What is, in your opinion, the least utilized mechanic in the game? And your most favorite?

[Vratislav]

1 hour ago, Echo Weaver said:

Yeah, actually, I probably voted wrong. I love to trade IN THEORY. In practice, I can really only trade with the 2-3 closest traders to my base. If it takes me a day to get to the trader, and they don't have the trade I want, I just wasted my day. 

I think that trading effectively and successfully requires finding the best possible routine and practically to establish "trade route," depending on which traders occur around one thousand blocks around the base. Well established route means that you know what to make for selling and you may be quite sure that you sell the most od your load (and that you meet also the traders you want to buy from them). Also, well established route may mean that some parts of the route needs to be improved to make the errand fast, like making a path through a forest, or establish beacons for better orientation. 

My actual trading trip consists of several agriculture traders, some survival goods, clothiers and building material traders, about 8-10 in total. It takes 2 days on Elk and I already know the route so well that I can take the middle part during the night. I almost never take finished products to sell. I take universal ingredients and make required products on the spot. Because I visit only four kinds of traders repeatedly, I can focus on selected bronze tools (I am lazy to smith for trading, so I do casting of hoes, axes, shovels and picaxes for this purpose). I just make several tin-bronze and bismuth bronze variants od them, and I do not build the tools, as the casted parts are stackable. I make the finished tool at the moment the trader is offering to buy it. Then I take as much leather and threads I can, and also some blue and brown cloth. This allows me to make many finished products (bags, clothing, boots, etc.) just on the traders' spots. I was trying to take also black leather, but the amount of finished things is not as big to be effective.

The second technique is just to load particular cheap things like linen sacks, beehives and store them (or their ingredients) directly in the traders' chests. Then the deal is done later, when the trader makes his offer. Similarly, I take soybeans when I have the harvest, and do the round among Agriculture traders, storing the soybeans in their chests till the moment the particular trader would be interested in it. 

I do not bother with bread and other quickly perishable items, as they cannot be stored this way, and if the shopping is unsuccessful, they lose too big part of durability during the trip. 

Exceptionally, if there is need for quick money, I may make scythes, saws or other smithed tools that are significantly better deal. Also lanterns are good deal to make.

Edited September 30, 2025 by Vratislav

[Kaldo]

To be honest in my ~70 hours of VS i've never tamed a single animal yet. The few I find I have trouble enough just killing for skins and fat in the first year, less alone somehow capturing and taming them? Reading that you have to keep them for many multiple generations is even more daunting tbh

I'm slowly going into winter in my current game and if it manages to keep my interest until spring, I'm hoping I get to around finally doing it then, so while I'm excited about the idea - I'd have to also say that I have utilized it 0% so far lol

[Forks]

If this poll had an option for Fruit Trees I'm sure that would've won by a landslide.

Overall though I think it's time for the team to focus in on all the half-baked features.
Like I really love the idea of growing Fruit Trees and producing my own alcohol, but the wait is egregious and the reward is just not worth it.
The most I ever bother with is turning berries into wine for long term storage.

Imo I want the game to reward us more for going out of our way to treat our Seraph well, eating a variety of good foods? The health boost is nice, but what about sanity draining slower, recovering quicker, and health regenerating faster. 
Drinking wine or spirits? Give a chunk of Sanity back, if I want to mine in the spooky depths let me drink away my fears.
Full bar of Protein? Nice gains bro, extra melee damage.
Full bar of dairy? Strong bones, less fall damage.

I could go on and on, but there's so much more than just the food side of things.

[Vratislav]

51 minutes ago, Kaldo said:

less alone somehow capturing and taming them?

Capturing animals can seem difficult but it is not as much. Also it needs to be done only once per animal kind (if you are lucky).

For chicken and hare, basket traps work well, you just put them nearby animals. If lazy, you may dig a 2 deep hole and put the trap inside. Then you carry the trap with animals into prepared pen and feed them from small trough, that's all for taming them. Especially chicken are good starter, because eggs are sustainable source of the protein and feathers are useful for arrows or good to be sold. The only peculiarity is that two cocks cannot stand each other and fight to death. But the generation is determined by chick, so it does not matter which generation survives the fight. 

For pigs and goats, there is actually new kind of trap in 1.21 version I haven't tried yet. You may catch young animals there and feed them from trough till adult. Before 1.21 it was much more difficult as these animals had to be chased to desired location (or the player had to be chased by angry animal trying to attack him  ). I suppose now it is much easier.

When animals are in the pen, everything is about regular feeding, just keep troughs full. You may build some sophisticated pens to separate next generation from the old one, but I did never bother. It was easier to kill old generation animals before the new one grew into adults. From third generation, butchering is one-hit action, later the animals are calmer, goats are easier to milk and so on. 

[ifoz]

I put down alcohol brewing as it's just a mechanic I've never really messed with more than one or two times.
I love that it exists, but it isn't something I would really willingly go and tinker with all the time.

