Vintage Story: Feature Wishlist 2020

[MaryBo1968]

Oh yes, I like to have a grindstone to have a sword witout this fringe ( Fransen ).

Maybe the grindstone is a tool to repair and sharpen axe, knife and other tools

so they get back some durability and can used longer bevor they get broken.

And the sword  gets a bigger attack strength.

Maybe you can use 2 or 3 times the grindstone with the sword and other tools

bevor they get broken.

There could be two types of grindstones a little one (maybe could find in the world )  to use per hand for knifes  and Scythe

and a bigger one as a tool which you have to craft for sword, saw and the other tools

[Sparkle Kitti]

On 3/28/2020 at 2:32 PM, MaryBo1968 said:

There could be two types of grindstones a little one (maybe could find in the world )  to use per hand for knifes  and Scythe

and a bigger one as a tool which you have to craft for sword, saw and the other tools

  I'd prefer that the small one works on all sharpenable tools just with a lesser effect or a shorter duration, making you need to use it on a regular basis.  

[MaryBo1968]

1 hour ago, Sparkle Kitti said:

  I'd prefer that the small one works on all sharpenable tools just with a lesser effect or a shorter duration, making you need to use it on a regular basis.  

Yes, that's a good idea

[Palankar]

In fact, I don't think it's a good idea to leave such important decisions to the community. However, the game is not at its most stable stage and there are things that are clearly more important than all other innovations, if we talk about playability (I hope I used the right word). But here the author is free to decide what to do, of course. Well, I'll explain my choice:

Better combat

1. It can also be the second part, here more affected NOT an objective opinion, but my subjective. I chose to improve the combat system, because I believe that all the adrenaline challenge that you can get from this kind of games is based on it. This is very important. A well-developed combat system not only gives a completely different experience from the gameplay, but also allows you to create such opponents and situations that with the current "spam-click-to-hit" mechanics would be simply impossible. For example, interesting boss battles added with mods, or introduced to the game with future updates (who knows), when you have to adjust to changing battle conditions and think quickly, and not just move back or cut circles around the enemy, mechanically clicking the mouse button.

In general, I'm talking about more active and interesting battle mechanics. With a large number of battle options, a greater dependence on the player's personal abilities, a large number of variations of mob attacks (fast, with preparation, long-range, on the area, imposing temporary effects), a battle mechanic (dodging attacks, blocks, etc.), perhaps the introduction of more hitboxes on the model with different degrees of damage, and so on.

Make it easier for new players

2. Objectively, for the game itself at the stage at which it is currently, this point is much more important. Here I will try to explain my position in the most understandable way.

It is worth taking into account that all people have completely different gaming experiences. And if on average people who are still paying attention to Vintage Story, it is similar at least in that they have some experience with sandbox games with elements of survival (let's be honest, I think that most of the community has dealt with Minecraft), then the mechanics of TFC are not even familiar to everyone, even many. And this is the biggest mistake of the introduction to the game, I think. Even for me, who have a lot of experience with TFC, not all aspects of the game were immediately clear. I had to go to the Wiki sometimes. But I personally think that if you need to search for information in third-party sources to play the game, then the game does not present itself well. I apologize in advance if I went too far in my statements, this is not on purpose.

And what about the players who have such a minimal gaming experience? They simply will not understand what to do, and many simply will not be able to get the experience from the game that the author may think of. This is the main problem.

How to solve it? To be honest, the TFC mod, which is so clearly focused on the game, is extremely bad in terms of introduction to the game. But it's still just a mod. It already implies that the player knows the game very well and wants to get a new experience. It is designed for an experienced player. And here is a separate game and the experience of a novice should be considered, of course, almost zero.

From what I've seen the best introduction to the game does Thaumcraft mod with his Thaumonomicon. This is just the perfect way to introduce the player to the game, show the main aspects, and most importantly, make it interesting and exciting in a way. This is how many survival games work. Green Hell and the Forest with their books are a clear example of this. Even in Minecraft, there is an achievement system (you didn't think it was there without a goal?). This is a good, thoughtful mechanics of introducing a person to the world, much better and more interesting than dry encyclopedias (I don't know if there is such a figure of speech in English). Just following the records and developing, discovering new peaks, is already a cool gaming experience that brings pleasure.

My suggestion is that the game requires something similar. A reference guide that will present information gradually, where new parts will be opened sequentially. This will introduce the appearance of progression while the player just survives and plays. This will not overload the novice with a ton of information at once, but will give as much as he can understand. This will give the player a goal-to learn everything. I think that with this approach, you can count on the fact that most of the people who came to the game will understand it, explore it and be able to advise others. As for me, this is extremely important for the growth and development of the game as a whole.

