I feel like a collection of design choices are combining to cause that game to miss the mark a little.

[LondorShade]

First off, this game is amazing. The progression is extremely fun and satisfying and the lore I'm starting to pick up on is very intriguing. But, the core design of the survival aspect and some particular design decisions are getting in the way of everything.

You need to eat a lot, or at least it feels like you need to eat a lot with how much of a chore it is to hunt and the fact that you start to straight up die if you don't sustain a saturation bar good for only a day. The balance of things is almost good but I believe failing to maintain your saturation should come with deabuff that with time can grow debilitating enough for other threats to kill you rather than you starving to death after 36 hours without food. On the side of hunting, their needs to be some trail left by wounded animals and the heath pool of pray animals is too high. I personally would add bleeding to the game and sneak attacks along side a small reduction in the heath of pray. The bleeding and sneak attacks would serve to make many interactions in the game more interesting and hunting animals would be much less tedious

A change that I think the game desperately needs is that wolves and bears should not be this hostile. You flat out shouldn't be scared of the predators in this game, what you should be scared of is a wolf pup or a bear cub because that is the only real life situation where being attacked by a bear or wolf is a serious risk. The predators should largely avoid you, only attacking to defend their young. Not just for the realism but also because the predators completely overshadow the temporal, eldritch monstrosities that seep from inexplicable rifts which defy understanding. The temporal monsters are only a mild inconvenience while being spotted by a bear is a DEFCON 1 emergency situation.

If it were up to me the roll of the wolves as a threat would be removed and the bears roll as a threat would be replaced by a rare and very dangerous temporal monster (more dangerous than even a bear) that is not subtle about it's presence so you may realize one is near by and have to choose to either stay and watch your back or clear out to come back to the area later. because I feel like no part of the natural world should be a major threat, it should be the temporal monsters who taint a world that would otherwise be a paradise with their absence.

The presence of temporal monsters themselves is straight up perfect in that they come from the darkness of caves or rifts with what I'm noticing is a pattern and not random spawning. The world exploration in broad daylight I believe should be almost entirely safe baring the areas around caves, temporal storms, the predators hostile behavior only around cubs, and the rare very dangerous temporal monster that I proposed. As the game is now, the threats of the world at their safest (above ground during the day) are like walking on a treadmill while someone is placing LEGO's onto the track. Your not really gonna step on them but the jig you have to do to avoid them is a novelty that starts to grow tiering. I'd much rather journey in peace during the day to have a brake from the danger somewhere and for the temporal monsters to have a stronger presence as the scourge upon a paradise.

[Rainbow Fresh]

Constant eating becomes a chore rather than a challenge real quick, that is correct. And many people have already brought up the topic that we'd like some sort of reworked hunger system in which it's not that meme minigame from The Stanley Parable whereas you have to press the button (eat) every so often lest it's immediate game over. That being said, "You need to eat alot" is kinda realistic? Like, look at how much you eat throughout the day. Only difference we get our food from other members of society preparing them for us (most of the time) whereas in Vintage Story there is noone else unless you play on a dedicated server. Needing about two bowls of a big, hearty dish tracks with the daily consumption of a grown adult, probably even less so considering Seraphs are taller than human and you run around 24/7 doing physical labor. It is a chore, yes, but one we cannot get around. Some more fun and engaging variety in food/food preparation and a more forgiving hunger system could help for sure but that's about it unless you want to remove the survival challenge from the "uncompromising wilderness survival" game.

As for hunting - yeah, some sort of tracking mechanic is missing for sure. The health pool is not necessarily a problem; a balancing choice to make meat a (on top of spoiling near instantly) rare but powerful commodity you have to work for and incentivizing husbandry. I'd even go as far as to say animals need to be harder to deal with, at the very least make them smart enough to not be completely outdone by digging a 3x3 hole. OR make them averse of drops entirely (ever been on a mountain? Everyone just jumps off and dies)

Now predator hostility. This has also been brought up a few times in recent history and I do agree that more indepth behavior would be very, very much appreciated. In general but especially on wolves and bears. But with your sentiment of "predators should be tame and the world should be a peaceful paradise" is where our paths fully go in different directions. If you want paradise, there already is a game option to make hostiles non-hostile. No more wolf attacks, no more bear jumpscares and no more random drifters slapping your ass in your base while you are busy doing anything else. The option exists but is not enabled by default for a reason. We can tone down the hyper-aggressiveness of wolves and bears, yeah, but the should never be predictably peaceful. Because if you remove the only natural threats, what is left of the survival game when you turn off monsters/lore content? It's a "wilderness survival game" with the monsters, ruins and lore being somewhat optional. So at best predators can get slightly nerfed, more complex behavior at the cost of adding uncertainty. Maybe wolves don't attack you on sight anymore. But could instead have a hunger meter themselves and if starving disregard that notion and go for it. Hunt in packs where if they outnumber you they get confident enough to attack. On top of individual entities having some sort of random bias for being more aggressive or more peaceful. And of course the protective behavior for their children. Same-ish for bears. Make them baseline more realistically tame while also adding the needed complexity and randomness that you can never fully ignore them. We don't need more temporal monsters for that, though independently I'd still welcome those too.

