How to make traveling an empty world enjoyable

[Bruno Willis]

Some people find traveling in V.S. boring. I find it frustrating sometimes myself, especially if I die far from home, or see repeating areas of forest, then hills, then forested hills, etc. I do not think adding more ruins or villages, or any sort of structure, is the right way to add excitement to travel, they would just make the world feel weirdly busy.

Everyone wants to see rivers added, and I think they're a really good way to improve travel, and we can learn from them to find other ways to improve travel.

Rivers, if done well, can be 1: a barrier to travel, 2: an aid to travel, and 3: a landmark. A person might need to find a wide part of the river to ford it, or a narrow part to bridge it, or they might use a boat to row up or down it, depending on their intended direction. Finding a river makes travel more interesting because it adds a large-scale challenge, which can be turned into a powerful, travel related reward which helps add a sense of narrative to travel.

Drawing from that, I think travel would be really improved by building challenges to travel into world gen., which have interesting solutions. Think about stories where travel is a key component. A mountain range becomes a serious barrier, and a pass or tunnel through it becomes a huge reward if found. A swamp becomes a terrible threat, unless one knows a safe way through.

It seems like making rivers work will require a serious re-working of the world gen. system. I would love to see, alongside rivers:

• a system to produce good long mountain chains, which generate with exciting-to-find passes cutting through them.
• a system to produce swampy regions with sinking mud potential, and with safe paths through, which can be marked bit by bit, using trial and error.
• a system to produce rocky reefs and regions of stormy seas, with safe, deep channels threading through them.

To make those challenges more interesting, I think we'd need to add:

• avalanches (as purely snow related mechanic separate from the messy sideways stability soil mechanic),
• some sort of challenging mud or deceptive pond scum, and faster drowning? (because drowning really doesn't feel like a serious threat at the moment),
• and the possibility for boats to take damage on collision (perhaps only during storms).

Edited Monday at 09:16 PM by Bruno Willis
Unclear wording

[ifoz]

I've been thinking about swamps and marshlands recently as well. I think they'd just be a really cool area to pass through, especially if they had unique environmental challenges like mud that slowed you down. Honestly, more varied environments would be really fun, if they are dependant on climate/temperature/rainfall/etc.
Much like VS' deserts and gravel lands I imagine you'd only get swamps and marshes in very wet areas with the right conditions.

I also think being caught out in the rain for extended periods should probably be a bit of a bigger deal than it currently is, incentivising you to make camps to rest or warm up, as well as coming packed with a decent hat or poncho. Prolonged exposure to the rain only makes you freeze if temperatures are already very low, and at that point it's more likely to be snowing than raining.

Edited Monday at 10:16 AM by ifoz

[Facethief]

1 hour ago, ifoz said:

I also think being caught out in the rain for extended periods should probably be a bit of a bigger deal than it currently is, incentivising you to make camps to rest or warm up, as well as coming packed with a decent hat or poncho. Prolonged exposure to the rain only makes you freeze if temperatures are already very low, and at that point it's more likely to be snowing than raining.

There was actually one start I had where I spawned and was immediately:

- pelted by some combination of rain and hail

- soaking wet

- in the early stages of hypothermia

…and it was actually a pretty interesting experience! I’d definitely like it if stuff like that happened more often.

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Rivers, if done well, can be 1: a barrier to travel, 2: an aid to travel, and 3: a landmark. A person might need to find a wide part of the river to ford it, or a narrow part to bridge it, or they might use a boat to row up or down it, depending on their intended direction. Finding a river makes travel more interesting because it adds a large-scale challenge, which can be turned into a powerful, travel related reward which helps add a sense of narrative to travel.

I was just thinking about that the other day, actually. Playing with the map turned off creates a real challenge when trying to navigate, and currently there's not much in the way of landmarks to make areas stand out. There are mountains, yes, however, mountains can look very different depending on what angle they're viewed from. 

Rivers and the like are a good way to orient oneself to the land, as well as a convenient way to travel sometimes as well. I don't know how much of a travel barrier they'd be to the player since the player can just swim across, however, if they have a strong current(as they really should) then the player could potentially get washed downstream and get lost.

5 hours ago, ifoz said:

I also think being caught out in the rain for extended periods should probably be a bit of a bigger deal than it currently is, incentivising you to make camps to rest or warm up, as well as coming packed with a decent hat or poncho. Prolonged exposure to the rain only makes you freeze if temperatures are already very low, and at that point it's more likely to be snowing than raining.

I think that will probably come with a status effect system. Being soaking wet for an extended period when it's not a warm summer day is a good way to catch the sniffles.

 

4 hours ago, Facethief said:

There was actually one start I had where I spawned and was immediately:

- pelted by some combination of rain and hail

- soaking wet

- in the early stages of hypothermia

…and it was actually a pretty interesting experience! I’d definitely like it if stuff like that happened more often.

I had this happen once too--spawned in a hailstorm, which turned out to be pretty widespread and nearly died as a result. It was definitely interesting but I don't know that I would want it to happen very often.

 

7 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

• avalanches (as purely snow related mechanic separate from the messy sideways stability soil mechanic),
• some sort of challenging mud or deceptive pond scum, and faster drowning? (because drowning really doesn't feel like a serious threat at the moment),
• and the possibility for boats to take damage on collision (perhaps only during storms).

