The issue with permanent surface instability

[A_British_Lass]

so, vintage story great game love it is brilliant...  But my god temporal stability the way i feel it's implemented is the worst part of the game, i have my issues with storms, but they're fine over all* as they add a layer of depth to the game, i personally don't vibe with the storms and feel they need work but compared to surface stability? 

so my main issue is the visuals, there are none pretty much; other than the gear on your hot bar there are no indicators of stability and even the gear can be hit or miss if you build your hut half in a stable zone or unstable zone

i understand that the unstable zones have lore significance but as a player just trying to get my firs dirt hut set up for the first few seasons of the game ui could care very little for why the lore is screwing me over 

i honestly think the zones by default need to have  a 300x300 safe zone around spawn where they can't occur and visuals they indicated the area is unstable, be it plant, the sky or the actual blocks being different.
there also the issue that the unstable zones server no purpose gameplay wise other than "nuh uhhh you're an idiot for wanting build in this very pretty valley dumbo" i feel they need to have *some* beennefit to either building a permeant base or farm in these zones otherwise they just feel... boring

Over all the unstable zones feel like a bad mechanic that either needs scrapping or major reworks

sorry if this has been talked to death the only forum post i could find was about storms 

anyway back to playing the game 

 

[A_British_Lass]

Honestly i think if the permeant zones were scrapped and instead replace with a rad storm like mechanic from fallout it'd be pretty neat could have a positive effect on plant growth with specific species you're growing or just a way to get new blocks?

i don't know the details i just know how unstable zones are implemented right now annoy me to no end 

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, A_British_Lass said:

there also the issue that the unstable zones server no purpose gameplay wise other than "nuh uhhh you're an idiot for wanting build in this very pretty valley dumbo" i feel they need to have *some* beennefit to either building a permeant base or farm in these zones otherwise they just feel... boring

Over all the unstable zones feel like a bad mechanic that either needs scrapping or major reworks

They serve as some pretty good immersive worldbuilding, in my opinion, as well as a more unique survival challenge. It doesn't really feel like there were catastrophic world-altering events in the past if there's nothing wrong in the present aside from a few monsters.

Of course, it's not everyone's cup of tea, hence where there are options to turn off mechanics like temporal instability and temporal storms.

/worldconfig temporalStability false

/worldconfig temporalStorms off

You should be able to run these commands at any time after world generation; just reload the world for them to take effect. For the Standard game mode, temporal stability is enabled by default, and temporal storms are set to occur "sometimes"(with the full list of options being off | veryrare | rare | sometimes | often | veryoften).

[marmarmar34]

Personally, I'd like for surface stability to be like a weather effect instead of a dead zone. Like if areas with low stability had a chance of a "mini temporal storm", where you'd see the rust effect along with your own stability dropping. It would have far more rifts open so surface drifters could annoy you. 

[MKMoose]

52 minutes ago, A_British_Lass said:

sorry if this has been talked to death the only forum post i could find was about storms

If you search for something like "surface instability" (searching with quotation marks matches the full phrase), you should be able to find quite a few posts. A large portion of them (including mine) arguing that surface instability should be adjusted (or removed if nothing else).

If you find yourself wanting to turn off surface instablility specifically, you may want to try a mod like Stable Surface, though I'm not certain if it works on the current version.

 

22 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

They serve as some pretty good immersive worldbuilding, in my opinion, as well as a more unique survival challenge. It doesn't really feel like there were catastrophic world-altering events in the past if there's nothing wrong in the present aside from a few monsters.

This is among the most common and most frustrating arguments I tend to see in favor of surface instability. It can seem like no matter how people try to explain the issues with the mechanic, there's always someone that will go "well, I personally don't mind it" and optionally proceed to describe the ideal design goals that the mechanic aims to accomplish instead of looking at what it actually accomplishes in practice. I do agree wholeheartedly with those design goals and that's why I would prefer surface instability changed and not removed entirely.

I think surface instability should be more prevalent and visible to actually show how the new world is changed, more disruptive to require the player to pay attention and keep track of it (potentially replacing paying attention to rift activity in the UI (why is it even in the UI?), more challenging to actually apply survival pressure and not just be a minor annoyance, more dynamic to catch players off-guard but relent after a period of time, more integral to the world and connected to storms and rifts to promote a sense of cohesion and immersion. What it should not be is forever unchanging, entirely uninteractive, completely invisible, and yet altogether inconsequential in nearly every single case.

[EmperorPingu]

I think aspects of temporal stability lore can exist, but that it just needs some heavy reworking to make it more accomodating overall. It's like the other post said - it's forcing the player to engage in (what they deem to be) a half baked mechanic. It's not for everyone, but at the same time, it doesn't mean that the concept of it is without it's utility.

The thing with sandblocks games, and (apologies in advance for the comparison) what minecraft really does get right is that they acknowledge that there are so many different playstyles and they allow their games to be accomodating to all these players without forcing one style of play.

At the end of the day, from the player experience, as much as lore can be an interesting avenue to go down, for a lot of us (me at least) it's about escaping into a world of our own making and writing our own stories, having our own adventures. Dare I say it - having our own Vintage Story...

So what if I just want to spend 2 - 3 years building a beautiful base and only engaging with the scarier less controllable aspects of the game once I feel I'm fully prepared for it?

The thing I haaaatttttteeeeddd about the game "Don't Starve" was the loop of constantly having to run around just finding food and surviving paycheck to paycheck without the ability to store or hoard the stuff I was getting or building base defenses because the developer apparently didn't like bases and wanted the player to keep running around or something... that's great bro. Who doesn't love a game with some asshat with a god complex having a bitch fit because "you're not playing the game the way you're supposed to" - f that. Let me play with my toys the way I want. I don't care if you think my action man should be shooting guns - today he is Mr Ficklesworth and he's a highly respected financial advisor at a well established investment firm >:0

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, MKMoose said:

This is among the most common and most frustrating arguments I tend to see in favor of surface instability. It can seem like no matter how people try to explain the issues with the mechanic, there's always someone that will go "well, I personally don't mind it" and optionally proceed to describe the ideal design goals that the mechanic aims to accomplish instead of looking at what it actually accomplishes in practice. I do agree wholeheartedly with those design goals and that's why I would prefer surface instability changed and not removed entirely.