And that is why I believe that it was not necessary to give the decision of this issue to the community, since many of those who are here on the forum have already passed this stage, or have enough experience to ignore the problem, and therefore are not able to understand the weight of this point.

P.S. I Apologize for possible errors in the text. English is not my native language, and I don't have much experience in it yet. So it's a little difficult for me to formulate my thoughts as clearly and colorfully as in my native language.

P.P.S. And thank you very much for the incredible work on the game. This is really a great job)

Edited May 20, 2020 by Palankar

[Trankvill live]

Good afternoon! I want to thank the developers for this masterpiece. To support the project, I bought two licenses: me and my wife. In this game, I like the number of little things in everything that is blacksmithing. I would like to see more enemies, maybe a few bosses with a rare drop.

I also love animal husbandry and farming in games. I would like to see fishing.

Edited May 2, 2020 by Trankvill live

[HuskyTemple]

My first vote is definitely for transportation of the animal kind.  Minecarts and such are great but i feel like a animal would be much better. I am a huge horse fan and none of the games I have seen have cool horses. Minecraft horses are just so lame. You get on and off a couple of times and viola their tamed. Its just not fun. But horses with a actual taming process would be absolutely amazing.

I would absolutely love horses in the game. If you were to add them the should have herd mechanics. Like a stallion and a couple mares in a herd. The stallion would protect the mares from predators and lead them to the best grazing spots.  To get to the mares you would have to trap/distract the stallion.  You could also tame or break the stallion but it would be a lot harder. In order to break or train a horse you would have to start with getting them used to you, such as feeding high value treats, and just being around them. Once they get used to you, you can try lunging them in circles in a round pen.  Then you could put a saddle pad and bridle on after a bit of lunging. You could then lung them with the tack on and eventually add the saddle. After they get used to that you could try riding them in the pen. If you have done all the previous steps right then it shouldn't buck you off. It could still just be a cranky horse and buck you off anyway. After a while of riding without being bucked of you could ride them around your world. I would also love to be able to breed the horses to get better stats like speed, stamina, and jump height. 

Edited May 7, 2020 by HuskyTemple

[EMSpara]

I honestly think you would get more players to stay if it were easier for them to get into the game. I see how the voting results are so far but please keep in mind the voting for the most part is from players who have played awhile and are now past the try to survive stage, not from new players. Maybe as part of them purchasing the game, ask them after their first 2-3 sessions to rate the game with how for they progressed, how they feel about it atm, etc. That might get you a better feel for how important keeping those new players is. I have seen numerous times on multiplayer one or more new players pop in, play for a little bit and then just leave and never see that player again. Just my two cents.

[gawasharks]

nice

[Dopelganz]

I just came across this vote and after reading it I realized that I can't choose. Everything on this list I would like to see in the game. Of course, I understand why voting is necessary, so that it is easier to organize development. But I really hope that the other ideas will not be forgotten and will appear in the game sooner or later.

[Stroam]

There's always more to do than can be done. These polls come out when Tyron is being pulled in more directions than he can possibly pull off in a reasonable amount of time and so wants community feed back on what the most immediate concerns are.

[Shion]

I'd say improve in-game controls first:

• toggleable sneak and mouse release;
• rebindable mouse release key;
• allow mouse scroll when mouse pointer is over GUI window (it is blocked now in 1.12.14);
• shift+click on items with storage and firepit open should prioritise moving to storage container when not adding more of the same items to cook or fuel slots. Also this UI and shortcut related bug;
• some actions can be done by right click with no regard of what is being held in hand right now. So once the action completes - the item is instantly used right after. Some kind of pause after such actions is in order;

Storage and transport system suggestions:

• 6x6 slot pushable carts, maybe 8x8 for horses?
• there must be only one backpack slot (actually 2 is also plausible, if you're ok with wearing 2nd one on your front);
• any backpack type of item should be placeable in the world and act as storage container that you can carry and put on with sneak+use (like in carry capacity mod);
• while inventory is open, the backpack should become selected, so no interactions with the world is possible during that;
• going down from 4 to 1 (or two) backpack slot calls for adjustments in number of slots they give and crafting recepies;
• this would require for beehives to become normally carriable items though (maybe use left hand for that?), don't know what to do with miner's sack though.

