Fogman Posted March 21 Report Posted March 21 3 hours ago, Erik said: Gambling isn't inherently fun but it's not inherently unfun or inherently bad either. It is a bad idea to include gambling because people continue to gamble despite not enjoying it. Something like 96 million people worldwide have a gambling addiction. Out of all of the things you can possibly put in the game, just about the worst thing you can put into it is something that people will continue to do despite not enjoying it, since it makes the game (and, insofar as people's lives are made up of hours that might be spent to play the game), their very lives, unfun. I think this about FOMO with limited-time events, I think this about daily quests in MMOs, I think this about everything that is designed to keep people spending their time or their money despite getting nothing in return. Convincing someone on a visceral, animal, "operant conditioning" level that something good will happen if they continue to sit there and press the button is not good game development, it circumvents the task at hand by baiting and switching the fun people want for the conditioned response that they seek. If you look at the current market of what developers have chosen to include mechanics exactly like this, you will find that all of them directly benefit financially from getting their userbases to keep gambling, even if they don't enjoy it, because that's what these sorts of mechanics exist for, even if Tyron himself doesn't recognize that. 3
NastyFlytrap Posted March 21 Report Posted March 21 3 minutes ago, Fogman said: just about the worst thing you can put into it is something that people will continue to do despite not enjoying it, since it makes the game (and, insofar as people's lives are made up of hours that might be spent to play the game), their very lives, unfun This. I'm here for a good time. This game shouldnt have mechanics that subconsciously play with the functions of your brain to do something you'd choose to not do if your monkey brain didnt make you do it. 2
Erik Posted March 21 Report Posted March 21 15 minutes ago, Fogman said: It is a bad idea to include gambling because people continue to gamble despite not enjoying it. Something like 96 million people worldwide have a gambling addiction. Out of all of the things you can possibly put in the game, just about the worst thing you can put into it is something that people will continue to do despite not enjoying it, since it makes the game (and, insofar as people's lives are made up of hours that might be spent to play the game), their very lives, unfun. An estimated 209 million people are addicted to alcohol (according to WHO), yet alcohol exists in VS. Nobody will get addicted to alcohol in VS and I think the same is the case for getting addicted to the current quenching implementation. Same as people not getting addicted to skill checks in Baldur's Gate 3. 42 minutes ago, Fogman said: Convincing someone on a visceral, animal, "operant conditioning" level that something good will happen if they continue to sit there and press the button is not good game development, it circumvents the task at hand by baiting and switching the fun people want for the conditioned response that they seek. Repeated quenching has diminishing returns, the power increase gets smaller, the risk of loss greater. That is not at all a mechanic that incentives or conditions people to repeat pressing the quench button endlessly. It's the opposite of dangling a huge (but very unlikely) carrot/jackpot in front of the player.