I think surface instability should be more prevalent and visible to actually show how the new world is changed, more disruptive to require the player to pay attention and keep track of it (potentially replacing paying attention to rift activity in the UI (why is it even in the UI?), more challenging to actually apply survival pressure and not just be a minor annoyance, more dynamic to catch players off-guard but relent after a period of time, more integral to the world and connected to storms and rifts to promote a sense of cohesion and immersion. What it should not be is forever unchanging, entirely uninteractive, completely invisible, and yet altogether inconsequential in nearly every single case.

The main flaw with the "surface instability isn't fun and should be removed" arguments is that the option to turn it off already exists in the game.

"Surface instability isn't fun and should be changed" is a much better argument. In my case though, I often disagree with those arguments simply because I think the current implementation of surface stability is fun, and the proposed changes sound much less fun. An immediately noticeable overlay when I enter an unstable area or noticeably distorted sounds similar to temporal storm effects would certainly make the areas more noticeable, but much less fun to explore since now the warning can't be ignored. Draining stability faster would also be more noticeable, but also make me just avoid those areas entirely(or turn the mechanic off) since the world no longer feels approachable. As it stands currently, the gear gives me enough feedback about what's going on, without being shoved directly in my face. It's entirely possible for me to forget about as well, which can make things rather interesting. The drain rate in unstable surface areas is a minor annoyance, yes, but that's also what keeps the exploration approachable; I can venture into an unstable area and hunt/forage/do whatever for a day or two before actually needing to leave.

Granted, that's all just my opinion. I suppose the best summary of my thoughts is "Why does something I like have to change because someone else doesn't like it", if the general argument presented is "I didn't like this, so I think it should change this way"(and the one presenting the argument isn't one of the devs). Honestly, I'm not really sure that there's a good answer here, given the divisive nature of temporal mechanics in general. They strike me as being very difficult to change in a way that won't prompt as many players to just turn them off as players who turn them on. 

The most I can really say otherwise is that there's been enough complaints about the mechanics and VS is still early enough in development that I wouldn't really be surprised to see some adjustments to them in the future. If/when changes happen, I'll generally try them at least once and then figure out a workaround if it ends up being a change I really don't like.

[A_British_Lass]

16 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

They serve as some pretty good immersive worldbuilding, in my opinion, as well as a more unique survival challenge. It doesn't really feel like there were catastrophic world-altering events in the past if there's nothing wrong in the present aside from a few monsters.

Of course, it's not everyone's cup of tea, hence where there are options to turn off mechanics like temporal instability and temporal storms.

/worldconfig temporalStability false

/worldconfig temporalStorms off

You should be able to run these commands at any time after world generation; just reload the world for them to take effect. For the Standard game mode, temporal stability is enabled by default, and temporal storms are set to occur "sometimes"(with the full list of options being off | veryrare | rare | sometimes | often | veryoften).

my main issue is i LOVE the concept of surface instability and would love to play with the feature turned on but with how it's implemented as of current date it leaves a sour taste in  the mouth

while yes it serves the lore amazingly they don't serve the game play at all

think of it like a game with a shrinking zone, typically areas of the map are made inaccessible to serve game play by pushing players together, whereas a game like this it server no purpose while actively harming the experience

as i said in my post and comment directly posted after the post the unstable zones need to be A) made more apparent, and B) serve the game play in some way, say like treating metal tools by leaving them in a unstable zone that buffs their durability somewhat after leaving them there for a few days, or making crops grow 3%faster, something that benefits the game play while also not make the unstable zones worthless as a player

permanent unstable zones as is are just a net negative to the game, storms add a challenge in defending your base or a forced downtime to work on food of chiselling, it affects game play
where unstable zones don't do anything

i am coming at this from a casual viewpoint though, i just believe the system NEEDS a rework, and i typically judge a game based on it's default (intended) settings

[A_British_Lass]

12 hours ago, MKMoose said:

If you search for something like "surface instability" (searching with quotation marks matches the full phrase), you should be able to find quite a few posts. A large portion of them (including mine) arguing that surface instability should be adjusted (or removed if nothing else).

sorry i forgot i could do that lol

 

12 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I think surface instability should be more prevalent and visible to actually show how the new world is changed, more disruptive to require the player to pay attention and keep track of it (potentially replacing paying attention to rift activity in the UI (why is it even in the UI?), more challenging to actually apply survival pressure and not just be a minor annoyance, more dynamic to catch players off-guard but relent after a period of time, more integral to the world and connected to storms and rifts to promote a sense of cohesion and immersion. What it should not be is forever unchanging, entirely uninteractive, completely invisible, and yet altogether inconsequential in nearly every single case.

i think you hit the nail on the head here, beyond my gameplay frustrations they also just takes me out of the world considering how unconnected to the rest of the game it feels

Completely invisible and doesn't interact with the other temporal mechanics, ultimately just feels slap dash mechanic on a otherwise beautifully crafted game

[A_British_Lass]

14 hours ago, marmarmar34 said:

Personally, I'd like for surface stability to be like a weather effect instead of a dead zone. Like if areas with low stability had a chance of a "mini temporal storm", where you'd see the rust effect along with your own stability dropping. It would have far more rifts open so surface drifters could annoy you. 

while im unsure about some of this message i do fell like it'd be leagues a head of how it is in the game currently

[MKMoose]

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The main flaw with the "surface instability isn't fun and should be removed" arguments is that the option to turn it off already exists in the game.

You can remove temporal stability as a whole, but that also hits underground instability and removes this effect from rifts and storms. If there was a way to disable surface instability specifically, then Stable Surface wouldn't have a reason to exist.

 

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The most I can really say otherwise is that there's been enough complaints about the mechanics and VS is still early enough in development that I wouldn't really be surprised to see some adjustments to them in the future. If/when changes happen, I'll generally try them at least once and then figure out a workaround if it ends up being a change I really don't like.

One thing that I personally find quite disappointing given the lore significance of temporal mechanics is that both temporal storms and temporal stability were introduced back in 1.12 (Q1 2020), and saw practically no meanigful changes since then besides the introduction of bowtorn and shivers.

 

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

"Surface instability isn't fun and should be changed" is a much better argument. In my case though, I often disagree with those arguments simply because I think the current implementation of surface stability is fun, and the proposed changes sound much less fun. An immediately noticeable overlay when I enter an unstable area or noticeably distorted sounds similar to temporal storm effects would certainly make the areas more noticeable, but much less fun to explore since now the warning can't be ignored. Draining stability faster would also be more noticeable, but also make me just avoid those areas entirely(or turn the mechanic off) since the world no longer feels approachable. As it stands currently, the gear gives me enough feedback about what's going on, without being shoved directly in my face. It's entirely possible for me to forget about as well, which can make things rather interesting. The drain rate in unstable surface areas is a minor annoyance, yes, but that's also what keeps the exploration approachable; I can venture into an unstable area and hunt/forage/do whatever for a day or two before actually needing to leave.

