Temporal storms are a bad implementation of a good idea.

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I made the suggestion that storms be a place you go to rather than something that happens globally. That does not conflict with lore but I was told that such a change is not acceptable because it would conflict with the lore even though it does not. So which changes specifically is acceptable I ask?

Given certain NPC dialogues, I would say that such an idea does conflict with the lore. However, I don't think the lore is necessarily the strongest argument against that particular idea and here's why:

Letting the storms be static event locations that the player travels to in order to engage at a time of their choosing is certainly more convenient for the player. However, it also results in a world that feels static, where nothing ever happens without the player's involvement. The goal of VS seems to be not just to tell a good story, but to build a world that feels alive. That is, things will be happening regardless of player involvement. The seasons change, NPCs go about their day, animals will wander around and do various things, etc.

Spoiler

The NPC dialogues in question are the villagers' various comments about temporal storms, as well as the comments Tobias makes. If storms were isolated to specific areas, NPCs probably wouldn't be hiding in forts during temporal storms, talking about an event known as the "true storm", or otherwise expressing suspicions about animals potentially being affected by said storms. They'd likely just...not live in places the storms occur.

Likewise, examining tapestries and lore books involving Jonas heavily imply that temporal storms are the result of the Rust World trying to merge with our reality. Two realities overlapping is a rather drastic occurrence and it doesn't really make sense that temporal storms would only affect one small portion of the world as a result.

 

[CastIronFabric]

3 minutes ago, williams_482 said:

Obviously the story is not the "soul" of any given game. Clearly the developers care deeply about it in this game.

it is not clear.

In fact, its clear that its NOT clear. The evidence you present that it is clear is logically the same as it would be for a commitment to farming mechanics.

Storms do not have to be unavoidable, that too is NOT in the Lore. In fact, storms ARE avoidable already so...

 

Edited March 5 by CastIronFabric

[CastIronFabric]

3 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Given certain NPC dialogues, I would say that such an idea does conflict with the lore. However, I don't think the lore is necessarily the strongest argument against that particular idea and here's why:

Letting the storms be static event locations that the player travels to in order to engage at a time of their choosing is certainly more convenient for the player. However, it also results in a world that feels static, where nothing ever happens without the player's involvement. The goal of VS seems to be not just to tell a good story, but to build a world that feels alive. That is, things will be happening regardless of player involvement. The seasons change, NPCs go about their day, animals will wander around and do various things, etc.

  Reveal hidden contents

The NPC dialogues in question are the villagers' various comments about temporal storms, as well as the comments Tobias makes. If storms were isolated to specific areas, NPCs probably wouldn't be hiding in forts during temporal storms, talking about an event known as the "true storm", or otherwise expressing suspicions about animals potentially being affected by said storms. They'd likely just...not live in places the storms occur.

Likewise, examining tapestries and lore books involving Jonas heavily imply that temporal storms are the result of the Rust World trying to merge with our reality. Two realities overlapping is a rather drastic occurrence and it doesn't really make sense that temporal storms would only affect one small portion of the world as a result.

 

to be clear I do not mean 'a place that you go that is always active'. It can be a place you go on a randomized timer or scheduled or whatever.

I could not disagree with you more that such a parameter is important to a game experience but regardless I was not implying that it had to be static.

Regarding NPC dialogues what you offered me was basically as follows :'a storm was coming and we had to xyz'

that does NOT imply global even remotely.

this of course is me engaging in a debate over lore specifics over a foundation of lore immutable importance that I fundamentally reject in the first place.

Edited March 5 by CastIronFabric

[LadyWYT]

The full dive on where temporal storms are referenced, both in lore as well as advertising, for those interested: 

 

3 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

to be clear I do not mean 'a place that you go that is always active'. It can be a place you go on a randomized timer or scheduled or whatever.

This presents a different problem: the player still needs to drop whatever they're doing in order to go interact with the storm, but now they have to travel. Which I will note, some players already complain about the traveling required to do the current story. Additionally, if an idea like this is to work, then it also begs the questions:

How does the player know where to go for a temporal storm?

How does the player know when a temporal storm is going to occur? Realistically, if the storm is only occurring in a specific area, the player would need to get the information from someone in that area, or have some sort of tracking device that alerts them to such anomalies.

