Survival or bureaucracy? New player struggling to find the fun in Vintage Story - am I missing something?

[Gisbert]

9 hours ago, The Lucky One said:

Valheim holds the player's hand significantly more so than VS, at least in a single player scenario. I've had multiplayer sessions with orgmates that leave me clueless though... Because they've progressed far enough while I haven't.

I much prefer VS' style of discovery over being handed information, thankyouverymuch.

Seems legit.
As a Valheim veteran, I can sign that.

However, “holding hands” in general is a bit of an exaggeration, because Valheim is already very rough from the swamp onwards. Valheim has roughly the same level of difficulty as “Gothic,” which is almost “unplayable” for most people by today's standards. I would say that everything up to the swamp region is a tutorial in Valheim.

VS is much easier mechanically. But macro knowledge -> holy moly, VS is on a whole other level of realism. VS is a simulation, not a game.

9 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Does the game not have a proper localization for your language?

That was just a metaphor for “game mechanics/knowledge”.

25 minutes ago, 7embre said:

I'd really suggest you trying standart mode tho, even if you don't like the lore content. It wasn't my sauce as well at first, but I'm glad I rolled in with complete defaults the first time around. It doesn't haunt me as much as a proper horror would, but makes me ask questions about the world and keeps things a bit more grounded.

I'm really fine with homo sapiens mode now (tried another session yesterday).
I'll take it at my own pace, but probably I play with my girlfriend standard mode in future (she likes lore and discovering things very much).

[williams_482]

I wonder if the game would benefit from an optional but default-enabled worldgen setting that guarantees that the player starts in a >= 100x100 block grassland, with moderate rainfall and guaranteed clay nearby (ideally on a gentle slope for easy visibility). 

This doesn't guarantee the player anything particularly powerful, but it does avoid the worst pitfalls for a new player to fall into (such as having wolves routinely spawning in your front yard, or there being no crops, reeds, or mushrooms in easy reach because you were dropped into a large expanse of gravel). 

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, williams_482 said:

I wonder if the game would benefit from an optional but default-enabled worldgen setting that guarantees that the player starts in a >= 100x100 block grassland, with moderate rainfall and guaranteed clay nearby (ideally on a gentle slope for easy visibility). 

This doesn't guarantee the player anything particularly powerful, but it does avoid the worst pitfalls for a new player to fall into (such as having wolves routinely spawning in your front yard, or there being no crops, reeds, or mushrooms in easy reach because you were dropped into a large expanse of gravel). 

I think this would be better suited for a proper tutorial scenario, rather than any kind of specific world gen rules. A relatively small area, 200 x 200 blocks, that has all the basics for the first tier of progression. It would be a more hand-holding tutorial than the one we currently have, and only teach the player the bare basics of survival, pottery, and how to acquire copper items. That's it. I figure a scenario like that would be a nice option to have for new players that really need/want the extra help, without spoiling the game's challenge too much. And for veteran players, or new players that would rather just jump right into it, the standard world generation and associated challenges are left untouched.

[BeakstarRocks]

"Losing is fun..."

On 8/28/2025 at 7:59 AM, Gisbert said:

Self-flagellation is no fun for me.
But surely you didn't mean the process of failure per se, but rather the resulting improvement that comes from it.
I mean... you're talking to someone who has sunk 2,600 hours into Valheim and 1,000 into Project Zomboid. And I enjoyed it to fail for reasons of success competence. That's why I'm surprised I can't get into VS.

With respect to "Losing is fun" in general:

In fact, no - for many people it's not just the resulting improvement that comes from it, the actual process of losing can be fun. This is something that can be born from the imagination and immersion. The circumstances surrounding a death can be hilarious, the "quest" could have be epic, but not all quests result in glory. The stories you may be telling yourself in your head while you play and the uncertain outcomes can lead to excitement, sadness, frustration, relief, joy, ...etc. So for many folks indeed losing can be fun. This is a concept I first encountered playing pen & paper rpgs.

[Gisbert]

29 minutes ago, BeakstarRocks said:

"Losing is fun..."

With respect to "Losing is fun" in general:

In fact, no - for many people it's not just the resulting improvement that comes from it, the actual process of losing can be fun. This is something that can be born from the imagination and immersion. The circumstances surrounding a death can be hilarious, the "quest" could have be epic, but not all quests result in glory. The stories you may be telling yourself in your head while you play and the uncertain outcomes can lead to excitement, sadness, frustration, relief, joy, ...etc. So for many folks indeed losing can be fun. This is a concept I first encountered playing pen & paper rpgs.

With all due respect, that sounds to me like a story that losers tell themselves because they don't stand a chance.

The RPG argument is unfounded because “surviving” or "being the strongest" is not necessarily the goal there.
Many role-players deliberately play the part of the simpleton. For them, that is "winning". 

What you mean is that winning and losing are different for different people depending on their goals they try to achieve, but no one enjoys "losing" itself.
No one likes failing to achieve the goals they set for themselves in try hard mode.

That would be like claiming that pain doesn't hurt.

Edited August 30, 2025 by Gisbert

[newMania]

On 8/29/2025 at 8:41 AM, Gisbert said:

You don't have to be respectful, I'm obviously too stupid for this game and it's driving me crazy.
Really, I hate myself at the moment.

My hunger bar was so low that I had to attack a wild boar - the only animal that didn't run away, but it had 2 buddys. I killed two of them, but the last one got me.
But damn this whole area was so empty in terms of "edibles"...

Are consumable that rare? Are you hunting every animal you came across? Or are you skipping some food completely?
What you guys eat the first hours? What can you collect that doesn't cost you more to find it than it fills afterwards?

I'll try one last run and hope for a better spawn. I'd like to have managed to mine clay at least once.

