A few concerns for 1.22 RC3

[SongAngel]

I’ve been testing RC3 with a new world and have some concerns and suggestions regarding the hunter class. The aiming changes made spear hunting feel incredibly sluggish during my first hunt. Even with the hunter's accuracy buffs, the increased wind up time made it feel like I was fighting the UI rather than the prey.  The accuracy bonus felt wasted because the time to steady your aim was so slow that the prey was already on top of me before I could even take a quality shot.  It forces you to stand perfectly still for far too long which kind of breaks the flow of a skilled hunt and is not as fun as in the current stable version.

By the time I finally dispatched the wild boar I discovered that I could not oil the hide without cooking the fat first?  Needing a cooking pot just to oil a hide feels like friction for no good reason to me.  It's just one more thing that is now locked behind finding clay and felt a bit out of place for a nomadic sort of class and the way that I play it.  In fairness, I always want to find clay as soon as possible, but it means I now have to stop and hunt for it just to do basic processing of a kill.  If the goal of this change was realism, I should point out that raw fat has historically been used for hides without needing a cooking pot.

To address the aiming issue, I suggest that the hunter’s 30% accuracy bonus should also apply to the aiming speed. This would allow the hunter to maintain the role of an agile fighter while still leaving the slower more deliberate aiming for the other classes.

Regarding the fat rendering, is there a reason for this requirement other than slowing the players progress?  If not, I would suggest allowing raw fat as in previous versions, and perhaps adding a perk if you use the rendered fat.  Since pelts are most often used for clothing, perhaps using rendered fat would add a warmth or durability bonus for example.

Anyway, I'm enjoying experimenting with the new update and just wanted to offer my two cents and a big thank you to the developers for a wonderful game!

Edited March 19 by SongAngel
grammar

[Slam]

8 minutes ago, SongAngel said:

To address the aiming issue, I suggest that the hunter’s 30% accuracy bonus should also apply to the aiming speed. This would allow the hunter to maintain the role of an agile fighter while still leaving the slower more deliberate aiming for the other classes.

Bro gonna be a machine gun once they get a bow on their hands.

yeah so don’t forget bows exist, they won’t have the same problem with aim speed as spears, and your playing hunter, so you don’t even need feathers unless your useing metal heads. Spears are still a good initiation weapon, or just hunting animals that don’t back, such as most female animals, and rabbits.

[PoisonedPawn777]

I personally find the spear to be relatively easy to use, you can charge up the throw while running and stop for maybe a second before throwing to increase accuracy. Would be nice to have the option of using raw fat for pelt making as well as rendering it for long term storage though.

[SongAngel]

11 minutes ago, Slam said:

Bro gonna be a machine gun once they get a bow on their hands.

yeah so don’t forget bows exist, they won’t have the same problem with aim speed as spears, and your playing hunter, so you don’t even need feathers unless your useing metal heads. Spears are still a good initiation weapon, or just hunting animals that don’t back, such as most female animals, and rabbits.

Thanks I appreciate the reply but this change is still a problem, and I don't think the solution should be "wait until you get a bow".  Spear hunting should still be viable early game especially for the hunter class.  I think it just needs tweaked a bit.

Edited March 19 by SongAngel

[Tom Cantine]

I feel that spear hunting IS quite viable early game, but it emphasizes stealth and surprise, as well as anticipating the escape path of the fleeing animal so you can follow up (again stealthily!)

The other thing that makes the spear viable is that it works on fish. If you can maneuver a fish to somewhere near the surface, you can kill it with a thrown spear.

I don't really have a problem with slowing the spear aiming time. One of the main complaints about spears (and the reason we didn't have iron ones, I think) was that we auto-reload with other spears in our inventory after throwing, so people could spam them too fast. That becomes a much bigger problem once you get iron, because iron ore is so plentiful relative to the materials to make various kinds of bronze.

