Mods that should be core mechanics

[DeanF]

I'm sure that this has been done before.

Give your thoughts on what mods really should be in the vanilla game.  I'm a new player, so my experience is limited.  Try to provide a short justification.

Mine:

Step Up

This resets the step height from 0.6 to 1.2 blocks, so that you don't have to get carpal tunnel from jumping with the spacebar all the time just to move around.  I have found this to be game-changing.  This should be switchable, though, since I know that some players hate it.

Carry On

Lets you carry some containers in your hands while they are still full, to make it easier to move them around without having to transfer everything into your inventory.  The function to carry them on your back is not crucial, but you should be able to pick up a full reed chest or pottery storage container in your hands and move it.

Simple HUD Clock

Displays some data in the corner of the screen: date, time, weather.  I don't think that the rift activity needs to be included, though?  It seems like that might give things away, and take away some of the mystery.  This should be switchable, too.

More Piles

Originally I was going to list Cairns, but this is a better solution- just let us make piles of other things like stones in the same way that we can make piles of firewood or sticks.  We can just leave piles of stones as cairns.

 

Blood Trail

Leaves a trail of blood drops on the ground as a wounded animal moves.  It should be a lot more subtle than the mod, though.  Perhaps the size of the drops could scale with both the size of the animal and how badly injured it is?

 

Player Corpse

Just leaving piles of gear behind when you die isn't very immersive.  Leaving a skeletal corpse that you have to loot is better, as well as more in keeping the with eldrich horror theme.

 

Stone Quarry

A better way to get stone blocks.  I don't think that everything in Stone Quarry needs to be implemented, but getting stone blocks should be easier-  chopping out the six blocks just to get one block of stone is onerous.  And this is a nice, immersive way to do it.

 

From Golden Combs

I haven't tried apiculture yet, but from what I have read in this game it seems to be implemented in a very rudimentary manner.  So much so that I suspect that more is planned.  Needing a dummy target to "distract" bees?  Really?  Why can't we smoke hives to harvest them in a non-destructive manner?

 

Catch Ledge

I actually don't think that all of this should be implemented- this game does not need a full parkour mechanic.  But I do think that we should be able to mantle up two or three blocks with a jump.  Mantling two blocks up should be pretty quick, but mantling up three blocks should take longer.

 

BetterRuins

This just looks awesome.

 

 

 

Edited Sunday at 11:14 PM by DeanF

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

Give your thoughts on what mods really should be in the vanilla game.

Given that mods are really more of a personal taste thing, I'm just going to note that I agree with most of this list, but there are a few exceptions. Speaking on mods in general though, there are several that I think could easily fit into the vanilla game, but shouldn't necessarily be added, since parts of the mod don't really fit or the mod might be more than what most players really want to deal with.

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

Simple HUD Clock

Displays some data in the corner of the screen: date, time, weather.  I don't think that the rift activity needs to be included, though?  It seems like that might give things away, and take away some of the mystery.  This should be switchable, too.

I actually don't think this should be vanilla. While it is a convenient mod, the information is already listed in the Character Info window in vanilla, and screen space is valuable. Having too much stuff on the screen at once can easily make things look cramped or cluttered. Plus most of the information the player can also figure out easily enough just by paying attention to what's going on in the world. A strong wind will sound and look different than a gentle breeze, and the exact time doesn't matter so much as the position of the sun in the sky.

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

Player Corpse

Just leaving piles of gear behind when you die isn't very immersive.  Leaving a skeletal corpse that you have to loot is better, as well as more in keeping the with eldrich horror theme.

Given that player respawns are actual canon lore, I'm not sure that leaving a corpse behind is very immersive either. I think the better option here would probably be to figure out a way to have bags and tools get automatically put into the nearest available ground storage if the player dies. That way the player isn't losing their most valuable stuff, but will still need to work to get it(if said player died from a fall, better hope nothing landed on a ledge), and avoids the need to explain why there are corpses of a near-immortal being everywhere.

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

From Golden Combs

I haven't tried apiculture yet, but from what I have read in this game it seems to be implemented in a very rudimentary manner.  So much so that I suspect that more is planned.  Needing a dummy target to "distract" bees?  Really?  Why can't we smoke hives to harvest them in a non-destructive manner?

I like Golden Combs, and would love to see some more in-depth beekeeping options, but honestly I think this mod goes too far for what vanilla should be.

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

Catch Ledge

I actually don't think that all of this should be implemented- this game does not need a full parkour mechanic.  But I do think that we should be able to mantle up two or three blocks with a jump.  Mantling two blocks up should be pretty quick, but mantling up three blocks should take longer.

I have to say no here. It's not that I don't like the idea, but it would require a rework of two major story locations since it would completely break the set design and allow the player to essentially skip all the puzzles. Just telling the player "no you can't do that here" is also an option, but not a very good one.

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

BetterRuins

This just looks awesome.

Negative. Better Ruins adds extraneous lore, and also tends to be rather demanding on performance due to the size, complexity, and I think items added. It's great that the mod exists as an option, and I wouldn't mind seeing some more complex ruins, but I think that is probably better left to story locations and procedural dungeons, where there is more things for the player to do and more reason to add complex details for story telling.

Overall though, the game needs to be able to run on a variety of hardware, as well as not outclass the average player's building ability so much that they don't feel they can build anything cool that fits in the world. Plus if every ruin in the world is huge and detailed, then the story locations lose a lot of their wow factor since, well, there's epic stuff everywhere.

[DeanF]

Thanks for replying!

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Given that mods are really more of a personal taste thing [...]

Well, I was really asking for things that seem like they should be core mechanics, I guess, not aesthetics.  I love all of the Stone Age Fauna stuff, but I wouldn't want it in the vanilla game.

 

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Simple HUD Cock

While it is a convenient mod, the information is already listed in the Character Info window in vanilla, and screen space is valuable. Having too much stuff on the screen at once can easily make things look cramped or cluttered.