For most used I put "mining decorative blocks" and "foraging".
I'm an avid builder, so I interpreted "mining decorative blocks" as a catch-all for building. If it just means picking up clutter in ruins, that is usually not something I do unless the clutter is of the rarer sort and handy for decoration. Locust parts especially look good in workshops and studies, but I don't really need more rotten beds or chairs. You can texture flip a lot of clutter in creative mode which makes it all fantastic for building, but sadly it's all rotten or charred in survival.

I put foraging as exploration wasn't listed, and foraging is close enough. 

Edited September 30, 2025 by ifoz

[Echo Weaver]

So one thing I'm taking away from this poll is that the results are REALLY distributed. Almost everything was selected as a favorite feature by at least one person, and more than half of the options also has a least-used vote.

Nobody's favorite is panning. No surprise! It's not the most fun, but I'm glad it's there as a fallback for resource frustration. Trading is getting a revap sometime soon. Alcohol brewing feels like it's not done. (I love the idea of wine and spirits having some additional effect beyond nutrition.)

But overall, the survival mechanics are broadly appealing.

This survey was JUST survival mechanics, though, I assume intentionally? I love finding and exploring ruins. Sometimes I build out the more detailed above-ground ones into the buildings they might have been. The subterranean rooms have a story to tell. And I keep on panning bony soil and collecting bones because I want more lore books.

[Sparticus247]

Across 4 worlds each being about 200 hours each, I don't really do animal husbandry. I 100% get the benefit and appeal...but I like to wander a bit too much I think. As long as I have grain, salted meat, and veggies I'm happy. Things that last a long time while I bring my cooking pot and oven with me.

[ifoz]

I think it could be fun to see a survey of ingame tasks people enjoy the most, and what they would most like to see expanded.
Building, exploring, doing all the story locations, blacksmithing, mechanical power, ruin hunting, farming/homesteading.

Personally I hope weaving is expanded soon as it is the system I feel has the most potential but is also the most lacklustre in current implementation. Luckily, it's on the roadmap! 

[Calecute]

On 9/30/2025 at 3:09 PM, Echo Weaver said:

Yeah, actually, I probably voted wrong. I love to trade IN THEORY. In practice, I can really only trade with the 2-3 closest traders to my base. If it takes me a day to get to the trader, and they don't have the trade I want, I just wasted my day. 

 

Yeah I probably got a little lucky having 2 commodity traders and a treasure hunter near my base. But I usually do a trade run with lots of itens that are possible to sell and hit multiple traders, so one specifically not having something I want to buy the trip is not a complete waste. Not sure i'd do it if not for the commodity traders and their sweet sweet resin, but the other traders i hit sometimes have something i'm interested in. 

[Echo Weaver]

17 hours ago, ifoz said:

Personally I hope weaving is expanded soon as it is the system I feel has the most potential but is also the most lacklustre in current implementation. Luckily, it's on the roadmap! 

Weaving? Do we have a weaving system?

[ifoz]

4 hours ago, Echo Weaver said:

Weaving? Do we have a weaving system?

Yeah, it's called putting cloth in the crafting grid. 
I hope once we get better/actual weaving, tailor might stop feeling like a living crafting station.

[HomoSentiens2030]

Is this to avoid saying "most overutilized"? I am confused, by the subtle phrasing somewhat...

 

I went for the organizing storage one as my least favouritest, and the ore exploring as the best one!

Edited October 2, 2025 by HomoSentiens2030

[Echo Weaver]

2 hours ago, HomoSentiens2030 said:

Is this to avoid saying "most overutilized"? I am confused, by the subtle phrasing somewhat...

Yeah, yeah, it seems like we're talking about "least used" or "least useful." 

[Thorfinn]

I don't think I've ever made cheese. But it's a great reason to settle near the right trader. Decorative blocks is rare. Generally only if I want to a highlights wall, made with blocks like malachite and lapis and cinnabar and anything else pretty enough to want to look at.

[Dilan Rona]

Made cheese. Not difficult (with the exception of blue cheese. never could make that variation).

[Maelstrom]

Never brewed and won't bother with distilling.  Too much trouble for a food I won't utilize and the bandages dry out making them unusable for my purposes.

Love prospecting, mining and forging items though.  And to maximize helve hammers and assundry other mechanical devices tons upon tons of flax are needed so I enjoy the farming almost as much.  Since steel is in the mix crapton upon crapton of charcoal is needed which means tree farming.

[Lollard]

I have never made cheese either, though I would love to. Getting a male and a female milk animal in a pen is an impossible task for me. They're rare and I have the worst luck imaginable. I ran far and wide for dozens of hours, found around 6 sheep (all male), found around 14 goats (all male except one adult female, who died to a wolf while I chased it home). I checked the spots where they spawned periodically but there were never any new spawns. Impossible not to give up after this. The game would rather just spawn grizzly bears on me.

[Echo Weaver]

12 minutes ago, Lollard said:

I have never made cheese either, though I would love to. Getting a male and a female milk animal in a pen is an impossible task for me. They're rare and I have the worst luck imaginable. I ran far and wide for dozens of hours, found around 6 sheep (all male), found around 14 goats (all male except one adult female, who died to a wolf while I chased it home). I checked the spots where they spawned periodically but there were never any new spawns. Impossible not to give up after this. The game would rather just spawn grizzly bears on me.