I'm guessing you might not know this, but the two pictures you posted had a heap of food in it. Cat tail roots my friend. Cut the tops for your bags and then cut the roots out to cook and eat. 

 

I've been playing for a bit over a week and I've restarted quite a few times. For me the first 4 - 6 hours is just spent getting copper tools. As soon as you do this the game begins to open up more. At least it did to me. Then I was able to make the saw. And then the game sort of exploded with what I could make using it. 

 

Your goal should be getting copper tools as fast as possible. Just pick a direction. And direction and walk. You will find food, surface copper and clay before the end of the second day. Mark them on your map, find somewjere you like the look of. For me it's pretty much anywhere flattish, lots of trees and a smallish lake. Grab and produce you see on your travels, get the seeds and plant them near your base. But get that copper. 

 

This game is very different to valheim. At least it was to me. Like you I went in with a valheim mindset, but it doesn't work for this game. This game is more minecraft crossed with project zomboid. 

 

But like others have said, sometimes games just aren't for everyone too. I hated, with a passion, don't starve. And I really wanted to like that game. But it just drove me crazy. 

 

My first few play through, I turned creatures to passive, hunger rate and food spoilage to the lowest setting. It got to the point that I had too many berries that I was eating them when full just to make room. Then I started a new world and set things a bit harder. After a couple days I was doing the same thing. Now in playing with default and I don't really even notice it. My guy just gets up and eats. Does his work for the day. Gets hungry and eats again in the evening. Does some more work and goes to bed. Repeat lol. 

 

Anyways, hope you start to enjoy it soon. It did take until getting the copper pick axe for me to go yeah I like this game. And honestly, when I held that pickaxe, I have never felt so happy playing a game. 

[ComeAves]

Wow so many comments. I guess all of us regular players got a flash back to trying to convice our friends to play with us hahah...
Well, I'll try to give my two cents about it, even though it will probably go unnoticed unoticed in this hot topic.

For me in vintage story, suffering and getting frustrated is indeed the main course. Struggle is needed to, eventualy, feel like I'm thriving.
The accomplishment of finally leaving my dirt hut behind to live in an actual house I took time and care to design rooms, storage areas, smithing corner, etc, is one of the best feelings in the game, I've done that dozens of times at this point, it hasn't felt like less of an achievement yet.

I totally get how the struggle can feel draining, sometimes I have to take a break from it from time to time, but that's what makes the peaceful and creative moments feel so rewarding. Maybe try changing the world config so monsters spawn in 10 days, make hunger slower, install mods that reduce the grind or make foods less of a hassle such as Expanded Foods.

[CastIronFabric]

1 hour ago, Gisbert said:

With all due respect, that sounds to me like a story that losers tell themselves because they don't stand a chance.

The RPG argument is unfounded because “surviving” or "being the strongest" is not necessarily the goal there.
Many role-players deliberately play the part of the simpleton. For them, that is "winning". 

What you mean is that winning and losing are different for different people depending on their goals they try to achieve, but no one enjoys "losing" itself.
No one likes failing to achieve the goals they set for themselves in try hard mode.

That would be like claiming that pain doesn't hurt.

I think I can unpack this and organize it or at least I will give it a shot.

1. Humans as a species are actually not inclined to enjoy failure, they are however inclined to be obsessive about learning from their failures and giving it another shot, but the 'failure'' part of that equation is not fun and that is objective reality of evolution and we are 'preprogrammed' that way for obvious reasons. If failure was intrinsically fun then people would pursue failure and obviously overtime 'evolutionary statistic' would delete humanity due to a lot of failures.

2. 'survial' games are intrinsically a 'demoted' version of winning (aka try not to lose and you win).

3. Regarding RPG I could write a long historical essay on that as well. However to put it simply, the objective is to go from level 1 to level a million, not stay at level 2 forever.

4. (added) I think the real reason some people like the early starting points in game where one is a simple person is because the gameplay loop is faster and nothing more than that. Take VS for example, the feedback loop for getting yourself to the cooper age has quicker feedback signals than when one works on steel which involves a huge amount of grinding.

-----------------

Regarding a side topic of the popularity of 'survival games'. I have this short version of an essay:

One might argue that the prevalent popularity of 'winning by not loosing' might be a reflection of a collective subconscious understanding of societies current trajectory OR an expression of a lost time when we lived closer to the physical world of nature (I tend to think the latter). Having said that, if it was the days of the space age in the late 50s early 60s I am sure if RPG style games existed then, games of extreme optimism of technology would be far more popular than it is today. I say all this just as a matter of reflection, not really an underlining point.

 

 

 

Edited August 30, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Toroic]

@Gisbert

As someone who has played a good amount of Valheim and Zomboid, I think there’s probably a number of new player traps that you’re falling into.

1) The easiest way to solve the food problem early on is combat, and vanilla combat in VS is terrible.

To be extremely clear, when I say terrible I don’t mean difficult.  Combat becomes pretty easy when you realize thrown spears deal far more damage than melee weapons while being safe to use and cheap to produce.

I’ve never bothered with digging cattail roots, early game is killing wolves and boars with thrown spears while stuffing your face with berries and mushrooms until you can get clay for proper cooking.

2) For the reasons above, Blackguard is a terrible class, especially for a new player.  Melee is worthless early on (and never really becomes good) and makes the early hunger problems worse.  If you’re a Valheim player, you probably picked this class because in that game melee combat is fun and effective.

3) A lot of biomes in VS are worthless, and I’ve definitely had some as my spawn point in VS and it would’ve been better to just make a new world.

Good spawn points have lots of berries/wild crops (flax is ideal), clay, a forest not too far away, and plenty of reeds.  You can make do with no berry spawns by consuming several wolves or an entire boar every day, but until you find clay the gameplay loop is just killing and cooking food on a campfire and ignoring rust enemies (because their drops are awful).