 

[SongAngel]

17 minutes ago, Tom Cantine said:

I feel that spear hunting IS quite viable early game, but it emphasizes stealth and surprise, as well as anticipating the escape path of the fleeing animal so you can follow up (again stealthily!)

The other thing that makes the spear viable is that it works on fish. If you can maneuver a fish to somewhere near the surface, you can kill it with a thrown spear.

I don't really have a problem with slowing the spear aiming time. One of the main complaints about spears (and the reason we didn't have iron ones, I think) was that we auto-reload with other spears in our inventory after throwing, so people could spam them too fast. That becomes a much bigger problem once you get iron, because iron ore is so plentiful relative to the materials to make various kinds of bronze.

 

Viable was a poor choice of words on my part.  Yes it is viable, but unless the combat mechanics of animals has changed, most do not flee until/unless they are close to death which means they are chasing you down for stabbing them like the wild boar in my scenario.  No stealth involved in those cases it just comes down to who kills who first lol.  If the complaint was the ease of spamming spears, it almost sounds like auto-reload is the problem rather than the aiming but I would rather they don't take that away either!

Edited March 19 by SongAngel

[LadyWYT]

Welcome to the forums!

5 minutes ago, Tom Cantine said:

I feel that spear hunting IS quite viable early game, but it emphasizes stealth and surprise, as well as anticipating the escape path of the fleeing animal so you can follow up (again stealthily!)

The other thing that makes the spear viable is that it works on fish. If you can maneuver a fish to somewhere near the surface, you can kill it with a thrown spear.

I don't really have a problem with slowing the spear aiming time. One of the main complaints about spears (and the reason we didn't have iron ones, I think) was that we auto-reload with other spears in our inventory after throwing, so people could spam them too fast. That becomes a much bigger problem once you get iron, because iron ore is so plentiful relative to the materials to make various kinds of bronze.

 

So much this. I finally ended up doing the math and the old spears, when thrown, turned out to be the best weapon choice for Blackguards as well, which kinda says a lot when a ranged weapon is the best choice for a class not meant to be good at ranged combat.

The new spears feel a lot better, in that they're fitting in more as a good general purpose weapon, but not one that's going to be the best option for melee or ranged damage. In melee, they have a greater poke distance, but can't do critical damage and the base damage won't be as high as the falx(nor will the spear have the falx's autoloot feature for monsters). For ranged combat, the spear will hit harder than the bow, but takes up more inventory space and can't be fired as fast, making it good for softening up tougher targets at a distance but not necessarily good for killing them before they can engage in melee.

It's also worth noting that iron/steel spears can be tempered to further increase their damage(which, the power boost is currently bugged for ranged damage, but anyway...), which can give them a far greater damage per shot than the old spears.

24 minutes ago, SongAngel said:

Thanks I appreciate the reply but this change is still a problem, and I don't think the solution should be "wait until you get a bow".  Spear hunting should still be viable early game especially for the hunter class.  I think it just needs tweaked a bit.

Like I said above and others have said already, spear hunting is still perfectly viable for hunters, both in the early and late game. The main balance problem before was the fact that spears could be rapid-fired, which made them a little too strong compared to other weapons and gave hunter--an already strong class--even more power compared to other class options due to the hunter's innate ranged bonuses.

Rather than nerf hunter, it's better to just rebalance the spears by slowing the fire rate a bit, and adding iron/steel spears that can be tempered for more damage per shot. The end result is that firing a spear becomes a more deliberate action, rather than a cheap "machine gun".

Regarding how hunter plays--currently, the hunter seems to be more heavily focused on actually hunting animals in the early game, with the late game focus shifting more towards an actual ranged warrior suitable for monster-slaying. In prior versions there wasn't as much of a shift since the rapid-fire spears made combat overall much easier.

[PoisonedPawn777]

Spears have longer melee reach than anything I care to take on anyways. Sure, may get hit by a boar or deer every once in a while, but generally it's easy to keep animals at arms length. I have found hunting to be easier in 1.22 overall.