Fogman Posted March 21 Report Posted March 21 It's a complete strawman to compare VS alcohol to VS quenching and you know it, because the character drinks alcohol but the player gambles. Or do you have a hard time telling fantasy from reality? I don't care whether you've ruled that it constitutes an "unlikely jackpot" or whether an "unlikely jackpot" is necessary for something to be gambling (it isn't, by the way) because even a 1% chance where someone could consecutively lose tool heads from quenching would mean that hundreds of people will experience it and even a 90% chance that you will complete one 5-quenched tool in 3 attempts means that hundreds of people will spend hours making and remaking the same tools over and over in an attempt to complete it. It's unrealistic, but more importantly, it's gambling, and it's garbage game development. And no, your character drinking alcohol in vintage story does not intoxicate the player, in case you really were confused about that one. 1
LadyWYT Posted March 22 Report Posted March 22 On 3/3/2026 at 1:38 PM, MKMoose said: Skill expression Tyron has expressed concerns that these mechanics wouldn't be as interesting as the current system and wouldn't offer interesting choices to the player, as well as thought that it seems to "sacrifice gameplay for realism". While I find that debatable and somewhat reductive - I think that just reduced repetition and improved verisimilitude would make it more enjoyable for many people - I want to explicitly point out various additional factors which could make a more realistic system interesting, mainly through making heat treatment into a largely skill-dependent process, requiring experience and knowledge for optimal results: @MKMoose While I do like the detailed writeup, I'm also going to bug you for a simpler explanation. I like the current system and find it quite fun and decently balanced, however, I wouldn't mind seeing something more skill-based either. The one modification I would make to the current system, I think, is rather than have work items shatter and vanish into thin air, they should just shatter into nuggets that can be smelted back down(which means that there needs to be a way to smelt steel nuggets back into ingots, but anyway). Doing so would allow the player to fail making the item, but still allow them to keep the material so that they can try again. Overall the main issue I run into with the writeup presented here, is similar to the one that Tyron seems to have expressed. It's pushing more into the "realism for the sake of realism" territory, rather than staying in the realm of "fun gameplay that is also realistic". Basically what kills the idea for me is there's so much information to process here that it becomes very hard to visualize trying to play something like this in the game itself, alongside all the other gameplay loops, and having fun without getting too frustrated. Or I suppose in other words, I'm not sure how all of the above information could fit into a single handbook entry that can easily be understood with a quick reading or two. On 3/3/2026 at 1:38 PM, MKMoose said: Judging temperature by color. I do want to note that this is already somewhat possible to do in the current game. I wouldn't recommend removing the temperature readout though, aside from an optional "hardcore" setting, since that could potentially cause some issues with colorblindness. 1 1
MKMoose Posted March 22 Author Report Posted March 22 (edited) 11 hours ago, LadyWYT said: While I do like the detailed writeup, I'm also going to bug you for a simpler explanation. A simpler explanation of the detailed process, or a more simplified process, just to be clear? 11 hours ago, LadyWYT said: The one modification I would make to the current system, I think, is rather than have work items shatter and vanish into thin air, they should just shatter into nuggets that can be smelted back down(which means that there needs to be a way to smelt steel nuggets back into ingots, but anyway). Doing so would allow the player to fail making the item, but still allow them to keep the material so that they can try again. It's a seemingly pretty common suggestion, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to solve except reduce frustration when the workpiece shatters on a very low chance. Iron is extremely plentiful as it is if you know how to find it, and the added cost from shattered tool heads isn't very significant until you start going into extremes. Obtaining an ~37% power buff by quenching 5 times will get you to shatter on average ~1.3 tool heads, and that is roughly the maximum I would consider reasonable for the average player. By removing or heavily reducing the resource cost, you'd be essentially removing a balance lever from quenching with nothing to replace it and leaving time and tedium as almost the only factors keeping the player from outright absurd creations. I could also see it as a way of being more forgiving for a new player who only has a tiny quantity of iron, though a small problem then appears: resmelting the iron nuggets is done more optimally using a full bloomery with 120 nuggets, so smelting just 20 can be seen as a waste, and if the workpiece returns less than 20, then you wouldn't even be able to resmelt it into a new ingot. Granted, this could be addressed by allowing the bloomery to take multiple inputs, with some caveats. 