Does the storm only start once the player enters that area, or does it just occur regardless of whether or not the player is there? If the former, that seems a good way to get players to avoid certain areas entirely, or otherwise get frustrated about having to fight on ground not of their choosing(ie, no chance to make fortifications or traps). If the latter, that seems like it could lead to some performance issues with chunk loading, as well as the issue of the player missing out on the storm because they couldn't get there in time.

[Thorfinn]

10 hours ago, Slam said:

No.

Has that been changed? Can they walk through storages now? Obviously, I have not done so lately.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, Blaiyze said:

The point is: yes, due to lore, the Storms are supposed to be a disruption. Fantastic. That's still not great game design esp when players are in the middle of their first couple days ever playing the game, still don't have the mechanics fully figured out, possibly in the middle of a death cycle, and then have a storm dropped on top of their heads, no shelter, no way or tools or knowledge for how to deal with the storms, and a high level enemy one shots them up the tail pipe.

There is a reason Tyron put a "Rage Quit?" button on the death screen. It literally says that. You can argue all day that temporal storms are rough on new players, but that is the point. They are meant to be rough. It is no secret that a storm can and will catch a new player off guard. The only way through it is preparation.

And new players will not prepare. I did not.

My first storm was miserable. I ended up hiding in my basement, backed into a corner with no weapon because I died and could not get back to my gear. Since then, I keep a spare set of weapons and tools next to my respawn point. Later, when I crafted my first iron armor, I thought I was untouchable because bears could not kill me anymore. Then a tier 4 drifter ripped a chunk out of that armor and sent me limping back to camp with my proverbial tail between my legs.

The question is not whether this is "great" game design. The question is whether the game is intentionally built to punish players who are unprepared.

It is.

3 hours ago, Blaiyze said:

Adjusting the Storms so that enemies cannot spawn within player bases would increase the experience significantly - the engine already knows how to identify rooms and differentiate between a room and a cellar and a greenhouse, so it's in the realm of possibility. The intent of the Storms is to be a Temporal glitch/unnatural disaster, fine, but give the player base room to breathe. A mechanic that forces the players to play the way the devs want you to play, rather than letting the player engage with the game with their own creativity - is literally one of the reasons that 7dtd keeps failing its fanbase. Not that these two games are the same, but the comparison stands.

The whole point of the storms is that do not have anywhere to run. No where is safe. How can it be when temporal forces permeate even the fabric of reality? If the storm politely stops at the walls of your home and knocks on the front door to ask for permission to enter, it stops being an unnatural disaster and starts being a scheduled event where you bunker down. It is no different from a blood moon from 7dtd that players will min max around. Minmaxing is not intended VS gameplay.

Yes the game engine can detect rooms, cellars, greenhouses. It intentionally does not when determining where to spawn rotbeasts. The storm is not a mob wave, it is a tear in reality. It's supposed to violate your sense of security, keep you on edge, and wondering "Am I safe?". When reality warps, then the reality of the safety of your base warps with it. No where is safe.

And I would also like to push back on the idea that this forces the players to play the way the devs want them to play.  Preparation for a coming storm is not a single path. You can build fallback rooms, you can keep spare gear by your spawn point, you can go mobile and stay on the run until it's over, you can design kill corridors, you can focus on armor and shielding, you can focus on healing poultices and bandages or even a mix of all of these things. The game doesn't tell you how to survive. It just commands you to do so.

Comparing it to 7dtd misses an important distinction. In 7dtd, the horde is a predictable siege that can be solved with engineering cheese. Temporal storms are unpredictable designed to disrupt your comfort. If your base becomes a hard safe zone, the pressure disappears and so does a large part of what make the mechanic work so well the way it does.

3 hours ago, Blaiyze said:

It isn't about creating a mechanic that ends up being a benevolent gift to the player, it just creates a REASON beyond "LORRRRRRRE" to have the mechanic in the game in the first place.

As long as the storms stay true to the lore, I am open to any modification to them. However the lore dictates that the storms are not a polite environmental effect. They used to be worse. A LOT worse. They are fractures in reality that is slowly mending itself. The moment players can say "Oh just hide in  your mansion and be fine", the storm has lost its teeth and becomes just an annoying decoration.

3 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

'because of the lore' is a version of that. If the only or even the first answer one can come up with is instinctively 'because of the lore' then because of that being the most important default answer its likely that it needs to change. Lore is not written by an immutable god and its not a card that one can play thinking its a sacred answer that should never be questioned.