Wow, that sounds nuts. Sheep should frequently spawn with both male and female and maybe a baby. And they're all male, not like a pair generated and wandered away from each other. 

Are you playing with any mods? Could something be messing with animal spawns?

[Lollard]

6 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Wow, that sounds nuts. Sheep should frequently spawn with both male and female and maybe a baby. And they're all male, not like a pair generated and wandered away from each other. 

Are you playing with any mods? Could something be messing with animal spawns?

Vanilla and default everything.

[Echo Weaver]

4 minutes ago, Lollard said:

Vanilla and default everything.

I suppose it could be terrible luck, but that's REALLY bad luck.

[Sparticus247]

On 9/30/2025 at 5:19 PM, Forks said:

If this poll had an option for Fruit Trees I'm sure that would've won by a landslide

Ok maybe I'm weird but I LOVE finding and planting fruit trees. Pears and Pink Apples for EVERYONE! 20 trees for by year 3!

That and I love bees. I'll fill a whole flatland area with skeps.

Set and forget so I can go explore the world more, and bring back my goodies, such as every cattail root that exists in the to feed my problem.

[Michaloid]

Not exactly a mechanic, but i think that the most underwhelming part of VS Is creature sound design. Not environmental, maybe a bit, but moreso creature. 
1. There's no footstep sounds for animals/monsters
2. Animals barely make any noise, unless they're already attacking you
3. Even when attacking you, since they don't have footstep sounds, it sounds like they don't have any weight behind their body or attacks. Bears don't sound heavy, and wolves although a bit better because of their growls, still sound weightless.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

34 minutes ago, Michaloid said:

Not exactly a mechanic, but i think that the most underwhelming part of VS Is creature sound design. Not environmental, maybe a bit, but moreso creature. 
1. There's no footstep sounds for animals/monsters
2. Animals barely make any noise, unless they're already attacking you
3. Even when attacking you, since they don't have footstep sounds, it sounds like they don't have any weight behind their body or attacks. Bears don't sound heavy, and wolves although a bit better because of their growls, still sound weightless.

1. Yes

2. Yes!

3. Disagree about the wolves, but bears, yes.

[Broccoli Clock]

There's some great ideas in this thread, heh.. also some not so great.. , but my comment is about an option not listed in the OP - the temporal storm and portals.

The storms happen regularly and seem to fall into one of 2 categories.

Early game, you just hide in a hole, with a torch. You don't have the armour or weapons to deal with it.
Mid/Late game, you now hide in your fancy chiselled house, with lanterns giving you that light and although you are now equipped to 'have a go', nothing spawns near due to light level.

I'm not sure what we could do with the storms, but they are ever present and at the moment they seem more a passing annoyance. Creatures can't break down doors, and if there is light and a smallish room you are safe. Sure you could try going out there and farming some but their AI doesn't really suit that (imo).

I know that quite a lot of people turn the storms off. Demonstrating, in terms of risk/reward, it's not worth the gamble for them, and that seems a shame, I think that an "improved storm" or a "reason to engage with the storm" would possibly change that.

Perhaps amend the AI to be more aggressive, perhaps allow them to either open or break down doors, or perhaps provide specific loot (jonas parts?) that is exclusive to mobs spawned during the storm.

As for the portals, I quite like them, but they are pretty benign, you don't know when or if things will spawn from them. I have added them into this as I think there is something that can be done to make them more engaging, but I have to say I'm not sure what in particular.

 

If we are talking "underutilised mechanics", then the storms and portals have to be in there, as they are a constant throughout any playthrough and have so much possibility, yet at present some people will turn them off because there is "no need" for them.

 

 

Edited to add: In 1.21,I spotted a Rift Activity of Apocalyptic. Never seen that before, not sure if it's new or not. It did seem "quite busy" with the portals.

Edited October 3, 2025 by Broccoli Clock

[Teh Pizza Lady]

6 hours ago, Broccoli Clock said:

The storms happen regularly and seem to fall into one of 2 categories.

Early game, you just hide in a hole, with a torch. You don't have the armour or weapons to deal with it.
Mid/Late game, you now hide in your fancy chiselled house, with lanterns giving you that light and although you are now equipped to 'have a go', nothing spawns near due to light level.

I'm not sure what we could do with the storms, but they are ever present and at the moment they seem more a passing annoyance. Creatures can't break down doors, and if there is light and a smallish room you are safe. Sure you could try going out there and farming some but their AI doesn't really suit that (imo).

I know that quite a lot of people turn the storms off. Demonstrating, in terms of risk/reward, it's not worth the gamble for them, and that seems a shame, I think that an "improved storm" or a "reason to engage with the storm" would possibly change that.

I think you are close to realizing that the storms are supposed to be terrifying and that the player is actually discouraged from trying to battle it out because of how terrifying they're supposed to be. For some, they are. For others, they're merely an inconvenience. You missed the 3rd category.

Mid/Late game, you stare into the face of Dave and dare him to invade your lands, sword and shield in your hands, ready to cut down any drifter, shiver, or bowtorn that would stand in your way.