11 hours ago, LadyWYT said: Overall the main issue I run into with the writeup presented here, is similar to the one that Tyron seems to have expressed. It's pushing more into the "realism for the sake of realism" territory, rather than staying in the realm of "fun gameplay that is also realistic". Basically what kills the idea for me is there's so much information to process here that it becomes very hard to visualize trying to play something like this in the game itself, alongside all the other gameplay loops, and having fun without getting too frustrated. Or I suppose in other words, I'm not sure how all of the above information could fit into a single handbook entry that can easily be understood with a quick reading or two. Okay, this I can work with much better. I'm impressed with how well you put this, honestly. I don't really have much to say at the moment other than that the basic process is really quite simple on the surface (as described in the "main suggestion" section) and several of the more complex effects are only required under the hood to force this specific order of operations in a controlled way and to achieve a specific balance between all the different parameters. I'll see if I can write something more clear and concise at some point. Normalization also offers an easy way out with a neat durability buff for anyone not finding themselves ready to take on the more complex process yet. 11 hours ago, LadyWYT said: I do want to note that this is already somewhat possible to do in the current game. I wouldn't recommend removing the temperature readout though, aside from an optional "hardcore" setting, since that could potentially cause some issues with colorblindness. If I had a nickel for every time someone told me that this was already possible, I would have two nickels. Keep in mind that as long as the temperature readout is perfectly accurate, then the color is mostly just for immersion. You might recall a similar argument from when I was saying that the temporal stability gear in the middle of the screen is too accurate and too reliable and ends up making the player pay too much attention to the UI and not the world, so any diegetic signs of unstable areas wouldn't really be useful anyways unless the gear is changed or removed. I haven't exactly checked how realistic the current colors are and how practical they would be in gameplay, but I think they would likely require some adjustments to allow actually telling the temperature with good accuracy in the range where it matters most without an excess of guesswork. That this would likely have to be an optional setting I did say myself, but nonetheless I think it would be a really cool one, especially suitable for Homo Sapiens. Even if not remove the temperature readout, I would like to see it rounded, at the very least to an integer. Optionally to larger steps like 10 C, and maybe even with some random error if we're feeling more adventurous, as a way to require a bit more deliberate temperature evaluation and not a single robotic comparison. Edited March 22 by MKMoose 1
Erik Posted March 22 Report Posted March 22 12 hours ago, Fogman said: It's a complete strawman to compare VS alcohol to VS quenching and you know it, because the character drinks alcohol but the player gambles. The comparison is as much a strawman as it is to compare VS quenching to predatory gambling mechanics ("KRMMO child gambling mechanics"). I think under your provided definition, VS quenching is a gambling mechanic. I however don't think that all things defined as gambling mechanics are harmful and therefore problematic (see my earlier examples). In my view the VS quenching mechanic is not problematic. We seem to disagree here. 13 hours ago, Fogman said: Or do you have a hard time telling fantasy from reality? Please refrain from attacking people in arguments.
LadyWYT Posted March 22 Report Posted March 22 5 hours ago, MKMoose said: A simpler explanation of the detailed process, or a more simplified process, just to be clear? Basically I'm struggling to picture how a system like this works in actual gameplay, so something like a handbook entry-style explanation or simplified walkthrough of how the process could unfold in regular gameplay is mostly what I'm looking for. All of the data above is useful for explaining how the process works in real life, but I'm just not sure how it's supposed to really plug into the actual gameplay, is all. The current process in 1.22 is a little videogamey, but it's also quite easy to read the handbook and tooltips to figure out quenching without fireclay increases the power, while quenching with fireclay increases the durability(and lowers the shatter chance, if I'm not mistaken?). 