Brown Bears need a speed nerf badly

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

Brown bears and black bears can outrun humans in real life. Why can I easily outrun a black bear in vintage story and increase the gap between us, but not accomplish the same with a brown bear? The player should be able to outrun both of them or neither of them, you shouldn't be able to outrun one yet unable to outrun the other. Every time you encounter a brown bear, it's a terrain roll. You either have good terrain and can escape it alive, or you don't, and can't. He runs fast enough where you pretty much have to have completely flat ground to lose him, or you need many small hills that you can jump up over and over again to increase the gap; But eventually those little hills run out, and you have to go down. Funny part is, when you go downhill, he gains on you QUICK. I got two-shot by a brown bear at the end of this stream because I was running downhill toward a bear-killing trap that I'd built. I was running at 110% speed with no mobility reductions, and yet he caught up to me anyway and killed me instantly. Mind you, my mistake is playing this game permadeath, I get that, but I feel like if brown bears were simply nerfed in speed, then this game would become permadeath viable - that, and, making it so you can prevent spawns of drifters in your base during temporal storms via the light level mechanic. As it stands now, 80% of my deaths are at the hands of brown bears, 15% are at the hands of drifters spawning in my base during temporal storms, and 5% are due to other circumstances like deers, wolves and cave-ins. The game can still be fun without keeping that stupidly overpowered enemy in the form of a brown bear. Brown bears and black bears both equally run at around 35 mph in real life, more than enough to outrun a human. Black bears should be able to outrun me, yet they can't, you know why? Because they're balanced properly. It's a game. In order to be fun, it can't be too realistic. That's how game balance works. Brown bears being that fast is just a really bad decision, or an oversight, both of which cause me to seethe with utter contempt for the developers. I hate these decisions because they basically take what would otherwise be a perfectly balanced permadeath experience full of fulfillment and wonder, and utterly spoil it.  Any port in a storm, we need a port to endure temporal storms. Light level should be that port, the safe haven. Brown bears shouldn't be any more dangerous than black bears, and I know polar bears probably have the same speed as brown bears do. I want to keep playing this game in my livestreams because I have a thousand people tuning in every day to watch it, and I've probably made the devs a lot of cash by encouraging people to buy the game through my adventures. I love the game so much. But honestly I can't cope with the broken nature of brown bears anymore, nor the fact that you can't have a safe base during temporal storms. Mods aren't the answer because mods break, "Weather the Storm" has glitches. A brown bear speed nerf might be possible, but I haven't tried it. It's still highly discouraging. An open message to the devs from a well-meaning but understandably frustrated fan of their game: Please make room in the next update for a brown bear nerf, for the love of God, please, and while you're at it, please make it so light level effects temporal storm spawns too. Fix these problems. 

 

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Teh Pizza Lady]

light level doesn't affect normal surface monster spawns...why would it affect temporal storm spawns?

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

2 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

light level doesn't affect normal surface monster spawns...why would it affect temporal storm spawns?

I want to say you're completely wrong, but I want to say it nicely. Problem is, there's no nice way to tell you that you're completely wrong with that statement. Drifters can only spawn below a light level of 7. It undeniably, irrefutably, verifiably, definitely does prevent spawns normally, just not during temporal storms.

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[HalfAxd]

I don't see them as broken.  They are supposed to be dangerous. 

In game I stay away from forests or dig bear pits before I go in.

I will also burn the forest down to clear line of sight.

It is the predator's world and I learn to adapt. 

Enjoy!

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

I want to say you're completely wrong, but I want to say it nicely. Problem is, there's no nice way to tell you that you're completely wrong with that statement. Drifters can only spawn below a light level of 7. It undeniably, irrefutably, verifiably, definitely does prevent spawns normally, just not during temporal storms.

no

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

7 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

no

Straight from the wiki: 

Drifters can spawn in any empty or tall grass block with a light level 7 or below.

On the surface, only surface drifters can spawn, though they are further limited to only spawning within a 25 block radius of a temporal rift.

Depending on the type of drifter, they are limited to spawning within a certain Y level - the more dangerous drifters tending to spawn much deeper in a world.

Double-headed drifters can only spawn during temporal storms.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

9 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

I don't see them as broken.  They are supposed to be dangerous. 

In game I stay away from forests or dig bear pits before I go in.

I will also burn the forest down to clear line of sight.

