too much grinding

[JeyBeeHH]

I think too that vintage story is a little bit unbalanced.
Why?
Its possible to break cobblestone with hand, und build a "cobblestone"-house?! (e.g. from ruins)
But one of the oldest house building (wood) needs many advanced steps. (mining, melting, forge)
An this only to build simple thinks like doors?

I underständ the real technology behind the gamemechanic. 

Alternate idea: Simple provisional door build with sticks. (like ladders.. they lokks build with planks)

[MICHAEL CAMPBELL]

I think simply allowing the player the ability to sleep as often as they want is a good fix for night time, I dont really understand why you can't sleep more than once a day anyway. your simply trading food saturation for daylight.

The only other thing I think should be added early game is a low tech door maybe a thatch or reed door. once you really understand the mechanics its realativly easy to get up to speed. There are some much worse time sinks down the road a ways so if your frustrated right now I understand to a degree but like trying to keep an good supply of charcoal down the road is going make you pull your hair out lol. before you get access to a helvehammer I wouldnt even worry about making lanterns somtimes trying to find salt or lime will be massivly challanging as well so patience is crucial and making sur you just get a few things accomplished every time you play is crucial to making it to a good place where you can enjoy the aspects of the game you really like and less on those you dont.

I do think a vintage story Lite version would be wildly succesful simply ramp up the durability simplify crafting and increase a few drop rates for certian Items and you could have a lite version for those looking for a more casual game play experiance.

You can customize a number of thease settings when you create a new world for example I like to increase my tool durability a bit and tweak the spoialge rates on foods in my favor because I dont want to spend as much time on thease things when I play but you cant tweak recipies or a whole lot of other things in there just yet. I would imagine the road map would allow for more customization in the future.

Edited July 9, 2020 by MICHAEL CAMPBELL

[AlteOgre]

On 7/9/2020 at 11:17 PM, JeyBeeHH said:

I think too that vintage story is a little bit unbalanced.
Why?
Its possible to break cobblestone with hand, und build a "cobblestone"-house?! (e.g. from ruins)
But one of the oldest house building (wood) needs many advanced steps. (mining, melting, forge)
An this only to build simple thinks like doors?

I underständ the real technology behind the gamemechanic. 

Alternate idea: Simple provisional door build with sticks. (like ladders.. they lokks build with planks)

Building with readily available, unprocessed, cobble stones is as old as mankind's need for shelter. So is building with lumber, aka harvested wood. Obtaining timber however, is a different ball game. VS offers a decent set of mechanics to simulate that imo. If you'd really want to make a point about the game being unbalanced wrt building realism, you could argue about the lack of required constructive support for blocks made from cobble stones that can be magically applied in gravity defying arches and roofs. Building with lumber could indeed be expanded upon a bit and this has been suggested a few times before, a.o. in this thread.

Btw, do note that this does not relate to the topic of this thread.

[ApacheTech]

On 6/29/2020 at 2:04 AM, DArkHekRoMaNT said:

@ApacheTech If it’s still relevant and you don’t like the impossibility of missing the night. This simple mod (from one json patch) increases the sleep time on beds by 2 times. Up to 10, 13 and 15 hours, respectively

extendsbedtime-1.0.0.zip 917 B · 5 downloads

This is perfect. Thank you. It is impossible to record at night-time, largely because of YouTube's compression algorithms making everything even darker. With this mod, it is possible to record enough footage to bring out more regular episodes. It's also possible to record uniterrupted timelapse footage, which will make building a lot more streamlined, and a much more enjoyable process. I would consider this mod to be an Essential Mod for any Videography-friendly SMP server, so thank you. I've passed the details onto our server admin.

[Bill Gage]

Yeah, I have hit the "saw wall".  Didn't know about the find nuggets and dig down feature so I have had to grind and grind and finally stopped playing.  I don't understand why a clay pot or urn can't move water.

[Stroam]

 

4 hours ago, Bill Gage said:

Yeah, I have hit the "saw wall".  Didn't know about the find nuggets and dig down feature so I have had to grind and grind and finally stopped playing.  I don't understand why a clay pot or urn can't move water.