VS gets immensely easier once you have a cellar and clay for storage vessels, crocks, and a cooking pot or two, because you start to be food positive which gives you time to do things other than just gather food.

Under default settings VS is super tedious by design (which I don’t actually mind) but it’s also super rng.  If you take the time to learn how to use the prospecting pick, you can very quickly go from no iron access to all the iron you’ll ever need.

In the sense that the difficulty is highest at the start, the difficulty curve is not dissimilar to Zomboid.  Once you have a big farm setup, food is not a problem (though winter can still be very boring, and changing the spawn point to being closer to the equator is likely to give you a better experience, because winter is not actually an interesting challenge because like temporal storms you end up doing a lot of busywork to wait it out the first time time.

Vintage Story is a unique game with a lot of cool ideas, but the execution of those ideas are very uneven.

The crafting is great, I like the complexity and the immersiveness, and there’s a lot of satisfaction when the effort you put in a day to days earlier pays off.

Combat is full of fake choices.  There is no use case for a club, for example.

The armor progression, despite so many options, is improvised wood -> gambeson -> iron chain -> steel chain.  All the other options are less effective and more expensive.  Plate in particular is very expensive, significantly increases your hunger rate, and makes you incredibly slow to the point it’s detrimental unless your strategy is to stand in one place and trade hits (This doesn’t work well)

Weapon progression starts with thrown spears and bows become more slot efficient and otherwise of similar quality.  Falx are mostly just for killing weak enemies in melee because anything serious you’re better off with spear or bow.

Shields are also terrible.  They’re great at blocking drifters throwing rocks that did trivial damage anyway, but increase your hunger rate by 20% and are useless vs high tier enemies hits as they provide a small amount of flat damage reduction.

My closing statement on combat is that the Combat Overhaul mod addresses a lot of these issues, but as it is a mod that touches a lot of core systems it generally does not get along with mods that add weapons or classes.

The other major feature of Vintage Story that in my opinion is terribly designed and implemented is Temporal Storms.

During a temporal storm, rust enemies are able to spawn regardless of light level (which normally prevents enemies from spawning inside your base) and high tier enemies can spawn which have one shot potential.  The loot even from the hardest enemies is mediocre, so a lot of people either disable this “feature”, allow sleeping through it, or pack themselves into a tiny hole to minimize the chance something spawns on them and do crafting busywork for 10 minutes until it’s over.

Unfortunately a lot of VS’s worst aspects are right in your face during the first 10 in game day, and the better features (I think the lore is interesting and fun to piece together) come later.

It’s definitely not your fault if you are bouncing off the game early before getting into clay and copper crafting.

I do think it gets better once you’re aware of the pitfalls, and if you’re staying vanilla how to cheese the combat.  Playing hyper aggressive with thrown spears will net you a bunch of meat/hides/bones/fat early which helps you sail through the early game.

If it makes you feel better, my first world in VS spawned me like 100 blocks deep in the forest with a boar right on top of me, and it proceeded to shred me immediately.  I wasn’t able to actually play the game until I sprinted out of the forest immediately after spawning in.

Edited August 30, 2025 by Toroic

[GrizzlyTank]

Have a hunch most actually use either increased ore spawns or some prospecting mods.

Cause prospecting, especially with the probability of it straight up lying, is tedious at best.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Toroic said:

2) For the reasons above, Blackguard is a terrible class, especially for a new player.  Melee is worthless early on (and never really becomes good) and makes the early hunger problems worse.  If you’re a Valheim player, you probably picked this class because in that game melee combat is fun and effective.

Okay, no, this is absolutely not true. Blackguard is the fighter class, and for players who love melee and just being an absolute bruiser in general this class is the obvious pick. The health boost can keep you alive in situations that would kill other classes, they move faster in armor(never discount movement speed), the melee bonus lets you shred most things in close quarters combat.

When it comes to the weaknesses, the ranged penalty equates to an extra shot on average to kill a target, if you rely only on range. This can be a problem early in the game for hunting, if you are a bad shot, however...you don't need to hunt at range either. Boar are quite easy to find and offer a lot of meat; they're also very easy to walk right up too and goad into a fight. If they try to flee, just chuck a spear at them to finish them off, and then enjoy the meal. Wolves you can soften up with a spear or two at range, before either goading them into a fight and finishing them off. Bears are the only ones to really worry about, but that rule applies to all classes, really, not just Blackguards.

The hunger and forage penalties aren't really a problem either if you're at least halfway decent at finding food. Berries and mushrooms will keep you going easily enough, as will foxes, raccoons, boar, wolves, and whatever else isn't able to escape your hunting prowess. And of course, by the time you get a base established, with a farm and livestock, you don't really need to hunt or forage anymore.

Blackguard is probably the toughest class for a new player to pick up and start playing with since they won't have the experience required to fully utilize the class strengths while mitigating the weaknesses, but it's not impossible for a new player to play a Blackguard either. They might struggle a bit more, but if that's the class they really want to play, they should play it(this is essentially how I cut my teeth in the game).

5 hours ago, Toroic said:

3) A lot of biomes in VS are worthless,

Have to disagree here as well. Deserts/gravel fields are useful since surface ore is easier to spot, and there's little vegetation to obscure your vision of threats or points of interest. Oceans and large lakes allow you to utilize the sailboat, which is very useful for easy traveling or hauling lots of cargo. Swampy wetlands can have different tree types, depending on climate, and are generally a good place to find cattails and fish. Glaciers themselves even serve a purpose, since glacier ice can function like glass when building greenhouses(unless something changed in that regard). 