World Map asks for few little improvements too:

• dropdown list for colors;
• more icons for plants, animals, caves and mineable stuff (from periodic table of elements maybe?);
• more visually distinctive style for icons, as they really like to blend in with the map. A thicker outline and bigger icon size should suffice;
• pinned icons tend to pack in corners. Daresso in discord described how to "fix" that;

Items durability upgrade (using approximate numbers here):

• add term "Sharpness" and drain it instead of durability for tools and weapons;
• once sharpness goes down to zero - tool becomes dull and almost useless (x10 use time), or use some kind of formula based on sharpness;
• sharpening a dull tool or weapon would exchange % of durability to sharpness in proportions of 1/10 leaving at least 1 durability point so
• tools with sharpness less than 5-25% drain durability on use, what would eventually break the tool;
• dull weapons would change damage type from piercing to blunt, or have it proportional (ex.: sharpness at 80% means damage is 80% piercing and 20% blunt, that is also decreased by durability value);
• bows and other shooting weapons are of course an exception to all this XD But they can have a "Condition" parameter, that would act similar to what I've described.

World generation concerning landslides and avalanches (they are so freakin awesome!):

• falling blocks should crush leaves and plants under them;
• falling block sometimes keep shaking in one place without settling;
• major lags and memory consumption spikes happen while landslides are in progress;
• AVALANCHES! Full snow blocks generated inwinter, should have the same logic as sand and soil, also should have a speed decrease debuff when walking over them;
• during rain, soil should have higher chances of "taking off".

Make snow and soil as dangerous as they should be!

• non-full blocks should have a parameter of "being under", like water: so plants won't be able to stop the flow; snow: level 1-8, and when over 4 the snow must be dug out first to interact with the block; and maybe even soil: so you'd have to dig stuff up first before interacting with it, making search for treasures and post avalanche/landslide works a little bit harder;

New blocks for construction works:

• scaffolding block, to replace hay stacks while mining/building;
• wooden and stone "retaining walls" block: would prevent the landslide/avalance and accidents during mining (saw them in other games, but they were purely decorative, but here thay will have meaning).

Writing with ink mechanics:

• grind pigment material;
• mix it with water in a barrel;
• use bowl/bucket to take out some and place in the world;
• use feather on a vessel with ink to set "this feather can write once" flag and use it when writing stuff, without wasting the feather.

Most of those require major reworking, so I don't have much hope here..

But one thing you can do without much problem and I'd prefer you chose that as top priority: fix bugs, polish what you've got and improve modding tools. That way you'd get an actually stable releases while modders improve the game even more or add new features (like with carrying capacity mod).

Edited August 24, 2020 by Shion

[Jorrit Tyberghein]

I'm really looking forward to all features that make exploring more fun. That includes more varied ruins, villages, special biomes, ... I'm also looking forward to new crafting mechanics like alchemy, brewing, ...

[wesley Bruce]

Its a bit boring to be just talking about transport mechanics as just Boats, Minecarts and/or Horses. I can see how to do a wagon and steampunk cars, canals and canal barges. etc. Ideally 2 x 2 block vehicles with a component & fuel progression. It would require one that automatically breaks dirt with no drop and fills shallow holes below creating a road. Less minecraft more like steve's carts but simplified and with lots of steam punk brass. 

Edited September 25, 2020 by wesley Bruce

[Gladi]

Precision placement.

[Danston Phoenix]

what i wouldn't mind is a way to mine Rock instead of having to clear all 6 sides.

Say craft a pickaxe with cloth to soften the blows from the pickaxe that makes it not break it apart into stones

[Zaurkahn]

Honestly, I would appreciate some more QOL additions that many of the mods add as standard.  More variation of furniture, more crops and fruit trees, greater animal husbandry, dyes to create colored cloth or paintings/blocks, and transport options are high on my list as well.  If the thrust of the game is to create a primitive, bronze age type of survival experience then we should be able to embrace it and level up to Mesopotamian, Aztec or even Roman level of technology and agriculture.

With the Medieval Expansion mod, we can build drawbridges and portculli - which are excellent to have - but could we also have as standard more advanced shapes or blocks with functions for building?  The Primitive Survival mod is very good for the early game and offers new mechanics that the game desperately needs - fishing and trapping, and the ability to make jerky and eat the meat without fire (something our ancestors definitely did and we still do to this day with sashimi and tartar).

