I can't find the right difficulty for me

[TudbuT]

Hey all, I am often very torn on what playstyle to select, and I would like some advice on it. I have thus far usually played in exploration mode, though after trying it out, having the temporal stability mechanic and actually aggressive mobs is pretty fun as well! There is an issue for me with that though: When the torches go out and a 10+ high-strength monsters spawn because its deep underground, I have basically no chance of returning to a previous mine (e.g. after finding a very large copper deposit). Similarly, aggressive bears and wolves are just not really my cup of tea. I don't want to anticipate danger around every corner while struggling to find food on my journey to the equator. Unfortunately, the game gives me no option to turn animals neutral (or even better: slightly less aggressive but not fully neutral) without also turning monsters neutral and thus eliminating all enemies. All mods I found that promise to do this don't work (anymore or ever), and still don't address the caves filling up. Ultimately I basically want the game to not spawn monsters out of nowhere, only from rifts or maybe in naturally generated caves. Something appearing in my mine out of nowhere is neither realistic nor fun in my eyes.

Also: I do enjoy a challenge in some ways, so most of my world have block gravity and/or cave-ins enabled; also I always set my map to true color and change some worldgen settings. Is there a way to make custom presets for such a thing? (Or a mod that adds that ability?)

 

Edit: After seeing how elitist some people here seem to be: If passive mobs were so compromising on the survival experience in the uncompromising survival game, the option wouldn't exist. In fact, living in an area with wolves in real life, I have still not been randomly mauled while hiking, despite wolves somewhat regularly being seen by humans around here (none of which have been attacked either). It is much more unrealistic for them to be massively aggressive than it is for them to be neutral most of the time. If you want to call it a skill issue, call it a skill issue, I don't play games to be constantly frustrated, and I am already sufficiently challenged by the rest of VS as it stands.

Edited July 18 by TudbuT

[EnbyKaiju]

Welcome to the forums, and a great first post that's definitely through provoking.

Finding the right difficulty can really be a bit of a challenge, I spent years playing trough different modes till I found the level that felt right for me (a bit of a survival/wilderness mash-up with some bigger challenges but lessened punishments for a game that's already pretty heavy on them), and I hope in time you will too.

Thankfully the devs have been working hard over the years to give folks the options, and if the one you want isn't in there yet, I hope it will be. Maybe someone here will be able to suggest a mod that is still functional, a way to make your own, or a debug that might work. Good luck on your journey, seraph!

[TudbuT]

Quote

Welcome to the forums, and a great first post that's definitely through provoking.

Thank you

Quote

Finding the right difficulty can really be a bit of a challenge, I spent years playing trough different modes till I found the level that felt right for me (a bit of a survival/wilderness mash-up with some bigger challenges but lessened punishments for a game that's already pretty heavy on them), and I hope in time you will too.

Yeah.. That does seem to be what I'll end up settling with, though I'm still not quite sure about the mobs in particular. I'll probably actually have temporal stability enabled most of the time though, despite me finding surface stability to be a bit suboptimal of a mechanic.

Quote

Maybe someone here will be able to suggest a mod that is still functional, a way to make your own, or a debug that might work.

I hope so! I have dug through the config files of the game myself as well, and did find an option in gamesettings.json titled "customPlayStyles". When I find out what exactly the format for that is I'll post it here. It doesn't address the issues I have with the configuration not being precise enough, but at least it lets me not have to input it again every time. 

Quote

Good luck on your journey, seraph!

tysm, again!

[CastIronFabric]

9 hours ago, TudbuT said:

Hey all, I am often very torn on what playstyle to select, and I would like some advice on it. I have thus far usually played in exploration mode, though after trying it out, having the temporal stability mechanic and actually aggressive mobs is pretty fun as well! There is an issue for me with that though: When the torches go out and a 10+ high-strength monsters spawn because its deep underground, I have basically no chance of returning to a previous mine (e.g. after finding a very large copper deposit). Similarly, aggressive bears and wolves are just not really my cup of tea. I don't want to anticipate danger around every corner while struggling to find food on my journey to the equator. Unfortunately, the game gives me no option to turn animals neutral (or even better: slightly less aggressive but not fully neutral) without also turning monsters neutral and thus eliminating all enemies. All mods I found that promise to do this don't work (anymore or ever), and still don't address the caves filling up. Ultimately I basically want the game to not spawn monsters out of nowhere, only from rifts or maybe in naturally generated caves. Something appearing in my mine out of nowhere is neither realistic nor fun in my eyes.

