be- But like any good horror, there should be a "uh nope fuck that im gonna crawl and hope they dont notice me" approach. And then, it shouldnt be so mindboggingly boring as it currently is. Enabling the proximity restriction again, perhaps with reduced range would be a good choice. The one room you hide in is safe- the rest of your base isnt, so you're severly restricted in your activity during the storm but if you've prepared you can just spend the time to cook a bunch of meals or craft...

[Rudometkin]

3 minutes ago, Myo said:

In essence the point is that there should be more counterplay than making sure you have strong armor before you encounter any storm. Hiding should be a valid approach. Not just valid, but safe. Storms are dangerous and i would never want them not to be- But like any good horror, there should be a "uh nope fuck that im gonna crawl and hope they dont notice me" approach. And then, it shouldnt be so mindboggingly boring as it currently is. Enabling the proximity restriction again, perhaps with reduced range would be a good choice. The one room you hide in is safe- the rest of your base isnt, so you're severly restricted in your activity during the storm but if you've prepared you can just spend the time to cook a bunch of meals or craft...

I think a world setting option to customize proximity is a great idea to compromise.

But I like it in the base game, because it creates a sense of fear. No matter where you are, it could spawn on you. Making temporal storms truly something to be reckoned with.

The counterplay is fighting off the thing that spawned in your personal space.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

8 minutes ago, Rudometkin said:

I think a world setting option to customize proximity is a great idea to compromise.

But I like it in the base game, because it creates a sense of fear. No matter where you are, it could spawn on you. Making temporal storms truly something to be reckoned with.

The counterplay is fighting off the thing that spawned in your personal space.

I think the idea is that the Temporal Storms are supposed to be a sort of confluence between worlds. In space-time fluctuations, it's not guaranteed that where you are in your world doesn't coincide with where something or someone else is in a different world. Maybe. This is just speculation based off what I currently know after playing through Chapter 2 in the story.