5 hours ago, MKMoose said: It's a seemingly pretty common suggestion, but I'm not sure what it's supposed to solve except reduce frustration when the workpiece shatters on a very low chance. Getting pieces back when the workpiece shatters seems like it could encourage players to take a little more risk if they want to try for a super high-quality item. To be fair, I think the workload to obtain such is great enough that most players won't try to push numbers that far since it's not really fun to do that, but as a once in a while thing? Sure. For my own gameplay I've been trending toward the lower end of the quenching buffs(around 25% power increase or so). It's enough of a boost to make a real difference in combat, without being a lot of risk or requiring a lot of extra forge time. 5 hours ago, MKMoose said: I haven't exactly checked how realistic the current colors are and how practical they would be in gameplay, but I think they would likely require some adjustments to allow actually telling the temperature with good accuracy in the range where it matters most without an excess of guesswork. That this would likely have to be an optional setting I did say myself, but nonetheless I think it would be a really cool one, especially suitable for Homo Sapiens. In my own experience, half the time I'm going off the color of the work item when it comes to forging it. Yellow-orange to yellow is hot enough to turn an iron bloom into an ingot without needing to reheat. Bright orange if a helve hammer is being used. If the item is glowing white it's probably too hot, in reality, but from the gameplay standpoint it just means the player has the maximum amount of time to work on it before it'll need to be reheated. 5 hours ago, MKMoose said: I don't really have much to say at the moment other than that the basic process is really quite simple on the surface (as described in the "main suggestion" section) and several of the more complex effects are only required under the hood to force this specific order of operations in a controlled way and to achieve a specific balance between all the different parameters. I'll see if I can write something more clear and concise at some point. The only real thing that's come to mind is that the current system could probably be collapsed from multiple quenchings to boost stats, to just one. Quench without fireclay to boost power, or quench with clay to boost durability, but not both(though one power quench and one durability quench per item could be fine, potentially). Temperature could be refined to make a bigger difference in the stats and break chance during the quench. That is, quenching at the low end of the range could yield a small stat boost without a break chance, but quenching at the higher end will yield better stats at a higher risk of breakage due to the stress on the item. The higher stats could also have a much narrower range of temperature, meaning that the player will need to be careful about exactly when they choose to quench the item. And of course if the item breaks during the quench, the player can simply resmelt the nuggets back into something usable, rather than have it be an all-or-nothing process. It's still rather videogamey, but I think it removes at least some of the tedium while giving a little more opportunity for some player skill. Of course, maybe all the above has been said before and I just missed it. If ever there are earnable traits in the game, there could probably be one to reduce the shatter risk at quenching after the player has performed enough successful risky quenches or something. 3
MKMoose Posted March 24 Author Report Posted March 24 On 3/22/2026 at 3:13 PM, LadyWYT said: Basically I'm struggling to picture how a system like this works in actual gameplay, so something like a handbook entry-style explanation or simplified walkthrough of how the process could unfold in regular gameplay is mostly what I'm looking for. All of the data above is useful for explaining how the process works in real life, but I'm just not sure how it's supposed to really plug into the actual gameplay, is all. I've got a rough mockup of what a handbook entry for this could look like. To start off, a couple notes: I've tried to keep the style similar to the in-game handbook, without the kind of formatting that I would typically use in larger text blocks like that (which, to be honest, the handbook could greatly benefit from in a few places), the total length of this mockup is roughly double that of the current handbook entry for quenching and tempering, caused in large part by there just being more individual mechanics to cover, I'm not exactly certain on the exact level of complexity the system should have - I decided to include a couple mechanics I've initially noted to be optional, mainly to lean into making temperature management more in-depth, but this is ultimately just a mockup; I've also slightly relaxed some constraints which I felt weren't doing much, there's a few underlined words which would likely link to an appropriate handbook page or search, and more information could be found in those separate pages, having appropriate tooltips at many stages of the process would help a lot to inform the player what they've just done, what they're about to do, and what they can do, without having to go back to the handbook too many times. You'll also notice that I've elected to use "annealing" for normalization, with no functional changes, and I've also switched it out in the main post. It seems to be a more historically appropriate term, even if it might be slightly misleading nowadays. As a side note, the roadmap actually says "quenching, tempering, annealing", so including annealing as well seems pretty neat. Heat treatment of ferrous metals After forging a tool or weapon from a ferrous metal (iron, meteoric iron or steel), heat treatments can be performed to improve its qualities by controlled heating and cooling. All heat treatment processes start with bringing the metal up to a certain temperature range, which