Also: I do enjoy a challenge in some ways, so most of my world have block gravity and/or cave-ins enabled; also I always set my map to true color and change some worldgen settings. Is there a way to make custom presets for such a thing? (Or a mod that adds that ability?)

 

Edit: After seeing how elitist some people here seem to be: If passive mobs were so compromising on the survival experience in the uncompromising survival game, the option wouldn't exist. In fact, living in an area with wolves in real life, I have still not been randomly mauled while hiking, despite wolves somewhat regularly being seen by humans around here (none of which have been attacked either). It is much more unrealistic for them to be massively aggressive than it is for them to be neutral most of the time. If you want to call it a skill issue, call it a skill issue, I don't play games to be constantly frustrated, and I am already sufficiently challenged by the rest of VS as it stands.

There might be a mod that turns off hostility for wildlife but not for monsters greater than 'surface drifters'. If there isnt, there should be. I am pretty sure there is a mod that turns off all surface drifters. Idea with that is 'who really honestly wants to be fighting monsters in their base while they are building'. well I am sure some people do like that but you know, many people find it a bother.

[TudbuT]

Just now, CastIronFabric said:

There might be a mod that turns off hostility for wildlife but not for monsters greater than 'surface drifters'.

Also I did check for this and it does exist but it doesnt work. Bears still attack me. Honestly Id even be fine with that if there were at least less of them.

2 minutes ago, CastIronFabric said:

I am pretty sure there is a mod that turns off all surface drifters. Idea with that is 'who really honestly wants to be fighting monsters in their base while they are building'. well I am sure some people do like that but you know, many people find it a bother.

I actually dont think drifters are an issue on the surface. I only have a problem when they swarm my mines, which wouldnt be solved by that.

[LadyWYT]

18 hours ago, TudbuT said:

When the torches go out and a 10+ high-strength monsters spawn because its deep underground, I have basically no chance of returning to a previous mine (e.g. after finding a very large copper deposit).

Welcome to the forums!

Monsters should clear out of a mine after a time, at least as long as you travel far enough away from it. However, mines also tend to be prime places for monsters to spawn since they're dark, deep underground, and usually have enough space for several monsters to spawn.

While I'm not sure there's a way to really stop them from spawning or adjust their aggression without affecting everything else in the game, there is one thing you can do to cut down somewhat on the number of monsters you'll need to deal with underground. Rift activity affects underground spawns, so it's better to save mining and underground exploration for days with low rift activity and only deal with the occasional monster. On days with higher activity, it's generally better to remain on the surface since the underground will generally be a lot busier on these days.

18 hours ago, TudbuT said:

Is there a way to make custom presets for such a thing?

To my knowledge, no, at least not currently. I'd be surprised if the feature wasn't added some day though.

[TudbuT]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

Rift activity affects underground spawns

Oh cool! So if I mine on a calm day I'll see (nearly) nothing? In that case I actually don't mind it at all. I'm already used to watching out for rift activity from my standard playstyle worlds.

[LadyWYT]

Just now, TudbuT said:

Oh cool! So if I mine on a calm day I'll see (nearly) nothing? In that case I actually don't mind it at all. I'm already used to watching out for rift activity from my standard playstyle worlds.

Kind of. I think the chunk stability also matters, since unstable chunks tend to have more monsters than stable ones. Most underground chunks are unstable, but the ones that aren't drastically so should have fewer monsters as well. The key to remember though is that less instability and lower rift activity only means fewer monsters, not that you'll see no monsters at all. Equipping armor, bringing a weapon and healing supplies, and keeping an eye on the surroundings and rift activity are still very much advised. 