I think there is an important distinction being missed here.

"Because we have always done it that way" is an appeal to inertia. It implies no one thought about it, no one revisited it, and no deeper reasoning exists. "Because of the lore" in this case is not that.

Tyron is not an immutable god, sure (sorry, buddy...). But the broader narrative has already been written. We are playing an early access build with only a fraction of that story exposed. When Chapter 2 released, some Chapter 1 lore entries were adjusted, not because the mechanics changed, but to avoid spoiling what comes later. That tells me the narrative backbone exists independently of moment to moment balance decisions. More importantly, mechanics have changed before without rewriting the world to justify them. When drifters were given the ability to throw rocks to counter sky highways and avoid rotbeasts and storms, the lore did not suddenly shift to accommodate that. The world did not rewrite itself. The mechanic was adjusted within the existing framework.

So when someone says "because of the lore," it is not a sacred shield against criticism. It is a reminder that this setting is intentional. The storms, the rot, the lack of absolute safety, all of that fits within a vision of a world that is fundamentally unstable. Lore is not immutable, but it is deliberate. If something was built to reinforce the theme that reality itself is compromised, then removing that pressure should require more justification than player discomfort. Before we change something, it is fair to ask: what thematic role is this serving? What tension is it preserving? What would be lost if we sand it down?

That is not the same as clinging to tradition. It is recognizing that design and narrative are intertwined here.

[CastIronFabric]

8 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

The full dive on where temporal storms are referenced, both in lore as well as advertising, for those interested: 

 

This presents a different problem: the player still needs to drop whatever they're doing in order to go interact with the storm, but now they have to travel. Which I will note, some players already complain about the traveling required to do the current story. Additionally, if an idea like this is to work, then it also begs the questions:

How does the player know where to go for a temporal storm?

How does the player know when a temporal storm is going to occur? Realistically, if the storm is only occurring in a specific area, the player would need to get the information from someone in that area, or have some sort of tracking device that alerts them to such anomalies.

Does the storm only start once the player enters that area, or does it just occur regardless of whether or not the player is there? If the former, that seems a good way to get players to avoid certain areas entirely, or otherwise get frustrated about having to fight on ground not of their choosing(ie, no chance to make fortifications or traps). If the latter, that seems like it could lead to some performance issues with chunk loading, as well as the issue of the player missing out on the storm because they couldn't get there in time.

again

1. NPC dialogue saying 'the storm is coming we have to xzy' is not evidence that the storm should be global not even remotely.

2. a trailer of a person walking in a storm is not remotely evidence that a storm should be global.

so I hold the following points given this fact. 

1. storms not being global does not affect lore not even remotely suggested.

2. if I person is going to start interpreting the lore as like one does when reading the 3rd translation of the bible and cherry picking and taking out of context and reading into it what they want that just turns into a false excuse to disagree with any idea that is just simply not their own.

3. I fully reject that Lore is anymore immutable that farming mechanics.

4. I fully reject that that there exists evidence that the developers feel the lore as it stands currently is immutable and unchangeable anymore than farming mechanics.

5. I am not having a detailed conversation about my idea, I was using your claim that my idea conflicts with lore as an example of item number 2 on my orginal point that started this entire side conversation.

6. I asked you to give me an example of a suggestion for a change made in this forum that you feel does not conflict with the lore. a specfic example

Edited March 5 by CastIronFabric

[Calmest_of_lakes]

2 hours ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

Some changes off the top of my head that they could make:

Have mobs be able to destroy blocks/doors? Then it would become like Rimworld, in that it would become even easier to cheese with killboxes and exploiting the AI, annoying builders who would have to remember to patch broken doors/walls/chiseled blocks, and punishing less well off/less skilled players.

Have a block/item that completely neutralizes it? Then, the resource cost wouldn't matter, as players would just bite the bullet and rush to get it. It would be a waste of a mechanic later on, too.

Replace the "no spawn restrictions" gimmick for enemies with more intense dark areas, as someone earlier suggested? Can be trivally mitigated by making a ton of lighting, and can even be exploited.

 

Add trap blocks/mechanics? Still would end up like Rimworld, and doesn't fix the problems with it (though, I will say that those would be welcome additions to the game.)

Is there anything else I missed? I feel like it would be useful to compile all common suggestions for improvement, and pitfalls, for future reference. IF you happen to know who came up with the idea, please let me know so I can credit them later on!