It is the predator's world and I learn to adapt. 

Enjoy!

Then black bears should be as fast as brown bears for consistency's sake, I agree

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

I don't see them as broken.  They are supposed to be dangerous. 

In game I stay away from forests or dig bear pits before I go in.

I will also burn the forest down to clear line of sight.

It is the predator's world and I learn to adapt. 

Enjoy!

This.

 

12 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Fix these problems. 

 

17 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Mods aren't the answer because mods break

Serious question...why should the entire game change for everyone in order to suit one individual's preferences(unless the individual in question is Tyron or Saraty)? What are players who find your proposed fixes problems supposed to do? Just install a mod to change it(which you yourself disregarded as a solution to your own problems)?

 

15 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Mind you, my mistake is playing this game permadeath, I get that

Look, I get that you're frustrated. And a good part of that frustration, by your own admission, stems from specific gameplay choices that you yourself made. Permadeath is a hardcore style of gameplay, and not meant to be easy.

 

Just now, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Straight from the wiki: 

Drifters can spawn in any empty or tall grass block with a light level 7 or below.

On the surface, only surface drifters can spawn, though they are further limited to only spawning within a 25 block radius of a temporal rift.

Depending on the type of drifter, they are limited to spawning within a certain Y level - the more dangerous drifters tending to spawn much deeper in a world.

Double-headed drifters can only spawn during temporal storms.

Right, and temporal rifts can and will spawn monsters(drifters included) during the daytime, if there is rift activity. I've seen it happen, Tyron himself confirmed it was an intentional change.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

I'm only saying this as someone who wants the game to succeed: There's a massive audience of potential players who want a balanced permadeath experience from this game, and I've made it look appealing to a lot of people during my streams. But they've also seen how broken it is when brown bears trivialize an entire 30 hour playthrough, or how dumb it is when a high level drifter spawns into your base during a temporal storm and one-shots you despite the full suit of bear armor you're currently wearing, just because you forgot to put a single piece of dry grass on the floor. These are potential customers being turned away from the game because of bad decisions regarding the game's balance. It doesn't have to change, this is just advice, in the end it's the game's financial bottom line and if the devs don't want to cater to permadeath audiences, then fine, good, do your thing. But again, as someone who loves the game and wants it to be permadeath viable, these are the changes which objectively would have to be made in order to facilitate that. It's honestly the final word on the matter. Nobody understands a game's level of balance better than those who play permadeath, it's just the way it is. There are people who can beat dark souls without getting hit through pure muscle memory, but there's nobody who can reliably kill or outrun a brown bear through muscle memory. It's all just terrain RNG when a brown bear rolls up on you, and it shouldn't be that way. Nor should drifters who can one-shot you be spawning in your base - period. It should be light-level dependent, all threats need a viable counter in order for a game to be well-balanced. 

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

12 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

This.

 

 

Serious question...why should the entire game change for everyone in order to suit one individual's preferences(unless the individual in question is Tyron or Saraty)? What are players who find your proposed fixes problems supposed to do? Just install a mod to change it(which you yourself disregarded as a solution to your own problems)?

 

Look, I get that you're frustrated. And a good part of that frustration, by your own admission, stems from specific gameplay choices that you yourself made. Permadeath is a hardcore style of gameplay, and not meant to be easy.

 

Right, and temporal rifts can and will spawn monsters(drifters included) during the daytime, if there is rift activity. I've seen it happen, Tyron himself confirmed it was an intentional change.

There's a big difference between a regular drifter spawning outside your base during the daytime, and a two-headed drifter spawning inside your base during a temporal storm and killing you in one hit despite the full suit of bear armor you're wearing. The point you're making is a false equivalency. The two situations are not the same.

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[LadyWYT]

3 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

But again, as someone who loves the game and wants it to be permadeath viable

It already is; it just takes a much higher skill level than standard gameplay. @Thorfinn seems to manage it well enough, and could share a lot of insight on what it takes.

 

4 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Nobody understands a game's level of balance better than those who play permadeath, it's just the way it is.

Except permadeath isn't the intended gameplay style of Vintage Story. It's an option the player can pick, yes, but Standard difficulty is explicitly stated as the developer's vision.

I would also say that the game's own creator probably has the best understanding of anyone how the game should be balanced in order to achieve intended results.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

16 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Straight from the wiki: 

Drifters can spawn in any empty or tall grass block with a light level 7 or below.