In any case, there's something useful to be found pretty much everywhere, in regards to resources. If you're judging a biome based on how pretty/good it is to settle in, that's subject to individual preferences.

5 hours ago, Toroic said:

The armor progression, despite so many options, is improvised wood -> gambeson -> iron chain -> steel chain.  All the other options are less effective and more expensive.  Plate in particular is very expensive, significantly increases your hunger rate, and makes you incredibly slow to the point it’s detrimental unless your strategy is to stand in one place and trade hits (This doesn’t work well)

You can skip improvised armor entirely, provided you have the skill. Iron chain is okay, but expensive. The only reason I can think of to craft iron chain, aside from looks or collecting all the armors, is to preserve a bit of extra accuracy. Otherwise, brigandine is a better option for this tier--it's a bit less protective, but it also costs less. If you just need something to tide you over until steel, brigandine will do just fine for your heavier fighting. Gambeson is the best general purpose armor; ideal for exploring the surface or wearing around your base, but it won't hold up very well for heavier fighting. For the steel tier, chain is one of the better choices, but again, it boils down to personal preference and the demands of your situation. 

Plate armor is generally the most ideal for base defense, since you'll have ready access to plenty of food, as well as safe spots to take a respite and heal. I will also note that plate armor tends to be a more attractive choice for Blackguards, since it doesn't slow them down as much.

5 hours ago, Toroic said:

Weapon progression starts with thrown spears and bows become more slot efficient and otherwise of similar quality.  Falx are mostly just for killing weak enemies in melee because anything serious you’re better off with spear or bow.

Falx has an autoloot feature, when it comes to fighting monsters. Likewise, there will be situations where melee is stronger than ranged, especially if you're exploring underground or run out of ammunition.

For more dangerous enemies, a solid general strategy is to soften them up a bit at range, and then finish them off in melee should they close the gap.

5 hours ago, Toroic said:

Shields are also terrible.  They’re great at blocking drifters throwing rocks that did trivial damage anyway, but increase your hunger rate by 20% and are useless vs high tier enemies hits as they provide a small amount of flat damage reduction.

Shields are good at soaking up a lot of incoming damage...provided that you're actually facing the attacker and blocking properly. The passive block feature is most useful against incoming projectiles, but won't do much against melee hits. Active blocking will mitigate both ranged and melee attacks significantly, but unlike passive blocking you need to actually crouch in order to raise your shield and actively block.

The better the shield, the more damage that gets mitigated. Even crude shields have their place, since they can mitigate enough damage to allow you to survive a fight that might have killed you otherwise. As for the off-hand hunger penalty...you only need to equip your shield when you expect trouble, so the hunger penalty isn't an issue.

[Echo Weaver]

44 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Falx has an autoloot feature, when it comes to fighting monsters. 

Could you say more about this? I didn't notice any changes in loot behavior when using a falx.

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Could you say more about this? I didn't notice any changes in loot behavior when using a falx.

Sure. Basically, the falx has a chance to loot the monster when you hit it--I'm not sure what the percentage is though. You're not getting extra loot when this occurs, as the falx is simply extracting whatever goodies the monster had to drop in the first place. The looted goodies will drop to the ground, in which case you can just pick them up...provided you have inventory space. After you kill the monster, you can loot whatever goodies the falx didn't extract; in the event there are no more goodies to loot, it will just open an empty loot window and the corpse will disappear like normal when you exit the loot window.

[ijkdenem]

i for one do not really mind the hard difficulty that the game has. i wanted a challenge and Vintage Story does that EVERYDAY. the game said it would be very hard. so don't whine. it was just as bad for REAL people in the past to do all this stuff if not HARDER.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 hours ago, Toroic said:

@Gisbert

As someone who has played a good amount of Valheim and Zomboid, I think there’s probably a number of new player traps that you’re falling into.

1) The easiest way to solve the food problem early on is combat, and vanilla combat in VS is terrible.

To be extremely clear, when I say terrible I don’t mean difficult.  Combat becomes pretty easy when you realize thrown spears deal far more damage than melee weapons while being safe to use and cheap to produce.

I’ve never bothered with digging cattail roots, early game is killing wolves and boars with thrown spears while stuffing your face with berries and mushrooms until you can get clay for proper cooking.

2) For the reasons above, Blackguard is a terrible class, especially for a new player.  Melee is worthless early on (and never really becomes good) and makes the early hunger problems worse.  If you’re a Valheim player, you probably picked this class because in that game melee combat is fun and effective.

3) A lot of biomes in VS are worthless, and I’ve definitely had some as my spawn point in VS and it would’ve been better to just make a new world.

Good spawn points have lots of berries/wild crops (flax is ideal), clay, a forest not too far away, and plenty of reeds.  You can make do with no berry spawns by consuming several wolves or an entire boar every day, but until you find clay the gameplay loop is just killing and cooking food on a campfire and ignoring rust enemies (because their drops are awful).

VS gets immensely easier once you have a cellar and clay for storage vessels, crocks, and a cooking pot or two, because you start to be food positive which gives you time to do things other than just gather food.

Under default settings VS is super tedious by design (which I don’t actually mind) but it’s also super rng.  If you take the time to learn how to use the prospecting pick, you can very quickly go from no iron access to all the iron you’ll ever need.

In the sense that the difficulty is highest at the start, the difficulty curve is not dissimilar to Zomboid.  Once you have a big farm setup, food is not a problem (though winter can still be very boring, and changing the spawn point to being closer to the equator is likely to give you a better experience, because winter is not actually an interesting challenge because like temporal storms you end up doing a lot of busywork to wait it out the first time time.

Vintage Story is a unique game with a lot of cool ideas, but the execution of those ideas are very uneven.

The crafting is great, I like the complexity and the immersiveness, and there’s a lot of satisfaction when the effort you put in a day to days earlier pays off.