You can still cook stew and porridge with two meat, two veggies, or two grains. I do agree that transporting water should be before the saw wall.

[Gazz]

Early game nights are only scary if you try to brute-force it.

Personally I just go about my business as usual, every hour of the day. Just be ready to run. I had started a new game and being quite rusty, I didn't even die until day 18-20 doing that.

You can always mine at night. If you don't have a copper pick and hammer, yet, you can pan all night and get the copper to make them. Spend one or two nights doing that and you're set.
No different from killing rats and snakes in your average MMO.

But is VS a slow game? Yes.
You don't get to "beat" the game in an hour or two. Sometimes you just have to chill out and enjoy the journey.

The ingame "guides" are quite good but you are expected to read them carefully because they don't hammer home every single point. Every detail counts.

Edited August 26, 2020 by Gazz

[David Taylor]

I was a bit stumped by the bucket holdup too. It seems obvious one of the clay containers should be usable as a bucket. I was looking at the modding info last night and thought a clay bucket might be a good first attempt. Maybe one of the clay containers under a stick for the recipe?

I guess the bucket needing planks idea from a gameplay POV is a bit of a forced progression or something. I'm on my first game and the copper saw and shears moment has really allowed things to pick up so were a really big thing and quite exciting to get. Having chests is so good!

Post shear and saw, getting a pine plantation going really makes a difference with the wood supply. They seem to drop more saplings than other trees and growing so tall seem to be a better bet for wood than maple or birch.

Wattle and daub planks might be an early building material so you don't have to live in a dirt hut. I took over a ruin so had a few walls already but the dirt filling in the gaps and the roof looks pretty bad! I didn't realise I could punch the cobblestone though so I could have rearranged things a bit and I have ruins scattered all around me so there was plenty of building blocks, I just didn't know it.

The door I'm not sure about... putting a haybale or something over the opening at night feels about right for the very start, annoying as it is. And you have the option of ladders straight away for the up and over entrance and the game even auto climbs them.

I admit I'm not looking forward to the start of another world. And I'm playing on easy mode! I guess I just don't want quite such an "uncompromising survival" experience. But I wanted a change from Minecraft and now I finally have the copper tools I'm enjoying it more. I too see a few users here who feel the need to tell others that the game is meant to be long and boring and it should be even more long and boring. Like real life doesn't have enough long and boring things you need to do!

Are there bigger copper seams to be found other than the small surface ones? I'm hoping I don't have to constantly travel looking for 10 or so copper bearing blocks at a time. That's going to get old quickly. Although it is appreciated that they are scattered around to make the jump from panning for the pickaxe to making the anvil.

I'm not a fan of the smithing mechanic either. I watched a couple of youtubers making mistakes so knew what to avoid, but it's boring. And I have trouble seeing which voxels should be left and which must be got rid of. Not enough contrast or something on the outlines. Again I was thinking recipes for this that used as much fuel as you'd need in the forge (1 charcoal it sounds like) and a stick and an ingot. Then arranged in some manner to indicate which tool you want to make. Or maybe the process is deliberately long and boring to make the night go faster

 

[Stroam]

4 hours ago, David Taylor said:

I too see a few users here who feel the need to tell others that the game is meant to be long and boring and it should be even more long and boring. Like real life doesn't have enough long and boring things you need to do!

Are there bigger copper seams to be found other than the small surface ones? I'm hoping I don't have to constantly travel looking for 10 or so copper bearing blocks at a time. That's going to get old quickly. Although it is appreciated that they are scattered around to make the jump from panning for the pickaxe to making the anvil.

I'm not a fan of the smithing mechanic either. I watched a couple of youtubers making mistakes so knew what to avoid, but it's boring. And I have trouble seeing which voxels should be left and which must be got rid of. Not enough contrast or something on the outlines. Again I was thinking recipes for this that used as much fuel as you'd need in the forge (1 charcoal it sounds like) and a stick and an ingot. Then arranged in some manner to indicate which tool you want to make. Or maybe the process is deliberately long and boring to make the night go faster

 

Some are okay with the grinding, some aren't, and everyone thinks the game should be "balanced" so they don't have to mess around with configurations or have to modify the game to get the experience they want. There's really no winning answer there.