is shown in the tooltip of the worked item for each process. Once the item is heated past the minimum temperature, it should be kept in the desired range for several in-game minutes, which ensures that the metal temperature is uniform and the treatment is more effective. Finally, the workpiece has to be cooled down, depending on the type of treatment either slowly by allowing the item to cool in air, or rapidly by submerging it in a barrel of a quenchant liquid, for example water. In many cases, annealing alone is sufficient to obtain a high-quality tool. A more advanced process requires performing annealing, quenching and tempering in that order. Annealing Annealing is used to improve the durability of tools and weapons. It is also useful later as a way of reducing the risks of quenching. The temperature that the item has to reach for annealing is indicated by the metal turning to a red color. After soaking in that temperature, the item has to be cooled slowly in air. Annealing can be performed repeatedly, but the relative durability increase provided by subsequent iterations will diminish quickly. In order for repeated annealing to have the appropriate effect, the workpiece has to be kept close to the minimum required temperature, as heating it up excessively will remove the effects of prior heat treatments. Quenching Quenching can be used to greatly improve the power of tools and weapons, at the cost of making them brittle, which severely reduces their durability, and at the risk of breaking them. In order to amend the durability penalty, the next process of tempering will be necessary afterwards, while the risk of shattering the item can be controlled with several factors during quenching. This process can be especially valuable for weapons, but for some tools power value may provide little to no benefit. Quenching is a risky process which creates great internal stresses in the metal, which can sometimes cause the workpiece to shatter. An item which has been annealed will have its risk of breaking reduced, and repeated annealing will reduce that risk further. Similar to annealing, the workpiece needs to be red-hot for quenching, though the temperature should be slightly higher. Quenching from the optimal temperature range will produce slightly improved effects, but excessively high temperatures will increase the risk of shattering as well. The last step for quenching requires the metal to be cooled quickly by using Shift + RMB on a barrel of quenchant liquid like water, while holding the workpiece using tongs. The effects and risks of quenching can optionally be affected by certain other factors as well, including choice of different quenching medium like oil or brine instead of water, or covering the workpiece in fire clay. After an item has been quenched, you need to make sure not to heat it up too high above the tempering temperature, as doing so will reverse the effects of prior heat treatments. This means that a quenched item can only be tempered, unless you wish retry annealing and quenching if the first attempt was unsatisfactory. Tempering For a tool which has been quenched, tempering can be used to restore the durability back up and achieve a more satisfactory balance between durability and power. It will have no effect on unquenched tools, or on tools which have been heated back up too high after quenching. This process requires much lower temperatures than annealing and tempering, and similar to annealing it requires the workpiece to be cooled slowly in air. After tempering, the durability of the item will be increased back up, but the power will decrease slightly. More durability will be recovered when tempering at higher temperatures, while tempering at lower temperatures may be more useful when trying to preserve as much power as possible. Tempering can be repeated, albeit with diminishing returns, and durability can even be brought up to on par with an annealed item this way. 6 1
LadyWYT Posted March 24 Report Posted March 24 7 minutes ago, MKMoose said: I've got a rough mockup of what a handbook entry for this could look like. Thanks for the writeup! It makes a lot more sense, and is the kind of change I wouldn't mind seeing in the game. Though it does seem like the kind of change that would go hand-in-hand with a proper rework of the temperature system, so I'm not sure we'll see a change like this in the near future. But I do like it. 1
NastyFlytrap Posted March 24 Report Posted March 24 1 hour ago, MKMoose said: I've got a rough mockup of what a handbook entry for this could look like. To start off, a couple notes: I've tried to keep the style similar to the in-game handbook, without the kind of formatting that I would typically use in larger text blocks like that (which, to be honest, the handbook could greatly benefit from in a few places), the total length of this mockup is roughly double that of the current handbook entry for quenching and tempering, caused in large part by there just being more individual mechanics to cover, I'm not exactly certain on the exact level of complexity the system should have - I decided to include a couple mechanics I've initially noted to be optional, mainly to lean into making temperature management more in-depth, but this is ultimately just a mockup; I've also slightly relaxed some constraints which I felt weren't doing much, there's a few underlined