1.22.0-pre.1 - Fishing, Mechanisms, Metalworking and More!

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, EnbyKaiju said:

Think they might go that way or stick to mostly Eurocentric styles on top of the semi-fantastical they have in already?

I think they'll stick to predominantly Eurocentric styles, since the story is set mostly in Europe. It also comes with the benefit of being able to cover the cultures more in-depth, rather than having snippets from many cultures but a very shallow overall experience. The Asian steppe and Far East are mentioned, however, as well as Mediterranean and Arabian/North African cultures and cultures of the European nomads of the far north, so I think it's very likely that we'll see some more references to those cultures, though I don't expect them to be the main focus that European culture is.

 

3 hours ago, EnbyKaiju said:

Personally I'd love to see more Mongolian, Ming dynasty China or pre-Edo period Japan. Get a big more variety in the mix that would make for fantastic immersion.

I'd like to see these as well, but I think what I'm looking forward to a little more is seeing more Latvian/Slavic cultural references. Eastern Europe is quite fascinating, in that it has a certain familiarity like other European cultures, but also feels very foreign at the same time, if that makes sense. It also seems that, at least for American media, Slavic culture doesn't really make many appearances, and when it does those characters tend to be of the villainous sort. I'm generalizing a bit, of course, or maybe I've just been looking in the wrong places, but it's definitely something I'd like to see explored a little more.

[EnbyKaiju]

7 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Eastern Europe is quite fascinating, in that it has a certain familiarity like other European cultures, but also feels very foreign at the same time, if that makes sense.

Yeah, makes total sense, and I appreciate that the devs are slowly working more different cultural aesthetics into the game in a way that makes for a very personalisation-based approach. With all the styles currently in the game, and what it looks like is coming, I can imagine folks making villages that have completely different cultural aesthetics even using the vanilla collection. And even if those more East-Asian influences only stay on the periphery I think there is enough already in the game to say "We haven't forgotten them, and they aren't being ignored." to give me starting points.

I know what you mean about the homogenization of cultures from an American viewpoint too. By making different cultures more visible in media like games it definitely helps to normalize them & make them something folks become familiar with. We see a lot of othering when it comes to different cultures, so I'm absolutely here for Vintage Story going "oh hey, Slavic culture is actually amazing, so here's some artistic/aesthetic/historic includes to make you want to learn more." And I think that's part of the power of Vintage Story as a game and piece of art, it gets you interested in learning. I hecking love games that make me want to learn more.

[LadyWYT]

38 minutes ago, EnbyKaiju said:

And I think that's part of the power of Vintage Story as a game and piece of art, it gets you interested in learning. I hecking love games that make me want to learn more.

Another thing I really want to see, that I also love about Vintage Story...the medieval clothes actually look medieval! That is, bright colors! A lot of modern media thinks everything was dull, drab, and covered in dirt, and that just was not the case. Medieval people loved, and I mean loved, bright colors, and while I might not exactly enjoy such garish clothing myself, it's nice to have so many fun and colorful options to play around with. Plus it's a nice break from the underlying grit of the main story, so it keeps everything rather grounded instead of getting overwhelmed by doom and gloom.

[EnbyKaiju]

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Another thing I really want to see, that I also love about Vintage Story...the medieval clothes actually look medieval! That is, bright colors!

Absolutely!! A reflection of 15th century bighter-coloured attire would be incredible! Especially if you need to go hunting for dyes that were on the more tricky to obtain side like indigo or those really rich red & purples. While I love having access to many of the dyes we have already in the game they are a bit vibrant compared to what they would be, so expanding those out from duller hues to the really vibrant ones in the later game would be such a wonderful experience and make for great personalisation. I think the closest we have to a high-tier dye in the game is cinnabar. As there are multiple methods for getting the same kind of blue (maybe make the lapis blue more vibrant too?)

Lots of possibilities!