In any case though, I'd recommend keeping an eye on the rift activity when you're going underground and see if that doesn't clear up some of the trouble. If you've got the resources for lanterns, you could light up the mines you're currently using and then just move the lanterns whenever you're done with the mine. That can get expensive though. Personally, I like to use oil lamps for lighting things up underground. They may not stop monster spawns, but they're cheap and don't burn out, and seeing where the monsters are makes them much easier to deal with than having them sneak around undetected in the darkness.

[CastIronFabric]

20 hours ago, TudbuT said:

Also I did check for this and it does exist but it doesnt work. Bears still attack me. Honestly Id even be fine with that if there were at least less of them.

I actually dont think drifters are an issue on the surface. I only have a problem when they swarm my mines, which wouldnt be solved by that.

agreed, Bears and Wolves being hostile are a hard no for me. Personally I feel the same way about Temporal Stability. Mostly because I really do not like traveling for 1k blocks to find an area that looks awesome to build in or has what I need in it only to be blocks by bears, wolves and temporal stability. I am having none of that. The only option I have found is to turn everything to passive. I wish however there was an option to make everything passive except for deep drifters or greater. For me personally that would work well because 1. By the time I am getting close to deep drifters I likely already have cooper weapons etc if not lanterns. 2. Its not really like a deep cave is impeding my way to find a awesome forest place to live in with a waterfall and collect mushrooms.

 

 

[Vafthrudhnir]

Mob swarming in the deep is super annoying. When I'm going into caves, I carry a stack of torches and place them EVERYWHERE. If it's all lit, they shouldn't spawn. (At least with the mods I'm having that tie their spawn conditions to light levels)

[williams_482]

Mods not spawning with an artificial light level over 7 is vanilla behavior. Bringing a big pile of torches to light up caves and a bunch of blocks to wall off caves you already explored and found nothing in/already looted is a good way to keep monster spawns under control. 

[CastIronFabric]

20 hours ago, williams_482 said:

Mods not spawning with an artificial light level over 7 is vanilla behavior. Bringing a big pile of torches to light up caves and a bunch of blocks to wall off caves you already explored and found nothing in/already looted is a good way to keep monster spawns under control. 

It also makes making a mediation room filled with candles not realistically possible if you leave hostiles on. Which is another reason I am having none of it. I will play with such settings in group but if I have anything to say on the matter like playing solo the answer is unequivocally oh hell no. Although like I had mentioned months ago I think the solution is painfully obvious how to have threats and combat while at the same time not having these issues, very easy problem to solve

 

Edited July 20 by CastIronFabric

[Lielac]

As I understand it, there is a lore reason that wildlife are so aggro towards the player, but of course that doesn't really change how annoying it can be to have a bear or wolf repeatedly tear your face off.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Lielac said:

As I understand it, there is a lore reason that wildlife are so aggro towards the player, but of course that doesn't really change how annoying it can be to have a bear or wolf repeatedly tear your face off.

There is, and while said lore might be better explained in the future, I tend to lean more towards the explanation of...it's a videogame. While it does lean heavily into realism regarding overall design, the fact that it's a videogame means that the player will automatically treat it as such by default, and thus do things that would not be advisable in real life. For example, wolves might be inclined to avoid humans whenever possible in real life, but if they always try to avoid the player in the game or can otherwise be scared off with ease, what the player ends up learning is that they don't actually need to pay attention to the videogame wolves. Likewise, wildlife is the only real enemy that exists in the Homo Sapiens game mode; while that gamemode isn't what Vintage Story is developed around, it should at least have some enemies that will pose a threat to the player, or else it becomes rather boring.

That doesn't mean that the wildlife can't have more nuanced behavior, just that I don't think it's a good idea to try to achieve "100% realistic behavior", if such a thing were even possible.