1 hour ago, LondorShade said:

The world exploration in broad daylight I believe should be almost entirely safe baring the areas around caves, temporal storms, the predators hostile behavior only around cubs, and the rare very dangerous temporal monster that I proposed.

The world exploration in broad daylight should be the most predictably safest. Not "safe". Rift activity and as such non-cave monster spawns are random. If rift activity is calm, you are basically safe. If it's not, let alone high+ you'll likely get into trouble even in broad daylight. On top of that forests being risky business because of wolves and bears. And the very world generator itself trying to kill you with random straight vertical shafts to hell you fall into.

If any place in the game should be truly safe, and is the biggest most frustrating pain point I personally have with my nearly 200h in my savefile, is home. The player-built base with all the defenses in the world. If you go out on a trip, you plan for a trip. You bring equipment, food, probably healing items. You expect the unexpected on top of running into trouble almost guaranteed. Such is the way of wilderness. But at home? What's the point of building a house if during temporal storms Tier 4 drifters get airdropped straight on your head no matter where you are cause all spawn restrictions got removed from the videogame. There is nothing more frustrating these days than trying to do virtually anything, just chop a tree, build something, smith something and being slapped half-dead by a random ass drifter that spawned from god-knows-where in the middle of the bright day. I ain't gonna run around in plate armor 24/7 just to expect this. And this isn't Minecraft so I ain't gonna spam expensive lanterns every 5 blocks to make sure there is not a single block of light level below 12 in a 500 block radius.

Edited Tuesday at 06:10 AM by Rainbow Fresh

[LondorShade]

1 hour ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

The world exploration in broad daylight should be the most predictably safest. Not "safe". Rift activity and as such non-cave monster spawns are random. If rift activity is calm, you are basically safe. If it's not, let alone high+ you'll likely get into trouble even in broad daylight. On top of that forests being risky business because of wolves and bears. And the very world generator itself trying to kill you with random straight vertical shafts to hell you fall into.

I should make my stance very clear, the only part of the game I think should be easier is the day time travel solely from the removal of hostile wolves peppered around. I've played a couple words but only really explored 3 worlds so far so I might have quincedentally had ridiculous wolf spawns but I run into wolves everywhere, keeping an eye out for wolves and skirting around them is something I have to do constantly when traveling and it's not really dangerous just an almost constant inconvenience while playing the game. I don't want them to be friendly but I do what them to not attack on sight without a reason. I've found their presence to overshadow the temporal monsters.

 

1 hour ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

with your sentiment of "predators should be tame and the world should be a peaceful paradise" is where our paths fully go in different directions.

I don't want the world to be a peacful paradise. What I mean is that the world should sell the feeling that "If it weren't for the temporal monsters this worlds would be paradise." But the temporal monsters are really relegated to set dressing and the normal wildlife "wolves and bears" are the main threat. I've played 3 worlds (That I actually got established and didn't die in the first few days) because I'm choosing to play on iron man so I actually fear death. I lost the first one chasing a deer into a wolf then fled into another wolf, lost the second one to getting snuck up on by a bear without enough health to tank a hit, and lost the last one today from cornering a deer and thinking I had the cojones. I did not... Main point is, the temporal monsters have only killed me in situations were I was very foolish or unprepared for virtue of my world only being a day old. The monsters fail to be a serious threat once your foundationally prepared.

 

1 hour ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

That being said, "You need to eat alot" is kinda realistic? Like, look at how much you eat throughout the day.

Talking about the realism of needing to eat a lot, it's also a real thing that people can survive 3 weeks without food. Asterisk; malnutrition sets in in about 4 days and a human is basically dysfunctional after 7 days without food. I more meant to say that it feels like you have to eat constantly because getting food can become very time consuming due to the difficulty of hunting and constant presence of wolves combined with the fact that you can't afford to neglect it at all or you'll flat die. In my latest world I'd had a half completed house for in game months because I couldn't spare the time to finish it. I needed food and resources much more urgently and loose a lot of time to handling the threats of the world. [massive disclaimer, I was trying to build a proper stone foundation with a cellar and waddle and daub walls while also still being relatively new to the game so a "skill issue" is also involved.]

