Hytale comparison

[Foe Hammer]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I actually disagree. Whirlwind style attacks are fine for fantasy, but realistically it's a very poor attack plan. The whirling motion is not only disorienting, but leaves too much opportunity for the opponent to run away, recover and reposition, or even counterattack. The current enemies in the game may not be highly intelligent to take full advantage of such mistakes, but given that the game as a whole is grounded in realism I think it's best to keep the combat fairly grounded as well. 

Now Project Glint, on the other hand...that would be a more fitting place for flashy moves like whirlwind.

Oh no I do not want it in VS lol. I 100% agree that it is impractical and silly. I just was saying I like it as an idea and aesthetically and using it as an extreme example to make the point.

[Bruno Willis]

From the brief glance I've had, Hytale seems to be able to produce quite large underground structures, which I believe are in the plan for vintage story? The Hytale ones seem to have some issues blending with natural generation, but the design principles are really cool: narrow ledges generating to cross gaps, natural and unnatural bridges, etc. They seem to have put more thought into what it would feel like to move through their underground spaces than V.S. has? Probably they're interested in making underground spaces which are deliberate, fun to explore spaces, where V.S. is aiming for realistic, risky to explore spaces.

In that case I'd like to see V.S. leaning more into cave generation which matches real world caves: more narrow cuts and low roofed, angled passages that follow the geological layers, sinkholes with water at the bottom of them. I think giving caves a re-vamp that says either "these are fun to explore but unrealistic", or "these are risky and realistic and not meant for people" would really help V.S. The current caves still have some The Other Block Game vibes, and feel like placeholders to me. 

For V.S. I'd borrow the idea of ledges: could we have a sort of stone ledge (essentially a chiseled stone) which generates in ridges occasionally, in the same way cracked stone generates, but only on exposed stone. That way you'd occasionally get narrow ways to edge around a sinkhole to get to the cave on the other side. It'd also add just a little bit more detail to cliff walls, and could be a great place for sea-birds to perch... 

I also liked the look of being able to grab onto the top of a two high wall and pull yourself up. That could be a nice addition for V.S. (Although I carry rope ladders everywhere for this purpose, and that's a fun gameplay mechanic too)

Hytale's birds looked good for Hytale, very cartoony and cute, and do not look like the sorts of birds V.S. should have. I image birds for V.S. would either be unobtrusive particle-like gatherings which make nice bird sounds, or be deliberate, fast creatures which have nests and sources of food, and swoop between them, or wheel way above in the sky. And really, both methods would be good for V.S. the first for small birds and song birds, and the second for large and hunting birds.

Edited Thursday at 03:44 AM by Bruno Willis
Failing to add images

[MKMoose]

20 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

I also liked the look of being able to grab onto the top of a two high wall and pull yourself up. That could be a nice addition for V.S. (Although I carry rope ladders everywhere for this purpose, and that's a fun gameplay mechanic too)

The general idea has appeared a couple times in various places. The consensus from what I've seen seems to be that it would be great for the game but should be at most two blocks if added at all (Hytale allows to mantle even higher, up to 4 blocks, too high for VS), but some sort of climbing gear could also be introduced as an alternative to carrying ladders everywhere.

 

20 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

In that case I'd like to see V.S. leaning more into cave generation which matches real world caves: more narrow cuts and low roofed, angled passages that follow the geological layers, sinkholes with water at the bottom of them. I think giving caves a re-vamp that says either "these are fun to explore but unrealistic", or "these are risky and realistic and not meant for people" would really help V.S. The current caves still have some The Other Block Game vibes, and feel like placeholders to me. 

I don't know if I'm a fan of painting realism and fun as somewhat exclusive. People don't really know what caves should look like, they have some level of suspension of disbelief, and there is precedent with other elements of the game which are somewhat unrealistic for the sake of fun while remaining believable. I think it's entirely justified to take caves informed by real speleology and adjust their size or potential rewards to tailor them better to gameplay conditions.