[Tom Cantine]

I have also (very recently!) discovered the utility of the humble club. Much more durability than a spear, not QUITE as much damage but you can smack away at things faster. So it's not a terrible melee weapon to chase down that wounded boar with.

 

[SongAngel]

Thanks everyone I appreciate the feedback.  I guess like most things, you get used to something you like and when it's changed you don't always like it at first.  I'm gonna go with it and give it a try.

[Slam]

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The end result is that firing a spear becomes a more deliberate action, rather than a cheap "machine gun".

Im sorry for the confusion, I ment “machine gun” as the 30% increase aim speed would also apply to the bow, which aim speed is unaffected in 1.22. 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

8 hours ago, SongAngel said:

I’ve been testing RC3 with a new world and have some concerns and suggestions regarding the hunter class. The aiming changes made spear hunting feel incredibly sluggish during my first hunt. Even with the hunter's accuracy buffs, the increased wind up time made it feel like I was fighting the UI rather than the prey.  The accuracy bonus felt wasted because the time to steady your aim was so slow that the prey was already on top of me before I could even take a quality shot.  It forces you to stand perfectly still for far too long which kind of breaks the flow of a skilled hunt and is not as fun as in the current stable version.

By the time I finally dispatched the wild boar I discovered that I could not oil the hide without cooking the fat first?  Needing a cooking pot just to oil a hide feels like friction for no good reason to me.  It's just one more thing that is now locked behind finding clay and felt a bit out of place for a nomadic sort of class and the way that I play it.  In fairness, I always want to find clay as soon as possible, but it means I now have to stop and hunt for it just to do basic processing of a kill.  If the goal of this change was realism, I should point out that raw fat has historically been used for hides without needing a cooking pot.

To address the aiming issue, I suggest that the hunter’s 30% accuracy bonus should also apply to the aiming speed. This would allow the hunter to maintain the role of an agile fighter while still leaving the slower more deliberate aiming for the other classes.

Regarding the fat rendering, is there a reason for this requirement other than slowing the players progress?  If not, I would suggest allowing raw fat as in previous versions, and perhaps adding a perk if you use the rendered fat.  Since pelts are most often used for clothing, perhaps using rendered fat would add a warmth or durability bonus for example.

Anyway, I'm enjoying experimenting with the new update and just wanted to offer my two cents and a big thank you to the developers for a wonderful game!

Welcome to the forums!

The spear changes weren't arbitrary and they made hunter pretty much the default class for many because you could literally machine gun spears at targets. Bows got out-classed and just felt... worthless. Now you can use a spear for the initial attack and swap to your bow and it feels, honestly, good. Because spear damage was nerfed, but bows weren't, you can actually do more damage per second with a bow and arrow now. Because spears were nerfed, they also nerfed the health of some common animals to compensate so that spears wouldn't be a completely useless weapon. So what has happened is that bows (even the crude bow) and arrows just became a whole lot more useful, especially in the early days of your playthrough.

Cooking the fat to get the hide is known as rendering the fat. It has to be done because the oil is locked away in the fat cells. Rendering the fat causes them to break down and release their oil. It also preserves the oil because the fat cells get left behind. Fat locked away in a decaying cell is what causes it to go rancid. Rendering it down kills the bacteria, removes moisture and releases the oil from the decaying flesh. You can also do this with beef tallow and duck fat.

I actually fact-checked you on the historical uses of fat without rendering it first. Turns out you are correct! However rubbing fat/oil into the hide is less about realism and more about representing that you're making a fine product. In that light, I think your suggestion of allowing fat to work the way it does to produce a crude product but rendering it down into oil could produce a finer product. I'm not sure how that would work in the game as it is, since there is hide and there is leather (tanned using barrels), but nothing really in between. What would YOU suggest for the difference between a hide that was oiled with raw fat and one that was oiled with rendered fat?