Combat is full of fake choices.  There is no use case for a club, for example.

The armor progression, despite so many options, is improvised wood -> gambeson -> iron chain -> steel chain.  All the other options are less effective and more expensive.  Plate in particular is very expensive, significantly increases your hunger rate, and makes you incredibly slow to the point it’s detrimental unless your strategy is to stand in one place and trade hits (This doesn’t work well)

Weapon progression starts with thrown spears and bows become more slot efficient and otherwise of similar quality.  Falx are mostly just for killing weak enemies in melee because anything serious you’re better off with spear or bow.

Shields are also terrible.  They’re great at blocking drifters throwing rocks that did trivial damage anyway, but increase your hunger rate by 20% and are useless vs high tier enemies hits as they provide a small amount of flat damage reduction.

My closing statement on combat is that the Combat Overhaul mod addresses a lot of these issues, but as it is a mod that touches a lot of core systems it generally does not get along with mods that add weapons or classes.

The other major feature of Vintage Story that in my opinion is terribly designed and implemented is Temporal Storms.

During a temporal storm, rust enemies are able to spawn regardless of light level (which normally prevents enemies from spawning inside your base) and high tier enemies can spawn which have one shot potential.  The loot even from the hardest enemies is mediocre, so a lot of people either disable this “feature”, allow sleeping through it, or pack themselves into a tiny hole to minimize the chance something spawns on them and do crafting busywork for 10 minutes until it’s over.

Unfortunately a lot of VS’s worst aspects are right in your face during the first 10 in game day, and the better features (I think the lore is interesting and fun to piece together) come later.

It’s definitely not your fault if you are bouncing off the game early before getting into clay and copper crafting.

I do think it gets better once you’re aware of the pitfalls, and if you’re staying vanilla how to cheese the combat.  Playing hyper aggressive with thrown spears will net you a bunch of meat/hides/bones/fat early which helps you sail through the early game.

If it makes you feel better, my first world in VS spawned me like 100 blocks deep in the forest with a boar right on top of me, and it proceeded to shred me immediately.  I wasn’t able to actually play the game until I sprinted out of the forest immediately after spawning in.

There is a fair bit of misconstrued information here.

1. I play hunter, but in the middle of a temporal storm, I'm 100% reaching for my falx when a shiver or bowtorn spawns inside my house. Melee is very useful and definitely required in some cases as the time to draw a bow or aim a spear and aim at your target while moving. Generally in tight spaces, ranged is just going to lose 90% of the time.

2. For the reasons above, Blackguard is an amazing class to play, especially during temporal storms or down in dark caves where you can't see to aim a bow or throw a spear.

3. Winter is actually quite interesting in VS because it forces you to change your gameplay. You are not only trying to make it through said winter on your food stores alone, but you also are forced to warm up or freeze to death if you're out and about. And if you run out of food... heheh, you better hope you can find enough. Being cold cranks up that hunger rate!

You say that combat is full of fake choices. I think you should be honest here and just come clean that you prefer ranged combat over melee. That's fine. You're allowed to do that, but I think a few people here have and will take issue with saying things like that without a prefix that it's your opinion. But during those heavy storms, a metal shield with steel armor will be the only thing that saves you from a tier 4 drifter nabbing your butt and mailing it to you postage due.

Which leads me to my final point.... Temporal Storms. You say that they're terribly designed and implemented. Again, another opinion. If nothing else, they promote good base design. Low ceilings stop most dangerous enemies from spawning. The rest are going to be drifters that manage to wiggle their way in anyway. Loot can range from flax fibers to Jonas parts and even Temporal Gears. Idk why you think that's mediocre at best, but again, that's just your opinion.

What VS objectively provides is a different learning curve from what most people are expecting. I think a lot of players are coming in and expecting a Minecraft clone or they were told "it's just like xyz game but with this instead" and come to find that their knowledge of other games won't help them here for the most part.

It needs to be taken as it is at first without comparison to other things. Once you get a handle on how it all works, then you can start drawing the comparisons between other games and offering suggestions on how to make VS better.

[Gisbert]

17 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

1. Humans as a species are actually not inclined to enjoy failure, they are however inclined to be obsessive about learning from their failures and giving it another shot, but the 'failure'' part of that equation is not fun and that is objective reality of evolution and we are 'preprogrammed' that way for obvious reasons. If failure was intrinsically fun then people would pursue failure and obviously overtime 'evolutionary statistic' would delete humanity due to a lot of failures.

Thank you! Very well observed.

Failure causes pain.
(Sure, others may have a different inhibition threshold for ‘pain’.)

Our biological imperative causes this and since we are all human beings here, anything else is self-deception.
That's not a judgement either, it's simply reality.

17 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

Regarding a side topic of the popularity of 'survival games'. I have this short version of an essay:

One might argue that the prevalent popularity of 'winning by not loosing' might be a reflection of a collective subconscious understanding of societies current trajectory OR an expression of a lost time when we lived closer to the physical world of nature (I tend to think the latter). Having said that, if it was the days of the space age in the late 50s early 60s I am sure if RPG style games existed then, games of extreme optimism of technology would be far more popular than it is today. I say all this just as a matter of reflection, not really an underlining point.

I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're getting at here.

But I don't think it's a cultural ‘problem’. I don't even think it's a ‘problem’ at all. Winning is awesome. Profiting enriches you, and losing sucks. That's life.
Denying the biological imperative is like denying reality.

You don't argue with the breathalyser about whether it's biased and whether you feel ‘drunk’ yet. It doesn't really care how you feel.
You used to be just as drunk, it's just that back then you were still allowed to drive home drunk until a law was passed.

