Hate shivers and bowtorns, devs fix this please, I wont be able to play until then.

[Kalzamar]

I have not been able to play the game since they added shivers and bowtorns, there is no answer to them early game, you HAVE to stay indoors or sleep. That is absolutely boring and detest that it is forced on me. Please for the love of god devs, fix this, make it so shivers run slightly slower than the player and bowtorns not have aim bot. I die running at night in low activity. If there is no plans to balance the game I wont be able to play. Please at the very least make it a world option to disable shivers and bowtorns. There are no mods that work for this. You have lost a player until then and I know I'm not the only one

Edited September 21, 2025 by Pierre Ducharme

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

5 minutes ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

make it so shivers run slightly slower than the player

A player can outrun a shiver, provided the player is decent at navigating terrain and not being weighed down by heavy armor. I have worn brigandine as a Blackguard and caught up to shivers with relative ease. Shivers are also unable to climb over fences, and require a 2x2 space to fit through since they are big creatures. They are fast and a bit tanky, yes, but that is the point--a fast monster that can close a gap and force the player to deal with it.

 

7 minutes ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

bowtorns not have aim bot.

Bowtorn will attempt to run away if you get close, and they do not run fast at all nor can they take much punishment. They also telegraph their impending shot with a loud screech and aren't very particular about making sure they have a clear line of fire, so it's very easy to duck for cover or dodge out of the way to avoid getting hit. Equipping a shield is also a good option, as a shield will absorb most(if not all) impact from the incoming shot. The main purpose of the bowtorn is to serve as a proper ranged opponent, so that players can't easily pick off enemies from a safe vantage point.

 

11 minutes ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

Please for the love of god devs,

 

11 minutes ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

If there is no plans to balance the game I wont be able to play.

With all due respect...the addition of the monsters was bringing some much needed balance to the game. Drifters were an absolute joke before, and easily handled with basically no gear or planning. Now the player actually needs to think a bit on how they approach combat, and whether it's really worth the fight at the time, instead of charging into the fray blindly.

Of course, for those who really don't like the new monsters, the situation is easily fixed via existing mods such as this, or modding the monsters out by oneself: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/25812

[Echo Weaver]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Of course, for those who really don't like the new monsters, the situation is easily fixed via existing mods such as this, or modding the monsters out by oneself: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/25812

Well, sort of. It's not updated to 1.21, and the path to all the lore monsters was changed in 1.21. It's an easy fix, just has to be done.

[Thorfinn]

It would be nice to have a "decompile" script for .JSON mods. That would make it so anyone could understand what the tweak was, rather than figuring out what each replace did. Might have to think on it. I'm thinking it would require an instance installed for the last version it worked on.

[EDIT]

With such a script, it would be a piece of cake to set Notepad++ to do a side by side compare, highlighting the changes. Then you know precisely which lines or parts of lines need to be copied/adapted into the new version.

Edited September 21, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Echo Weaver]

15 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

It would be nice to have a "decompile" script for .JSON mods. That would make it so anyone could understand what the tweak was, rather than figuring out what each replace did. Might have to think on it. I'm thinking it would require an instance installed for the last version it worked on.

[EDIT]

With such a script, it would be a piece of cake to set Notepad++ to do a side by side compare, highlighting the changes. Then you know precisely which lines or parts of lines need to be copied/adapted into the new version.

Aren't you just talking about diff? I use the diff plugin for the Pulsar text editor to examine people's content mods, but there are dedicated diff apps, some just called "diff."

[CastIronFabric]

13 hours ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

I have not been able to play the game since they added shivers and bowtorns, there is no answer to them early game, you HAVE to stay indoors or sleep. That is absolutely boring and detest that it is forced on me. Please for the love of god devs, fix this, make it so shivers run slightly slower than the player and bowtorns not have aim bot. I die running at night in low activity. If there is no plans to balance the game I wont be able to play. Please at the very least make it a world option to disable shivers and bowtorns. There are no mods that work for this. You have lost a player until then and I know I'm not the only one

play Explorer Mode like I have for the past estimated 1,500 hours

[HalfAxd]

14 hours ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

I have not been able to play the game since they added shivers and bowtorns, there is no answer to them early game, you HAVE to stay indoors or sleep.