Edited March 5 by Calmest_of_lakes
Clarification

[Slam]

5 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Has that been changed? Can they walk through storages now? Obviously, I have not done so lately.

I’m sorry I ment no, I’m not going to do that.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm not entirely sure why those areas are hard to mod. It seems like it's a portion of code that's not easy to access or something?

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Changing the mechanics of the storm itself,, yeah, that's more tricky. At a guess, performance at a time when performance is at a premium. No one would tolerate a lot of lag in a storm. Other than masochists, I guess.

But change it from spawning drifters to spawning baby bunnies and maybe even fish out of water? Pretty easy.

[CastIronFabric]

23 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

"Because we have always done it that way" is an appeal to inertia. It implies no one thought about it, no one revisited it, and no deeper reasoning exists. "Because of the lore" in this case is not that

I keep repeating this like a broken record but I will have to do it again.

The EXACT same logic you are using here can be applied to farming mechanics, berry mechanics, spears, armour every single aspect of the game this logic can be applied.

 

Its circular logic. 'why it is good? becasue it has been decided to exist' that line of logic appears to ONLY be applied to lore, nothing else even though from a logic perspective it can be applied to everything created at this point in time. Additionally the presumption that the story is the foundation and that everything needs to revolve around it is fundamentally false and completely arbitrary

.EDIT: In fact for this specific game, changing farming mechanics has more impact on game play than changing Lore. So this whole idea that Lore is the most immutable aspect of this game is just completely arbitrary and I suppose based on well assumptions (I want to go more into detail on that but it would lead this conversation very astray) @LadyWYT (tagged so so its read by Lady)

 

Edited March 5 by CastIronFabric

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

Is there anything else I missed? I feel like it would be useful to compile all common suggestions for improvement, and pitfalls, for future reference. IF you happen to know who came up with the idea, please let me know so I can credit them later on!

I have no idea who came up with the idea, but I know it does get mentioned frequently: some sort of Jonas tech device that can create a safety bubble within a certain area. That way the early storms can stay dangerous and the player can struggle, but the player can also have solution to work towards to mitigate storm effects. Basically, the player earns safety. It's also a way to flesh out the late game Jonas tech options, which are rather lacking at the moment.

 

2 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

Depends on what you are trying to accomplish. Changing the mechanics of the storm itself,, yeah, that's more tricky. At a guess, performance at a time when performance is at a premium. No one would tolerate a lot of lag in a storm. Other than masochists, I guess.

But change it from spawning drifters to spawning baby bunnies and maybe even fish out of water? Pretty easy.

Mostly I mean big changes, like making stuff spawn on the ground, or relegating storms to specific areas, etc. Changes like adjusting monster loot can already be done with available mods.

[Thorfinn]

Sure, @LadyWYT. That's a lot more complicated. But a good share of the mods are also .dlls and they exist. There's probably a reason no one mods them --other than to a highly vocal subset of players, storms aren't a big enough issue that anyone cares to bother. If you just flat out hate them, you can disable them. If you kind of hate them, but want them anyway for some reason, you can set the "sleep through storms" and choose whether or not to participate on a case by case basis. If you think it should have different drops, or more or fewer spawns,  there's mods for that.

[Andael]

21 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

If you kind of hate them, but want them anyway for some reason, you can set the "sleep through storms" and choose whether or not to participate on a case by case basis. If you think it should have different drops, or more or fewer spawns,  there's mods for that.

All of these fail to be good solutions for those of us, like the topic-creator Tabulius, who like the idea of the Storms but see them as a poorly implemented placeholder which is a current weak-point in the game with many much better fleshed-out aspects.

 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 hours ago, Stralgaez said:

I'd rather have it pulled from other, easier accessible sources to roughly puzzle it together for yourself at the very start : The Traders and Treasure hunters could spin you a few tales about it, and you then decide to brave those temporal storm affected pockets (which may be generated nearby upon accepting the investigation) for fill in the blanks. And once you got enough information to piece yourself a story together, you could finally get ready to brave Chapter 1.

That might be cool. I'm not sure how it would affect the story pacing as currently you know nothing until you get to the chapter 1 location unless you manage to find a lore book or tapestry in a ruin somewhere.

 

3 hours ago, Calmest_of_lakes said:

I'm in the camp that likes temporal storms, but I do have to say that the fact that the mechanic is completely divisive says that it has really glaring problems. 