There are bigger deep ore veins but that involves using a propick to locate a suitable area and then creating mining shafts and hoping you get lucky.

Thanks for the feedback!

[David Taylor]

7 hours ago, Stroam said:

Some are okay with the grinding, some aren't, and everyone thinks the game should be "balanced" so they don't have to mess around with configurations or have to modify the game to get the experience they want. There's really no winning answer there.

Yes, I feel sorry for the dev(s) in this regard. I guess they just have to make the game they want and hope other people like it. At least VS seems to provide enormous scope for customisation. I'm sure a mod could replace the smithing with crafting, or add crafting as an option to smithing, without a huge amount of trouble. Something like adding a recipe that produces the same item as the smithing process?

I fell down a hole in my first caving expedition near home and found a limestone deposit with copper in it. Not far down that part of the cave was also saltpetre - lucky find! A lot of drifters too, that was not so great.

[Jorrit Tyberghein]

Actually 900 units of copper isn't that much. Every copper nugget gives 5 units

[Jorrit Tyberghein]

I do agree that the night could maybe be somewhat shorter but on the other hand it is certainly not wasted time. There is plenty that you can do at night in your sheltered home and garden. I usually tend the crops, cook meals from ingredients that I have gathered, make new metal tools, do some panning, make my house a bit prettier and so on. In fact, it was only in the beginning that I felt the need to skip the nights because right now I don't even sleep anymore because I simply have enough to do. Just make sure that you postpone the tasks that can be done at night until it is night and do the exploring/outside work while it is daytime.

But it would be lovely if the length of the night would be configurable when you create a world. That way people can tweak it to what they desire

[Chap Exe]

At night you prepare for the day and at day you prepare for the night.

[Torondor the Builder]

On 6/10/2020 at 2:19 PM, redram said:

Not trying to say the suggestion has no merit.  But this statement is patently false.  There is nothing forcing you to 'stand still and do nothing' at night.  If you're going to accuse others of 'tunnel visioning', you may want to try to be a bit more cautious in your own statements. 

I tend to agree.  First off, if the nights are so safe and easy, make torches, set them about the area you will be working in and keep working.  If the mobs aren’t a danger to you then stay up and keep working.  there are mechanics to enable you to drive away the darkness and the creatures of the night.

Meanwhile, I don’t know when you all are starting the game (in the “year”) but I started in the late spring or early summer and I very rarely had a night that I couldn’t sleep through with a simple (“day one”) hay bed.  And even as winter came on I would work late into the night within my walled (and lit up) fort.  I would do my smelting and smithing then, pottery working, cooking, etc.  I have plenty to do before turning in at around midnight or 1 AM and then crawling into my now upgraded proper bed and sleeping until daylight.  I have oil lamps and brass torch holders sufficiently to light my base Inside the walls and have no fear within them.   I mean if one doesn’t like the night, what would you say about the winter?  I haven’t had trees or crops grow for 3 months of game time...  but then that’s the intriguing part of survival for me. 

[Paul Beverage]

So, you're angry this isn't Minecraft 2.0?  Seriously, I am not seeing your point here.  This game is all about the journey, as was TFC - hence the reason it is not just a Minecraft clone, like so many other modern crafting/survival games.  If you do not like it, feel free to customize it, as someone to mod it, or even mod it yourself.  But at least try to understand the reason this game is not simplistic, and why the vision has never been for a simplistic game.  IMO, you bought or recieved this game either A) knowing it was a longer game with challenges and time investments, or B) saw a cool Minecraft-looking game, and thought "Oh boy, here's a new one!"  Either way, the main problem seems to be your attitude and expectations, rather than the game itself.  If you do not want a survival game first and foremost, then this game, as a vanilla product, is likely never going to be for you.  You could, thought, always just play in Creative mode.

With that said, it does not mean that you cannot spend some time making constructive suggestions, talking to folks in the modding forum and on Discord, and working towards your end goal.  If you are not willing to do anything more than write a few blurbs of text about what you do not like, expect to see nothing change, either in the vanilla or in the offerings from the mod community.

