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

[Echo Weaver]

Just now, Teh Pizza Lady said:

No I'm Teh Pizza Lady

Maybe Goldilocks got a side gig delivering pizza. Just sayin'.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Just now, Echo Weaver said:

Maybe Goldilocks got a side gig delivering pizza. Just sayin'.

brb remaking this picture with brown hair.

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, Tom Cantine said:

I generally dislike combat, not for mechanical reasons but because I'm just not a combat player.

You sound like me. Strategic cowards unite!

I see a real divide in the player base between those who enjoy head-on combat and those who don't. I really enjoy putting a bunch of planning into ways to kill rotbeasts without going head-to-head with them.

But I do use Zippy's Bashful Bowtorns because, like Zippy, I'm aesthetically bothered by temporal storm rotbeasts hanging around indefinitely after the storm, so I probably wouldn't have the exact problem with nightmares you're describing. (It doesn't have an update yet, but I've updated it for personal use. I'm curious if folks report behavior changes in post-temporal-storm bowtorns in 1.21.)

Edited September 25, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[LadyWYT]

17 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I see a real divide in the player base between those who enjoy head-on combat and those who don't. I really enjoy putting a bunch of planning into ways to kill rotbeasts without going head-to-head with them.

This feels pretty accurate. I do like combat, but I don't love it to the extent that's what I want to do all the time. I also enjoy figuring out tricky ways to handle the monsters instead of always confronting them head-on as well, such as starting a drifter brawl or just saving certain activities for periods of low rift activity or daylight hours. Strategic cowardice, or just playing smart? You decide! 

[Tom Cantine]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

But I do use Zippy's Bashful Bowtorns because, like Zippy, I'm aesthetically bothered by temporal storm rotbeasts hanging around indefinitely after the storm, so I probably wouldn't have the exact problem with nightmares you're describing. 

It was only a problem in the mathematical sense of something to be solved, and I solved it. I have no problem with having been presented with such a problem 

I certainly have my own aesthetic preferences informing how the game should be, but I tend to accept most of the game reality as given. That is, while I have lots of suggestions to enhance the game (I want to be able to fish! Why aren't there crows? When can we have coffee and garlic? Let's have an expanded two-layer land claim system to allow communities to establish enforceable building codes and standards!), I feel like I should accept the directly lore-related choices as given. So the fact that temporal storm beasties might still linger, I take as a deliberate part of the canon, and try to look for a satisfying in-game explanation. Temporal storms are unpredictable where they let monsters slip through into our world, so presumably as they wane they're unpredictable in the places where they'll let them slip back out, meaning that the monstrosities can be stranded here. And if they detect a hated seraph, they'll keep trying to find and kill it. So there's no obvious way for them to go back where they came from, and no particular reason for them to wander away from where they smell seraph.

It's a problem to deal with, and the game is all about dealing with problems. 

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, Tom Cantine said:

I certainly have my own aesthetic preferences informing how the game should be, but I tend to accept most of the game reality as given.

Shrug. I just think distorted lovecraftian monsters are much more frightening in the darkness. When I see them hanging out by my chicken coop in broad daylight, it wrecks the effect. I prefer my daytime monsters to be bears and wolves and whatnot, which are at least as scary in daylight as they are at night. And until you get to the much stronger varieties of rotbeasts, wolves and bears are more dangerous.

[Prof Neils]

I definitely see the mechanical arguments being made for the Shivers and Bowtorns, but I think there's a customization argument to be made, and an aesthetic question that's come up in this thread.

Customization: In Vanilla, a LOT is customizable, and honestly compared to Survival Challenges and World Gen there isn't nearly as much flexibility for Temporal Stability. One possibility: radio buttons for each monster (i.e. toggling on/off bowtorns) could grow with the game, as more monsters are potentially added. 