Your alcohol level after four beers has remained the same, but your perception has changed because you have become accustomed to it and the law prohibits you from driving today.

There are constants and variables.
Failure = pain is a constant as long as you are human.

18 hours ago, newMania said:

I'm guessing you might not know this, but the two pictures you posted had a heap of food in it. Cat tail roots my friend. Cut the tops for your bags and then cut the roots out to cook and eat. 
[...]
Anyways, hope you start to enjoy it soon. It did take until getting the copper pick axe for me to go yeah I like this game. And honestly, when I held that pickaxe, I have never felt so happy playing a game. 

Yeah  already clarified this one page ago, but thank you.

14 hours ago, Toroic said:

@Gisbert

As someone who has played a good amount of Valheim and Zomboid, I think there’s probably a number of new player traps that you’re falling into.

1) The easiest way to solve the food problem early on is combat, and vanilla combat in VS is terrible.

To be extremely clear, when I say terrible I don’t mean difficult.  Combat becomes pretty easy when you realize thrown spears deal far more damage than melee weapons while being safe to use and cheap to produce.

I’ve never bothered with digging cattail roots, early game is killing wolves and boars with thrown spears while stuffing your face with berries and mushrooms until you can get clay for proper cooking.

2) For the reasons above, Blackguard is a terrible class, especially for a new player.  Melee is worthless early on (and never really becomes good) and makes the early hunger problems worse.  If you’re a Valheim player, you probably picked this class because in that game melee combat is fun and effective.

3) A lot of biomes in VS are worthless, and I’ve definitely had some as my spawn point in VS and it would’ve been better to just make a new world.

Good spawn points have lots of berries/wild crops (flax is ideal), clay, a forest not too far away, and plenty of reeds.  You can make do with no berry spawns by consuming several wolves or an entire boar every day, but until you find clay the gameplay loop is just killing and cooking food on a campfire and ignoring rust enemies (because their drops are awful).

VS gets immensely easier once you have a cellar and clay for storage vessels, crocks, and a cooking pot or two, because you start to be food positive which gives you time to do things other than just gather food.

Under default settings VS is super tedious by design (which I don’t actually mind) but it’s also super rng.  If you take the time to learn how to use the prospecting pick, you can very quickly go from no iron access to all the iron you’ll ever need.

In the sense that the difficulty is highest at the start, the difficulty curve is not dissimilar to Zomboid.  Once you have a big farm setup, food is not a problem (though winter can still be very boring, and changing the spawn point to being closer to the equator is likely to give you a better experience, because winter is not actually an interesting challenge because like temporal storms you end up doing a lot of busywork to wait it out the first time time.

Vintage Story is a unique game with a lot of cool ideas, but the execution of those ideas are very uneven.

The crafting is great, I like the complexity and the immersiveness, and there’s a lot of satisfaction when the effort you put in a day to days earlier pays off.

Combat is full of fake choices.  There is no use case for a club, for example.

The armor progression, despite so many options, is improvised wood -> gambeson -> iron chain -> steel chain.  All the other options are less effective and more expensive.  Plate in particular is very expensive, significantly increases your hunger rate, and makes you incredibly slow to the point it’s detrimental unless your strategy is to stand in one place and trade hits (This doesn’t work well)

Weapon progression starts with thrown spears and bows become more slot efficient and otherwise of similar quality.  Falx are mostly just for killing weak enemies in melee because anything serious you’re better off with spear or bow.

Shields are also terrible.  They’re great at blocking drifters throwing rocks that did trivial damage anyway, but increase your hunger rate by 20% and are useless vs high tier enemies hits as they provide a small amount of flat damage reduction.

My closing statement on combat is that the Combat Overhaul mod addresses a lot of these issues, but as it is a mod that touches a lot of core systems it generally does not get along with mods that add weapons or classes.

The other major feature of Vintage Story that in my opinion is terribly designed and implemented is Temporal Storms.

During a temporal storm, rust enemies are able to spawn regardless of light level (which normally prevents enemies from spawning inside your base) and high tier enemies can spawn which have one shot potential.  The loot even from the hardest enemies is mediocre, so a lot of people either disable this “feature”, allow sleeping through it, or pack themselves into a tiny hole to minimize the chance something spawns on them and do crafting busywork for 10 minutes until it’s over.

Unfortunately a lot of VS’s worst aspects are right in your face during the first 10 in game day, and the better features (I think the lore is interesting and fun to piece together) come later.

It’s definitely not your fault if you are bouncing off the game early before getting into clay and copper crafting.

I do think it gets better once you’re aware of the pitfalls, and if you’re staying vanilla how to cheese the combat.  Playing hyper aggressive with thrown spears will net you a bunch of meat/hides/bones/fat early which helps you sail through the early game.

If it makes you feel better, my first world in VS spawned me like 100 blocks deep in the forest with a boar right on top of me, and it proceeded to shred me immediately.  I wasn’t able to actually play the game until I sprinted out of the forest immediately after spawning in.

This was another very informative, honest and helpful post.
Thank you.

[The Lucky One]

19 hours ago, Gisbert said:

With all due respect, that sounds to me like a story that losers tell themselves because they don't stand a chance.

The RPG argument is unfounded because “surviving” or "being the strongest" is not necessarily the goal there.
Many role-players deliberately play the part of the simpleton. For them, that is "winning". 

What you mean is that winning and losing are different for different people depending on their goals they try to achieve, but no one enjoys "losing" itself.
No one likes failing to achieve the goals they set for themselves in try hard mode.

That would be like claiming that pain doesn't hurt.

With all due respect, I don't think you've played much RimWorld or Dwarf Fortress. The name calling has pushed me over the edge into believing we're being trolled, however. Best of luck.