I would go as far as to say that the Temporal Storm mechanic might have some fundamental flaws with it. How would you even be able to make storms simultaneously engaging, balanced, fair, and not be able to be completely ignored? How would you make them constantly present, without them becoming old or annoying? The fact that mods really haven't been able to fix some of the more despised aspects of it doesn't fill me with much hope, ehe.

 

Some changes off the top of my head that they could make:

Have mobs be able to destroy blocks/doors? Then it would become like Rimworld, in that it would become even easier to cheese with killboxes and exploiting the AI, annoying builders who would have to remember to patch broken doors/walls/chiseled blocks, and punishing less well off/less skilled players.

Have a block/item that completely neutralizes it? Then, the resource cost wouldn't matter, as players would just bite the bullet and rush to get it. It would be a waste of a mechanic later on, too.

Replace the "no spawn restrictions" gimmick for enemies with more intense dark areas, as someone earlier suggested? Can be trivally mitigated by making a ton of lighting, and can even be exploited.

 

Add trap blocks/mechanics? Still would end up like Rimworld, and doesn't fix the problems with it (though, I will say that those would be welcome additions to the game.)

 

Incentivise engage with the storms? I don't think that would address any of it's problems, though

I can agree that the storms may need some adjustment, especially given how divided the playerbase is on them. However, I would argue that many of the players who dislike storms may be approaching VS as if it were a modded block game, rather than as a standalone title that simply shares similarities with other block games.

3 hours ago, williams_482 said:

The title of this thread is bang on. Temporal storms mostly suck to deal with, and the way they suck is especially punishing to new players. I don't think it's a coincidence that the staunchest defenders of this mechanic as currently constructed are also the highest volume posters and likely most experienced players. You guys are easily at the skill level required to make your first storm in a world manageable and even fun, without relying on unpleasant cheese strats like "cocoon yourself in dirt for 10 minutes and go read a book". You know all of the tricks of the game to help you win fights, stay alive, and crucially recover as well as possible from dying. New players largely don't, and are quite vulnerable to learning some extremely un-fun lessons in subjects like "how to get into a death loop and lose all your best stuff". You are well aware that getting one-shotted by a T4 drifter while panning in your home is quite unlikely, context that a newbie who just lost that low percentage die roll does not have and will assume the worst from. Etc, etc. 

There is some truth to this but I disagree with your conclusion.

Yes, experienced players handle the storms better because they have experience. If you're expecting everything to be accessible without effort, then you are giving handouts which is fundamentally against the core design philosophies of VS. Experience lowers the friction in every system of every game. Farming, metallurgy, combat, food preservation, cave exploration, etc. All of those are significantly harder for someone who does not understand how the game works and storms are not unique in that regard.

The difference is that storms compress the lessons to be learned into a short experience. A bad harvest teaches you slowly how to manage your farms better. A bad storm teaches you very quickly that you are woefully unprepared. But that does not mean that the temporal storm mechanic as a whole is inherently flawed. I new player getting caught in a death loop is not a flaw in the system, it is a flaw in the chosen path of gameplay. It is a signal that better, faster, and more thorough preparation is required and understanding in how it works is needed. Yet, you mention cocooning yourself in dirt as a cheese strat. That is still a player-driven solution. The game did not demand it. The handbook didn't mention it. Players just did it because they could. Player agency still exists even at the lower levels.

As unfortunate as the T4 drifter one-shot experience is, it doesn't really happen all that often in the grand scheme of things. Yes it feels catastrophic. You are minding your own business and then the storm happens and bam you're dead with no way out. But that is also true of cave-ins, bear attacks or a temporal rift spawning on top of you because the game suddenly went from peaceful to cataclysmic in a breath. The game does not telegraph safety, it teaches caution and preparation. Shore up the walls before digging, get high ground before face-checking the bushes. Keep a high temporal stability so that a sudden rift doesn't mean death or worse.

Veteran players aren't defending the storms because they know all the tricks to surviving them. We defend the storms because we approached them with the right mindset. I had a miserable experience in my first storm, but I survived despite a couple deaths and met the daylight with a grin on my face. That victory left me with a bloody nose and a crushed ego, but it was well earned. New players similarly having a rough first storm experience doesn't mean bad design. It just means they were unprepared.

[runnybabbit]

47 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

here's probably a reason no one mods them --other than to a highly vocal subset of players, storms aren't a big enough issue that anyone cares to bother.