As a point, I'm currently browsing the forum looking for a way to fix a weird little bug I ran across while making a recipe to allow bushmeat (wild animals) to be cooked into a stew -- after all, it is a very real thing all around the world.  Before that, I made some changes a month or two back to modify the behavior of wolves, as I am a Native American who is fascinated with wolves, and has worked towards educating others about wolves and how they are generally not as violent as our imaginations would make them.  The point being this:  I didn't like something, knew it was unlikely to change, and did something to see it changed, even if only in my own games.

Also, as an afterthought, your "hours and hours" is plenty of time to already be past where you are saying you were stuck at -- what did you do with the time?  Did you read any guides or watch anyone else play the game?  Because you should be there or beyond after "hours and hours."  

Another afterthought, already mentioned above by a few folks:  Why can't you do anything during the night?  Do you still have no torches after the many hours you have played?  Can you not farm, craft, plan for the day, mine, or do anything at all for the night?  I am rather confused at what you expect; hell, you could even sleep through some of the night with a simple starter bed...

With that said, you seem to be disinclined to work towards any goals in this game.  The only real idea I have for you is to use Creative Mode. 

[Pestilence]

I just started playing and I don't understand how anyone could have much difficulty finding things to do during the night.  Even on day one there is so much cattail root cooking and pottery that needs to be done that I often don't feel like I have *enough* night time.  Once you have a pick and some waypoints, it's easy to spend a whole night mining out an ore vein.  Once you have oil lamps and fences, your whole base is available for anything you want to accomplish at night.  Survival games are about time management.  If you know what you need to do and when you can get it done, it's not difficult to line up your activities to keep yourself busy 24/7.  Coming from The Long Dark and only recently picking up Minecraft and Vintage Story, it seems a little weird that sleep isn't a survival requirement in either game, but I guess that's because they are multiplayer.

[AngryRob]

I have found that panning really cuts the grind down, a lot, and in all sorts of useful ways. Not only do i get enough copper for the hammer and pickax, but i also get copper spear heads, stones, both types of gear, and mechanical parts. It's possible to get everything you need to fix a translocator via panning. As such panning is my nightly project if i do not have plans. thankfully with the way the game generates worlds there is always some sort of gravel field or desert that i can try to destroy via panning. it is a time saver and my more recent world i got 4 copper spears out of it and a blue gear before i was in the copper age. 

Edited October 22, 2020 by AngryRob

[Domkrats]

Yea. Once i started panning gravel and sand copper became more acessible. Also some other things are coming through that (like quartz,  arrow heads or other rare materials). Sure it's grindy too, but that way night passes and you can continue on other things during day. Once you will get first pixaxe and hammer, you will split copper you dig into usable copper and games becomes more easy.  Another thing is charcoal pit - must have to melt copper.

Edited November 2, 2020 by Juris

[AngryRob]

On 11/2/2020 at 3:46 AM, Domkrats said:

Yea. Once i started panning gravel and sand copper became more acessible. Also some other things are coming through that (like quartz,  arrow heads or other rare materials). Sure it's grindy too, but that way night passes and you can continue on other things during day. Once you will get first pixaxe and hammer, you will split copper you dig into usable copper and games becomes more easy.  Another thing is charcoal pit - must have to melt copper.

I have started panning late game again, for brass. Make the lanterns out of brass instead of copper. This makes you copper last longer, and zinc is not used for too many things, and is found via panning. This means that you can turn stacks of sand and gravel, into lanterns. If you get a helvehammer, then you can safely mass produce them as well. 

[Domkrats]

I also found out that panning is good thing to get resources. But i usually have to put it aside, because im again low on food i should go look for. Food not only for current moment...but for food preservation. 

When playing single player all seemed balanced and i got my copper tools fast enough, because all recources around were available for myself. In multiplayer server thats a bit harder if you are still trying to survive alone from other players.

One way to make game easier, would be some faster way to get water for food (clay bucket or watering can be able to move water a little at least) and maybe some stone hammer (which could brake ridiculously quick so you wouldn't want to use it all the time) so after first pickaxe there would option to brake copper ores you got). But also that would make game too easy once you know how to play this game, i think.

