Armor, Arms and Animals.

[Almahr]

Hi, first post on the forum - after having played for a couple hundred hours (not that much, I know!), I've got some suggestions (more to be added), namely:

Armor
Armor is possibly the "simplest" (from a mechanical perspective) item from all three categories, what I'd like is the ability to mix and match equipment - being able to wear chainmail without a leather jerkin for a reduced protective posture; being able to "up-armor" various suits (plate comes to mind - one of the modifications you could add to the suit is a tourney-style shield and pauldron which increases protection, but reduces swing speed); more armors and armor styles (some of it could be cosmetic in nature, I suppose).

Arms
Arms (weapons both melee and ranged) I think could use a big improvement in both variety and style: swords (short, long, great) of many varieties (curved, straight-edged, double-edged and so on); specialized tools (warpicks, battle axes, halberds, maces, ...); curiosities (repeater crossbows, heavy crossbows, light crossbows, flaming arrows, ...).

Animals
For the animal category I'd like to talk about two different groups, some of them might share wanted features and some of them might have their own unique requests. In general, I think we've a good start in 1.22.

• Predators (bears, wolves) - one of the things I've noticed is that they're in general way too quiet. Bears, for example, have a pretty high "aggro" distance compared to their noise radius. This could be improved by increasing the noise radius (if, for example, their aggro is 30 meters their noise should be around 50 meters, that gives, in my opinion, ample warning of their presence) and by also adding more foley sound (foliage rustling, sticks being pressed on, heavier footsteps that are unmistakable for any other animal) without needing to make the bear growl or roar constantly. There's also something to be said about animal behaviors, I think Bears and Wolves should have their chasing behavior revised in the sense that Bears are not endurance hunters, they will not chase you down to the ends of the Earth, while wolves should give longer chase (I keep encountering them and they lose interest after 2-3 seconds). 
   
• Prey (foxes, goats, sheep, raccoons, rabbits, et cetera) - some of them I feel I lose track off of too easily and this could probably be helped by footsteps, foley and tracking markers (tracks on the ground for deer as an example or blood trails from an injured animal), which would be immersive and fun mechanically (possible insight bonuses for Hunters??), using your surroundings to figure out where they are.

Still within the realms of Animals, displaced foliage (grass trails, for example) would also be a great help.

EDIT 1: Physics accurate collision would also be a great QoL feature, in my opinion, in two categories - Arms and Animals. For weapons this means you can properly use your range as a hit is detected when the actual tip of your spear (for example) touches the animal hitbox, while conversely animals are unable to swipe and unfairly hit you.

Edited May 10 by Almahr

[Rainbow Fresh]

Or in summary, you want Combat Overhaul (with especially CO Armory and maybe one or another Forgotten Armory set) in the base game, and some sort of immersive QoL hunting mechanics.

While I am also an avid CO user and very much agree that the game needs more weapons than... a stick, a pointy stick and a Falx - the entire indepth suite of CO would most likely be overkill for the base game. So just some, even if only aestetic, variety in weapons and armors should be enough

As for hunting, I do agree and other have also already discussed that hunting needs some more oompf. How exactly that may or will look like though, we will have to see. Animal footstep sounds are already planned/in the works iirc. As for the environmental signs (trampled grass, snapping twigs, rustling bushes, ...) while that does sound nice on first glance, logically saying these clues would need to also apply to the player. And I don't really think most players would enjoy constantly shooing away any animals cause they hit 0.1px of a leaf block's hitbox or just so happend to hit a twig on the ground. Especially considering how cramped (and bear ridden) forests are to begin with, and how grass is all over the plains so you don't see the animal until it's too late anyway.

[Almahr]

Hi, thanks for replying.

For weapons, it's more of a suggestion in regards to variety, I don't think you'd need 10 of each type (mace, axe, sword, et cetera), merely enough to satisfy some curiosity and fulfill a niche I suppose (like rapiers for piercing). In regards to the environmental noise, I think it would play nicely with the "crouch-walk" system we already have in Vintage Story, it's already supposed to be some form of stealth (by "crouch-walking" you can get in closer to animals without being detected). I do agree it needs to be more deeply researched and thought-out, which is something I'd like to leave part of it to the devs (they know their own systems better than I do).

I'm still thinking about the armor suggestion, but I'd like to keep it as simple and agnostic with what we have already -- we could go overboard with mechanics and details but keeping it simple is much faster to get committed to main.