Aesthetics: My personal anecdote is that I can't safely play a world that I've been showing my kiddo for years, because the designs are so effective at being intense and terrifying. I would say the aesthetics of those two monsters change the actual feel of the game dramatically, to the point where if the game were on steam refunds could become a major issue.

Vanilla radio buttons are just one suggestion, but some kind of fix would make the game dramatically more accessible (which is I think a cornerstone of Vintage Story). My two cents. 

[cjc813]

Night doesn't happen in 10 minutes with default settings on a new world.

Bowtorn do not have "aim bot," and staying mobile avoids most damage from them.

Surface shivers can be taken out with 2 to 3 flint spears, so there very much is an early game answer.

The things OP is saying are simply untrue.

[RatKing0]

On 9/20/2025 at 8:50 PM, Kalzamar said:

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.

Having a bit of a schedule helps a lot. In my case, daytime is for gathering resources and exploring, while nighttime is for cooking, clay, smithing, (interior) home renovations, and digging. 

 

I will add though, Bowtorn don't seem to flee/despawn at daybreak like they should. I'd seen the recommendation to run out of the chunk to force them to despawn when this happens, which has worked for me. It's relatively easy to dodge the arrows while fleeing, if they even shoot. 

Edited September 29, 2025 by RatKing0

[Teh Pizza Lady]

9 hours ago, RatKing0 said:

while nighttime is for cooking, clay, smithing, (interior) home renovations, and digging. 

It's also for sleeping

[labtop 215]

This is like saying that zombie's in Minecraft are fine, but every since Notch added skeletons the game became unplayable.  I sure hope they don't add spiders, skeletons riding spiders, zombies riding chickens...  You get my point.

Do the shivers and bowtorns make the game harder?  Yes.  They can snipe you from the dark.  That's a normal element of gameplay.  And unlike the classic OG skeleton, bowtorn cannot move and shoot you at the same time.  Shivers, are a lot harder to hit than spiders.  Personally, I think it all evens out until Vintage story gets it's own kamikaze unit.

I've been finding nights a little difficult without armor.  As it should be.  You may find the game get's a little easier once you get Gambeson armor from your first flax harvest.

[Never Jhonsen]

7 hours ago, labtop 215 said:

I've been finding nights a little difficult without armor.  As it should be

Before 1.20, going out at night wasn't scary. You had a few bumbling fools slowly following you with dinky rocks. Even running about at night with apocalyptic rift activity was a breeze with no armor.

For an "Eldritch Horror" game, nights wern't scary at all. There was nothing to fear. Now there is

[Kaldo]

I turned rifts back on because I kinda missed the danger from traveling in the nights too, I do like some tension and fear, but the issue is that they make it difficult to even work when staying at home due to the sniping from the dark. Practically speaking this just means my house must be a bunker instead of having a terrace, garden or some fenced-off outside area - even if they are lit up to prevent spawns within them.

When I get enough lanterns I might just place them everywhere while building 3 block high walls around the base, maybe that's the intended solution.

[LadyWYT]

8 hours ago, Kaldo said:

When I get enough lanterns I might just place them everywhere while building 3 block high walls around the base, maybe that's the intended solution.

I think the intended solution is for the player to use rift wards to defend their base from rifts. It takes a fair amount of work to acquire one, and it'll cost the occasional temporal gear to keep it powered, but for that level of security it's a fair trade. Given the recent changes to rifts that allow them to spawn the occasional monster in daylight, I'd say that's also going to be the reason the player needs to invest in rift wards over relying on cheap lanterns everywhere.

 

[CastIronFabric]

On 9/21/2025 at 12:58 PM, Kalzamar said:

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

I do not find drifters challenging in early game, just annoying and in the way. To be fair though the only reason I play is to build, craft and explore so monster threats just impede all of that. 

Edited October 2, 2025 by CastIronFabric

[Thorfinn]

I have a lot in common with @CastIronFabric -- I'm quite good at combat, I just don't enjoy it. If I wanted a combat game, I'd play a combat game.