Edited March 20 by Teh Pizza Lady
accidentally a word

[SongAngel]

10 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Welcome to the forums!

The spear changes weren't arbitrary and they made hunter pretty much the default class for many because you could literally machine gun spears at targets. Bows got out-classed and just felt... worthless. Now you can use a spear for the initial attack and swap to your bow and it feels, honestly, good. Because spear damage was nerfed, but bows weren't, you can actually do more damage per second with a bow and arrow now. Because spears were nerfed, they also nerfed the health of some common animals to compensate so that spears wouldn't be a completely useless weapon. So what has happened is that bows (even the crude bow) and arrows just became a whole lot more useful, especially in the early days of your playthrough.

Cooking the fat to get the hide is known as rendering the fat. It has to be done because the oil is locked away in the fat cells. Rendering the fat causes them to break down and release their oil. It also preserves the oil because the fat cells get left behind. Fat locked away in a decaying cell is what causes it to go rancid. Rendering it down kills the bacteria, removes moisture and releases the oil from the decaying flesh. You can also do this with beef tallow and duck fat.

I actually fact-checked you on the historical uses of fat without rendering it first. Turns out you are correct! However rubbing fat/oil into the hide is less about realism and more about representing that you're making a fine product. In that light, I think your suggestion of allowing fat to work the way it does to produce a crude product but rendering it down into oil could produce a finer product. I'm not sure how that would work in the game as it is, since there is hide and there is leather (tanned using barrels), but nothing really in between. What would YOU suggest for the difference between a hide that was oiled with raw fat and one that was oiled with rendered fat?

Hi and thanks for the reply.  After reading the responses of others I can agree that the spears were a bit OP and while I feel that was mostly due to the auto reload mechanic rather than the aim time, they chose to handle it this way and it is what it is and I can adapt to it.  However, I still feel that locking pelt production behind obtaining clay does not add any value to the game and is just friction for frictions sake or perhaps a tech gate designed to force the player to enter the pottery age sooner, who knows.  In general I like open world games that do not force you down a particular path and if I decide to be a nomad for a longer period of time before finding clay, then that's my play style and I consider that fun.

Overall, it's not about realism for me either but that rationale is used all too often to defend an unpopular game mechanic.  The best games out there simulate realism without making it frustrating or tedious.  Let's be honest, if the game was truly realistic it would be unplayable.  After all, it's not realistic to walk around with 30 logs in your backpack, it's not realistic to make a knife in 5 seconds with a rock and a stick, etc. 

To answer your question, I did suggest in my original post that perhaps using rendered fat would add a durability or warmth bonus since pelts are mainly used for clothing, but if it were my choice, I would change it back and remove that requirement.  In general, I hope the developers do not change the direction of the game so much that it becomes a game about artificial difficulty or redundant complexity and that was really the intended spirit of my post about those two changes.  Overall I am enjoying the beta so far except I can't seem to catch a damn fish!  lol take care.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, SongAngel said:

However, I still feel that locking pelt production behind obtaining clay does not add any value to the game and is just friction for frictions sake or perhaps a tech gate designed to force the player to enter the pottery age sooner, who knows.  In general I like open world games that do not force you down a particular path and if I decide to be a nomad for a longer period of time before finding clay, then that's my play style and I consider that fun.

In my humble opinion, I do believe that pottery should be one of the first steps after obtaining flint tools since you will need a way to cook and store meals. You can just cook red meat over an open flame, but it loses nutrients compared to what you'd get if you tossed a couple pieces into a pot with some berries and/or mushrooms. I see it as a space saving measure once you get your 2nd crock which can be sealed to delay spoilage. It's one of those things, for me, that just feels logical once you try it a few times and compare it to the alternative. You get better food that lasts longer and takes up less space in your inventory once you get a few meals established.