On the surface, only surface drifters can spawn, though they are further limited to only spawning within a 25 block radius of a temporal rift.

Depending on the type of drifter, they are limited to spawning within a certain Y level - the more dangerous drifters tending to spawn much deeper in a world.

Double-headed drifters can only spawn during temporal storms.

Thanks for pointing that out. I'll submit to the wiki team to edit that page to better reflect the actual way the game is intended to work per Tyron's (lead developer) post from September.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

9 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It already is; it just takes a much higher skill level than standard gameplay. @Thorfinn seems to manage it well enough, and could share a lot of insight on what it takes.

 

Except permadeath isn't the intended gameplay style of Vintage Story. It's an option the player can pick, yes, but Standard difficulty is explicitly stated as the developer's vision.

I would also say that the game's own creator probably has the best understanding of anyone how the game should be balanced in order to achieve intended results.

Ugh, you're such a contrarian. Even if I did have a correct point, you'd never concede it was correct anyway. I'd have to be wrong in your mind purely off principle. I tried looking up Thorfinn videos and couldn't find any. I'm literally a content creator, I have 22 different series of playing this game permadeath, I know what it needs for rebalancing. I have video evidence of everything I'm saying, and I've survived to winter in permadeath. But it's far and away from being a balanced experience, with brown bears and temporal spawns being the biggest culprits, and if Thorfinn knows what he's talking about, to any capacity at all, then he'll concede to that. These are inevitable conclusions that a permadeath player comes to, not just whimsical ideas spawned from the ether of my surface level opinions and biases.

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

Why don't you watch the way the bear killed me at 3 hours 42 minutes 06 seconds and tell me whether or not you think that's balanced? Of course you'll say it's balanced, because that's just your modus operandi, but we both know it's far from it. That death was absurd. He literally superman punched me, he jumped after me and sniped me in mid-air, and like I said, I was moving at 110% speed. I am able to outrun a brown bear on a flat plain with a blackguard, yet with 110% speed I can't here? It's insane. The funny part is, I was in third-person, so we actually got to see just how broken the brown bear is from an outside perspective. This is 100% irrefutable, it's not even a question, not even a matter of opinion in the slightest.

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

Ugh, you're such a contrarian. Even if I did have a correct point, you'd never concede it was correct anyway. I'd have to be wrong in your mind purely off principle. I tried looking up Thorfinn videos and couldn't find any. I'm literally a content creator, I have 22 different series of playing this game permadeath, I know what it needs for rebalancing. I have video evidence of everything I'm saying, and I've survived to winter in permadeath. But it's far and away from being a balanced experience, with brown bears and temporal spawns being the biggest culprits, and if Thorfinn knows what he's talking about, to any capacity at all, then he'll concede to that. These are inevitable conclusions that a permadeath player comes to, not just whimsical ideas spawned from the ether of my surface level opinions and biases.

Thorfinn doesn't stream. He's too busy killing the story bosses with flint spears and no armor on permadeath mode to be bothered with any of that.

I get that you have to look good to your follower base and probably can't let yourself play on the standard difficulty to save face and avoid looking like you're taking the coward's way out, but I will kindly point out that there have been other "content creator" types that have come through here and done the same thing you're doing, raving about the game in a way that doesn't jive well with the forum atmosphere and they've been... aptly handled... by the moderation team. Using inflammatory speech like you are doing is against the forum rules.

4 minutes ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

That death was absurd. He literally superman punched me, he jumped after me and sniped me in mid-air, and like I said, I was moving at 110% speed.

My advice to you is to play on an easier difficulty or learn to cope until you get good at the game. It's a public alpha... not even beta. Bears are kinda janky, I'll admit. I've died to them lunging at me more often than I care to admit on the standard difficulty. There are funny stories posted about it here and there on these forums if you care to take a look.

Point is... you're setting yourself up for failure here by a) playing on a higher difficulty than the one around which the game is balanced b) complaining about it in a way that doesn't paint yourself as the saint you think you are and c) trying to use your "content creator" status as any sort of position of authority when it comes to this game in general.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

15 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Thorfinn doesn't stream. He's too busy killing the story bosses with flint spears and no armor on permadeath mode to be bothered with any of that.