I was frustrated when bowtorn were introduced too... Died a lot until I figured out how to deal with them.  You get plenty of warning when they wind up... jump behind something or plop down a 2 stack high dirt pile... I always carry a stack of dirt in case I fall into a deep hole while running around...  setup a few obstacles around you base for defense.  You can then either pick them off at a distance or rush them between shots.   My keyboard dexterity is not great and this method works for me.

From a survival stand point, running around at night early game (depending on biome) is a good way to die... lol

I hope you find a way back to the game, it's such a gem.

[Echo Weaver]

1 minute ago, HalfAxd said:

From a survival stand point, running around at night early game (depending on biome) is a good way to die...

Do they still hang around all day without despawning?

This is my aesthetic issue with bowtorns -- the other rotbeats are creatures of darkness and temporal storms. Bowtorns look like the kind of lovecraftian creature that is best seen in shadow, but they don't seem to fear the light. For the mood of the game, I like the enemies of the day to be "natural" predators -- wolves, bears, even Fauna of the Stone Age (which I'm trying out in my own game for the first time). Things that are at least as menacing viewed in full daylight, not twisted supernatural beasts.

Zippy's Bashful Bowtorns tries to remedy this, but only for bowtorns spawned from temporal storms. I updated this for personal use -- Zippy was active as recently as August, and I assume they'll do an official update, but if not I can post an unofficial one. I also am experimenting with a patch to Zippy's mod that makes all bowtorns fear the light except the ones in the Devastation.

If bowtorns have started running away and despawning in the light in 1.21, obvs this doesn't need to be done, but it certainly didn't look like it from my poke through their default json.

[HalfAxd]

16 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Do they still hang around all day without despawning?

They do linger longer than your standard drifter, but wander off eventually unless they are in a pit. 

[Kalzamar]

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Welcome to the forums!

A player can outrun a shiver, provided the player is decent at navigating terrain and not being weighed down by heavy armor. I have worn brigandine as a Blackguard and caught up to shivers with relative ease. Shivers are also unable to climb over fences, and require a 2x2 space to fit through since they are big creatures. They are fast and a bit tanky, yes, but that is the point--a fast monster that can close a gap and force the player to deal with it.

 

Bowtorn will attempt to run away if you get close, and they do not run fast at all nor can they take much punishment. They also telegraph their impending shot with a loud screech and aren't very particular about making sure they have a clear line of fire, so it's very easy to duck for cover or dodge out of the way to avoid getting hit. Equipping a shield is also a good option, as a shield will absorb most(if not all) impact from the incoming shot. The main purpose of the bowtorn is to serve as a proper ranged opponent, so that players can't easily pick off enemies from a safe vantage point.

 

 

With all due respect...the addition of the monsters was bringing some much needed balance to the game. Drifters were an absolute joke before, and easily handled with basically no gear or planning. Now the player actually needs to think a bit on how they approach combat, and whether it's really worth the fight at the time, instead of charging into the fray blindly.

Of course, for those who really don't like the new monsters, the situation is easily fixed via existing mods such as this, or modding the monsters out by oneself: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/25812

I was running full tilt at night in a field in low rift activity. Shivers caught up to me, bowtorns shot me, cant run to them, cant see them at night and shiver on my ass. cant build a defense while shivers are running at me and blowhorns shooting at me. couldn't make a shield, not enough cat tails in my spawn region.

how can I approach combat early game if there are no answers to them early game. sleep, don't want to, hole up, don't want to (VERY BORING) . . . so die. so your answer is for someone that has no idea how to mod, to learn to mod to play a game, thanks but no thanks.

[Kalzamar]

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

play Explorer Mode like I have for the past estimated 1,500 hours

explorer mode is not challenging enough, its just the bowtorns and shivers that are broken (unbalanced, no answer to them early game)

[Kalzamar]

1 hour ago, HalfAxd said:

I was frustrated when bowtorn were introduced too... Died a lot until I figured out how to deal with them.  You get plenty of warning when they wind up... jump behind something or plop down a 2 stack high dirt pile... I always carry a stack of dirt in case I fall into a deep hole while running around...  setup a few obstacles around you base for defense.  You can then either pick them off at a distance or rush them between shots.   My keyboard dexterity is not great and this method works for me.