words which would likely link to an appropriate handbook page or search, and more information could be found in those separate pages, having appropriate tooltips at many stages of the process would help a lot to inform the player what they've just done, what they're about to do, and what they can do, without having to go back to the handbook too many times. You'll also notice that I've elected to use "annealing" for normalization, with no functional changes, and I've also switched it out in the main post. It seems to be a more historically appropriate term, even if it might be slightly misleading nowadays. As a side note, the roadmap actually says "quenching, tempering, annealing", so including annealing as well seems pretty neat. Heat treatment of ferrous metals After forging a tool or weapon from a ferrous metal (iron, meteoric iron or steel), heat treatments can be performed to improve its qualities by controlled heating and cooling. All heat treatment processes start with bringing the metal up to a certain temperature range, which is shown in the tooltip of the worked item for each process. Once the item is heated past the minimum temperature, it should be kept in the desired range for several in-game minutes, which ensures that the metal temperature is uniform and the treatment is more effective. Finally, the workpiece has to be cooled down, depending on the type of treatment either slowly by allowing the item to cool in air, or rapidly by submerging it in a barrel of a quenchant liquid, for example water. In many cases, annealing alone is sufficient to obtain a high-quality tool. A more advanced process requires performing annealing, quenching and tempering in that order. Annealing Annealing is used to improve the durability of tools and weapons. It is also useful later as a way of reducing the risks of quenching. The temperature that the item has to reach for annealing is indicated by the metal turning to a red color. After soaking in that temperature, the item has to be cooled slowly in air. Annealing can be performed repeatedly, but the relative durability increase provided by subsequent iterations will diminish quickly. In order for repeated annealing to have the appropriate effect, the workpiece has to be kept close to the minimum required temperature, as heating it up excessively will remove the effects of prior heat treatments. Quenching Quenching can be used to greatly improve the power of tools and weapons, at the cost of making them brittle, which severely reduces their durability, and at the risk of breaking them. In order to amend the durability penalty, the next process of tempering will be necessary afterwards, while the risk of shattering the item can be controlled with several factors during quenching. This process can be especially valuable for weapons, but for some tools power value may provide little to no benefit. Quenching is a risky process which creates great internal stresses in the metal, which can sometimes cause the workpiece to shatter. An item which has been annealed will have its risk of breaking reduced, and repeated annealing will reduce that risk further. Similar to annealing, the workpiece needs to be red-hot for quenching, though the temperature should be slightly higher. Quenching from the optimal temperature range will produce slightly improved effects, but excessively high temperatures will increase the risk of shattering as well. The last step for quenching requires the metal to be cooled quickly by using Shift + RMB on a barrel of quenchant liquid like water, while holding the workpiece using tongs. The effects and risks of quenching can optionally be affected by certain other factors as well, including choice of different quenching medium like oil or brine instead of water, or covering the workpiece in fire clay. After an item has been quenched, you need to make sure not to heat it up too high above the tempering temperature, as doing so will reverse the effects of prior heat treatments. This means that a quenched item can only be tempered, unless you wish retry annealing and quenching if the first attempt was unsatisfactory. Tempering For a tool which has been quenched, tempering can be used to restore the durability back up and achieve a more satisfactory balance between durability and power. It will have no effect on unquenched tools, or on tools which have been heated back up too high after quenching. This process requires much lower temperatures than annealing and tempering, and similar to annealing it requires the workpiece to be cooled slowly in air. After tempering, the durability of the item will be increased back up, but the power will decrease slightly. More durability will be recovered when tempering at higher temperatures, while tempering at lower temperatures may be more useful when trying to preserve as much power as possible. Tempering can be repeated, albeit with diminishing returns, and durability can even be brought up to on par with an annealed item this way. Honestly, with an analogue system where instead of it being flat bonuses and negatives for doing the steps, it giving more or less benefit depending on how close to the correct temperature zone you were with your process sounds exactly like the semi-realistic mechanics this game is going for. I want this to be the system in the game now. 1
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