While I'm not sure if I want to entirely recap a few other discussions on the topic, I would like to point out a few things:

• I absolutely agree that in-your-face effects like an immediately noticeable overlay would be terrible, for a number of reasons - a much more common suggestion in this vein (which we've also discussed a few weeks back) is to add some sort of environmental clues,
• I don't actually remember ever seeing a suggestion for increasing stability drain rate, and I think it would fix practically nothing as a standalone change - drain rate is mostly just a matter of balancing and not a significant design factor,
• it would arguably be much better to create an interesting threat by removing the gear from the UI entirely or in some other way adjusting the mechanic, not by making it so irrelevant most of the time that you end up forgetting about it,
• personally, I have yet to have temporal stability catch me off-guard in any way, while surface instability specifically could as well not exist and it would change practically nothing about my experience with the game.

If I were to recommend a set of slightly more specific changes (mostly but not entirely independent of each other), it would probably go something like this:

1. Remove the UI indicator or reduce its reliability, and introduce environmental indicators of instability - this would make for a much more believable and immersive tell of past catastrophe, and could have a number of beneficial effects, primarily requiring the player to pay attention to their surroundings instead of just looking at the UI. It doesn't even have to be in any way explicit, because it may be limited to modified animal frequency and behaviour, different ambient sounds, less common plant growth overall and more sand and rocks, more scattered stones, sticks and other clutter, adjusted relative frequency of different plant species (e.g. less flowers, more thorny bushes), and other changes like that. Only in very low stability it would begin getting anywhere close to proper rust world effects, which would primarily occur underground. Some of those new or changed things in the environment could be in some ways valuable, e.g. certain plants for herbalism. Overall, it would do wonders for immersion and create an unnerving sense of uncertainty about the player's and the region's stability, requiring to actually face the world and think critically instead of being able to immediately nope out of an area the moment the gear starts turning wrong. Some measurement devices could be added to allow testing a spot for instability or measuring the player's own stability, but they shouldn't be necessary for anything either.
2. Make ambient stability change over time - it's among the most common suggestions that I've seen, and it would greatly reduce the risk of new players getting thrown into an indefinite period of 0% stability for no apparent reason, as well as allow to address the complaints about good spots being unsuitable for building. This way, instability would be able to catch every player off-guard occasionally, even if they decide to just stay back home forever, but would naturally ease off after a period of time. It could be implemented as a global modifier that fluctuates like rift activity, or it could be a dynamic system like rain or something of the sort which evolves randomly over time in more complex ways but still depends on average stability in every spot. It would likely have to be implemented in such a way that even the most unstable areas would remain stable for some time semi-regularly, and even the most stable areas would face occasional spikes of instability. Some measurement devices could be added to gauge the current stability and predict it in advance to some extent.
3. Reduce the effects of slightly unstable areas, and increase the effects of heavily unstable areas - as it is now, for most practical purposes, ambient stability could as well be a binary value and very little would actually change, because all areas have either of two possible end effects, and just progress towards them at different rates. Making stablity effects more gradual would also allow the player to better familiarize themselves with them before getting thrown into deep water. It may also be worth to just make specifically surface instability never naturally exceed a certain threshold, to keep the most dangerous effects to the underground and to storms.
4. Increase total coverage of unstable areas - again, this would really reinforce that the world is no longer what it used to be, and make surface instability an integral part of the world that the player has to contend with instead of a rare inconvenience. It could make the player less avoidant of unstable areas by making them a frequent and expected occurence. This is largely reliant on the previous two points (dynamic instability and more continuous instability effects) to make sure that the world doesn't feel inaccessible and excessively punishing, and to allow the players to hang out in less stable areas while keeping relatively small added risks in mind (generally smaller than indefinite 0% stability).
5. Make rift frequency more tied to surface stability to keep the mechanics more cohesive, and introduce instability spikes lasting at least a couple hours before and after storms, likely replacing the current fixed stability drain during storms. Storms could even be removed as a distinct mechanic, and instead occasional extreme stability spikes integrated naturally into random stability fluctuations would serve the same purpose.
6. Make ruins more likely to spawn in unstable areas, kind of as part of the environmental clues as well. Ruins are a very intuitive way to signal that it may not be a good idea to stay there in the long term, even if there are some valuables, which would also add a small risk-reward pattern to looting ruins.

Do note that my point here is expressly not to kick the player in the balls for daring to play the game, at least not significantly more than rift activity and temporal storms already do. The point is to make temporal stability more immersive and more integral to the world and gameplay without making it a pain to deal with.

 

There were also some ideas for features that are in no way critical to improving temporal stability, but which I think could potentially work very well for the game if implemented with the right goals in mind and justified appropriately through lore:

1. Add temporal anomalies that appear occasionally throughout the world but primarily in the most heavily unstable areas, which cause small to medium-sized localized disruptions in a plethora of possible ways, like fog, particle effects, devastation, barren ground, scarred and torn apart soil, rust spikes and thorns, floating stuff, repeated terrain geometry (like in some rooms in RA), pockets of completely altered climate conditions, pockets where time flows differently. Also, they could just be large rifts, active permanently though growing in size and strength as rift activity increases. They may or may not be interactive or valuable in some ways. Overall inspired by the anomalies found in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, but should probably be adapted to the temporal flavors of Vintage Story.
2. Add some sort of rare trinkets, devices, or just corpses to some ruins which would cause the nearby area to be more unstable, or cause some other issues. They could also briefly flash into existence during temporal storms in some manner. Primarily related to Jonas tech. A bunch of these could perhaps be looted and some may even be quite valuable and useful, but then they would apply the same detrimental effects on the player holding them or in the area where the player puts them away. They could usually be destroyed, disassembled, in some way purified or at least contained to remove those detrimental effects, generally losing any useful functionality in the process as well.
3. Introduce some sort of immaterial ghosts, visions, illusions or something of the sort to unstable areas (as part of the environmental clues as well), which would also appear during temporal storms and some lore locations. Think visages of people and perhaps of animals or rotbeasts, which briefly appear wandering aimlessly or doing something specific near ruins. The player may be able to interact with them in some limited ways, and maybe even talk to them or obtain something from them using a Jonas device. Inspired by the ghosts of Fyke Isle, if you've played The Witcher 3. Alternatively, it could be really cool to have ruins that appear like a mirage but fade out when the player gets close to them, and could potentially even be accessed in some cases using the dimension system.
4. Adjust the properties of the world in temporally unstable areas in some ways (not unlike mentioned by the OP), e.g. change the temperature by a couple degrees, adjust other climate parameters in various ways, influence terrain generation, slightly adjust the speed at which certain processes progress. This would again also function as one of these environmental clues of instability.