[ifoz]

18 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I did find that search, though, and there is indeed a bunch of new stuff, some items closely matching the #devlog teaser, seemingly with no recipes as of now (there's just three extra recipes over the current public pre.3). There's also a bucket

I saw these yeah, I'm really excited. The sheepskin vest might be my favourite shown here, but they're all great.
I wonder which ones will be crafted, which found and which bought. I asked in the Discord and they said they wanted the hose craftable, though I'd also guess the tunics will be too since they come in all the colours, same for the chaperons, though I don't know if they'd tailor-lock those or not.

[Brady_The]

­.pre4 just dropped. Changelog included: https://info.vintagestory.at/v1dot22#pre4

The list of newly added features is rather short, but the bush propagation sounds very interesting. It's going to make berry farming for easy food access a lot harder, but a number one complaint is that food is too easy in VS, so this should be a good change.

Edited March 2 by Brady_The

[MKMoose]

13 hours ago, ifoz said:

I saw these yeah, I'm really excited. The sheepskin vest might be my favourite shown here, but they're all great.
I wonder which ones will be crafted, which found and which bought. I asked in the Discord and they said they wanted the hose craftable, though I'd also guess the tunics will be too since they come in all the colours, same for the chaperons, though I don't know if they'd tailor-lock those or not.

New clothing is already in the game now, in quantity of exactly 177, currently non-craftable and missing all localization. A couple clothing sets are named after specific cultures, regions, as well as a couple slightly eccentric jobs, and the rest are mostly nondescript everyday clothes and accessories. Very cool.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Brady_The said:

The list of newly added features is rather short, but the bush propagation sounds very interesting. It's going to make berry farming for easy food access a lot harder, but a number one complaint is that food is too easy in VS, so this should be a good change.

It looks rather promising, but does appear to be rather buggy at the moment. I think it's going to have a pretty big impact on early game survival, given that now the player will need to actually sink some serious effort into farming rather than digging up every bush from the nearby area and planting them back at base. It also looks like the berry bushes will be eventually changing to be seasonal yield, which makes a lot of sense but also means that berries won't necessarily be the staple of early survival that they currently are. That is, hunting, fishing, and foraging for wild foods like mushrooms will probably be a lot more critical.

[Brady_The]

13 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I think it's going to have a pretty big impact on early game survival, given that now the player will need to actually sink some serious effort into farming

I only took a quick peek at the very first berry bushes I could find and neither had ripe fruits. Due to this small test sample I am not sure if it was just by random chance, a bug or if bushes simply don't spawn in bearing fruit. The latter would be very harsh.

Edit: It could have also been a seasonal thing. I was skipping time pretty generously testing other things beforehand.

Edited March 2 by Brady_The

[EnbyKaiju]

Oh yeah, they said it was very undercooked, but this is a great indication where the new version is going and I love it.

I've personally always disliked how easy it is to make a massive berry farm & kinda bypass early game food survival in part (and the kind of metagaming that results), and I hate how in doing so players would strip areas bare of fruit growing plants. This not only encourages folks to take it slower, but to leave the plants there for later foraging and for the wildlife (even trash pandas need to eat).

So now planning out berry farms will be the same as regular orchards. You need planning, time, and commitment. And as someone who has worked on berry farms in the past and seen how long they take to bring to fruition I am so here for this.

Can't wait for full implementation!

[LadyWYT]

6 minutes ago, Brady_The said:

I only took a quick peek at the very first berry bushes I could find and neither had ripe fruits. Due to this small test sample I am not sure if it was just by random chance, a bug or if bushes simply don't spawn in bearing fruit. The latter would be very harsh.

Edit: It could have also been a seasonal thing. I was skipping time pretty generously testing other things beforehand.

I don't think it's seasonal, at least not yet. But I do think it's heading that direction. As far as I can tell, berry bushes no longer spawn with flowers or ripe fruit, which is pretty harsh but not entirely unfair, I think. Prior to 1.22, berry bushes are ridiculously strong, to the point that it's almost not necessary to bother hunting, fishing, or foraging mushrooms in the very early game.