I have no idea and you might be correct, but just for the sake of consideration: Could it also be that timed raid mechanics are by their very nature difficult to design within a sandbox as expansive as VS? Look to games like Valheim where the design philosophy focuses around extremely polished, limited (compared to VS) systems... their raid mechanics are still one of the most controversial parts of the game. The lack of mods could simply be a matter of scale and difficulty. 

Could be sample bias but everyone I've personally talked to about the game has expressed disappointment with the temporal storms in one way or another.

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, Tabulius said:

I still haven't seen anyone provide a reason as to how simply reverting the storms back to pre-1.21 where enemies wouldn't spawn in your house is bad or has any downsides. I still think it's not where storms should ultimately go because regardless I find storms to be pretty boring and a barebones implementation of a cool idea. But at least as a placeholder I can't see how anyone would be more upset with this then the current state of things.

They most certainly could spawn in your house pre-1.21 or at least back to 1.18 when I first started playing. I had one spawn on top of me in my very first base.

[Tabulius]

3 minutes ago, Zane Mordien said:

They most certainly could spawn in your house pre-1.21 or at least back to 1.18 when I first started playing. I had one spawn on top of me in my very first base.

I personally don't think it ever happened to me, it clearly got worse in later updates. Regardless if spawning was prevented inside of houses I can't see anyone honestly complaining about that compromise.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

that logic fallacy because that would mean ALL features in the game are made by an immutable god and there is not point in having a conversation about ANY feature in the game becasue its not up for discussion because its been made by an immutable god.

but no..its ONLY Lore where we use that logic...why is that?

Its interesting how it appears many people think debating over how spears are implemented or cooking or berries or combat and that is all up for debate and palaver but if its connected to 'lore' specifically then its not. same god created all of it.

 

The developer is the final authority over canon lore. In that sense it is immutable. But that does not mean discussion is pointless. It just means lore discussions will operate differently from mechanics discussions. Mechanics are systems that are designed to support the lore. They are tuned, balanced, iterated on, and frequently changed in response to player feedback. Spear damage, smithing loops, etc are all levers that can be adjusted as the devs get more experience with the systems they create.

Lore on the other hand is world-framing. It establishes the tone, mystery, and thematic direction. When people say that it is written by an immutable god, then mean that canon facts are not democratically decided by a forum vote. No one argues with GRRM lest another one of their favorite characters get penned to death. The author decides.

Period.

Yet... Tyron leaves it open ended. He leaves the entire game available to be modded. He leaves it up to the player to decide a lot of things by only delivering fragments through ruins, lore books, and mysteries like the Thunderlord Dave and the general vibe of the environment. It invites interpretation, headcanon, and... even modding. So while the developer defines canon, the structure of the game is intentionally porous.

To summarize:

If lore were truly untouchable because it is 'written by an immutable god,' then discussion would be pointless. But Vintage Story's lore is intentionally fragmented and interpretive. It is designed to invite speculation, expansion, and even modification. The developer sets canon, yes. But the openness of that canon is part of the design. That makes discussion meaningful, not fallacious.

And for what it's worth, temporal storm mechanics aren't the only part of the game where I will dig in my heels and resist changes because the lore doesn't support the kind of changes that people want.

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

story is not the soul for a game and I would challenge you to provide evidence that it is, I do not agree with that at all whatsoever. That is a belief, not a fact.

Halo?

Call of Duty??

Without lore, those dissolve into "generic first person shooter with a single faction of bad guys".

Without lore Vintage Story dissolves into "another block game with interesting crafting mechanics".

That's not a soul, that's just the scaffolding used to support the story, a human body without personality.

And it's not even just games, it's movies, too. Star Wars anyone?

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

gameplay needs to be realistic enough to be believable, but not so realistic that it's an exact copy of real life

Pretty sure that was me? Or at least I sure thought it hard enough that someone read my mind and typed it.

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Also you brought up a great point about there being some inconsistency in the lore regarding temporal storms strength, or at least I think you were the one that mentioned it earlier. In the lore, storms are stated to have been at their worst post-calamity, diminishing in strength as time goes on. In actual practice, however, the storms start as weaker and become stronger as the game progresses. To be fair, there could be a lore reason for this that has yet to be discovered in a later story chapter, but as it is currently, I think it's a decent example of making a needed exception for the sake of the player's enjoyment. Players aren't equipped to handle strong storms when they first start the game; likewise, the player would probably be disappointed to work their way up to steel equipment and then find out that now the storms are very weak, making their accomplishment feel less satisfying. It's an exception that works in this specific case, but doesn't necessarily hold true for every suggested temporal storm change.