Edited January 17 by MKMoose
Elaborate on the additional ideas. Spelling.

[Zane Mordien]

That's a lot of complicated ideas by everyone for a very simple mechanic that is very easily avoided once you learn what the gear in the UI means. 

 

It mainly bites you on the first place you build a base, which is very early in the game when you have very little to have to move. For me it's completely normal to have areas of my base that are unstable.  I just make sure my work area is stable.  My storage area or my decorative castle can be unstable since I don't spend my time there. My time at base is spent cooking or forging.  My steel furnace can sit in an unstable place.

Edited January 18 by Zane Mordien

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

You can remove temporal stability as a whole, but that also hits underground instability and removes this effect from rifts and storms. If there was a way to disable surface instability specifically, Stable Surface wouldn't have a reason to exist.

I always seem to forget that distinction. It probably doesn't help when I'm writing posts while tired.

 

7 hours ago, A_British_Lass said:

as i said in my post and comment directly posted after the post the unstable zones need to be A) made more apparent, and B) serve the game play in some way, say like treating metal tools by leaving them in a unstable zone that buffs their durability somewhat after leaving them there for a few days, or making crops grow 3%faster, something that benefits the game play while also not make the unstable zones worthless as a player

Honestly not a fan of changes like this. Temporal storms and instability in general are specifically bad things that the player is supposed to avoid. If the player gets distinct benefits from them, like tools getting repaired or crops growing faster, then players are going to be actively settling in those areas instead of avoiding them. Likewise, it also removes fixing instability/fixing the world as an option for the main story's potential conclusion; why would the player want to fix something that they actively benefit from?

The most I can really say otherwise is that if a change like this happens, then the opposite effects absolutely need to be just as possible. That is, if tools can be repaired, then they can also be damaged. Crops could grow faster, but also grow slower, etc.

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Remove the UI indicator or reduce its reliability, and introduce environmental indicators of instability

This one is still a "maybe" for me. Overall, I think I still prefer the gear rather than actually changing the environment too much. 

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Make ambient stability change over time

Another "maybe". I'd be more in favor of this than directly changing the environment to indicate instability, though I'm still not sure that this will fix more problems than it creates. Static zones can be more punishing to new players who aren't aware of the mechanic and settle in an unstable area, but constantly changing zones seems like it would be just as confusing. New players will probably be asking how to stop the instability, and in that case there isn't a solution outside of maybe some late game Jonas tech they have to build and power. 

Personally, I prefer static zones, as it's nice to have a guaranteed stable area to just chill out in when I don't want to do anything particularly dangerous. Static zones also make it very easy for me to learn which areas I need to spend limited time in, and which areas I can safely camp in. Changing zones...depending on how often it changes, it seems like there's the distinct possibility of players getting very unlucky and moving with the instability, and thus never having a chance to recover outside of sacrificing gears.

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Reduce the effects of slightly unstable areas, and increase the effects of heavily unstable areas

I would actually suggest reducing the stability recovery rate, and perhaps adding small pockets of heavy instability at the surface. Currently, loss of stability doesn't mean a lot, since it's quite easy to stand in a stable area for a few seconds and be back at 100%. I think it's fine if the player can hang around for a day or two in light unstable areas before needing to leave, but it seems like the player should need to spend a few in-game hours in a stable area to recover from significant stability loss. It would also lend more weight to the gear method of restoring stability.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Increase total coverage of unstable areas

Honestly don't think this one is needed. Some maps can already have wide swaths of instability, while others can be mostly stable. I think this one is actually more interesting as an option in the settings; turning down the likelihood of finding unstable areas would be great for an easier game, while cranking up the coverage of unstable areas would be a great survival challenge.

There could also be the option to make the whole surface neutral, so that the player must either sacrifice gears or kill monsters to keep themselves grounded in reality.

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Make rift frequency more tied to surface stability to keep the mechanics more cohesive, and introduce instability spikes lasting at least a couple hours before and after storms, likely replacing the current fixed stability drain during storms. Storms could even be removed as a distinct mechanic, and instead occasional extreme stability spikes integrated naturally into random stability fluctuations would serve the same purpose.

I mostly agree with this one, though I would cut the instability spikes and keep the storms as a distinct mechanic.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Make ruins more likely to spawn in unstable areas

I think this would be great for the special procedural dungeons that have been on the roadmap for a while. The surface ruins are interesting, but not really interesting enough to bother with outside of the early game, in most cases. A tougher ruin/dungeon that has better loot though...that would definitely be a prime goody for an unstable area, and make such areas a point of interest while retaining their dangerous nature.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Ruins are a very intuitive way to signal that it may not be a good idea to stay there in the long term, even if there are some valuables, which would also add a small risk-reward pattern to looting ruins.

In that case, I would probably make them a rare "new" ruin; that is, rather than ruins of the Old World, it's clearly the ruins of a trader camp or survivor settlement that got overrun years ago. There could probably be a better item or two to find, but the instability would definitely prevent players from just turning such a ruin into a convenient base.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Add temporal anomalies that appear occasionally throughout the world but primarily in the most heavily unstable areas, which cause small to medium-sized localized disruptions in a plethora of possible ways, like fog, devastation, barren ground, scarred and torn apart soil, rust spikes and thorns, floating stuff, repeated terrain geometry (like in some rooms in RA), pockets with completely altered climate conditions, pockets where time flows differently. They may or may not be interactive or valuable in some ways. Overall inspired by the anomalies found in S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games, but should probably be adapted to the temporal flavors of Vintage Story.

Really not a fan of direct changes to the world like this; drastic changes like these are best left to the story locations, where it has a lot more impact. Part of the reason a certain location in chapter 2 is so shocking, is that there's just nothing like it at all prior to the player finding it. If it's just a procedural dungeon that's a mini-version of the Resonance Archive or something milder like that, I think it's fine, but such things really shouldn't be common lest they lose their impact.