[Blaiyze]

3 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

In my humble opinion, I do believe that pottery should be one of the first steps after obtaining flint tools since you will need a way to cook and store meals. You can just cook red meat over an open flame, but it loses nutrients compared to what you'd get if you tossed a couple pieces into a pot with some berries and/or mushrooms. I see it as a space saving measure once you get your 2nd crock which can be sealed to delay spoilage. It's one of those things, for me, that just feels logical once you try it a few times and compare it to the alternative. You get better food that lasts longer and takes up less space in your inventory once you get a few meals established.

All fine and dandy, but one of the intentions I read from one of the devs somewhere, was that they wanted the player to spend more time in each tech era, instead of doing what TOBG players do - which is rush the tech progression.

And people like to play nomadic. Being nomadic doesn't mean carting around clay pots - why is that playstyle punished and gate kept behind a higher tech tier, when the stated intent from the devs was to have the player spend longer in each tech period? It becomes a little too forcing players down a playstyle pipeline imo. 

I agree that there should be an accessible, non-clay tier purpose for hide working - which existed IRL - using non rendered fat. It doesn't have to be OP equipment, but something accessible for those that opt to play nomadic for longer than the average player. A sandbox game is all about those options. Keep the rendered fat, it makes sense and I agree that fat should spoil unless processed.

[LadyWYT]

5 hours ago, SongAngel said:

To answer your question, I did suggest in my original post that perhaps using rendered fat would add a durability or warmth bonus since pelts are mainly used for clothing, but if it were my choice, I would change it back and remove that requirement.

I think just letting the player use raw or rendered fat to oil hides is enough. No need to try to complicate it further by adding extra durability or warmth to pelts made with rendered fat, as doing so would probably require a lot of tweaks to the clothing system.

 

23 minutes ago, Blaiyze said:

Being nomadic doesn't mean carting around clay pots

I dunno. Nomads do make camps for a day or two, sometimes more if the area is good enough, so making some basic pottery via pit kiln in that time doesn't seem unreasonable. Though when it comes to many manufactured goods, it seems more realistic to rely on trade for acquiring those things too. The main problem there, I think, is that traders don't really sell things like barrels and cookpots, and don't really buy things that nomads could more easily supply(like pelts, meat, fat, etc).

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Blaiyze said:

And people like to play nomadic. Being nomadic doesn't mean carting around clay pots - why is that playstyle punished and gate kept behind a higher tech tier, when the stated intent from the devs was to have the player spend longer in each tech period? It becomes a little too forcing players down a playstyle pipeline imo.

It has nothing to do with the nomadic playstyle in my opinion.

It has everything to do with basic survival expectations regardless of playstyle.

Cookpots aren’t just for settled players. Without one, you’re locking yourself out of core systems like meal nutrition bonuses and more efficient food usage. That’s not a playstyle issue, that’s a self-imposed limitation.

Being nomadic doesn’t mean having zero infrastructure. It means carrying what you need and setting up temporary camps. Historically, nomads still stopped to repair equipment, gather supplies, and restock food. Firing clay for an afternoon before moving on fits that pattern perfectly.

Locking hide production behind the cookpot doesn’t force settlement, it encourages preparation. You’re not being told to stay, just to engage with a basic survival loop before moving on. And practically speaking, a cookpot is already essential for travel. If you’re moving between locations, having a way to make proper meals on the road is a necessity or you will find yourself having to stop more frequently to gather more food. The same applies to hide processing: rendering fat improves preservation, reduces spoilage risk, and makes the whole process more reliable.

If you want anything beyond basic armor, you’re going to have to stop for a while anyway. Tanning hides into leather takes time, and most metal armor depends on it. The same goes for things like better backpacks. Those are long-term prep steps, not signs that the game is forcing you to settle permanently.

Nomadic play isn’t about never stopping. It’s about not staying longer than necessary. Taking time to prepare food, process materials, and stock up before moving on is part of that, not a contradiction of it. Using nomadism as a reason to avoid making a cookpot just doesn’t really hold up.