[Gisbert]

3 minutes ago, The Lucky One said:

With all due respect, I don't think you've played much RimWorld or Dwarf Fortress. The name calling has pushed me over the edge into believing we're being trolled, however. Best of luck.

Explain to me where I offended you?
If losing wasn't ‘painful’ for you, my comment about ‘losers’ would hardly cause you any pain.

The only thing you've proven to yourself is that you lied to yourself with your post.

But really, I may be blunt with my opinion, but I'm definitely not a troll and I definitely didn't want to offend anyone. When I say ‘with all due respect’, I mean it.

[DrCopper]

The more philosophical parallel discussion going on in this topic reminded me of this quote from the Wikipedia article on the board game Go:

"A similar comparison has been drawn among Go, chess and backgammon, perhaps the three oldest games that enjoy worldwide popularity.^[192] Backgammon is a "man vs. fate" contest, with chance playing a strong role in determining the outcome. Chess, with rows of soldiers marching forward to capture each other, embodies the conflict of "man vs. man". Because the handicap system tells Go players where they stand relative to other players, an honestly ranked player can expect to lose about half of their games; therefore, Go can be seen as embodying the quest for self-improvement, "man vs. self".^[192]"

Many players find Go to be very fun, despite the expectation that they will fail to achieve their goal (win) in half of the games they play. I don't play Go, but I often play chess against significantly stronger opponents, struggle mightily and lose painfully, and thoroughly enjoy it. It is genuinely fun, whereas playing against a weak bot that I will always beat is extremely tedious. I am not a "loser" (90th percentile rating-wise in my preferred chess website, taken with the appropriate grain of freshly-ground halite), and I am not pretending to enjoy playing the stronger opponents while secretly dreading it -- I actively seek out more opportunities to play.

You asked "am I missing something?" in the topic title. You make some strong claims about reality, self-deception or biological imperatives. Maybe there is some rigidity to your expectations or thought processes that is getting in the way of your enjoyment?

Edited August 31, 2025 by DrCopper

[The Lucky One]

53 minutes ago, Gisbert said:

Explain to me where I offended you?
If losing wasn't ‘painful’ for you, my comment about ‘losers’ would hardly cause you any pain.

The only thing you've proven to yourself is that you lied to yourself with your post.

But really, I may be blunt with my opinion, but I'm definitely not a troll and I definitely didn't want to offend anyone. When I say ‘with all due respect’, I mean it.

Do you enjoy playing a game for the sake of playing the game? Or must you win the game to enjoy it?

The emotion(s) you're looking to reference there is not pain, it is anger, indignation, and disbelief. You post your grievances against VS and it's inherent style of game play, decry it's difficulty, and yet we are somehow the losers for enjoying it. Uh huh. Pull the other one, it's got bells on it.

Your "proof" statement is manufactured in your own head, and again troll-like behavior. "Oh, I'm just blunt and definitely not a troll" is disingenuous.

Conversation is over, as far as I'm concerned. Good luck.

[CastIronFabric]

2 hours ago, DrCopper said:

The more philosophical parallel discussion going on in this topic reminded me of this quote from the Wikipedia article on the board game Go:

"A similar comparison has been drawn among Go, chess and backgammon, perhaps the three oldest games that enjoy worldwide popularity.^[192] Backgammon is a "man vs. fate" contest, with chance playing a strong role in determining the outcome. Chess, with rows of soldiers marching forward to capture each other, embodies the conflict of "man vs. man". Because the handicap system tells Go players where they stand relative to other players, an honestly ranked player can expect to lose about half of their games; therefore, Go can be seen as embodying the quest for self-improvement, "man vs. self".^[192]"

Many players find Go to be very fun, despite the expectation that they will fail to achieve their goal (win) in half of the games they play. I don't play Go, but I often play chess against significantly stronger opponents, struggle mightily and lose painfully, and thoroughly enjoy it. It is genuinely fun, whereas playing against a weak bot that I will always beat is extremely tedious. I am not a "loser" (90th percentile rating-wise in my preferred chess website, taken with the appropriate grain of freshly-ground halite), and I am not pretending to enjoy playing the stronger opponents while secretly dreading it -- I actively seek out more opportunities to play.

You asked "am I missing something?" in the topic title. You make some strong claims about reality, self-deception or biological imperatives. Maybe there is some rigidity to your expectations or thought processes that is getting in the way of your enjoyment?

The argument I have heard about games both now and in ancient times is to test ones abilities against a somewhat unpredictable circumstance, basically a 'practice' for real life.

In ancient context that is fairly easy to understand.

war games that test soldiers abilities that they will need in battle, ok got it.

However how does that translate into the Sims? perhaps testing ones design abilities should one ever want to remodel their house at some point, I dont know. I could get into that deeply but I aint gonna

 

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

You say that combat is full of fake choices. I think you should be honest here and just come clean that you prefer ranged combat over melee. That's fine. You're allowed to do that, but I think a few people here have and will take issue with saying things like that without a prefix that it's your opinion. But during those heavy storms, a metal shield with steel armor will be the only thing that saves you from a tier 4 drifter nabbing your butt and mailing it to you postage due.

One thing I had forgotten to mention in my initial response--Combat Overhaul was mentioned, and that's a mod that changes vanilla combat significantly. I've not played with that mod myself, but judging by the mod page, it seems to turn the combat system into something more similar to what Mount & Blade has, in that it now matters exactly where you hit the target, when/how/where you block, etc. Which in all fairness, I'm betting ranged combat is actually easier in that mod(assuming you can hit the target) due to the locational damage mechanic, in addition to just the general rule of killing something before it can reach you is a good idea(when it's possible to do so). Melee looks to be significantly more difficult in that mod since you need to actively block/parry attacks aimed at specific parts of your body in order to mitigate the damage--ie, it's trying to be much more realistic. 