 

2 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Add some sort of rare trinkets, devices, or just corpses to some ruins or just found in the wild which would cause the nearby area to be more unstable

Not really a fan of this one either. I think the special loot is better suited for procedural dungeons. Not so much stuff that would cause instability, as much as it is just interesting/useful stuff that's difficult to acquire.

 

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Introduce some sort of immaterial ghosts, visions, illusions or something of the sort to unstable areas (as part of the environmental clues as well), which would also appear during temporal storms and some lore locations. Think visages of people and perhaps of animals or rotbeasts, which briefly appear wandering aimlessly or doing something specific near ruins. The player may be able to interact with them in some limited ways, and maybe even talk to them or obtain something from them using a Jonas device. Inspired by the ghosts of Fyke Isle, if you've played The Witcher 3. Alternatively, it could be really cool to have ruins that appear like a mirage but disappear when the player gets close to them, and could potentially even be accessed in some cases using the dimension system.

Interesting idea, but one better reserved for procedural dungeons and specific story locations to ensure it has a significant impact. The ghosts specifically shouldn't be able to be interacted with, outside of special circumstances in a story location. I've not played the Witcher 3, but what comes to mind for me is the Avanchenzel quest from Skyrim--the one where the Argonian lady gives you the cube to return to a Dwemer ruin and you witness echoes of what happened along the way. That is, the entities aren't actually ghosts, as much as they are just echoes in time.

 

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Adjust the properties of the world in temporally unstable areas in some ways (as mentioned by the OP), e.g. change the temperature by a couple degrees, adjust other climate parameters in various ways, influence terrain generation, slightly adjust the speed at which certain processes progress. This would again also function as one of these environmental clues of instability.

Since I'm not a fan of altering the world like this, I would propose just adding invisible rifts to unstable areas instead. The visible rifts still function as normal and are tied to the rift weather. The invisible ones, however, do not drain stability, are constantly present, and will spawn monsters even on the calmest of days. It makes the unstable areas a little more dangerous and a little more obvious as well, since the infestation of monsters would suggest that something about the area allows them to leak through into reality.

 

9 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

That's a lot of complicated ideas by everyone for a very simple mechanic that is very easily avoided once you learn what the gear in the UI means. 

 

It mainly bites you on the first place you set up, which is very early in the game when you have very little to have to move. For me it's completely normal to have areas of my base that are unstable.  I just make sure my work area is stable.  My storage area or my decorative castle can be unstable since I don't spend my time there. My time at base is spent cooking or forging.  My steel furnace can sit in an unstable place.

Pretty much. It can also bite if you're at low stability and a temporal storm hits, however, that's also a rare occurrence. The simplicity is one major reason I like the mechanic as-is though. It's easy to track once the player learns what the gear indicates, and rather forgiving so the world still feels quite approachable. That being said, if the player gets complacent, it's a mechanic that will happily come bite them if given the chance. 

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

4 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Ruins are a very intuitive way to signal that it may not be a good idea to stay there in the long term, even if there are some valuables, which would also add a small risk-reward pattern to looting ruins.

In that case, I would probably make them a rare "new" ruin; that is, rather than ruins of the Old World, it's clearly the ruins of a trader camp or survivor settlement that got overrun years ago. There could probably be a better item or two to find, but the instability would definitely prevent players from just turning such a ruin into a convenient base.

I actually really like this idea. It's a bit jarring that there's so many traders, and every single one of them is alive and healthy. Wouldn't be unreasonable to just automatically replace every trader with a ruined hut if they're in an unstable area, if not something more complex.

 

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

There could also be the option to make the whole surface neutral, so that the player must either sacrifice gears or kill monsters to keep themselves grounded in reality.

That sounds pretty interesting to spice up a next playthrough. Would likely require a bunch of rebalancing and other tweaks to not be a pain to play, but it creates a pretty novel approach to instability. Kind of unrelated to everything else, though.

 

I'll see if I can answer some other points as well, but for now I just want to say that I genuinely don't understand why you're opposed to changes to the environment. As I see it, they are close to necessary in order to adequately communicate the risk associated with an area, in a way not dissimilar from something like temperature-related risks being closely tied to the climate you're in and time of day. Even if something like dynamic instability fluctuations were added, reducing that need for clues in the environment somewhat, it would still simply constitute good game design to give the player environmental hints and diegetic instruments to gauge instability instead of just telling them through UI. This applies doubly if your goal for the mechanic is remotely related to keeping the player on edge and biting them if they get complacent, because having immediate and fully reliable access to the information largely just nullifies that goal.

Environmental clues for things are in the vast majority of cases more immersive and engaging. It's good game design in this context because the player doesn't need (and arguably shouldn't have) on-demand access to information about stability. It's expected for the player to have immediate access to information about the character's health, hunger or oxygen and so on, because they are properties internal to the character which are necessary for the player to access quickly when making moment-to-moment decisions. Ambient stability, however, and extending partially to character stability through drain/recovery rate, does not have almost any of the same design factors, because it's a property of the world and not the character, and it is primarily significant in more strategic, high-level choices where information scarcity is a significant design lever.

Edited January 17 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

12 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I'll see if I can answer some other points as well, but for now I just want to say that I genuinely don't understand why you're opposed to changes to the environment. As I see it, they are close to necessary in order to adequately communicate the risk associated with an area, in a way not dissimilar from something like temperature-related risks being closely tied to the climate you're in and time of day.

I'm mainly against it because I'm skeptical/resistant to change to begin with, but also because I think the current system is just fine. As @Zane Mordien noted, it's simple to understand and deal with once one learns what the gear is indicating. I also suspect that outside of major happenings like temporal storms, temporal stability as a whole is something that really only affects seraphs and other unnatural entities, and not so much plants, wildlife, or humans. It's a quality I quite like when it comes to the worldbuilding, as to me it makes the unnatural stuff actually feel unnatural and a bit more interesting when encountered. If the rifts were just popping out corruption everywhere and ghosts were appearing in ruins and the like(that is, the unnatural becomes a common experience rather than something mostly in the background), it'd stop feeling like a natural world that has a definite underlying problem, and just feel like a standard fantasy setting.

[Ceridith]

My issue with surface stability is that it's simply just not an engaging mechanic. It doesn't add anything interesting aside from an annoyance discouraging where I should build a base, which is particularly irritating if I find an otherwise great spot that world gen arbitrarily decided should have low stability.