 

4 minutes ago, EnbyKaiju said:

Oh yeah, they said it was very undercooked, but this is a great indication where the new version is going and I love it.

I've personally always disliked how easy it is to make a massive berry farm & kinda bypass early game food survival in part (and the kind of metagaming that results), and I hate how in doing so players would strip areas bare of fruit growing plants. This not only encourages folks to take it slower, but to leave the plants there for later foraging and for the wildlife (even trash pandas need to eat).

So now planning out berry farms will be the same as regular orchards. You need planning, time, and commitment. And as someone who has worked on berry farms in the past and seen how long they take to bring to fruition I am so here for this.

Can't wait for full implementation!

Same! I'm not sure if fruit trees will ever require fertilizing, but at the moment that seems a great way to give some real advantage to propagating fruit trees versus relying solely on berry bushes. Berry bushes are still faster to grow even with the changes, I think, but in order to keep them producing the player will need to fertilize them every once in a while. Fruit trees might be a little harder to get going initially, but require less work over time due to not needing the additional upkeep, as well as offering a better harvest-to-space ratio.

Another change I also like is that animals will now make more effort to avoid players. To be fair, it still seems somewhat easy to run up and pick a fight in melee, but that plus the berry bush changes feel like a good nerf to the Blackguard's early game, without actually messing with the class itself. The early game felt just a little too easy on the class before, so it's definitely a change I'm looking forward to. 

[EnbyKaiju]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm not sure if fruit trees will ever require fertilizing, but at the moment that seems a great way to give some real advantage to propagating fruit trees versus relying solely on berry bushes. Berry bushes are still faster to grow even with the changes, I think, but in order to keep them producing the player will need to fertilize them every once in a while. Fruit trees might be a little harder to get going initially, but require less work over time due to not needing the additional upkeep, as well as offering a better harvest-to-space ratio.

This is very much akin to real life handling of fruiting plants. Orchards are kind of a set and forget thing, given they can take multiple years to ripen IRL all you really need to do is prune & occasionally propagate. Berry bushes get like a yearly fertilization as having a lot in one place can strip the nutrients bare (if that plot even has the right nutrients which is unlikely with a lot of introduced varieties (can you tell I'm excited to have my own blueberry farm in VS instead of working in one IRL? lol).

I just really appreciate the balance. Taking cuttings means whole process takes longer, but you can make a lot more of them if you're willing to not just 100 days the game. It also means berry bushes are a renewable resource that you can set up at different bases, just like fruit trees, without stripping areas. It's not harder for difficulty sake, and it's not just realism for realism sake, it's realism for game immersion sake and it's so good.

Having more animals just try to avoid the players is going to be interesting. It's going to make domestication a little more challenging and again require players to put more work in to get them up to a decent generation. I'm here for it.

[LadyWYT]

6 minutes ago, EnbyKaiju said:

Having more animals just try to avoid the players is going to be interesting. It's going to make domestication a little more challenging and again require players to put more work in to get them up to a decent generation. I'm here for it.

Possibly. Hunting will be a little harder, I think. Domestication will probably require the player to trap the baby animals, or otherwise lure adults to a specific spot via feed troughs. However, since the animals run away from the player, that also means that the player can herd them to a specific spot as well. 

[EnbyKaiju]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

Possibly. Hunting will be a little harder, I think. Domestication will probably require the player to trap the baby animals, or otherwise lure adults to a specific spot via feed troughs. However, since the animals run away from the player, that also means that the player can herd them to a specific spot as well. 

Very true. And we already use the animal aggression side to bring in angered pigs & rams, so it just means working the other way if they aren't going hostile mode.