It also took centuries for the storms to weaken soooooooo... I'm pretty sure the 2-3 years the player spends in-game isn't going to have a significant effect on the duration or severity of the storms. The light storms at the beginning are the Sam's Club sampler, a wine tasting, the part where the player goes, "OH CRAP!" and whines about it on the forums and tries harder to be better prepared for it next time.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Thorfinn said:

No one would tolerate a lot of lag in a storm. Other than masochists, I guess.

So, you then? XD

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

I keep repeating this like a broken record but I will have to do it again.

Yes you have stated that a few times now. Could you respond to the counterarguments that people make instead? I think that would help people understand you better instead of just repeating the same thing over and over.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Andael said:

All of these fail to be good solutions for those of us, like the topic-creator Tabulius, who like the idea of the Storms but see them as a poorly implemented placeholder which is a current weak-point in the game with many much better fleshed-out aspects.

Out of curiosity have you completed all the story chapters and read all the lorebooks? Not that I'm gatekeeping your opinions because you are certainly allowed to have them, but I am more curious just how deep you *have* dived into the lore for us to arrive at such opposite conclusions.

EDIT: And I will say that perhaps a change to the storms is coming and if it does, it will be interesting to see how the devs improve upon it. I think they're fine the way they are now, not great, but just fine.

Edited March 5 by Teh Pizza Lady
added a thing

[LadyWYT]

41 minutes ago, runnybabbit said:

I have no idea and you might be correct, but just for the sake of consideration: Could it also be that timed raid mechanics are by their very nature difficult to design within a sandbox as expansive as VS? Look to games like Valheim where the design philosophy focuses around extremely polished, limited (compared to VS) systems... their raid mechanics are still one of the most controversial parts of the game. The lack of mods could simply be a matter of scale and difficulty. 

Could be sample bias but everyone I've personally talked to about the game has expressed disappointment with the temporal storms in one way or another.

Ironically, raids are one feature I greatly dislike about Valheim. I tend to play singleplayer when I play, or with a friend in the event I play multiplayer. It's the kind of thing that I think would be really fun with a large group of friends, but for singleplayer or with just one friend or two not so much. I don't like that the raids tear up my stuff either, or that the monsters make a mess otherwise by exploding into items everywhere. The raids are also inconvenient when they happen, which isn't necessarily bad, but it doesn't feel like a very satisfying interruption when it happens most of the time. The most fun raid I experienced, I think, was getting mobbed by wolves in the mountains.

Would I want that feature of Valheim to change? Not really. It makes sense for what the game is, lore included, and there are players that enjoy it I'm sure. I could turn off that feature when I play Valheim, but the game would feel lacking, thus I choose to leave it on and deal with it the rare times I do play.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 hours ago, Tabulius said:

I still haven't seen anyone provide a reason as to how simply reverting the storms back to pre-1.21 where enemies wouldn't spawn in your house is bad or has any downsides. I still think it's not where storms should ultimately go because regardless I find storms to be pretty boring and a barebones implementation of a cool idea. But at least as a placeholder I can't see how anyone would be more upset with this then the current state of things.

I think something like a protected radius around the player might be a good middle ground solution. Maybe something like 4-5 blocks radius where spawns are prevented during a storm. That would still allow enemies to appear nearby and keep the tension but it would stop the frustrating cases where things just pop into existence right inside your house or other building while you're just trying to do your thing. Think about how cramped the spaces are for the NPCs in the game. Perhaps they learned through trial and error what worked and what didn't and made adjustments.

[Thorfinn]

1 hour ago, runnybabbit said:

Could it also be that timed raid mechanics are by their very nature difficult to design within a sandbox as expansive as VS?

Yes, they are, but even moreso because by definition they have to be server side, and suitable for ongoing servers with some seraphs in day 1 and others who have a couple game-years, and have the best of everything. Under current rules, that will be one of the harder of the storms. Not "fair" to the n00b, no, but that's probably the reason they have not patched out the ability shelter in a small room.

Single player could be different, but the vision seems to be to keep multiplayer the same as singleplayer, other than you have friends in your world.