There's no way to interact with stability other than avoiding staying in areas with low stability for a long while, but at the same time there's no incentive to go into a low stability surface area either. I could see if maybe certain surface ruin areas had low stability but also the benefit of having a higher chance of scavenging something useful, but once everything is looted there's no reason to stick around. Although maybe said temporal stability could be used as a lore reason for scavengable items to respawn in low stability areas. Just something, anything, to justify there being a difference in surface stability and encouraging actually engaging with the mechanic with some risk versus reward rather than it purely being a punishing mechanic that is to be avoided.

[Zane Mordien]

5 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

My issue with surface stability is that it's simply just not an engaging mechanic. It doesn't add anything interesting aside from an annoyance discouraging where I should build a base, which is particularly irritating if I find an otherwise great spot that world gen arbitrarily decided should have low stability.

This is why we won't see the issue the same way. I don't have a perfect base location. There are so many locations that the one or two unstable areas don't bother me, but I have watched streamers loose it over the perfect location being unstable. If it is that critical to you, then I think you have to just turn off the stability because it will always make you unhappy or just load in worlds until you find one you like. I've done that before when I really wanted something specific for my playthrough. It's your personal playthrough so make it the way you want it. 

[Ceridith]

2 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

This is why we won't see the issue the same way. I don't have a perfect base location. There are so many locations that the one or two unstable areas don't bother me, but I have watched streamers loose it over the perfect location being unstable. If it is that critical to you, then I think you have to just turn off the stability because it will always make you unhappy or just load in worlds until you find one you like. I've done that before when I really wanted something specific for my playthrough. It's your personal playthrough so make it the way you want it. 

You're misunderstanding my issue. I'm saying the only impact surface stability has is a negative impact on my gameplay, which makes the mechanic an annoyance rather than a challenge to be interacted with. It doesn't actually add anything to the overall game other than arbitrarily denote certain areas as places to not linger in. Wandering around in them doesn't even impose that much of a negative impact, just don't set up a base in one and you're fine. I want there to be reasons to interact with low stability areas, some risk vs. reward to engaging with low stability areas rather than simply avoiding engaging in them.

Adding more ruins, lootable items that can respawn, but consequently other forms of danger such as higher chance and stronger supernatural entities spawning, to low stability areas would be a step in the right direction. It would actually incentivize venturing into those areas, but also add more risk aside from just making sure your stability doesn't drop too low from hanging around in them for too long.

Additionally, being able to impact local stability would be welcome as well. Maybe creating a base in a low stability area in early game is a net negative, but mid to late game using a Jonas device you could negate the negative impacts of low stability in an area. Or maybe you want to drop the stability in an area using a similar device for other reasons.

I want the mechanic to be additive to gameplay to be engaged with, not just something that's to be avoided.

[Zane Mordien]

4 hours ago, Ceridith said:

You're misunderstanding my issue. I'm saying the only impact surface stability has is a negative impact on my gameplay, which makes the mechanic an annoyance rather than a challenge to be interacted with. It doesn't actually add anything to the overall game other than arbitrarily denote certain areas as places to not linger in. Wandering around in them doesn't even impose that much of a negative impact, just don't set up a base in one and you're fine. I want there to be reasons to interact with low stability areas, some risk vs. reward to engaging with low stability areas rather than simply avoiding engaging in them.

Adding more ruins, lootable items that can respawn, but consequently other forms of danger such as higher chance and stronger supernatural entities spawning, to low stability areas would be a step in the right direction. It would actually incentivize venturing into those areas, but also add more risk aside from just making sure your stability doesn't drop too low from hanging around in them for too long.

Additionally, being able to impact local stability would be welcome as well. Maybe creating a base in a low stability area in early game is a net negative, but mid to late game using a Jonas device you could negate the negative impacts of low stability in an area. Or maybe you want to drop the stability in an area using a similar device for other reasons.

I want the mechanic to be additive to gameplay to be engaged with, not just something that's to be avoided.

Sounds like something for the suggestion forum. You'll have to forgive me because it seemed like just a complaint at first. Suggestions are always good. Keep throwing things at the wall and something might stick.

[williams_482]

12 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Make ambient stability change over time - it's among the most common suggestions that I've seen, and it would greatly reduce the risk of new players getting thrown into an indefinite period of 0% stability for no apparent reason, as well as allow to address the complaints about good spots being unsuitable for building. This way, instability would be able to catch every player off-guard occasionally, even if they decide to just stay back home forever, but would naturally ease off after a period of time. It could be implemented as a global modifier that fluctuates like rift activity, or it could be a dynamic system like rain or something of the sort which evolves randomly over time in more complex ways but still depends on average stability in every spot. It would likely have to be implemented in such a way that even the most unstable areas would remain stable for some time semi-regularly, and even the most stable areas would face occasional spikes of instability. Some measurement devices could be added to gauge the current stability and predict it in advance to some extent.

I think a lot of this is good, but this one I'm not thrilled about. 

If new players getting burned setting up bases in nice looking unstable areas (or more experienced players realizing they shouldn't set up in those places) is a problem, players discovering that their base has randomly become an unstable zone for some unknown amount of time is going to be even worse. 

I'm also not huge on removing the indicator from the UI. Admittedly I play with the HUD mod that literally shows you the stability percentage at your current location, which is maybe too much information, but it is a huge help to be able to see at a glance it I'm in a good, okay, or bad place to recover stability. I could get roughly the same information from the gear, I'd just have to look at it longer. Recently I went mining for Casserite in an unstable area some distance from my base, and had to emerge from my mineshaft on a regular basis and run off to a stable area to recover stability. The difference in recovery time waiting in an area with 105% stability vs a full 150% stability is substantial, never mind the difficulty of trying to recover in an almost-but-not-quite stable region. This sort of rough categorization (very stable vs barely stable vs barely not stable) would be much harder to convey via environmental clues, and that in turn just forces you to wait around for longer in the middle of nowhere on mining expeditions. 

[Feycat]

Absolutely. Areas becoming unstable would kill the whole ability to build big, awesome bases. Builders are always going to be more of the intended audience. Anything that deliberately makes areas you've built in worse instead of better is a big, big no.

Taking the gear off and making it inaccessible? Also no. Take it out of your own game if you don't like it. 

[LadyWYT]

4 minutes ago, Feycat said:

Areas becoming unstable would kill the whole ability to build big, awesome bases.