From a survival stand point, running around at night early game (depending on biome) is a good way to die... lol

I hope you find a way back to the game, it's such a gem.

so your answer is to hole up or sleep at night, thats boring, they could just balance the bowtorns and shivers.

[Mrozak]

1 hour ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

so your answer is to hole up or sleep at night, thats boring

I think you must be playing on some ultra easy mode for Survival, if there is nothing for you to do during night than just waiting or sleeping
Especially at the beginning.
It isn't like there is nothing to do at your home during the night, you just didn't realize, or maybe you ignore the possibilities.
My most fond memories of the game are from those early days, when i would be too afraid to go outside during the night, so i was sitting comfortably next to a fire, cooking meals, crafting things, making pottery, or panning bony soil (if you build your mud hut in a place with water).

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

how can I approach combat early game if there are no answers to them early game

There are answers though: you can fight them, find something to do indoors where it's safe, or sleep. Each solution will cost you something. Fighting the monsters might be interesting, but is very dangerous early in the game due to a lack of good equipment, and lack of experience in the case of new players. Doing something indoors is safe and makes some progress, but may not be as interesting depending on your mindset. Sleeping through the night is a safe and fast way to pass the time, however, it will cost you hunger points.

2 hours ago, Pierre Ducharme said:

sleep, don't want to, hole up, don't want to (VERY BORING) . . . so die. so your answer is for someone that has no idea how to mod, to learn to mod to play a game, thanks but no thanks.

My point is that if one lacks the experience to fight with minimal equipment, and is otherwise unwilling to remain indoors or sleep, then there are already solutions to adjust the game to one's personal preference. That is, adjust vanilla settings so enemies are less aggressive, or do less damage, or give the player character more health and better damage output, etc. The game can be further adjusted by installing mods--there's even a button to click to install the mod for the user. In the case of monsters, there are several already available on the database that adjust monster behavior in various ways, though older mods may or may not work on newer versions. For really ambitious players, Vintage Story modding is fairly easy to jump into, so making mods that tweak gameplay in smaller ways(like disabling certain creature spawns) tends to be relatively simple.

The developers have a specific vision they wish for the game, generally represented by the Standard game mode. Of course, not everyone wants the exact same thing, hence why there are easier presets(Exploration and Creative) and harder presets(Wilderness Survival and Homo Sapiens), as well as a slew of various options to fine-tune specific things and mods on top of that. In other words, there are plenty of tools at the player's disposal to tweak the game to their exact liking, while still preserving developer vision and appeal to different types of players. However, those tools are only useful if the player chooses to use them.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

If you get bored for the 5 seconds it takes to sleep through the night, then the bowtorn and shivers weren't ever the problem.

[Kalzamar]

57 minutes ago, Mrozak said:

I think you must be playing on some ultra easy mode for Survival, if there is nothing for you to do during night than just waiting or sleeping
Especially at the beginning.
It isn't like there is nothing to do at your home during the night, you just didn't realize, or maybe you ignore the possibilities.
My most fond memories of the game are from those early days, when i would be too afraid to go outside during the night, so i was sitting comfortably next to a fire, cooking meals, crafting things, making pottery, or panning bony soil (if you build your mud hut in a place with water).

none of that was possible for me, night happened within 10 mins of spawn, all i had time to do was find a few cat tails, not enough for the shield, make armor, gather food, and boom its night, dead

 

so, I could concentrate on getting enough dirt for a dirt hut, get food so i don't die of starvation and make a bed, sleep and waste 8 hours on sleeping. yay sooo productive and boring. i want to be out there, i cant be out there, so what's the point? i want to play an open world to be in the open world. I'm not playing dirt hut simulator.