Indeed, that is why I said that it should be switchable.  But I have an ultrawide monitor, so I barely notice it- I literally forget to check it.  No screen real estate issues with it at all.  (In fact a lot of the windows for containers pop up inconveniently near the right edge of my screen, and I have to drag them back to the center.)  But it's nice to just glance over instead of pressing C.  So why not have this as a selectable option?

 

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Player Corpse

 I think the better option here would probably be to figure out a way to have bags and tools get automatically put into the nearest available ground storage if the player dies.

I could see players intentionally dying to farm containers, there...  Unless I misunderstand what you're saying.

Where do I find this lore?  I'm trying real hard not to spoiler myself, though.

But, anyway, I don't think that reincarnation is inconsistent with leaving remains.  Not everything needs to have a Judeo-Christian flavor.  There are many belief systems that involve being reborn in a new body.

 

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

From Golden Combs

I like Golden Combs, and would love to see some more in-depth beekeeping options, but honestly I think this mod goes too far for what vanilla should be.

I would say that I agree.  I put it sort of in the same category as Catch Ledge- I wouldn't want it all implemented.  But clearly we need better apiculture, and I couldn't find a more suitable mod to propose.

I understand where the devs' heads are at with skeps, but there are ancient Egyptian depictions that show hives being smoked as far back as 2400 BCE- no distracting dummies involved.  And historically some skeps were made with a sort of a smaller skep on top, accessible through a hole too small for the queen to pass, so that it acted just like a modern super, and the hive didn't need to be destroyed to harvest at least some of the comb.  

 

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Catch Ledge

I have to say no here. It's not that I don't like the idea, but it would require a rework of two major story locations since it would completely break the set design and allow the player to essentially skip all the puzzles.

Well, then so be it, I say.  Rework it.  The game isn't released yet.  It seems nuts that I can't hop a 5-foot ledge.  At least two blocks, if you can't stand the idea of three.

 

2 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

BetterRuins

Better Ruins adds extraneous lore, and also tends to be rather demanding on performance due to the size, complexity, and I think items added. It's great that the mod exists as an option, and I wouldn't mind seeing some more complex ruins, but I think that is probably better left to story locations and procedural dungeons, where there is more things for the player to do and more reason to add complex details for story telling.

Oh, I didn't know that it changed lore.

But it looks awesome!  That's what I mean.  The great visuals are what attracted me to this game.  Well, that and I love survival games.  I had thought that BetterRuins was procedural, and it caught my eye.

I have played a few learning games of Vintage Story thus far while fiddling with settings to find out what I like, because at this point I'm waiting for the 1.22 release before committing a huge chunk of time to it, and I have yet to reach the bronze age.  So I feel like this is a game that might take a year for most casual players to finish.  (My gaming friends and I just got a server, though.)  So having some epic procedural content along the way seems like it would be received well.

This game is supposed to have eight chapters, but only two are done, right?  I think something could probably be worked out with the BetterRuins devs, to be sure that it follows lore, and then insert those beautiful visuals into the game as optional side-quests, or something.  More content is better.

Edited Monday at 03:04 AM by DeanF

[LadyWYT]

54 minutes ago, DeanF said:

Where do I find this lore?  I'm trying real hard not to spoiler myself, though.

https://www.vintagestory.at/stories/storyexcerpt-ghosts.html/

There's a short story on the forums that illustrates the process, as well as other hints you'll find just by playing the story. Granted, it's a bit vague on the details though. To me it just seems that when a seraph "dies", they don't really die/reincarnate as much as reconstitute themselves at a specified point. They're still the same person they were before, and it seems like the old body would just disappear when the reconstitution takes place.

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

Well, then so be it, I say.  Rework it.  The game isn't released yet.  It seems nuts that I can't hop a 5-foot ledge.  At least two blocks, if you can't stand the idea of three.

While ledge-jumping would be neat, I would say the opposite and stick with the simpler movement system, and perhaps add a grappling hook or some other tool to allow the player to more easily climb around, while still being something that could perhaps be more reasonably limited in certain locations. Reworking entire story locations is a pretty big ask, and isn't necessarily as simple as just adjusting a few walls and things. I'd rather see the time and resources put in to fleshing out other areas of the game. 

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

But it looks awesome!  That's what I mean.  The great visuals are what attracted me to this game.  Well, that and I love survival games.  I had thought that BetterRuins was procedural, and it caught my eye.

It does look awesome, yes, but the performance is...not great, and the ruins are not procedural(to my knowledge). In fairness, it's been a while since I used it, and my hardware was a bit weaker then, but while the ruins were fun to look at, the game tended to lag a bit with that mod installed, and that was with mid-tier hardware. When it comes to performance, graphics can always be turned down, but it's not really possible to adjust the complexity of ruins in the vanilla game, so lower end machines would likely end up struggling to run something like this.

Honestly, the complexity is also why I've shifted away from Better Ruins over time. The ruins look nice by themselves, but seem too grandiose otherwise, in some cases outclassing the vanilla story structures. As a result, the world ends up feeling rather unsatisfying. Additionally, not every player is a great builder, so it's not ideal to have everything be so grandiose that the average player feels they can't build anything themselves that fits the world.

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

This game is supposed to have eight chapters, but only two are done, right?  I think something could probably be worked out with the BetterRuins devs, to be sure that it follows lore, and then insert those beautiful visuals into the game as optional side-quests, or something.  More content is better.

Right, but keep in mind that Tyron and Saraty have their own vision they wish to implement, which may not track with what Better Ruins does. And while more content is nice to have, quantity isn't the same thing as quality.

 

1 hour ago, DeanF said:

So having some epic procedural content along the way seems like it would be received well.

Like I said, this kind of thing is better suited for the procedural dungeons. Those should be complex enough to be more interesting than the typical ruin crumbled away to time, while reserving the truly epic stuff for the story chapters where it be able to leave the most dramatic impression upon the player.

In fairness, I do want to clarify that I'm not saying I don't want to see improvements to the current ruins, just that I don't think it should be anything as grandiose as Better Ruins, as that brings with it performance issues and can discourage players in their building abilities.

[YordaEatsMelon]

12 hours ago, DeanF said:

Where do I find this lore?  I'm trying real hard not to spoiler myself, though.