This game is process of learning. Learing to make priorities and plan trips and storage more. And learning mostly from mistakes in planning and priorities if you don't want to have spoilers from tutorial videos.  

ATM most valuable lessons i have learned for myself are:

1) First make pixaxe, then hammer (to split ores) and then anvil (to faster get to saw, which means water bucket and planks). Sword isnt that valuable at first and only wastes copper.
2) Quern is quite easy to make, and should be made sooner as well, but flour needs water, so we are back to point Nr.1.
3) No need to keep seeds in chests... Should make simple garden near water as soon as possible.
4) Bees should be found as quick as possible, because after that it is quite simple to populate them. I was putting that task way too aside and because of that i have to waste berries i could be using for making jams.

If i would start another game i would more concentrate on those things and game would be more easy for i think. But then again. It could be my next mistake.

Edited November 9, 2020 by Domkrats

[Allen]

Speaking of food preservation, if you get a chest/vessel and want food to last even longer, just bury the vessel/chest of food in the ground. The hole will count as a 'cellar' once you cover it and slows down food rotting even more.

[Jaeger R]

jeybee how can i get your lego worlds models sent me a link

[Fredrik Blomquist]

I tend to agree sleeping mechanics need to change - not because there´s "nothing to do" during night, but mostly because there is no reason to sleep or even bother to build a bed. I think a proper reason to sleep would improve the game.

[Fredrik Blomquist]

I think you loose saturation at the same rate sleeping as staying awake, so that contributes to my feeling that sleeping is useless.

[Hal13]

On 5/19/2020 at 10:19 PM, ApacheTech said:

Soon, I hope. 14 hours per day is waaaaayyy too much.

wdym 14 hours? i only need the strawbed (7h) in my latest world to sleep nearly through the entire night (at least the dark parts of it). is the duration of the night maybe in relation of the coords? longer the further away from equator? in my creative world i use an aged bed (9.5 hours) and that skips the whole night even when using it just when dusk starts i wake up after dawn.

On 7/9/2020 at 11:17 PM, JeyBeeHH said:

I think too that vintage story is a little bit unbalanced.
Why?
Its possible to break cobblestone with hand, und build a "cobblestone"-house?! (e.g. from ruins)
But one of the oldest house building (wood) needs many advanced steps. (mining, melting, forge)
An this only to build simple thinks like doors?

I underständ the real technology behind the gamemechanic. 

Alternate idea: Simple provisional door build with sticks. (like ladders.. they lokks build with planks)

doors are not really simple things, especially ones that stay shut, for hinges alone you'd need some durable metal (read iron) and for wooden houses you only need a stone axe, sure it'll be a log house, but for planks you need a saw. scavenging and deconstructing ruins was a common practise in the past to get ressources for building without having to cut stones. some wicker doors or curtains might be interesting though, but they should only block sight not actually keep anything out (for that you could just put strawblocks in the doorway).

3 minutes ago, Fredrik Blomquist said:

I think you loose saturation at the same rate sleeping as staying awake, so that contributes to my feeling that sleeping is useless.

as you do stuff when awake i think you lose saturation a bit faster when awake, other than that sleeping gets rid of most of the dark parts of the night and you are rather safe from mobs while you sleep.

 

I sure think it's sometimes a bit too grindy and/or luck based, depending on the starting location, in my first world i had really big problems finding enough tin for a bronze anvil, pickaxe and hammer to mine and work the huge iron vein under my base (and i never found any bees for lanterns, had to buy lime as there was nothing for tanning near my base and had many problems getting enough fat for any automation). Even with severely heightened sliders for tin surface deposits and deposits overall in my latest survival world i only was able to find 3 nuggets over the past 11 hours, even using the prospecting pick.

The bronze age seems the biggest bottleneck for me and after getting there it's the iron age shortly after. Other than that i hope the mechanical side gets bigger, i'm thinking water wheels, early elevators and cranes (that could lead to port cullis and drawbridges), etc. eventually steel axles that lose less power...

That being said it is still in early development and much will be added until release.