Edited Tuesday at 07:19 AM by LondorShade

[Rainbow Fresh]

I'll preface this by saying I have no idea how different the game's *feeling* becomes when playing on perma-death mode. So some discrepancies might exist there.

13 minutes ago, LondorShade said:

Talking about the realism of needing to eat a lot, it's also a real thing that people can survive 3 weeks without food. Asterisk; malnutrition sets in in about 4 days and a human is basically dysfunctional after 7 days without food. I more meant to say that it feels like you have to eat constantly because getting food can become very time consuming due to the difficulty of hunting and constant presence of wolves combined with the fact that you can't afford to neglect it at all or you'll flat die.

That is the point I meant with a "more forgiving" hunger system. The magical ever-draining bar being the sole indicator between "alive" and "dead" is oversimplified and could really do with a rework. Whenever they finish the status effect system this should be a no-brainer; malnutration/starvation debuffs and such. Aside from that though - yes a human can reasonably survive so many days without food. But in order to stay healthy and fit, capable of running and jumping and hunting and hauling several hundred tons of raw stone in your pockets (that one is gameified and shouldn't count xD) you need to eat properly. You can survive without food for 7-ish days before you are basically dead by circumstance (if you become "dysfunctional" you will get eaten by wolves even if they are timid). But then how much food do you need to get back up to healthy levels? With even more realism (weight for example), how many times can you fast before it isn't 7 days to die (pun intended) anymore and how much food do you need over how long a time to climb back up from that? Bottom of the line, needing the current amount of food (measured in nutritious meals not eating berries and single slabs of meat) seem accurate for the physique and activity of the Seraph. All that's needed is some more leeway and dangly keys in the hunger mechanic as a whole to distract from the tedium of eating the same dish every 5 minutes.

19 minutes ago, LondorShade said:

I don't want the world to be a peacful paradise. What I mean is that the world should sell the feeling that "If it weren't for the temporal monsters this worlds would be paradise." But the temporal monsters are really relegated to set dressing and the normal wildlife "wolves and bears" are the main threat. I've played 3 worlds (That I actually got established and didn't die in the first few days) because I'm choosing to play on iron man so I actually fear death. I lost the first one chasing a deer into a wolf then fled into another wolf, lost the second one to getting snuck up on by a bear without enough health to tank a hit, and lost the last one today from cornering a deer and thinking I had the cojones. I did not... Main point is, the temporal monsters have only killed me in situations were I was very foolish or unprepared for virtue of my world only being a day old. The monsters fail to be a serious threat.

As mentioned at the beginning, I'm sure the experience on hardcore permadeath feels a fair bit different. But then again, because of this difference I feel like your perception might be skewed. Wolves and bears are quite likely the bigger threat in the early game, yes. Because monsters increase to be a nuisance/threat over time while wildlife exists always. If your hardcore worlds didn't even make it to the first temporal storm I feel like this might not be the best grounds for judgement. And I'll preface this with another thing, I am playing heavily modded so I genuinely have no idea if any of my mods sneakily upgrade animal AI; but I have wolves run away from me about 50% of the time when I pass by and bears usually give me enough time to dip before they actually attack. Turn off the ridiculous 200% movement speed for animals in water and escaping is perfectly doable. Having drifters sneak up on you out of literally nowhere with no warning is a much more serious threat, alongside their infinite, gatling gun spamming, laser homing rocks. Have rift activity spike to high+ and you will be swimming in corpses, hopefully none of which are your own. Whereas wolves and bears always stay the same.

As mentioned, what I feel like the intention behind the game design is "wilderness survival" first, eldritch horror later. You can overcome the fear of forests but will never outrun the rust.

[LondorShade]

5 minutes ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

I am playing heavily modded

What mod's do you use. I'm planning to lightly mod the game this time around. Saw a hunting mod that looks great and would love for bears and wolves to be more complex, in the vanilla game it's on sight with them like I insulted their mother.

Playing iron man mainly makes you more realistically cautious which I enjoy in survival games where preparation is large factor. That would probably play into the issues I'm having since for a normal respawning playthrough starving is basically a bummer got to respawn. On iron man starving is a "I must find food or all is lost". And the conquest for food is primarily what pushes me into having friction with the other design choices I don't like. That being the lack of hunting mechanics and the fact that black air force energy does not solve a wolf problem so you have to avoid avoid infringing on their personal space entirely.