 

10 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

There's a short story on the forums that illustrates the process, as well as other hints you'll find just by playing the story. Granted, it's a bit vague on the details though. To me it just seems that when a seraph "dies", they don't really die/reincarnate as much as reconstitute themselves at a specified point. They're still the same person they were before, and it seems like the old body would just disappear when the reconstitution takes place.

I've also held this view as it seems most coherent with what (little) we explicitly know so far, though I'm absolutely certain more will be laid out for us in due time (think story locations 3-9 or thereabouts). Heck, maybe even in a procedural dungeon, or a new lore fragment in a new type of common/uncommon/rare surface ruin. Anyways....

In other videogames, when you die, you are sent back to the spot or region you last were (checkpoint saves), to the beginning of a level (like in platformers), or to a designated entry-point of a map or room (Wii games, lol), etc. You generally keep your inventory, and if you go back to where you had been, its like you had never been there in the first place, like time reset itself.

In VS, you don't simply reappear as if you had gone back in time before the blunder/death. Clarifying edit: There is no time rewind.    Rather.... (spoilers below!!!)

 

Spoiler

Your clothes show evidence of damage you took from the animal that killed you, even though clearly you are now unharmed (percentage levels drop on garments, especially relative to the height of the animal's attack). You came back, possibly just moments later.

You glow for a few minutes upon coming back (on some maps it's clearly visible mid-day for me), and the color of the light later proves significant.

The first trader who you come across will talk of your kind of people randomly appearing, unprecedentedly, asking if you had "just woken up" and wondering if you have a past to yourself. Hinting that you aren't like the trader and normal people, especially considering your tall height and, if you chose a shade of the most common color in the character creator, that your skin isn't quite right.

You re-enter the world within a radius of the very first point you ever started at, hinting of being tethered to a particular spot, no matter how far away you may have actually died or set up camp. This is later confirmed by use of temporal gears (also note the color).

Lore books, tapestries, etc. feature mention the creation of machines that influence and alter the very fabric of reality (also note the color). Story Location dialogue confirms this, as well as specifying the how of you even being here.

 

More of this is encountered in the major story locations than outside of them, but, what you do see like I mentioned above is still very noteworthy.

Edited Monday at 02:19 PM by YordaEatsMelon

[YordaEatsMelon]

Also, welcome to the community! It's nice to see new players here on these forums and not just Reddit. 

38 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

https://www.vintagestory.at/stories/storyexcerpt-ghosts.html/

I really like the mystery in this short story. Would love to see some mention of its occurrence, like the other short story, by something or source or someone in-game (I like to think these were tales passed down as legend by in-game peoples, even if they no longer live/exist by the time we encounter the reference / preserved account).  

[Rainbow Fresh]

Lemme add my 2 cents of opinion to this discussion.

Step Up. No thanks, how about just naturally integrating that mod that generates terrain slabs so the terrain is smoother and has naturally walkable half-block inclines in many places instead? Assuming VS uses the same 1 block = 1m³ measurement, walking up a step height of 1.2m would probably be possible (especially considering we don't play a normal human), but cumbersome at least. To balance and fit it would need to add extra hunger drain and slow movement/delays to stepping that high.

Carry On. Oh, absolutely. It's a decently balanced way to transport stuff that would take several trips of inventory hauling instead. Immersive QoL.

Simple HUD Clock. Mostly agree with LadyWYT here, there is generally no need for this. I guess it could be made a simple game setting for HUD preference; after all, it is all already there, just needs to be rendered either in position A or B. But there is no need for a constant display for me. As all the information is in the environment. In fact, I would go one step further here. What I personally would like to see vanilla-ized, and sadly it doesn't even seem there is mods for this yet, is to have less HUD information and more in-world mechanics/crafting. Why are we an omniscent being that can sense time, calendar and rift activity wherever we are? Why do we either have a full, magic map or none at all? Vintage Story is intended to be "uncrompromising hardcore survival" or what the phrasing was. So why don't we need to make a thermometer to know the temperature? There are enough unused ores in the game with which we could probably make a real-world thermometer. Make a clock, if not based on real mechanic "magic", based on the magic temporal gear as measurement/drive. Make a calendar out of parchments and some pigment to know the day. Build some mid-game temporal gear doodad to measure rift activity, possibly giving use to otherwise just cosmetic pendants. And an option that you have to actually draw maps to cartograph (option, you can have magic map as a difficulty setting still). Hell, Minecraft is more "uncompromising" in that regard.

More Piles. Don't have it myself, but sounds very agreeable.

Blood Trail. Another "Oh, absolutely." Even though it hasn't done much of anything for me as the animal usually stops bleeding before coming to a rest hiding in tall grass again.

Player Corpse. Don't use it, can't say but the lore explanations to make it sound like a bad idea indeed. Am, too, for just trying to "drop" loot into ground storage or some other mechanic like that.

Stone Quarry. Don't have it, can't say. But, personally, I don't feel like getting solid stone easier is necessary. This way products of solid stones (aka. essentially just ashlar bricks) have a sense of rarity and value. And considering the ground is literall full of rock, losing atleast 6 per excavated stone is a non-issue. Gives me more pebbles for stone path roads.

 

Now for the more "controversially" discussed options.

From Golden Combs. This mod I use, and I'd certainly put it on the "should be vanilla-ified" list. Can't really agree with LadyWYT that it goes "too far" for what vanilla should be. Vanilla is trying to be immersive, pseudo-realisticly hard and detailed. If we a dozen different factors/mechanics influencing crops and producing iron ore being a, like, 5 step process, then why are bees limited to just a single-use reed skep you have to fight for to get honey? And wax's only purpose is to make candles or as a crockpot sealing substitute for fat. Let us build proper, reusable apiaries. Let bees influence the plants around them. In fact, once again I would go further and say "Let bees be the direly missing mechanic to propagate (spread/regrow) wild flowers."