I think an overhaul is in order sooner or later, because the current caves are both unrealistic and unfun for many people. And my personal diagnosis for that lack of fun is that they're for the most part just boring and pointless. The vast majority of caves you'll ever see is just roughly circular tunnels snaking around and sometimes intersecting in annoying ways with little justification or purpose. Once you go into a cave, you're usually much more likely to run into a dead end than to find anything particularly interesting, neither visually nor for gameplay reasons. That's my experience, anyway.

Tyron has talked in the past about making caves better and more realistic, and said he would like them to be more messy, moist and geologically varied, or something in that vein. "Richer caves" are also on the roadmap, so I have pretty high hopes for it.

As for ledges, I would first consider creating them with full blocks. They're a pretty neat idea, but I don't think it's necessary to add special blocks for it, especially not as long as a potential larger overhaul is likely at some point.

 

20 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Hytale's birds looked good for Hytale, very cartoony and cute, and do not look like the sorts of birds V.S. should have. I image birds for V.S. would either be unobtrusive particle-like gatherings which make nice bird sounds, or be deliberate, fast creatures which have nests and sources of food, and swoop between them, or wheel way above in the sky. And really, both methods would be good for V.S. the first for small birds and song birds, and the second for large and hunting birds.

Birds are a really cool idea. On the topic of Hytale, though, I think their birds are honestly pretty awful. Not even counting their appearance and just looking at behaviour, many of them, including ducks for some reason, literally just fly around pointlessly high up in the sky and never seem to land. With that off my mind, yeah, I think birds with appropriately varied and ideally context-dependent calls are one of the most effective elements for natural ambience.

 

On 1/21/2026 at 7:26 PM, LadyWYT said:

Whirlwind style attacks are fine for fantasy, but realistically it's a very poor attack plan. The whirling motion is not only disorienting, but leaves too much opportunity for the opponent to run away, recover and reposition, or even counterattack. The current enemies in the game may not be highly intelligent to take full advantage of such mistakes, but given that the game as a whole is grounded in realism I think it's best to keep the combat fairly grounded as well. 

This kind of scenario is pretty much how signature moves end up working in Hytale for several weapons, but particularly for the Battleaxe. It has a whirlwind-like signature, which practically guarantees that you're gonna have to heal afterwards, if you even survive, especially if you try to use it in a group of enemies to optimize the damage. At least that's the impression I'm getting in the early game.

Either way, I do agree that Vintage Story should stay more grounded. There's still a lot of cool alternative actions that could be added to various weapons while remaining realistic enough, like a generic shove, a versatile polearm buttstroke, risky consecutive strikes with the falx that reward careful but commited attacks, something of the sort.

Edited Thursday at 08:52 PM by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, MKMoose said:

I think an overhaul is in order sooner or later, because the current caves are both unrealistic and unfun for many people. And my personal diagnosis for that lack of fun is that they're for the most part just boring and pointless. The vast majority of caves you'll ever see is just roughly circular tunnels snaking around and sometimes intersecting in annoying ways with little justification or purpose. Once you go into a cave, you're usually much more likely to run into a dead end than to find anything particularly interesting, neither visually nor for gameplay reasons. That's my experience, anyway.

Definitely agree here. I like the concept that's there, with the glow worms and ruins and stalactites/stalagmites and whatnot, but otherwise...there's not really much reason to go delving at present. Ruins are neat, but also pretty small with similar layouts, and the loot in them is usually pretty underwhelming outside of the odd collectible here and there. Glow worms and whatnot make for cool visuals, but there could be a lot more variety. Limestone caves especially have some spectacular formations, with soda straws, huge columns, delicate stone curtains, and deep pools that contain unusual animals and are seemingly bottomless. Fossils could be rare finds, that the player could carefully excavate for decoration. Likewise, cave art would be a neat find as well; after all, why wouldn't those who were hiding down there etch some of their stories into the surrounding stone, or doodle out of boredom? There could also be the possibly of a very rare cave full of gigantic crystals.

When it comes to natural caves, there's also a difference between limestone caves and lava caves. Lava caves tend to be lacking when it comes to rock formations due to how the cave was formed. In this case, I think you could probably just increase the chances of encountering active lava pools deep in the earth, as well as perhaps make sure these caves only occur in lava rocks.