I get that you have to look good to your follower base and probably can't let yourself play on the standard difficulty to save face and avoid looking like you're taking the coward's way out, but I will kindly point out that there have been other "content creator" types that have come through here and done the same thing you're doing, raving about the game in a way that doesn't jive well with the forum atmosphere and they've been... aptly handled... by the moderation team. Using inflammatory speech like you are doing is against the forum rules.

My advice to you is to play on an easier difficulty or learn to cope until you get good at the game. It's a public alpha... not even beta. Bears are kinda janky, I'll admit. I've died to them lunging at me more often than I care to admit on the standard difficulty. There are funny stories posted about it here and there on these forums if you care to take a look.

Point is... you're setting yourself up for failure here by a) playing on a higher difficulty than the one around which the game is balanced b) complaining about it in a way that doesn't paint yourself as the saint you think you are and c) trying to use your "content creator" status as any sort of position of authority when it comes to this game in general.

If he doesn't provide video evidence then how do you know he's actually done anything he says he's done? 

My speech isn't inflammatory, you just don't like it, there's a big difference. I haven't called you any names, I haven't disparaged you or insulted you, and if your conscience interprets anything I've said as that, that's your own problem

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I didn't say your inflammatory comments were directed at me, but sure go ahead and ignore the rest of what I said.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

11 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

I didn't say your inflammatory comments were directed at me, but sure go ahead and ignore the rest of what I said.

Quote my inflammatory bits please. You're probably referring to my "contrarian" comment, but that's not inflammatory, that's just an observation in the form of a noun to describe someone - accurately, I might add. Since when is honest criticism that comes from a good place, from a deep love of the game, inflammatory speech? Just because you love the game too doesn't mean my criticisms are invalid or that I must be wrong for having them. I do believe I'm right regarding these two balance decisions, I do think brown bears need a speed nerf to be more in line with black bears, and I do believe you should be able to spawn-proof your base for temporal spawns using light level to do it

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[HalfAxd]

Okay, I watched the video...  

Yes, the game give-ith and the game take-ith away... lol   You had just found some great loot too.

On the bear though... you saw it and was free and clear to disengage but you went after it and poked it with a spear, turned and ran... but the bear was in melee range and easily caught and nailed you.  On perma-death no less.

Going back to my play style when faced with a bear...  get away, dig a pit and lure it in.

I rarely ever die to a bear or wolf anymore because I don't poke them early game.

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

6 minutes ago, HalfAxd said:

Okay, I watched the video...  

Yes, the game give-ith and the game take-ith away... lol   You had just found some great loot too.

On the bear though... you saw it and was free and clear to disengage but you went after it and poked it with a spear, turned and ran... but the bear was in melee range and easily caught and nailed you.  On perma-death no less.

Going back to my play style when faced with a bear...  get away, dig a pit and lure it in.

I rarely ever die to a bear or wolf anymore because I don't poke them early game.

I've done this plenty of times, it was anomalous. You can clearly see the bear more or less teleports forward two feet in order to hit me the first time, then it tracked my movements and jumped alongside me, swatting me while I jumped. Nothing about this was a copasetic normal experience, I've killed many brown bears and it never goes down the way this time did. Regardless though, if brown bears were simply slower, I wouldn't need to build cheesy fighting positions to kill them, and I could just face them on foot like I would a black bear or a wolf

Edited December 11, 2025 by Discipline Before Dishonor

[dakko]

1 hour ago, Discipline Before Dishonor said:

My speech isn't inflammatory, you just don't like it, there's a big difference.

You specifically said, "...which cause me to seethe with utter contempt for the developers."

[Teh Pizza Lady]

it lunged, taking out half your health. and then you changed direction and got tripped up on the terrain. It lunged again when you had less than half your health left. happens to me all the time.

Also brown bears are far nastier in real life than black bears. So keep that in mind.

I avoid the brownies so I don't make the brownies in my pants.

Edited December 11, 2025 by Teh Pizza Lady

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 minutes ago, dakko said:

You specifically said, "...which cause me to seethe with utter contempt for the developers."

yeah I saw that, too

[Discipline Before Dishonor]

4 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

yeah I saw that, too

So... In your mind, this constitutes abusive verbiage? For real? Like... Snowflake mentality much?

[dakko]

Hmmm. A quick google search shows that brown bears (grizzly bears), at 35 mph, are about 5 mph faster than black bears. I don't know about Kodiaks or any other brown bears.