Edited September 21, 2025 by Kalzamar

[Kalzamar]

33 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

If you get bored for the 5 seconds it takes to sleep through the night, then the bowtorn and shivers weren't ever the problem.

sleeping through the night wastes time, time is the only resource that is truly limited in vs I'm being forced to waste it.

[idiomcritter]

early game does present a problem with these 2 mobs especially if its a new person to the game.  

I agree the mobs offer an elevated challenge over drifters, and as an experienced player, its welcomed, having the knowledge to defend and attack.

I'd argue for a player stealth mode. something along the lines of no armor, or weapons in  hand, and crouching or sneak posture maybe(?)

(also, maybe a further limit to the spawn rate on the surface only, not sure how that would look/work)

[Kalzamar]

4 minutes ago, idiomcritter said:

early game does present a problem with these 2 mobs especially if its a new person to the game.  

I agree the mobs offer an elevated challenge over drifters, and as an experienced player, its welcomed, having the knowledge to defend and attack.

I'd argue for a player stealth mode. something along the lines of no armor, or weapons in  hand, and crouching or sneak posture maybe(?)

(also, maybe a further limit to the spawn rate on the surface only, not sure how that would look/work)

the thing is with video games, you have to balance things, they didn't with these mobs. When you make enemies in games you have to be able to fight them or dodge. you cant. bowtorns have aim bot you cant dodge, you can put something between you and them, except at night you cant see them, and if you're in a field you cant put something between you and them. As for shivers, you cant outrun them, and cant kill them with melee or ranged weapons the first night. The answer I'm getting from everybody is to play dirt hut simulator or sleep, which is boring or wastes the one very limited resource, time. Or to learn to program so I mod the game myself, I can barely use Microsoft excel, I'm not going to learn to mod a game. 

What I'm saying is, I'm not the only one, the devs are alienating a lot of players with this, i know of some content creators that no longer play the game because of it. they are making an already very small community much smaller, I'm not gonna lie there are days where i wish i never bought the game. sure i could roll back to 1.19 but then i cant have any of the new content or mechanics. Again my hand is being forced.

all I'm asking is to balance the mobs, or make it toggle off shivers and bowtorns at worldgen until they figure out how to balance them. shivers run a tad slower than the player and bowtorns not have aim bot. or to use the story missions to introduce the mobs gradually once you have the tools to deal with them. anything but, waste time in a dirt hut for a year.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

23 minutes ago, Kalzamar said:

sleeping through the night wastes time, time is the only resource that is truly limited in vs I'm being forced to waste it.

I think you misread my comment. But whatever. The fact of the matter is that you've presented an ultimatum... which usually doesn't end well. "Change this or else I quit playing."

Okay, bye Felicia.

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Kalzamar said:

none of that was possible for me, night happened within 10 mins of spawn, all i had time to do was find a few cat tails, not enough for the shield, make armor, gather food, and boom its night, dead

Out of curiosity, was this singleplayer, or multiplayer? If it's a singleplayer world, this scenario shouldn't be possible, since the player starts at the beginning of May and a full 24 hour day in the game is equivalent to 48 IRL minutes. The game also starts at 8 AM in-game, and on the default temperate start night doesn't really start to fall until around 8-9 PM, meaning that the player has around 24 IRL minutes to get things done. That's plenty of time to get enough resources for handbaskets, basic tools and weapons, gathering food, making bandages, and even crafting basic armor; however, I will note that doing all of those as a new player on the very first day is a very tall order and not likely to happen. I will also note that while early game equipment like improvised armor, the crude shield, and whatnot will help you survive a bit better should you get into a fight, since it's better than no equipment at all, but it's still weak equipment and won't be able to stop much incoming damage or take many hits before it breaks. You'll likely need at least tier 2 armor before surface-level opponents stop feeling like serious threats.

In any case, if you are playing multiplayer, I would recommend making some friends on the server that can help teach you various things about the gameplay. Otherwise, I recommend starting a world in singleplayer, so that you can adjust settings to your specific liking, as well as not have to worry about competition for resources or worry about time passing when you aren't actively playing.

3 hours ago, idiomcritter said:

early game does present a problem with these 2 mobs especially if its a new person to the game.  