[Jose Alfredo Ramos]

On 7/17/2026 at 10:24 PM, TudbuT said:

Hey all, I am often very torn on what playstyle to select, and I would like some advice on it. I have thus far usually played in exploration mode, though after trying it out, having the temporal stability mechanic and actually aggressive mobs is pretty fun as well! There is an issue for me with that though: When the torches go out and a 10+ high-strength monsters spawn because its deep underground, I have basically no chance of returning to a previous mine (e.g. after finding a very large copper deposit). Similarly, aggressive bears and wolves are just not really my cup of tea. I don't want to anticipate danger around every corner while struggling to find food on my journey to the equator. Unfortunately, the game gives me no option to turn animals neutral (or even better: slightly less aggressive but not fully neutral) without also turning monsters neutral and thus eliminating all enemies. All mods I found that promise to do this don't work (anymore or ever), and still don't address the caves filling up. Ultimately I basically want the game to not spawn monsters out of nowhere, only from rifts or maybe in naturally generated caves. Something appearing in my mine out of nowhere is neither realistic nor fun in my eyes.

Also: I do enjoy a challenge in some ways, so most of my world have block gravity and/or cave-ins enabled; also I always set my map to true color and change some worldgen settings. Is there a way to make custom presets for such a thing? (Or a mod that adds that ability?)

 

Edit: After seeing how elitist some people here seem to be: If passive mobs were so compromising on the survival experience in the uncompromising survival game, the option wouldn't exist. In fact, living in an area with wolves in real life, I have still not been randomly mauled while hiking, despite wolves somewhat regularly being seen by humans around here (none of which have been attacked either). It is much more unrealistic for them to be massively aggressive than it is for them to be neutral most of the time. If you want to call it a skill issue, call it a skill issue, I don't play games to be constantly frustrated, and I am already sufficiently challenged by the rest of VS as it stands.

I don't like playing just to get frustrated, either. Since I couldn't make only the animals neutral without also making the monsters neutral, I installed a mod that lets me respawn near where I died. It does make temporal gears lose their purpose as a respawn mechanic, but I think that's a fair trade-off because, as long as I've marked my base on the map, I can always walk back. It's a nice quality-of-life mod. If you want a completely vanilla experience without mods, though, there's really nothing that can be done for you.

[Zaph42nd]

Regarding hostile mob spawns, my recommendation is to try out Low Light Spawns which allows you to configure a specific light level other than 7 for monster spawns (default for the mod is 5, I lower to 3 which means almost no surface drifters or other rust monsters). For bears, wolves, and other animals, I believe there are probably some mods to make them not attack unless provoked (e.g. you attack first) but not sure on exacts (in-game you can only set aggressive, passive, off for behaviors but I've never tweaked these). So to answer the question, mods help you tweak settings further as do some other edits to spawning behaviors, the game feels a lot more enjoyable to me with rust monsters requiring very low-light conditions (e.g. those found in caves or story structures) and disabling temporal storms (this can be done easily in settings upon world creation) but ymmv depending on how difficult or easy you want the game. As for default options (no mods), I suggest playing around with world-settings from one of the presets as it allows fine-control over a lot of (but not all) mechanics

[CastIronFabric]

7 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

Regarding hostile mob spawns, my recommendation is to try out Low Light Spawns which allows you to configure a specific light level other than 7 for monster spawns (default for the mod is 5, I lower to 3 which means almost no surface drifters or other rust monsters). For bears, wolves, and other animals, I believe there are probably some mods to make them not attack unless provoked (e.g. you attack first) but not sure on exacts (in-game you can only set aggressive, passive, off for behaviors but I've never tweaked these). So to answer the question, mods help you tweak settings further as do some other edits to spawning behaviors, the game feels a lot more enjoyable to me with rust monsters requiring very low-light conditions (e.g. those found in caves or story structures) and disabling temporal storms (this can be done easily in settings upon world creation) but ymmv depending on how difficult or easy you want the game. As for default options (no mods), I suggest playing around with world-settings from one of the presets as it allows fine-control over a lot of (but not all) mechanics

I think they should make a few small tweaks. Granted these ideas could be done with mods but I think they are fairly small changes other than one of them.