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I dunno. Nomads do make camps for a day or two, sometimes more if the area is good enough, so making some basic pottery via pit kiln in that time doesn't seem unreasonable. Though when it comes to many manufactured goods, it seems more realistic to rely on trade for acquiring those things too. The main problem there, I think, is that traders don't really sell things like barrels and cookpots, and don't really buy things that nomads could more easily supply(like pelts, meat, fat, etc).

This is the real reason the game doesn't really support the nomadic playstyle very well. Things that would make being a nomad worth it (like making a loop of all the traders in the game) start becoming chores as soon as you find out that there are only a few places worth visiting and half of the stuff you gather either goes to waste or gets left behind for use never later.

Edited March 20 by Teh Pizza Lady

[coolAlias]

29 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

[Trade goods are] the real reason the game doesn't really support the nomadic playstyle very well. Things that would make being a nomad worth it (like making a loop of all the traders in the game) start becoming chores as soon as you find out that there are only a few places worth visiting and half of the stuff you gather either goes to waste or gets left behind for use never later.

Even as a non-nomad, I find much of the items traders want to buy are things that I can seemingly only procure from other traders.

Of course there are some I can craft, but during the first year, my leather and bronze and other things are so much more valuable to me than a rusty gear or three.

Not to mention the traders are all spread out and it's quite a trek to make it to one let alone multiple in a single day, which costs time, food, and risk of bear, plus inventory space, so I tend not to bother going back unless there was something really enticing in their initial inventory.

[DUCATISLO]

a

[Tom Cantine]

I'd been doing a lot of nomadic stuff, practicing for the wipe of TOPS, and I soon found that making just a single cookpot and bowl as early as possible was a REALLY GOOD MOVE. Even better if you find some peat to fire it with, because it'll be ready sooner. 

I wasn't fully into what you'd call the Pottery Age. Just two items. No jug, no crocks, certainly no molds or crucibles. Just a pot to cook in and a bowl to eat from. 

 

[coolAlias]

The cooking pot is essentially the poor nomad's crock.

Now if only you could eat from the cooking pot directly and save that precious inventory slot for something other than a bowl.

[runnybabbit]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Nomads do make camps for a day or two, sometimes more if the area is good enough, so making some basic pottery via pit kiln in that time doesn't seem unreasonable.

There are methods of earthenware that do not require a pit kiln, just a sufficiently hot open fire. You won't make anything spectacular or especially durable, and there's a moderatley high risk of failure, but there's no reason a nomad wouldn't have access to pots and the like.

This just gave me a thought, shouldn't survival traders sell pots? Makes sense to me that in a world simultaneously inhabited by both nomads and small settlements that tools like that would be sold... why else would those traders be camped out in the middle of nowhere except to pass on goods to passing nomads, bandits, vagrants and the like.

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, runnybabbit said:

This just gave me a thought, shouldn't survival traders sell pots? Makes sense to me that in a world simultaneously inhabited by both nomads and small settlements that tools like that would be sold... why else would those traders be camped out in the middle of nowhere except to pass on goods to passing nomads, bandits, vagrants and the like.

That's basically what I was getting at earlier, and others mentioned it as well. The nomad playstyle doesn't really work all that well at the moment since the game is currently balanced around the player being very self-sufficient with their own base of operations. Cookware and other pottery can be found in underground ruins, however, players aren't too likely to be exploring underground without decent equipment, and by the time they have decent equipment they don't really need basic pottery anymore.

There's at least a good handful of things that traders should realistically buy and sell, like pottery, but for some reason they don't. Some of it I can understand, since the player shouldn't exactly be able to acquire a wealth of gears from selling cheap goods like small pelts, and probably shouldn't be relying on traders for purchasing absolutely every essential material. But having some basic cookware for sale sounds reasonable enough, and it'd also help in those maps where clay just doesn't want to show itself.