One thing I would appreciate even more is a deeper and richer experience with lore and the Other Worldly themes of the ruins/drifters/locusts/temporal storms.  The Temporal Storms are essentially a time waster at present, although the mechanic of Temporal Instability leading to damage or emergence of enemy mobs is an excellent limiting device for players traipsing underground.  In the dungeon/cavern environment, I would appreciate more variety in enemy mobs requiring different strategies for survival against (i.e, fighting with different weapon vulnerabilities, running away, silent sneaking, or breaking the monsters morale )

And just so that my critiques and requests don't come across as all negatives, I LOVE the Seasons.  It was one of my most desired additions to the Other Blocky Game and for a while in the beta level I used a mod to simulate the seasons, but that mod stopped being supported (and of course the Other Blocky Game never instituted the promised seasons).   The seasons in VS slowly morph the landscape and temperature, the color palette gradually goes from greens to browns to grey and white of deep winter and back to greens as the temperatures rise and the daylight time increases.  That is PHENOMENAL to me in this type of game!

I realize that this is quite a wish list, and that it is all dependent on the time consuming work and coding abilities of the Dev team and their roadmap for VS.  After first seeing the game on YouTube and watching the various play-throughs and tutorials and then spending hours just playing I have become a very strong supporter of this project.  VS is truly the spiritual successor the Other Blocky Game.

 

Edited October 7, 2020 by Thomas Cage

[Arlind]

 

 

How about exhaust gas that you have to channel outside. Even if ovens come later for cooking or to raise the temperature so that the exhaust gases have to be led outside. Otherwise you would suffer damage in closed rooms. It would look nice from the outside, for example in winter

Edited December 20, 2020 by Arlind

[DrEngine]

I'm a little bit late with my opinion (I've started VS in October 20) but better late than never.

I think the game progress depends on three major premises:
A) Remove serious problems or limitations
B) Add principially NEW mechanic/processes that not only add something new but add something principially new (for example add new trees/flowers is fine from the diversity point of view but question is do they add something principially new to make game more interesting and not only more "color" full???)
C) Keep the game balanced at the same time (no overkills, no nerfing)

To point A) Remove serious problems or limitations:
- double click run key is a must; using two keys to run is not ergonomic and it wastes one key that can be used for other function;
- claim inside another claim is a must (lets say we do have city - big claim to protect public city places and we need to have individual claims inside this big one for individual houses of players);
I don't see any major problems now.

My comment to individual features with respect to B/C:

IMPORTANT features:
- Transport mechanics (Boats, Minecarts and/or Horses): YES, it adds new principles (boat = quicker than swimming and keep player dry; horse = quicker transport; but need taming/feeding/breeding)
- More progression ages AND More Mechanical Power Mechanics: YES, I think these two belong together because more progressions means electricity/steam/elevators/conveyor belts/etc... and big challenge to keep game balanced - point B;
- Seasons Part 1: YES, IF it adds something new (crops won't grow during winter - you need build greenhouse, heat it, etc...). 
- (new/my point): some support for groups of players - fully or partially shared map/waypoints and othr features; 

QUESTIONABLE features:
- More craftable content: yes, if it brings something principially new (for example: alcohol makes you drunk - you feel unbalanced but probability to get RG or TG when killing drifter is higher; or herbalism: you can cook some ingeredience from herbs and eating ingredience makes you feel ores below surface... or something like that, only my ideas);
- More Story elements: I think the story elements are only supplement to complete gameplay experience; I'd like to have them improved somehow to bring some benefit to player; for example: I complete some tapestry and revealed story has coordinates of treasure chest with valuable items (different coordinates for every individual player);
- More RPG Elements: it's very questionable imho; will it add something new? NPCs, villagers and quests ? I don't know.... The only interesting feature would be some "experience player" - the more you do some activity the more experience at it you are (you dig quicker, you have bigger probability to get TG, you run quicker); but big challenge to keep game balanced;
- Improved trading system: I think the traders system works ok now; maybe some support for players trading would be fine (e.g. "tradeomat"); absolutly no need for fast travel routes - one of the big miracle of VS is necessity to travel a lot/invest to translocators and find a way through series of traders with interesting offers; if you would add some fast-travel routes whole miracle will be spoiled;
- Improved farming and animal husbandry: does it bring some principially new mechanics ? It would be fine to have more ways to for example produce food but why? We'll have 12 ways to produce food instead of 10 ways. Thats nice but nothing principially new. Does new food bring something new ? E.g. can new food be produced to oil and it burned in some new type of machine ?
- Improved World Gen: I think the world gen is great and I'm still surprised to reveal new and new combinations of rock type, landscape, water lakes, etc etc... when traveling. The diversity of landscape is amazing and fantastic. If you can add some new "layer" of diversity (new rocks types, oceans, dungeons, flowing rivers, ...) and that way avoid more repeating of the same landscape again and again (like in Minecraft) it will be great;