That being said, I was speaking in terms of vanilla, since that's going to be the most useful information for the widest player variety. Mods are very fun and useful, but often change the game in very specific ways, so advice that applies to a modded game may or may not apply to a vanilla game at all.

That last sentence though...

9 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Loot can range from flax fibers to Jonas parts and even Temporal Gears. Idk why you think that's mediocre at best, but again, that's just your opinion.

Eh, I dunno, I would say that monster loot in general is mediocre...for now. The reason I chalk it up to being underwhelming is that late game tech really has been developed for Vintage Story yet, so there's really not much you can do with things like Jonas parts and temporal gears. I think late game tech is the next thing slated to be worked on though, and once more options are added I'd wager that the loot will become much more valuable.

As to whether or not one enjoys temporal storms...I do agree, that is subjective. Personally, they do get on my nerves, but I still enjoy the way they are implemented since they make the world and associated lore actually feel real. The storms are intermittent looming disasters that you can't prevent; they won't destroy your base or otherwise wipe progress, but you will have to figure out how to deal with them in order to accomplish your goals. One can either play it safe and hide when a storm hits(but get no loot), or take a risk and go fight monsters to get a bit of loot for the trouble(loot that will be more valuable once more tech is added). 

Of course, for players who don't enjoy them, there is the option to sleep through the storms, or just disable them entirely.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

25 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Eh, I dunno, I would say that monster loot in general is mediocre...for now. The reason I chalk it up to being underwhelming is that late game tech really has been developed for Vintage Story yet, so there's really not much you can do with things like Jonas parts and temporal gears. I think late game tech is the next thing slated to be worked on though, and once more options are added I'd wager that the loot will become much more valuable.

Agree to disagree... if Jonas tech were more developed then sure. Your argument would hold no weight. However I think it's only fair to mention that while Jonas tech isn't the real end-game, it is still something that has largely gone unused. When was the last time you played a world long enough to build a night-vision helmet?

[Lielac]

3 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

The argument I have heard about games both now and in ancient times is to test ones abilities against a somewhat unpredictable circumstance, basically a 'practice' for real life.

In ancient context that is fairly easy to understand.

war games that test soldiers abilities that they will need in battle, ok got it.

However how does that translate into the Sims? perhaps testing ones design abilities should one ever want to remodel their house at some point, I dont know. I could get into that deeply but I aint gonna

 

Huh! That's not really an argument I've heard about games, but then, I come at games from a very different direction. Namely, I like games for their potential stories. Like, yeah, interactive stories are a good way to practice what skills you'd need in a real situation, and not all games have so much as an excuse plot, but also... humans just like telling stories. Making up fantastical worlds. Telling tall tales. And The Sims is a virtual dollhouse, where the dolls can move on their own but also you can boss them around, and they make excellent stories.

And from that perspective, losing being fun also makes perfect sense to me. Does getting torn apart repeatedly by wolves make for a good story? I mean, as the struggle that the protagonist must overcome, it's a great story. Vintage Story has so many potential stories to find in it. The desperate scramble to collect enough food before winter, scouring the hills looking for GODDAMNED CLAY, the frustration of falling down an unexpected sinkhole, the ingenuity required to retrieve your items within the limit of the ticking clock, the cleverness required to kite a bear away from your last death point, dying repeatedly in the process but that's all expendable, the point is getting your stuff back--

Stories where the protagonist just wins and wins and wins aren't interesting, to me. And to a lot of other people, too, which is why storytelling advice is always "there has to be tension and struggle or your protagonist will feel boring and overpowered". And there can be such a thing as too much struggle, where it stops being interesting and it's just tedious, but. When death isn't permanent, when it's just a setback, you can always recover. And that's a power fantasy too, just as much as winning and winning and never losing.

[CastIronFabric]

2 hours ago, Lielac said:

Huh! That's not really an argument I've heard about games, but then, I come at games from a very different direction. Namely, I like games for their potential stories. Like, yeah, interactive stories are a good way to practice what skills you'd need in a real situation, and not all games have so much as an excuse plot, but also... humans just like telling stories. Making up fantastical worlds. Telling tall tales. And The Sims is a virtual dollhouse, where the dolls can move on their own but also you can boss them around, and they make excellent stories.

And from that perspective, losing being fun also makes perfect sense to me. Does getting torn apart repeatedly by wolves make for a good story? I mean, as the struggle that the protagonist must overcome, it's a great story. Vintage Story has so many potential stories to find in it. The desperate scramble to collect enough food before winter, scouring the hills looking for GODDAMNED CLAY, the frustration of falling down an unexpected sinkhole, the ingenuity required to retrieve your items within the limit of the ticking clock, the cleverness required to kite a bear away from your last death point, dying repeatedly in the process but that's all expendable, the point is getting your stuff back--

Stories where the protagonist just wins and wins and wins aren't interesting, to me. And to a lot of other people, too, which is why storytelling advice is always "there has to be tension and struggle or your protagonist will feel boring and overpowered". And there can be such a thing as too much struggle, where it stops being interesting and it's just tedious, but. When death isn't permanent, when it's just a setback, you can always recover. And that's a power fantasy too, just as much as winning and winning and never losing.

stories you say. The foundation of gaming for you is the story? stories is the main reason you play games do I have that correct?

 

Ok well consider this, games have existed for thousands of years and stories have always been possible and yet for the vast majority of human history games have not been story based.

why do you think that is?

 

I am not sure if this is the lecture I watched and I personally am not a fan of Tedx talks. I think Tedx is not as serious as Ted talks.

With all that said, what I have rewatched on this video is not 100% what I said but its a good start to understand what I am talking about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nFapT0I8ujs

Edited August 31, 2025 by CastIronFabric