1. Have a option to turn off just surface drifters so they never spawn but 'Deep' and above still spawn.

2. Reduce the chase radius of wolves and bears ever so slightly, I personally think they chase for too long BUT it feels like they might have already changed that slightly I do not know.

I think that would solve most of everything.

I do like the idea of Deeds but that would be more work. Basic idea is that if you have a Deed, hostiles will not spawn in that area and you can increase the area by buying larger Deed contracts from traders. In some ways this is how Wurm works. 

I personally think the current 'passive' setting should be 'if you strike one, every normally hostile within X radius becomes hostile. However, I do not want to deal with that in my base, in a cave, sure, in my home? not so much but I could live with it.

[Zaph42nd]

14 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I think they should make a few small tweaks. Granted these ideas could be done with mods but I think they are fairly small changes other than one of them.

1. Have a option to turn off just surface drifters so they never spawn but 'Deep' and above still spawn.

2. Reduce the chase radius of wolves and bears ever so slightly, I personally think they chase for too long BUT it feels like they might have already changed that slightly I do not know.

I think that would solve most of everything.

I do like the idea of Deeds but that would be more work. Basic idea is that if you have a Deed, hostiles will not spawn in that area and you can increase the area by buying larger Deed contracts from traders. In some ways this is how Wurm works. 

I personally think the current 'passive' setting should be 'if you strike one, every normally hostile within X radius becomes hostile. However, I do not want to deal with that in my base, in a cave, sure, in my home? not so much but I could live with it.

Definitely agree on both points, I wish we could also adjust spawn-rates in world-settings by default, currently the passive/aggressive/off just doesn't really feel right, would be good to just be able to set light-level limits for rust-monsters (possibly a sub-setting on temporal or story-content?). Chase-radius reductions would be good for bears/wolves, I've always felt that chases were way too long and territorial behaviors weren't well expressed... Namely I feel like bears/wolves and other territorial creatures should have a capped distance from their spawn where they chase the player (in essence creating a territorial space which you can either plan to sneak around or fight for) but suspect that'd be somewhat difficult to implement. 

Far as deeds go, the idea is neat but I wonder if perhaps could utilize Jonas-tech to prevent hostile spawns rather than deeds or trader-interactions. Maybe as a reward for story-content to incentivize exploring the story further? It'd also fit nicely with the other Jonas-tech in game already (translocators) which behave akin to admin/server-owner commands. In the interim, land-claim systems could be expanded further to also include spawn behavior reductions.

Far as passive-settings, I'm not against the current approach but it does feel a little bit odd especially for mobs that normally behave hostile, but then again I rarely play with passive mobs enabled since it feels like it detracts from some of the survival challenges the game presents

[CastIronFabric]

9 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

Definitely agree on both points, I wish we could also adjust spawn-rates in world-settings by default, currently the passive/aggressive/off just doesn't really feel right, would be good to just be able to set light-level limits for rust-monsters (possibly a sub-setting on temporal or story-content?). Chase-radius reductions would be good for bears/wolves, I've always felt that chases were way too long and territorial behaviors weren't well expressed... Namely I feel like bears/wolves and other territorial creatures should have a capped distance from their spawn where they chase the player (in essence creating a territorial space which you can either plan to sneak around or fight for) but suspect that'd be somewhat difficult to implement. 

Far as deeds go, the idea is neat but I wonder if perhaps could utilize Jonas-tech to prevent hostile spawns rather than deeds or trader-interactions. Maybe as a reward for story-content to incentivize exploring the story further? It'd also fit nicely with the other Jonas-tech in game already (translocators) which behave akin to admin/server-owner commands. In the interim, land-claim systems could be expanded further to also include spawn behavior reductions.

Far as passive-settings, I'm not against the current approach but it does feel a little bit odd especially for mobs that normally behave hostile, but then again I rarely play with passive mobs enabled since it feels like it detracts from some of the survival challenges the game presents

The problem I have with using Jonas-tech is that its mostly late game. So you have the majority of your game play with drifters roaming around your house because you like low lighting. I just find monsters in my base to be a bother and they just get in the way, not interesting gameplay for me personally at all.