I agree the mobs offer an elevated challenge over drifters, and as an experienced player, its welcomed, having the knowledge to defend and attack.

I do agree here, mostly, and prior to the addition of bowtorn and shivers the surface monsters were an absolute joke. Drifters alone were easily dealt with, since the player could move significantly faster and easily exploit other enemy weakness. It was possible to just kite them around with spears, or stand on a dirt pillar and pick them off one at a time, among other strategies. Armor really wasn't necessary at all if one was decently good at movement, even for the heaviest temporal storms all you'd really need is a handful of spears and bandages.

Now, the player can't just stand on top of a pillar and expect to pick off enemies like it's a shooting gallery, since they'll be sitting ducks for bowtorn. The bowtorn range also means that they'll generally be out of the player's sight when it's dark out, so the player will need to really pay attention to sound cues and shot directions if they want to find and deal with the bowtorn(would almost have to be melee as it's not really feasible to aim in the dark). Likewise, the shiver's speed means that the player also can't expect to just easily kite all the enemies or otherwise outrun them to safety should a fight go south. 

Overall, I think that the monsters are meant to be not so much enemies that the player has to actively fight(outside of certain story locations, that is), as much as they're meant to be environmental hazards that the player has to figure out how to deal with. Sometimes it's easy to just dispatch a handful of monsters in order to keep working outside through the night, but sometimes there are enough monsters that trying to fight through them all really isn't worth the effort. In the case of the latter, it's easy enough to work inside or sleep through the night, and then plan ahead for future similar situations by lighting up outside work space to cut down on monster spawns, or otherwise fencing it off to keep monsters out.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

11 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

You'll likely need at least tier 2 armor before surface-level opponents stop feeling like serious threats.

or enough hours of gameplay to know all the cheese strategies for the game's enemies *cough cough* @Thorfinn *cough*

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

or enough hours of gameplay to know all the cheese strategies for the game's enemies *cough cough* @Thorfinn *cough*

Knowing the strategies is the easy part; it's executing them properly that can be difficult. Thorfinn's in a league of his own, as far as I'm concerned. 

[Thorfinn]

22 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Aren't you just talking about diff? I use the diff plugin for the Pulsar text editor to examine people's content mods, but there are dedicated diff apps, some just called "diff."

Not for the "decompile" part. At least to the best of my knowledge. I'm thinking something that turns something like

    "op": "replace",
    "path": "/whatIWannaChange",
    "file": "game:whateverTheFilenameIs.json",
	"value": {inGameHours:48}

back into

{
	code: "tallplant",
	class: "BlockReeds",
	entityClassByType: {
		"*-harvested-*": "Transient"
	},
	attributes: {
		climateColorMapForMap: "climatePlantTint", 
		seasonColorMapForMap: "seasonalFoliage",
		transientPropsByType: {
			"tallplant-coopersreed-*": {
				convertFrom: "*-harvested-{cover}", 
				convertTo: "tallplant-coopersreed-land-normal-{cover}", 
				inGameHours: "48",
				resetBelowTemperature: -4,
				stopBelowTemperature: 2
...

so that you could then diff that with the original game file to see that this mod changed harvest time from 168 to 48. If you wanted something in between, 96, say, the easiest way to do that might be to change the other guy's mod,  but people can be a little touchy about others making changes to "their" mod, even though in this case it was nothing but the output from ModMaker. I'm not sure what creative effort went into that part of it, but what is is.

[EDIT]

The game itself does this when it adds mods in at load. The code to do this already exists. It's just a matter of being able to pipe the resulting JSON to a file, rather than just in memory at load.

Yas, I probably should have made the change and run ModMaker so that the mod code was correct, but you get the idea.

 

Edited September 22, 2025 by Thorfinn

[Echo Weaver]

1 minute ago, Thorfinn said:

Not for the "decompile" part. At least to the best of my knowledge.

Oh, now I see. Basically Modmaker in reverse. (Which, btw, is still not included in 1.21 for Mac, after you pointed me to it and I became a devoted user. Grump.)

You're right -- that would be a huge help. I wonder if one could take a look at Modmaker and tweak it to work in reverse.