Catch Ledge. Difficult topic. I have the mod, I like the mod and yet for the first time I have to agree with the opinion of "not quite fit for vanilla." Especially since the mod itself is kinda OP. If something like this were to ever be implemented it would need to be heavily balanced (but please not the same stupid way as losing a full chainmail armor worth of more hunger just because you hold something in your offhand.) So I guess being able to mantle up two blocks would be the compromise between this and the original suggestion of "Step Up"? Slow but possible terrain traversal outside of walking up stairs/slabs and "walking up blocks"? Story locations needing a rework to not be cheese-able with this, however, I would agree that if a mechanic like this were to ever come, is just par for the course. Many things in the game need to constantly adjust to fit with one another.

Better Ruins. Oh absolutely. Granted, since I have played with this one since day 1 I can't really tell too accurately which ruins are vanilla and which are not, but I do have a feeling the vanilla ones are those couple cobblestones in the vague shape of what could have been a house, while Better Ruins are all the actual houses. Do they need to be as huge and complex as all the Better Ruins stuff? Probably not. Do I think the game needs more than just "couple cobbles in a vague shape" and story locations? Yes please. As for performance concerns; I don't think that should be a concern. If the ruins are too demanding, then building anything yourself would be aswell in which case it's not the ruin's fault but a general optimization problem. The ruins altering the lore; Really can't say anything about that as the only canon lore I got so far are three notes from panning. So for all I am concerned more ruins fit all the same as the old ruins. There once was an advanced civilization before, they died, now ruins. The end.

 

As for my own suggestions not mentioned yet... I don't really know. I play with about 50 mods, frequently increasing and currently I wouldn't want to play without most any of them but the question of if they should be base game content is a different one. Not to mention the base game's own roadmap for implementing some of these modded features already aswell as sub-sequent disappointment of how the base game implemented them. Let's take quenching and grindstones for example. Both mods I use and general mechanics that I do agree should be in the base game. Clearly the devs agreed as they will be in 1.22 now. However instead of repairing stuff, the vanilla grindstone just sacrifices durability for a totally useless crit buff on weapons. I wouldn't agree with that and hope the Grindstones mod updates to 1.22 in some way, otherwise I will need a different alternative (like Toolsmith+). Quenching is now a risky type of upgrade instead of just a time-saving QoL improvement to cool down hot work items. Does it make sense? Probably. Would I prefer the "just cool it down bro" mod version? Absolutely.

Anyway, if I were to throw some suggestions in from the top of my head, Watersheds/any other river adding mod (which will already be vanilla, one day, when they figure it out) Food Shelves/another storage furniture mod (which we are also already getting in very small part in 1.22 iirc), JSON Patch Lib (because these features for modding are like the basic JSON modding 101 toolkit every other game I personally made mods for had already), ConfigLib (because giving native configuration options to mods sounds like a very, very good improvement considering how modding-focused VS is), Temporal Symphony (because Temporal Storms are in dire need of a rework/upgrade anyway, but atleast making them immersive and spooky is a must) and maybe Equus (because we have the elk now, so why wouldn't there be a horse variety. Both currently have and should have different stats and abilities).

[MKMoose]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Given that player respawns are actual canon lore, I'm not sure that leaving a corpse behind is very immersive either.

Leaving a corpse can be quite easily argued to be more lore-accurate based on the "Ghosts" story excerpt, primarily the penultimate paragraph:

Quote

Down below in the gulch could be seen a small, tired young man. Even from this distance, Yeerba could clearly recognize this man. It was that stranger who had walked through their home, begging for answers with wide eyes. The same man whose body was found two days ago in that same gulch. What was he doing? Her curiosity drove her into silence, and the silence spread to the rest of the group.

I genuinely don't know where you're getting the notion that the old body should disappear.

And even if we assume that the old body should disappear, the game isn't consistent with itself in terms of what gets dropped and what remains on the player after death. Keep inventory would then likely be the more logical, lore-accurate and internally consistent option.

[Bruno Willis]

My offers are:

Sticky Dirt: Makes soil sideways instability work in a reasonable way, taking into account the plant growth on and around the block. The game feels much more alive with this mod and sideways instability active. You notice small cave-in's occasionally, but they aren't world-ending show stealers anymore. Can't play without it. Can't play without sideways instability now either. Feels more vanilla than vanilla instability. 

Novelty: Rewards eating a varied diet by slowly filling a bar, identically to filling any other nutrition bar, except only filled by varying your diet somewhat. Means that there is a mechanical benefit to collecting a wide variety of berry types, and gives you a reason to pick wild mushrooms, even after your garden is flourishing. Feels vanilla. 

Temporal Symphony: Makes mini-temporal storm effects to warn you about an approaching storm diegetically. Temporal storms feel more natural and threatening than when you just get a text warning that they're coming. It feels like the right way to announce the arrival of a storm. 

I haven't found that many mods that really enhance the gameplay for me, although I have been trying many. Of all of the mods I use, these three feel like they could be added to the game without changing the vibe of the game at all, and would just fix some holes. 

3 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Better Ruins. Oh absolutely. Granted, since I have played with this one since day 1 I can't really tell too accurately which ruins are vanilla and which are not, but I do have a feeling the vanilla ones are those couple cobblestones in the vague shape of what could have been a house, while Better Ruins are all the actual houses. Do they need to be as huge and complex as all the Better Ruins stuff? Probably not. Do I think the game needs more than just "couple cobbles in a vague shape" and story locations? Yes please. As for performance concerns; I don't think that should be a concern. If the ruins are too demanding, then building anything yourself would be aswell in which case it's not the ruin's fault but a general optimization problem. The ruins altering the lore; Really can't say anything about that as the only canon lore I got so far are three notes from panning. So for all I am concerned more ruins fit all the same as the old ruins. There once was an advanced civilization before, they died, now ruins. The end.

I've tried better ruins, but honestly, they pack the world with things which really don't feel right. I promise you, the vanilla ruins are really nice, they're not packed with loot though (which I think is a good thing). I strongly feel that vanilla ruins generation hits the spot better than better ruins (although it could of course do with even more ruin options, just in a vanilla style). 