I think pigs are still going to be the easy win, especially if you find a protective boar around piglet season. I'm gonna miss early generation sheep staying put though, haha. We're going to start needing sheep bells.

[EnbyKaiju]

Just toying away in creative and stacking rusty gears in piles up to 64 is so satisfying.

No longer will we leave dinky little piles around the place we have to break to pick up. The flaunting of post-apocalyptic wealth is upon us!

It's these little changes, like being able to remove single candles at a time from placed batches that make every update feel special

[Ravensblade]

I see a lot of new types of berries. I wonder if fertilizer would depend on type. And how viable just replanting them instead would be. 

[Brady_The]

[LadyWYT]

17 minutes ago, Ravensblade said:

I see a lot of new types of berries. I wonder if fertilizer would depend on type. And how viable just replanting them instead would be. 

I'm guessing that it probably would depend on type, since the crops have different nutrient requirements. I doubt just replanting the bush rather than fertilize will be very viable though. Unless something major changes, it looks like it will take several months for a cutting to grow into a proper mature bush that can bear fruit. Pulling from the patch notes:

Quote

A handful of rare traits will be added in the next pre-release - which propagate to the cutting taken

If a bush has a special trait, it might be able to propagate more bushes like that via cutting, in which case ditching the old bushes certainly won't be desirable as you'll want the old bushes to keep producing cuttings and fruit until you have more bushes of that type established.

Overall, fertilizer isn't really that hard to come by, and I daresay it's easier to just sprinkle a bit on every now and then rather than go through the process of trying to cut up old bushes and regrow new ones.

[MKMoose]

Not gonna lie, I really don't like the new berry bushes. I think they're too complex for their own good. It's pretty much all the complexity of fruit trees, plus the nutrient and trait systems slapped on top. On the earliest food source that the player is likely to encounter and rely on in the early game. It's just inconsistent with everything else, and introduces excessive complexity too early. It's not a bad change, but it's a bad standalone change.

I'd argue that fruit should be simple and low-maintenance but inefficient, ergo, they shouldn't use the fertility system at all unless only as a static modifier to yield based on the type of soil they're planted on which could maybe also be boosted with fertilizer. If they're unbalanced, then make them less efficient or make them spoil faster or something in that vein, but don't impose maintenance.

At the same time, farming, animal husbandry and hunting would be much more suitable for more labor-intensive processes, creating more meaningful distinctions between nutritional categories. Fruit would be early-game, easy to max out, ineffective in meals. Vegetable and grain more labor-intensive but highly efficient and much easier to store for winter. Protein would be a short-term luxury, but difficult to preserve. Not that the current balance doesn't do that at all, but it could very feasibly lean even further into it.

Edited March 2 by MKMoose

[LadyWYT]

19 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

I'd argue that fruit should be simple and low-maintenance but inefficient, ergo, they shouldn't use the fertility system at all unless only as a static modifier to yield based on the type of soil they're planted on which could maybe also be boosted with fertilizer. If they're unbalanced, then make them less efficient or make them spoil faster or something in that vein, but don't impose maintenance.

I'm guessing the idea is that the berry bushes are supposed to operate similar to fruit trees, in that the player actually needs to take cuttings to propagate new bushes rather than loot the mature bushes from the surrounding countryside and replant at base, but with the main difference being that berry bush cuttings have a much higher survival rate and grow to maturity much faster than fruit trees. In order to keep it balanced though, they'll require a little more investment from the player long-term, in that the player will need to fertilize the bushes every once in a while to keep up the yields.

Wild bushes, I'm guessing, will probably operate similar to wild crops, in that they grow but don't actually use up the soil nutrients. Ideally, the player should be able to have consistent harvests from those just fine, at the cost of needing to actually go out and forage rather than harvest from the safety of their base.