Most combat is a losing proposition -- at the very least, durability, and you rarely get anything in return. If the string drop were higher, I'd be tempted to never grow flax. I think I could probably fill my linen needs that way in a few high rift nights, and save the time I'd spend gardening.

You can be out at night, it's just that you have to plan ahead. Look at where the rifts are, and plan out several potential options in case your preferred position gets overrun or a new rift spawns. 

[Echo Weaver]

This seems like it could be a good mod for folks to look at: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/31920

It restricts shivers to underground, requires 0 light level for spawn (which I think would be mostly underground and perhaps at night in a shadowed area), and reduces the frequency of bowtorns and shivers. 

I need to poke through the current lore entity json to see if I can get what I want. I don't want lower spawn light or lower frequency. I just want all the rotbeasts on the surface to retreat in daylight. That seems like it might be more complex than it sounds because the game currently seems to have two behavior variants for surface drifters at least -- one that retreats at dawn and one that spawns in daylight and hangs around. (I walked by one standing on top of the spire of a ruin at midday recently, which was pretty entertaining).

I don't know how this difference in behavior is defined. I know that rift-spawned rotbeasts are defined in their entity json and rotbeats for temporal storms and devastation are defined someplace else. But I don't know where the daylight-tolerant variety of rift-spawned rotbeast behavior is defined.

For bowtorns, I'm currently playing with an adjustment of Zippy's Bashful Bowtorns, which I updated to 1.21 and changed such that normal bowtorn spawns are Zippy's light-fearing alternative in addition to the temporal storm ones. I don't want anything in story locations messed with -- those are their own thing with their own challenges.  

Edited October 2, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

the game currently seems to have two behavior variants for surface drifters at least -- one that retreats at dawn and one that spawns in daylight and hangs around.

For what it's worth, the ones that spawn in the daylight don't seem to hang around terribly long. They'll wander around for a bit before disappearing, unless they happen to notice you. In which case, they'll get aggressive until you either kill them or run outside of their aggro range.

[Echo Weaver]

Just now, LadyWYT said:

For what it's worth, the ones that spawn in the daylight don't seem to hang around terribly long. They'll wander around for a bit before disappearing, unless they happen to notice you. In which case, they'll get aggressive until you either kill them or run outside of their aggro range.

Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the daytime generating ones aren't such a big deal, then. 

[LadyWYT]

13 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Oh, that's interesting. Maybe the daytime generating ones aren't such a big deal, then. 

Possibly, but they can still getcha if you aren't paying attention, especially if you're unarmored at the time. Not that players need to start wearing armor 24/7, but it does mean more vigilance will be required on days with high rift activity. Plus it's more incentive to build rift wards, rather than rely on lanterns.

[Broccoli Clock]

On 9/21/2025 at 2:50 AM, Kalzamar said:

there is no answer to them early game

Height and speed, you can outrun every mob, and the only way they can climb is if you provide them a route to do so (stairs, ladders, or terrain).
I appreciate that, in the early game, the mobs can seem unsurmountable at first but after a while you'll find that not to be the case. 

If that is still not suitable then I really suggest you play either Creative or Homo Sapien mode, both of which are chosen as you create your world for the first time. Creative is, as you'd expect, but Homo Sapien removes all lore and temporal storms, I presume it removes the Eldritch monsters too.

The more you play the game, the more you find it's pretty easy to co-exist with the mobs, both the surreal and supernatural as well as more traditional things like bears and wolves. Ultimately you want that to be challenging at the beginning because you will naturally get better at the game, it just feels "rage quit" at the start because you're not used to how VS plays.

 

 

 

Edited October 8, 2025 by Broccoli Clock
..spelling/grammar

[Kaldo]

I know people tend to just respond "skill issue" to this but bowthorns are too accurate and their targeting range is too big. Maybe it's funny but it is not fun to open the door for 2 seconds, close it and immediately hear 3 thunks from sniper bowthorns from a bush 30 blocks away suppressing me with their sniper fire. Trying to run up to one gets you shot even if you try to zig zag, and then in addition to all that they spread out and run away, making it even more annoying to chase them down - even worse when done in caves.