Not to mention the inverse of this equation: if unstable areas can change to stable, then you can't deliberately build your friend's bedroom in the unstable area of the base. 

[MKMoose]

12 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I also suspect that outside of major happenings like temporal storms, temporal stability as a whole is something that really only affects seraphs and other unnatural entities, and not so much plants, wildlife, or humans. It's a quality I quite like when it comes to the worldbuilding, as to me it makes the unnatural stuff actually feel unnatural and a bit more interesting when encountered. If the rifts were just popping out corruption everywhere and ghosts were appearing in ruins and the like(that is, the unnatural becomes a common experience rather than something mostly in the background), it'd stop feeling like a natural world that has a definite underlying problem, and just feel like a standard fantasy setting.

See, I'm annoyed, as I really don't feel like this has much to do with the suggestions I've made. I mean, fair enough, introducing changes with not a care in the world for how they fit into the game would inevitably have horrible results. It's a fair point that the unnatural shouldn't really become the common. It's also perfectly reasonable that the most unusual of the effects should be limited to special places.

But I'm not asking for random crap to be added with no justification. I've specifically said regarding reducing reliance on UI and the environmental changes that it should be subtle and inexplicit, in order to make instability more pervasive and unnerving, promote a sense of uncertainty and keep the player on their toes. I don't think that's far from what you've said you like about the mechanic, but as I see it, all of that uncertainty and unnaturalness is as of now practically absent from surface instability, almost exclusively because of that gear in the UI. How am I supposed to see surface instability as unnatural if I just know the current stability through a perfectly reliable and always accessible indicator in the UI? Wouldn't it be more unnatural if I didn't always know whether a place is unstable and what to expect, but it affected the world in unpredictable and creepy ways, causing animals to behave in strange ways and plants to grow in unusal patterns?

Do note as well that animals are unnaturally aggressive supposedly because of something related to lore. I think it's not unreasonable to assume that temporal disturbances are to blame (if not that, then what else?), and I think it would make a lot of sense for animals to be more aggressive and erratic in unstable areas, while behaving more realistically in stable regions. And for both flora and fauna, it can also be a matter of a simple question: does temporal stability and the rust world affect this one in any physical way? If it does, then it will unavoidably have an effect on how the stuff that lives there is affected by it, and by extension the flora and fauna that lives there. And we know it does at least to some extent, as evidenced by story locations. If nothing else, subtle red coloration throughout unstable areas, alongside something akin to iron toxicity in plants, would seem quite fitting.

 

Also, I do think that temporal stability only affecting a certain class of entities is an interesting concept, but then I would say that it shouldn't be arbitrarily dictated by location, because it doesn't make any sort of intuitive sense for it to have been caused by a past catastrophe that changed the world. At this point it's practically identical to sanity mechanics from many other games.

Edited January 18 by MKMoose

[MKMoose]

6 hours ago, williams_482 said:

If new players getting burned setting up bases in nice looking unstable areas (or more experienced players realizing they shouldn't set up in those places) is a problem, players discovering that their base has randomly become an unstable zone for some unknown amount of time is going to be even worse. 

5 hours ago, Feycat said:

Areas becoming unstable would kill the whole ability to build big, awesome bases.

I don't see how this would be significantly more of a problem than rift activity and temporal storms. Sure, if it changed so slow as to force the player to leave the area for an extended period of time, then it would be annoying, but nowhere did I say I would want that. I think it should in most cases on the surface be similar to rift activity in most regards or outright merged with it into a single mechanic. Ideally, low instability could be generally ignored but serve as a warning of sorts of a potential upcoming spike, while such a spike of higher instability could require some combat or to stay at home during the night. If any drawn-out periods of instability were added, they should be balanced in such a way as to keep the player on edge, but not actually dump them into zero stability for an unknown amount of time. Areas with higher average instability would be characterized by slower stability recovery alongside more intense and potentially more frequent instability spikes, but could still usually be used for building perfectly fine, just with increased risks.

 

6 hours ago, williams_482 said:

Recently I went mining for Casserite in an unstable area some distance from my base, and had to emerge from my mineshaft on a regular basis and run off to a stable area to recover stability. The difference in recovery time waiting in an area with 105% stability vs a full 150% stability is substantial, never mind the difficulty of trying to recover in an almost-but-not-quite stable region. This sort of rough categorization (very stable vs barely stable vs barely not stable) would be much harder to convey via environmental clues, and that in turn just forces you to wait around for longer in the middle of nowhere on mining expeditions. 

I see this more as a problem to fix than as a significant counterargument, frankly. The mechanic should apply survival pressure and influence high-level choices, but shouldn't cause the player to wait for an extended period of time, and especially shouldn't make the player search for the most optimal place to wait.

I think that the simplest ways to change it would be to:

• simply accelerate stability drain and recovery rates (or maybe mostly just recovery rate, to avoid excessively reducing the time you can stay underground before hitting zero stability), in order to make encounters with unstable areas more localized to those areas and not delayed on entry and then drawn out after leaving, or
• introduce more continuous stability effects to allow staying at partial stability in slightly unstable areas (related to the third point of the original list of suggestions), so that waiting wouldn't be necessary in relatively shallow mines and would roughly scale with depth.

 

7 hours ago, williams_482 said:

I'm also not huge on removing the indicator from the UI. Admittedly I play with the HUD mod that literally shows you the stability percentage at your current location, which is maybe too much information, but it is a huge help to be able to see at a glance it I'm in a good, okay, or bad place to recover stability. I could get roughly the same information from the gear, I'd just have to look at it longer.

I think that reliance on the UI gauge is to a large extent a matter of preference for information availability. Besides a general dislike for UI indicators which often are detrimental to immersion, I just find it more interesting and exciting when I don't quite know everything about the situation I'm in and what to expect. I'm coming at it largely from the perspective of games that care a lot about player knowledge and organic discovery, where information is rather scarce and a large point of the game is for the player to familiarize themselves with the mechanics and learn how the world works (which would be very fitting for the unfamiliar, unnatural part of the world that is temporal stability). Games naturally limit the availability of information to make the player learn through experimentation and piece together a complete image of the system, but that is cut extremely short when the UI just tells you almost everything you need to know at any given moment.

Having all the information readily available at all times is generally more characteristic of games that focus on action, where the player can't afford to be uncertain about what they can do at any given moment. Games that focus more on strategy, on the other hand, deliberately hide information to make the game more engaging and unpredictable by requiring the player to weigh risks and opportunities when making choices. I think that Vintage Story should (and in some other areas already does) lean towards the more strategic side.