[Rainbow Fresh]

24 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I've tried better ruins, but honestly, they pack the world with things which really don't feel right. I promise you, the vanilla ruins are really nice, they're not packed with loot though (which I think is a good thing). I strongly feel that vanilla ruins generation hits the spot better than better ruins (although it could of course do with even more ruin options, just in a vanilla style). 

Now you've got me curious. The three clearly identifiable Better Ruins ruins I have come across in my world so far were a ruined cathedral-esque building with lots of nice clutter and a locust spawner, what looks like a random collapsed bridge segment (granted, that might be unfitting in the middle of nowhere) and a small village type collection of a big tavern, probably blacksmith and two small houses. None of them had any notable amount of loot, just like vanilla underground "dwarf huts". Would that village type thing be an overpowered start compared to me patching up the generic vanilla mill/tower in the vanilla village ruin? Pretty much. Would it have been cool though, absolutely.

Meanwhile my experience with clearly identifiable vanilla ruins has been your average collection of various shapes of cobblestones vaguely hinting at the shape a small building, stoney bricks with a random shaft with bony soil in the middle, the bigger village-esque strcuture with the ruined tower, crop field and two houses, all with their maybe, maybe not loot vessels, and the various forms of underground dwarf hut full of indiscernible clutter and the occasional odd collapsed chest that may or may not be openable with loot and the occasional odd crate with items in it.

Is there anything else to either ruins that makes you go "Better Ruins is definitely too much" and "Vanilla ruins are perfectly nice and fitting"?

Edited Monday at 11:19 AM by Rainbow Fresh

[LadyWYT]

One other benefit of simpler ruins that I will note, is that it makes them very easy to demolish if one is so inclined(without feeling like you're messing up a landmark), or otherwise rebuild without feeling pressured into following a strict template.

2 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

The three clearly identifiable Better Ruins ruins I have come across in my world so far were a ruined cathedral-esque building with lots of nice clutter and a locust spawner, what looks like a random collapsed bridge segment (granted, that might be unfitting in the middle of nowhere) and a small village type collection of a big tavern, probably blacksmith and two small houses. None of them had any notable amount of loot, just like vanilla underground "dwarf huts". Would that village type thing be an overpowered start compared to me patching up the generic vanilla mill/tower in the vanilla village ruin? Pretty much. Would it have been cool though, absolutely.

I think the ruined village would be a good variant of procedural dungeon, in that it could be a rare find that the player stumbles across every once in a while, although if we want to get technical there is a rare variant of trader outpost that will spawn with multiple traders. In any case, when it comes to loot, I think a ruined village might give some nice starter tools, or provide an interesting base for the player to refurbish, but not much else otherwise since surface ruins have probably been picked over pretty well by surviving adventurers and whatnot.

 

9 hours ago, YordaEatsMelon said:

In VS, you don't just reappear as if you had gone back in time before the blunder/death.    Rather.... (spoilers below!!!)

 

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

I genuinely don't know where you're getting the notion that the old body should disappear.

Right, clothing and other worn items take damage, but the seraph themselves is essentially reset to a healthier status. Time itself doesn't actually rewind, just certain effects, although given what happens in story chapters I suppose it could rewind just for the seraphs and not anyone else.

In any case, even in the short story, it just makes more sense to me that if the seraph is walking around alive, there's not going to be a body to find. How long it takes a seraph to "return" after suffering fatal death though, I'm not sure. The Ghosts story suggests it can take a couple of days for them to reconstitute, in which case it makes sense that there'd be a body for others to find and interact with in the meantime. From a gameplay standpoint though, losing a few days like that may be a concept that's either yet unimplemented, or too harsh of consequence for what the devs want for balance(there is a mod for this though), thus the player respawns immediately after death.

The other reason I'm partial to the "seraphs don't leave a lingering corpse" idea, is that in the event a seraph suffers multiple deaths in a row...that would logically lead to a pile of bodies that would obstruct dungeon passages and things. Obviously, the body could simply disappear once stuff is retrieved, but that feels contrived at best and a plot hole at worst; just overall not satisfying, in my opinion.

3 hours ago, MKMoose said:

And even if we assume that the old body should disappear, the game isn't consistent with itself in terms of what gets dropped and what remains on the player after death. Keep inventory would then likely be the more logical, lore-accurate and internally consistent option.

Probably, but keeping inventory makes things a little too easy. Granted, turning that rule off is a bit of a plot hole in itself, but it seems a more tolerable one to me than the above. I've always chalked it up to the clothing items perhaps being more "attuned" to the player, and thus remaining on the player after death, since clothing items are pretty much the closest thing to the player at all times. 

Though in fairness, in terms of plot holes, it could just be similar to the Hulk's shorts. Logically, Bruce Banner shouldn't keep his pants when transforming into the Hulk, but the alternative is a naked Hulk/Bruce running around every time, which isn't ideal for obvious reasons. Letting the players keep their worn items also gives the player the freedom to wear the rare clothing items without worrying about losing said items if they have an accident.

6 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Temporal Symphony (because Temporal Storms are in dire need of a rework/upgrade anyway, but atleast making them immersive and spooky is a must) and maybe Equus (because we have the elk now, so why wouldn't there be a horse variety. Both currently have and should have different stats and abilities).

Also a big YES to these two. Temporal Symphony is one of the few mods I play with consistently, and also about the only thing anyone seems to actually agree on when it comes to how to change temporal storms for the better.

As for Equus, I just like horses. The elk is nice and all, but it's just not the same.

[Emeal]

I'm actually also wondering when Anego will adapt CarryOn, pretty sure its the mod which is most likely to go in rn.

[LadyWYT]

One mod I would love to see be vanilla though: Freedom Units. I do like using Celsius for most things in the game, but when it comes to outside temperature I prefer Fahrenheit, since I mean...that just gives me more detailed information about exactly how hot or how cold it is outside.

[Jacsmac]

12 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

One mod I would love to see be vanilla though: Freedom Units. I do like using Celsius for most things in the game, but when it comes to outside temperature I prefer Fahrenheit, since I mean...that just gives me more detailed information about exactly how hot or how cold it is outside.