[MKMoose]

15 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm guessing the idea is that the berry bushes are supposed to operate similar to fruit trees, in that the player actually needs to take cuttings to propagate new bushes rather than loot the mature bushes from the surrounding countryside and replant at base, but with the main difference being that berry bush cuttings have a much higher survival rate and grow to maturity much faster than fruit trees. In order to keep it balanced though, they'll require a little more investment from the player long-term, in that the player will need to fertilize the bushes every once in a while to keep up the yields.

I have no problem with berry bushes operating like fruit trees, and I expected that change to happen eventually, but that's irrelevant to all the other changes. If they want to keep things balanced, then reduced nutrition is the primary lever, and there's no need for anything else. Additionally, a more intricate seasonal growth cycle would allow to better tailor fruit availability to different climates and limit them to specific windows at specific times of year, incentivizing fruit variety. But health and trait systems have no business in the most basic food source in the game. It literally seems like it's gonna be the most complex food source now.

Edited March 2 by MKMoose

[EnbyKaiju]

I hope in time the devs find more ways to encourage folks to actually engage with the crop rotation/fertility system. The game is built on a lot of mechanics that are supposed to engage folks and have them learning & adapting in the way civilizations past have. And to be honest I find just destroying fields and replacing the soil to just be a waste of the devs' effort to give folks systems to involve themselves with. It's also a real industrialised mindset. The four field system was created to help agricultural workers not deplete the soil and ensure the health of the dirt ecosystem, it was a way for farmers who weren't in floodplain style farms (like farmers along the Nile) to replenish the nutrients & keep working.

I know that's not how a lot of people see it, and I'm not criticizing folks who see it differently to me, but "tear it up and replace it after every crop" just feels like not playing to the strengths of the system in place. If the berry rework is a positive way to encourage folks to engage more, I'm all for it.

Farming is a lot more work than gathering in the setup, but a lot more rewarding in the end, it should feel that way.

Again, my thoughts, I like this system. The added complexity & reliance on focused efforts is a huge win to a game built on hundreds of immersive mechanics. 

Edited March 2 by EnbyKaiju

[Calmest_of_lakes]

I haven't interacted with fruit trees at all, do fruits take longer to spoil than berries do?

[EnbyKaiju]

Just now, Calmest_of_lakes said:

I haven't interacted with fruit trees at all, do fruits take longer to spoil than berries do?

Depends on the fruit. They have semi-realistic storage times. So apples & pears last for ages when stored in a cellar, cherries last a few days...etc. It's all very variable based on what you want to grow and how long you want to store it. I can't remember the more tropical climate tree fruit, but most of the temperate ones last longer than berries.

[MKMoose]

57 minutes ago, EnbyKaiju said:

I know that's not how a lot of people see it, and I'm not criticizing folks who see it differently to me, but "tear it up and replace it after every crop" just feels like not playing to the strengths of the system in place. If the berry rework is a positive way to encourage folks to engage more, I'm all for it.

I've seen plenty of people share this sentiment. I'd say that these kinds of mechanics is what VS is built on and modding thrives on.

The problem with berries for me is that I see no reasonable argument for them to be relatively more complex than fruit trees and farming. They're the first food source that the player is likely to encounter and rely on, and that alone makes it borderline necessary from a game design perspective to keep them simple and intuitive. I'd argue that berries and perhaps a couple other gatherable sources of food (roots, tubers, bird eggs, flowers etc.) should be plentiful enough to feed the player easily as long as they locate and frequent a few locations with regenerating resources as long as they are available, and the primary advantage of farming and animal husbandry should lie in food security for winter and maximizing miscellaneous benefits like nutrition. The current balance kind of already does that, but only because berries are nearly the only gatherable food source, not because of clear balancing between farming and gathering.

 

8 minutes ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

I haven't interacted with fruit trees at all, do fruits take longer to spoil than berries do?

Most useful fruit take 20x longer to spoil than berries. Some of the Mediterranean and tropical ones take 7.5x as long as berries, and the rest is exactly as long as berries.

Edited March 2 by MKMoose