[LadyWYT]

8 hours ago, MKMoose said:

But I'm not asking for random crap to be added with no justification. I've specifically said regarding reducing reliance on UI and the environmental changes that it should be subtle and inexplicit, in order to make instability more pervasive and unnerving, promote a sense of uncertainty and keep the player on their toes. I don't think that's far from what you've said you like about the mechanic, but as I see it, all of that uncertainty and unnaturalness is as of now practically absent from surface instability, almost exclusively because of that gear in the UI. How am I supposed to see surface instability as unnatural if I just know the current stability through a perfectly reliable and always accessible indicator in the UI? Wouldn't it be more unnatural if I didn't always know whether a place is unstable and what to expect, but it affected the world in unpredictable and creepy ways, causing animals to behave in strange ways and plants to grow in unusal patterns?

I think it boils down to a difference of opinion. I like the current implementation because it provides a sense of the unnatural and some uncertainty to the world, while still having consistent rules that are easy to understand and play by. I don't like most changes I see suggested, because they change the rules to something more inconsistent, lose the creepiness, become annoying in some fashion, or other turn the mechanic into just another mechanism to benefit the player instead of posing a challenge.

 

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I don't see how this would be significantly more of a problem than rift activity and temporal storms. Sure, if it changed so slow as to force the player to leave the area for an extended period of time, then it would be annoying, but nowhere did I say I would want that. I think it should in most cases on the surface be similar to rift activity in most regards or outright merged with it into a single mechanic. Ideally, low instability could be generally ignored but serve as a warning of sorts of a potential upcoming spike, while such a spike of higher instability could require some combat or to stay at home during the night. If any drawn-out periods of instability were added, they should be balanced in such a way as to keep the player on edge, but not actually dump them into zero stability for an unknown amount of time. Areas with higher average instability would be characterized by slower stability recovery alongside more intense and potentially more frequent instability spikes, but could still usually be used for building perfectly fine, just with increased risks.

I think it would be interesting for a challenge playthrough, but I don't think it would make surface instability better. I think it would make it quite aggravating to deal with, especially for newer players. One common complaint about temporal storms is that they interrupt whatever the player is doing and force them to do something else. While fluctuating stability that can never drain a player's stability fully might mean that the player can build in an unstable area without much issue, I don't think the player is going to be thrilled if they have to stop what they're doing in order to deal with a spike of higher instability. New players especially, I think, will get aggravated, as now there really isn't a solution other than "oh well, you just have to deal with it or turn it off, because it can happen anywhere at anytime".

Personally, I prefer having a constantly stable area to work with. It gives me a nice little place to chill out while I plan my next adventure. Temporal storms and rift activity aren't really an issue because I can lock the monsters out of my house easily enough, and the storms themselves are fairly predictable. If a change like the above were to happen, I'd most likely want the option to turn the fluctuation off and return stability back to static zones, as I really don't want to be pushed toward anxiety all the time.

8 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Do note as well that animals are unnaturally aggressive supposedly because of something related to lore. I think it's not unreasonable to assume that temporal disturbances are to blame (if not that, then what else?), and I think it would make a lot of sense for animals to be more aggressive and erratic in unstable areas, while behaving more realistically in stable regions. And for both flora and fauna, it can also be a matter of a simple question: does temporal stability and the rust world affect this one in any physical way? If it does, then it will unavoidably have an effect on how the stuff that lives there is affected by it, and by extension the flora and fauna that lives there. And we know it does at least to some extent, as evidenced by story locations. If nothing else, subtle red coloration throughout unstable areas, alongside something akin to iron toxicity in plants, would seem quite fitting.

It's probably achievable with static zones, but fluctuating zones is probably a lot tougher to program in regards to animal behavior/plant qualities. Likewise, I think most players would prefer clear, consistent rules for animal behavior so that they can reliably deal with the creatures, rather than play a constant guessing game with erratic behavior. 

As for the increased creature aggression, it is mentioned in lore and has yet to be fully explained, but I think the primary reason they're coded that way is to present more of a survival challenge to the player, at least for now. As for that one story location:

Spoiler

The Devastation is a lot more serious than just a little bit of instability. It's a literal hole in the world and the other dimension has leaked through into reality, essentially, and thus why the landscape has been altered so much.

To me, temporal stability should still remain something that primarily only affects seraphs. The subtle rust coloration, I think, would be much better served as another clue that one's stability is getting too low--perhaps around the 50% mark.

 

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I think that reliance on the UI gauge is to a large extent a matter of preference for information availability. Besides a general dislike for UI indicators which often are detrimental to immersion, I just find it more interesting and exciting when I don't quite know everything about the situation I'm in and what to expect. I'm coming at it largely from the perspective of games that care a lot about player knowledge and organic discovery, where information is rather scarce and a large point of the game is for the player to familiarize themselves with the mechanics and learn how the world works (which would be very fitting for the unfamiliar, unnatural part of the world that is temporal stability). Games naturally limit the availability of information to make the player learn through experimentation and piece together a complete image of the system, but that is cut extremely short when the UI just tells you almost everything you need to know at any given moment.

I think this is another case of, it depends on one's personal preference. Personally, I prefer to have critical information readily available, and then hide various indicators to achieve whatever level of immersion I want. Most of the time, I tend to prefer having the information displayed, so I can make better choices about whatever I'm doing and get better outcomes on average. For a tougher, more unforgiving game like Vintage Story, that information is a lot more critical to have since mistakes tend to be punished a lot more harshly. In Skyrim I can just reload from my last quicksave; in Minecraft I can just make more gear with ease. If I goof in Vintage Story, it's generally not so easy to fix.

 

5 hours ago, MKMoose said:

Having all the information readily available at all times is generally more characteristic of games that focus on action, where the player can't afford to be uncertain about what they can do at any given moment. Games that focus more on strategy, on the other hand, deliberately hide information to make the game more engaging and unpredictable by requiring the player to weigh risks and opportunities when making choices. I think that Vintage Story should (and in some other areas already does) lean towards the more strategic side.

Not always. It depends heavily on the game and what the desired outcome is. If the desired goal is to make the player constantly second-guess themselves, then hiding crucial information is a good way to achieve that. For a game like Vintage Story, I think an "immersive mode" that hides the UI would be fine as an option, but not as a default.