This is exactly my argument for Fahrenheit.
When processing materials and calculating thermodynamic systems, Celsius is perfect, and it works and there's no stupid English unit stuff going on.
However, for weather Celsius is just atrocious. I'm not a piece of metal going into a furnace, and I'm not water freezing or boiling! Sometimes I change the units on my weather app to Celsius just for fun and notice that each degree centigrade is like 3 degrees F. Where is the precision? Fahrenheit feels more like a system made for humans and I'd much more easily estimate how 62 F feels than 16 C.

[YordaEatsMelon]

Mods I think should be vanilla?

Ancient Tools:  I am very ok with VS having an intentional tech progression, especially as it relates to the lore and your capacity for entering story locations with better equipment. However, there are many things that seem artificially locked behind the shaping and use of metals, when frankly, stone age tech allowed many of the same things, just on much smaller scales (or same scale, but less efficiently). That said, we can implement some or all of this mod--at least the spirit of it--to still cater to the game's intended tech progression but in a way that allows both flexibility in resource production as well as encouraging players to keep developing tech for better results. Overall this would improve the early-game's immersion, and, nothing's stopping late-game players from using these to spruce up their homes or have something simple while along their travels. 

For those who don't know what this mod adds: mortar and pestle, curing rack, adze, bark tanning, brain tanning, pitch, carts, primitive barrel (hollowed-out log sealed with pitch), tree scoring (for resin and bark -related collection), healing salve, and tree-bark bread.

Much is complimentary to the current vision, and would go great with Tyron's ideas of implementing both a tea-brewing and herbalism mechanic as well as a status/health system for player injuries.

 

Blood Trail: It's what it sounds like. If you spear or shoot a deer, boar, wolf, etc., they will bleed. Follow the blood until you locate the animal again through thick brush. The devs can configure this best to their vision and maybe allow a little bit of customization for contrast, color, etc, to be considerate of the range of screens players use with their computers.

 

Carry On: I'm kindof surprised this one hasn't yet been implemented. It's really useful to be able to just pick up a full storage vessel or chest for moving it over to another room or over just a block without having to gut all its contents into personal inventory.

 

Chiseled Block Retention:  For the many of us in the VS community who are addicted to chiseling, this is a lifesaver. VS calculates the cellar-viability / sealed-ness of each room or space you build, and so determines how well your greenhouse acts like a greenhouse or whether it thinks you are still outside. Same goes for storing food in a cellar. With this mod, it lets you chisel without breaking the room calculations.

 

Farseer:  For people who don't have dedicated graphics memory/RAM (me, lol!), or maybe who do but want a natural fade-out into the horizon, this is great. "Farseer is a dead-simple LOD terrain system, allowing you to see the silhouette of terrain much further out than normal - by default ~4000 blocks in all directions. It does so by building two-dimensional heightmaps using the information stored in your world's chunks, and will automatically generate them for far-out chunks around players so they can see distant areas they have not yet visited. To be clear, the mod won't show "real" chunks with trees, buildings and so on, it's just a simple heightmap rendered to look like atmospheric fog."

 

Freedom Units:  I regularly use C for lab technician jobs, but F is a lot more intuitive for outdoor temperatures. So, I think it would be great to let players use both or have the option to switch which one it displays. I'd love both, but not everyone might. Options would be nice here.

 

Immersive Fibercraft: Lets you use a simple, hand-held Drop Spindle rather than just placing flax fibers on a grid and magically getting twine. You also have progression up to  Spinning Wheels and Flying Shuttle Looms. For people who want to convert their fibers into twine into fabric like current Vanilla, they can just use the drop spindle the whole time and are not obligated to go any further. For those wanting to go further, and who consider flax a personality trait, they can have all the fun they want with the other equipment. 

 

Thatch Expanded + Zippy's Thatch Patch: This first one simply expands what recipes thatch can be used in for more realism, and so we can just have more uses for Tule, such a cool plant. The second one prevents hay bales (from dry grass) from being used for thatch, but makes it so the recipe for using thatch now only requires half the original amount. The first one would be easy to implement (hopefully) without alienating players or breaking people's reliance on grass to hay to roofing. The second one sounds great, but would require they spawn in a map that has adequate tule spawns, and this could be a make-or-break moment for a lot of players, as world-generation currently stands.

 

Temporal Symphony:  This seems like a no-brainer. It doesn't alter gameplay mechanics in any way that conflicts with what the devs have so far. Instead it augments the sound effects, and best of all it makes the warning or sense of an impending storm something you perceive rather than the current text warning in the chat. I saw in Reddit, from Tyron himself, that he agrees this mod should be implemented (or a form of it) into Vanilla at some point. In a YT interview of Tyron (also featuring his wife) discussing 1.23.0, there was some talk of improving the whole experience of Temporal Storms, the Temporal Stability mechanic, and those relatively stable or unstable regions along the surface. I can't wait  So exciting! 

[Reddit: 

 

[YT Interview: 

 

[YordaEatsMelon]

Expanded Beekeeping:  This solves the issue of players having to distract bees with a straw dummy in vanilla (unrealistic, but hilariously, ngl)--hive smokers. It also gives players the option of making brood boxes once they have a saw and can make planks and boards. Doesn't replace vanilla beekeeping but gives players a better setup once they get further in tech progression. 

Snowshoes:  These were made by indigenous cultures since basically forever. I feel that we could have crude snowshoes for stone age with much less durability (not realistic to real life necessarily, but complimentary to the game's current tech progression), and a standard snowshoe for ppl in copper or bronze and beyond. Though, I wouldn't implement the aluminum or anything, just keep all of it to wood with maybe the use of nails and strips; maybe if you used iron it would be more durable than bronze but at the cost of weight and possibly hunger rate increase. All the fine details would be up to the devs as to how they see fit for their vision.

Millwright:  gives you the option of making historically-accurate mill sails going back to 1386. Not all of this would have to be implemented considering how the devs are already working to improve mechanical power, but I think having some of these sails would be very very nice. Heck, the new changes for "don't place mills too close to each other, bc you'll get turbulence and a decrease in efficiency" could apply to each of the sails a little differently (some sails not catching as much wind bc they are smaller, so less efficient for grinding, but better for compact spaces, fewer resources needed to build, and doesn't experience neighbor-turbulence quite as much).  