NOT IMPORTANT features at all:
- Better combat: VS isn't PvP game in my opinion; the main accent is survival and cooperative playing;
- Improved auxiliaries: I think purchase, docs, server setup etc work without problem, no need to improve anything;
- Make it easier for new players: why? how can I make strong relationship with the game if it is easy? I definitely didn't feel anyhow uncomfortable when starting play VS; yes, it's complicated, you should do many primitive things and everything is progressing slowly but finally it's a game and this is the reason we play it cos it is difficult and challenging ! If you are not dumb, you can progress from game playing start to steel age in month or two. Thats absolutly ok.
- Improved Graphics fidelity: VS is perfectly playable now with great graphic look (much better than Minecraft for example) and I say it playing on LOW and short visible distance; no need to improve anything IMO;
- Improve the World map: I think the map is very usable now; I dont think the public map is something to have - I feel VS as personal survival game and I don't want other players to see my revealed map parts of the world and where I'm now etc.... it's much more realistic than e.g. Minecraft public map where I can see all other players;

I cant comment on Improved mod support because I dont develop any.

[Streetwind]

Guys, this thread is long outdated. It was created when 1.12 was the newest version. The winning entry (Seasons Part 1) was implemented with 1.13.

For a more current poll concerning future updates, go here: https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/topic/3144-choose-your-favorite-theme-for-v115-gasp/ (although even that one is already done and over, the theme for 1.15 has already been selected)

For suggestions of things other than the options presented in the poll, go here: https://www.vintagestory.at/forums/forum/5-suggestions/

 

Edited December 21, 2020 by Streetwind
Typo

[DrEngine]

8 hours ago, Streetwind said:

Guys, this thread is long outdated. It was created when 1.12 was the newest version. The winning entry (Seasons Part 1) was implemented with 1.13.

 

Yes, I know it's outdated. Thats why I haven't voted. However I think some of the features weren't implemented yet so I can add some ideas....

[Streetwind]

But your ideas and comments are getting lost and buried here. You can be pretty sure that Tyron isn't checking year-old poll threads regularly.

That is why we have the Suggestions forum: so that this kind of thing is all bundled in one place, where it is most visible.

[DrEngine]

6 hours ago, Streetwind said:

But your ideas and comments are getting lost and buried here. You can be pretty sure that Tyron isn't checking year-old poll threads regularly.

That is why we have the Suggestions forum: so that this kind of thing is all bundled in one place, where it is most visible.

Ok, I'll post there then...

[Plum]

Hiya!

A bit late to the party, but...

1st = More RPG The reason is simple: I like to have "people" in the world. Without NPC's, doing NPC stuff in NPC area's...the world feels kinda 'fake'? Hmm...not fake per se, more like it feels somehow... empty and devoid of reason. I'd like to find a Keep/Tower with a couple houses around it with a Blacksmith, Baker, etc that I could interact with. Sometimes they might have quests, from simple "I'm almost out of [item]! If you get me 20 of them, I'll pay you [##] Gears!" to more elaborate things like "My pet Wolf, Wolfie was taken by Deep Striders during the last temporal storm. I shudder to think of what they did to him! If he's alive bring him back, and if not, he had a distinctive collar. Bring me either one and I'll reward you handsomely! There are caves to the NW of here...start looking there, please!".

NPC's and seeing them wander around, not just standing in one place, would really bring it to life and give a player a sense of belonging and stability.

2nd = Improved Mod Support This goes hand in hand with my 1st choice. All those NPC's and quests, and such deserve to be fully "modifiable" by those desiring it. Being able to name my own NPC's on my own server, and give them 'quests' they can give out, or certain personalities, special abilities, looks, items, etc. To be able to more easily do this, some robust and vast tools would be needed; state machine type dialogue creator, reward system, easier model creation...or better yet, import/convert from a 3D format.

 

As a '3rd'... Visuals. Vintage Story is already GORGEOUS...but it could use some more "oomph" in the visuals department. I'm picturing simple glowing objects/creatures (more than what we have). When I first played this game, my first 10 minutes into it I heard a wolf growl. I turned and looked into the forest and I THOUGHT I saw glowing red eyes...! My heart jumped, I thought "COOOOOL!", then discovered it was just my eyes playing tricks with some flowers/mushrooms or something (can't remember). So, yeah...animal eyes that 'glow' when they are near a light source ("reflecting" light), adding glowing paint to an object like a post/sign, glowing 'magic' items, glowing flowers/lichen/moss, etc.

Paul L. Ming