When you do run up to them they can do quick badly-telegraphed close range attacks too. I've had stronger variants spawn in surface and they also had a ton of HP making them pretty tough to deal with when it's more than one.

I love challenge and combat in games like these, I love getting good at it and mastering the system, but you know... not like this lol, this ain't it imho. I think we need better enemy attack telegraphs to start off, and that includes ranged attacks from basically invisible positions too.

[Broccoli Clock]

5 hours ago, Kaldo said:

I know people tend to just respond "skill issue" to this but bowthorns are too accurate and their targeting range is too big.

Bowtorns are nobody's favourite*, but once you learn their cues they are much easier to deal with. They will always make a noise about a second before firing, giving you a enough time to skip behind cover (could be a tree, hell could just be two placed bits of dirt). There is a cooldown between their "throws", so they can't rapid fire you either. 

What I would say is that without armour, even the basic wood armour, bowtorns do take a fair chunk off your health with each hit. I wear linen and the damage negation is very noticeable. Linen is possibly too much of a stretch early game, but the basic stuff is easy to craft with resources all around you. I'll leave this link here: https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Armor

The bowtorns are pretty weak close range. They have their spear range weapon and a sort of "tongue lash" that is close,  close in on them and they will turn and run and won't use its ranged attack. They are also pretty weak physically, weaker than basic drifters. Taking less hits to down.

Trust me, I do feel your pain, in 1.20 they were worse; spawning more, hitting harder and more frequently, and I know that people saying "well, it used to be worse" is no comfort for your death. Bowtorns can't be completely neutralised (other than turning them off) but can be significantly mitigated.

(* .. heh, I'm sure there's some that like them!)

 

 

Edited to add: This is all in context of surface drifters, the ones you'd find wandering about a forest in the daytime. The ones that turn up during the temporal storms or deep underground can be considerably tougher.

Edited October 8, 2025 by Broccoli Clock

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, Kaldo said:

I know people tend to just respond "skill issue" to this but bowthorns are too accurate and their targeting range is too big.

 

5 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Bowtorns are nobody's favourite*, but once you learn their cues they are much easier to deal with. They will always make a noise about a second before firing, giving you a enough time to skip behind cover (could be a tree, hell could just be two placed bits of dirt). There is a cooldown between their "throws", so they can't rapid fire you either. 

The thing about bowtorns as well is that they aren't smart enough to check and make sure they have a clear line of fire; they only care if they can "see" the player. I've seen one sit in a two block deep hole and happily keep firing away at me, despite the fact that every single shot was going right into the dirt in front of its face. The other thing I've noticed is while they do have a somewhat fast fire rate, it's still slow compared to the player's fire rate/reaction time, and the bowtorn have a loud initial warning screech and fairly long windup before they really get going with their shots.

In any case, while they are fairly effective turrets, they're also pretty easy to counter simply by equipping a shield, getting close enough to make them flee, or otherwise ducking behind cover/stepping out of the way of incoming fire(this is easier to do at range than up close). One bowtorn by itself isn't a problem unless you allow it to be one; it's when you start getting more than one and/or mixing them with the other monsters that things can get very dangerous(which is also part of the survival challenge).

[Echo Weaver]

33 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The thing about bowtorns as well is that they aren't smart enough to check and make sure they have a clear line of fire; they only care if they can "see" the player. I've seen one sit in a two block deep hole and happily keep firing away at me, despite the fact that every single shot was going right into the dirt in front of its face.

Heh. Yeah, my first extended interaction with a bowtorn was when one turned up at my base. I slept and came out in the morning and didn't see it, so I went about my business, but I kept hearing this weird sound. It turned out the bowtorn had gotten itself stuck in my half-finished auxiliary barn and had just covered the interior walls with arrows.