On the lines of the Expanded Thatch, and Thatch Patch mods above... Wetlands Harvest: allows the small chance multiples of tops and roots of tule, cattails, papyrus are harvested. So, this could help with replanting in the event a map doesn't give you much tule.

[Tabbot95]

I'd honestly add a modified version of RealSmoke with a lot of the "less intuitive" bits worked out of it, some kind of simpler system that introduces chute in blocks.

+1 to watersheds.

+1 to Ancient Tools; and/or the "Grinding stone" (saddle Quern) mod.

A lot of the harder game-options would be more popular if the progression wasn't locking key things behind metal tools when there should be "simpler but far less efficient" (either in yield or time-taken)..

Linear Power with some kind of change to saws so that the bandsaw is an efficient means of time/effort saving hardware

Butchery (I know the objections to it from the devs, I think they're missing out on all the stuff you can make out of pig/sheep organs and bones, honestly not that gory but I admit it's less abstract.. perhaps as an option like many games have for spiders).

Immersive Fibrecraft & Tailors Delight, Wool and More, Shearlib Yes I know it seems overly detailed to some; it's not really unrelenting if textiles are one-and-done things or simple to make.. add Clothiers Heirlooms as the ultra-endgame; (most being satisfied with a flying shuttle which should require a great deal of work) with steps between Neolithic, Bronze age and Iron age looms and thread spinning methods, (some leaps perhaps being more 'aesthetic' than practical)..

Oils, along with Soap and Lye, and Valley of Ashes; Wood Ash is useful stuff, as are plant oils.

 

[LadyWYT]

40 minutes ago, Tabbot95 said:

Butchery (I know the objections to it from the devs, I think they're missing out on all the stuff you can make out of pig/sheep organs and bones, honestly not that gory but I admit it's less abstract.. perhaps as an option like many games have for spiders).

The problem with it being an option is that someone still has to write the code, create the visual/audio assets, and then maintain those things. Given what Redram has said in the past on the matter, it's not so much a concern about squeamish players, as much as it is some of the devs having issues with depictions of gore and stuff.

Quote

One idea I might give for a mod that won't likely be duplicated in vanilla, is a detailed butchering mechanic.  Some team members are averse to things like depictions of skinned animals, and viscera.  So the butchering mechanic of vanilla is not very likely to be much more detailed than it already is. 

 

[Bruno Willis]

9 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Is there anything else to either ruins that makes you go "Better Ruins is definitely too much" and "Vanilla ruins are perfectly nice and fitting"?

The main things for me are recency and amount.

• The better ruins ruins mostly look like they were ruined only 100 years prior or less, while the vanilla ruins look like they've been ruined for a century. Adding better ruins immediately makes the game less "stumbling through the bones of an ancient civilization" and more "wandering through burned down Riverwood." None of the vanilla surface ruins have wood remaining, because it would have rotted away. Most of the better ruins do have wood present. Which makes you expect to see other survivors much more often than you are actually going to. The other thing is that because vanilla ruins are really old and damaged, they're harder to identify. You don't really feel like you've seen the same ruin 4 times, because they're basically piles of rocks with the suggestion of a window, set into the landscape. The better ruins are more whole, therefore more distinctive, so as soon as you see your second one, it breaks emersion. 
• There are way too many better ruins. You come across them easily, and as LadyWYT said:

  17 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

  The ruins look nice by themselves, but seem too grandiose otherwise, in some cases outclassing the vanilla story structures. As a result, the world ends up feeling rather unsatisfying. Additionally, not every player is a great builder, so it's not ideal to have everything be so grandiose that the average player feels they can't build anything themselves that fits the world.

   You become more of a tourist than someone who is re-building almost from scratch. 

Saying that, I really enjoy running across the larger vanilla ruins, and I've built fun bases in some of the larger ones, (a wall segment with village ruins behind it) and had a great time. I can understand why it's fun to use better ruins to up your chances of running into more impressive ruins, but honestly, I'm willing to wait for more vanilla ruins. I'd love to see the devs gradually adding more vanilla ruins, bit by bit, in their vanilla style where everything is super old and overgrown and sunken into the earth. Vanilla ruins I'd add would be:

• The remains of a mill-race. Just the mill-pond, some low stone walls, maybe a little bridge, and rapids flowing from the pond down the race. The whole thing would be heavily bushy so that it'd have to be cleared to figure out that it's not just landscape, but an ancient human structure.
• Towers on hills and mountain tops. I'm guessing this needs a re-work of the way ruins are generated, but Europe has towers and castles on one in ten hills, it feels like. That's where they have built their towers in V.S. too. I'd love to see some absolutely eroded away towers on the tops of hills, just for the atmosphere. 
• Port infrastructure. Basically ruins which interact with the coast a bit. The remains of harbor walls, a stone jetty, the ruined walls of a warehouse. It'd be cool if they generated mostly submerged, or too high on land to be useful for boats, suggesting that the water level has changed drastically. 

[LadyWYT]

52 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

Towers on hills and mountain tops. I'm guessing this needs a re-work of the way ruins are generated, but Europe has towers and castles on one in ten hills, it feels like. That's where they have built their towers in V.S. too. I'd love to see some absolutely eroded away towers on the tops of hills, just for the atmosphere.

I would also throw a few recently ruined watchtowers into the mix, especially around trade routes, should those be added, or perhaps as part of a new procedural dungeon like a mining camp. Imagine seeing one of those on the horizon, deciding to check it out, and finding an abandoned mine with some ore deposits still inside. Of course, there's a reason the outpost has long been abandoned, so the player will need to clear the nasties out of said mine before they can use it, but that would be a great way to give players not only something to do, but a way to retrieve some ores without necessarily prospecting.

As for why you'd need watchtowers at outposts like this, there would have been at least a handful of people there at one time, and a tower is useful for spotting threats from a distance and providing shelter from threats that get close. Towers are also relatively cheap and easier to build than a full fortress.