I wouldn't mind seeing potential avalanches or the ability for watercraft to get beat up if the player rams them into obstacles. I don't know that I would want to see faster drowning though. Then again I might be confusing the oxygen bar for actual drowning damage. 

Mud that slows the player's movement would make for some good swamps though. I'd expect it to be the land equivalent of trying to wade through shallow water.

[Blaiyze]

This is exactly why I play with worldgen mods - I've tried several river mods and I gotta say I love traveling via raft being nomadic for the first while just exploring. The Watersheds mod is absolutely gorgeous and creates really beautiful areas, I just wish they would design their rivers to run greater distances so that river travel would be more likely. At this point, Watersheds has been added to my list of personally absolutely necessary mods.

Been testing out TerraPrety and yeah, I'm hooked lol. 

I think it's fair to say that Worldgen could definitely use a bit of TLC to further distinguish it from that other block game. 

Really looking forward to the future of status effects which will really up the ante and I'm hoping, make it so we can actually heat our homes with our campfires. It's kind of odd atm to be sleeping next to a roaring firepit but the temperature indoors is only registering the same as the ambient temp outdoors.

[Bruno Willis]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I wouldn't mind seeing potential avalanches or the ability for watercraft to get beat up if the player rams them into obstacles. I don't know that I would want to see faster drowning though. Then again I might be confusing the oxygen bar for actual drowning damage. 

Bit of a side note, but with the drowning, I really think environmental effects are pretty toothless in V.S. In NZ, there are no dangerous animals, but people still die in the wilderness because of how bad exposure is. In V.S. we get really really cold, and then eventually, eventually, we take a small amount of damage. Same with swimming, it's a crazy long air bar before we take any damage, which is neat, except that it removes the risk of drowning almost entirely.

If you couldn't swim up while wearing armor, that'd be really interesting. Imagine seeing a nice flat bit of grass to make camp as you're traveling through the swamp, only to step onto it and find it's a layer of pond-scum over a deep pool, and now you're desperately pulling your armor off so that you can swim back to the surface before you drown. 

[LadyWYT]

30 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Bit of a side note, but with the drowning, I really think environmental effects are pretty toothless in V.S. In NZ, there are no dangerous animals, but people still die in the wilderness because of how bad exposure is. In V.S. we get really really cold, and then eventually, eventually, we take a small amount of damage. Same with swimming, it's a crazy long air bar before we take any damage, which is neat, except that it removes the risk of drowning almost entirely.

If you couldn't swim up while wearing armor, that'd be really interesting. Imagine seeing a nice flat bit of grass to make camp as you're traveling through the swamp, only to step onto it and find it's a layer of pond-scum over a deep pool, and now you're desperately pulling your armor off so that you can swim back to the surface before you drown. 

I don't disagree, however, it's the kind of thing that I think is balanced okay for what the game is right now. It gives the player a chance to notice and correct the problem before they just die outright. A status effect system would be better for more weather-related penalties, but in the meantime I've found that making the player more vulnerable to cold in the survival options to be a suitable solution.

As for the water bit, I also like being able to swim around underwater for a few minutes before actually needing to surface, as I do like to go poking around underwater occasionally. I think if the drowning penalty were very harsh, I'd be looking for a way to turn it back down.

[Bruno Willis]

On 3/10/2026 at 10:21 AM, LadyWYT said:

As for the water bit, I also like being able to swim around underwater for a few minutes before actually needing to surface, as I do like to go poking around underwater occasionally. I think if the drowning penalty were very harsh, I'd be looking for a way to turn it back down.

Thanks for the reminder about the cold vulnerability slider, I'll use that. 

This is definitely off topic now, but how about if the air timer for swimming stayed the same, but if you were wearing armor you got a little red tag saying "armor weighs you down" and were unable to rise (spacebar wouldn't let you rise to the surface). Perhaps the same could be said if you're carrying more than one bag, now that bags can easily be placed down? That way you might fall into water, realise you're too heavy to get out, and take your armor off, place your bags on the riverbed, and kick for the surface, then do a couple of rescue dives to retrieve your bags one by one. 

It'd make falling into water while unprepared a threat, but it wouldn't restrict exploring underwater much at all. 

[LadyWYT]

Just now, Bruno Willis said:

This is definitely off topic now, but how about if the air timer for swimming stayed the same, but if you were wearing armor you got a little red tag saying "armor weighs you down" and were unable to rise (spacebar wouldn't let you rise to the surface). Perhaps the same could be said if you're carrying more than one bag, now that bags can easily be placed down? That way you might fall into water, realise you're too heavy to get out, and take your armor off, place your bags on the riverbed, and kick for the surface, then do a couple of rescue dives to retrieve your bags one by one. 

It'd make falling into water while unprepared a threat, but it wouldn't restrict exploring underwater much at all. 

It still feels a bit harsh to me, really. I'd settle for just making the player swim slower when wearing armor, as well as be able to sink faster but surface slower. That way the player still has a fighting chance of survival if they happen to fall in, but can also drown more easily if they decide to go swimming around in a full suit of plate. As far as penalizing the player for carrying more than one bag, I think the limited inventory of VS is already enough to manage.