[DeanF]

Aha!  You can already stack stones in the vanilla game!  Use ctrl-shift-rightclick, just like you are placing a tool against a wall, and they stack.

I guess that I can uninstall Cairns, now.  One less mod to potentially conflict some day.

Edited Tuesday at 02:37 AM by DeanF

[DeanF]

15 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Sticky Dirt: Makes soil sideways instability work in a reasonable way, taking into account the plant growth on and around the block. The game feels much more alive with this mod and sideways instability active. You notice small cave-in's occasionally, but they aren't world-ending show stealers anymore. Can't play without it. Can't play without sideways instability now either. Feels more vanilla than vanilla instability. 

That sounds perfect.  Just a couple of days ago I was complaining that turning on Dirt Instability made dirt act too much like sand and gravel, and that it should be stabilized by plants somewhat.

 

15 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Novelty: Rewards eating a varied diet by slowly filling a bar, identically to filling any other nutrition bar, except only filled by varying your diet somewhat. Means that there is a mechanical benefit to collecting a wide variety of berry types, and gives you a reason to pick wild mushrooms, even after your garden is flourishing. Feels vanilla. 

I guess that I don't understand how this differs from what is already in the vanilla game?

 

11 hours ago, YordaEatsMelon said:

Mods I think should be vanilla?

Ancient Tools:  I am very ok with VS having an intentional tech progression, especially as it relates to the lore and your capacity for entering story locations with better equipment. However, there are many things that seem artificially locked behind the shaping and use of metals, when frankly, stone age tech allowed many of the same things, just on much smaller scales (or same scale, but less efficiently). That said, we can implement some or all of this mod--at least the spirit of it--to still cater to the game's intended tech progression but in a way that allows both flexibility in resource production as well as encouraging players to keep developing tech for better results. Overall this would improve the early-game's immersion, and, nothing's stopping late-game players from using these to spruce up their homes or have something simple while along their travels. 

For those who don't know what this mod adds: mortar and pestle, curing rack, adze, bark tanning, brain tanning, pitch, carts, primitive barrel (hollowed-out log sealed with pitch), tree scoring (for resin and bark -related collection), healing salve, and tree-bark bread.

That sounds like  something that I would love.

 

11 hours ago, YordaEatsMelon said:

Freedom Units:  I regularly use C for lab technician jobs, but F is a lot more intuitive for outdoor temperatures. So, I think it would be great to let players use both or have the option to switch which one it displays. I'd love both, but not everyone might. Options would be nice here.

Yes, this seems like it should be an available switch.  The U.S. is such a huge market.

 

11 hours ago, YordaEatsMelon said:

Immersive Fibercraft: Lets you use a simple, hand-held Drop Spindle rather than just placing flax fibers on a grid and magically getting twine. You also have progression up to  Spinning Wheels and Flying Shuttle Looms. For people who want to convert their fibers into twine into fabric like current Vanilla, they can just use the drop spindle the whole time and are not obligated to go any further. For those wanting to go further, and who consider flax a personality trait, they can have all the fun they want with the other equipment. 

I have heard that the devs want to eventually do away with the crafting grid in favor of more physical interactions, sort of like how we make pit kilns, etc.  So this might actually come.

 

11 hours ago, YordaEatsMelon said:

Thatch Expanded + Zippy's Thatch Patch: This first one simply expands what recipes thatch can be used in for more realism, and so we can just have more uses for Tule, such a cool plant. The second one prevents hay bales (from dry grass) from being used for thatch, but makes it so the recipe for using thatch now only requires half the original amount. The first one would be easy to implement (hopefully) without alienating players or breaking people's reliance on grass to hay to roofing. The second one sounds great, but would require they spawn in a map that has adequate tule spawns, and this could be a make-or-break moment for a lot of players, as world-generation currently stands.

Yeah, I thought that Tule was under-utilized.  And grass makes a poor roof, though it has of course been done, historically.  Perhaps we could keep the grass roofs, but have them degrade?

 

11 hours ago, YordaEatsMelon said:

Expanded Beekeeping:  This solves the issue of players having to distract bees with a straw dummy in vanilla (unrealistic, but hilariously, ngl)--hive smokers. It also gives players the option of making brood boxes once they have a saw and can make planks and boards. Doesn't replace vanilla beekeeping but gives players a better setup once they get further in tech progression. 

Yes!  This is exactly what I was asking for.  Smoking hives dates back to at least the Egyptian 5th Dynasty, 2400 BCE.

[Tabbot95]

14 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The problem with it being an option is that someone still has to write the code, create the visual/audio assets, and then maintain those things. Given what Redram has said in the past on the matter, it's not so much a concern about squeamish players, as much as it is some of the devs having issues with depictions of gore and stuff.

 

I think that squeamishness kind of undermines some of the potential horror elements tbh;

butchery of rust monsters could be a way to give lore details that isn't reliant on journal entries.

[MattyK]

Honestly, I think out of all the suggested mods outlined here, the only ones I'd see to be 'vanilla friendly' would just be the player corpse mod and blood trails.

There's an argument to be made that mods are there to tailor the game to how the individual wants it, and not necessarily what the developers have in mind, however those two mods alone are soo minor in their implementation and fix two major pinch points for the game.

That being the death experience, and the frustration that comes with chasing chickens or just about anything else through a wooded forest.

The only other thing I can think of from the top of my head that wouldn't impact the developers vision would be something inspired by the footprints mod, because actually being able to see where something is going (or has been) in such an immersive manner really does change your playstyle and allow you to avoid more ambient threats (like finding the recent pawprints of a wolf or a bear for example)

[ifoz]

I'm just going to say the VS roofing mod, as well as the mods that make palisades and roof beams craftable in survival mode. 
The roofing system in survival is so restrictive, and something like the VS roofing mod being integrated into vanilla would really go a long way for letting players do all sorts of things with their roofing. Especially now that the trader outposts all show off special roof techniques made with chiselling and the creative-only roof beams that can't be replicated by survival players.

Edited Wednesday at 07:42 AM by ifoz