[Rainbow Fresh]

1 minute ago, LondorShade said:

What mod's do you use. I'm planning to lightly mod the game this time around. Saw a hunting mod that looks great and would love for bears and wolves to be more complex, in the vanilla game it's on sight with them like I insulted their mother.

If focusing on those relevant for hunting - more or less - there is Butchering (for more indepth... well, butchering. Hauling the corpses, hanging them, skinning them, chopping them, using blood and guts to make sausages, smoking meat for preservation), Salty's Immersive Foliage (to have somewhat audio-visual cues in tall grass), Projectile Tracker (to find those missed arrows), Blood Trail (self-explanatory) and some additional animals (FotSA: Bovinae - outdated and kinda really OP but too late to remove now; Equus, also good for hunting on horseback)

[Rezerkity]

I agree that animals need a bit of work as it's fairly irritating they have infinite stamina and don't leave trails for tracking even when bleeding, it's a nice little mechanic that I feel would tie in decently to the game (and help me a lot when I lose animals in shrubbery.) And it would help players outrun and outlast bears and wolves, too. Humans are persistence predators and the game clearly takes a lot of inspiration from paleolithic living and survival after all.

Bears and wolves being so aggressive could be alleviated a little by not having infinite stamina. Right now I mainly build 4 pits around my base and run to them when predators catch me before I can deal with them, it gives safety and lets me use traditional pitfall traps as a means for catching food too.

Temporal monsters I'm not too fond of. They're fun and add an identity to the game, but are overall unrewarding and frustrating to deal with. The endless chip damage of drifters, not being able to go outside at night due to bowtorn you can't locate whilst being sniped by, temporal storms and sanity mechanics being undercooked and unrewarding.

Though I think there's an important balance between realism and gameplay mechanics. A lot of realism is truly just tedium, like a thirst meter being just a second hunger bar really, or dying from nutrition just making the hunger side of the game even more dominating in your survival in a way that is irritating to micro-manage.

[CastIronFabric]

9 hours ago, LondorShade said:

First off, this game is amazing. The progression is extremely fun and satisfying and the lore I'm starting to pick up on is very intriguing. But, the core design of the survival aspect and some particular design decisions are getting in the way of everything.

You need to eat a lot, or at least it feels like you need to eat a lot with how much of a chore it is to hunt and the fact that you start to straight up die if you don't sustain a saturation bar good for only a day. The balance of things is almost good but I believe failing to maintain your saturation should come with deabuff that with time can grow debilitating enough for other threats to kill you rather than you starving to death after 36 hours without food. On the side of hunting, their needs to be some trail left by wounded animals and the heath pool of pray animals is too high. I personally would add bleeding to the game and sneak attacks along side a small reduction in the heath of pray. The bleeding and sneak attacks would serve to make many interactions in the game more interesting and hunting animals would be much less tedious

A change that I think the game desperately needs is that wolves and bears should not be this hostile. You flat out shouldn't be scared of the predators in this game, what you should be scared of is a wolf pup or a bear cub because that is the only real life situation where being attacked by a bear or wolf is a serious risk. The predators should largely avoid you, only attacking to defend their young. Not just for the realism but also because the predators completely overshadow the temporal, eldritch monstrosities that seep from inexplicable rifts which defy understanding. The temporal monsters are only a mild inconvenience while being spotted by a bear is a DEFCON 1 emergency situation.

If it were up to me the roll of the wolves as a threat would be removed and the bears roll as a threat would be replaced by a rare and very dangerous temporal monster (more dangerous than even a bear) that is not subtle about it's presence so you may realize one is near by and have to choose to either stay and watch your back or clear out to come back to the area later. because I feel like no part of the natural world should be a major threat, it should be the temporal monsters who taint a world that would otherwise be a paradise with their absence.

The presence of temporal monsters themselves is straight up perfect in that they come from the darkness of caves or rifts with what I'm noticing is a pattern and not random spawning. The world exploration in broad daylight I believe should be almost entirely safe baring the areas around caves, temporal storms, the predators hostile behavior only around cubs, and the rare very dangerous temporal monster that I proposed. As the game is now, the threats of the world at their safest (above ground during the day) are like walking on a treadmill while someone is placing LEGO's onto the track. Your not really gonna step on them but the jig you have to do to avoid them is a novelty that starts to grow tiering. I'd much rather journey in peace during the day to have a brake from the danger somewhere and for the temporal monsters to have a stronger presence as the scourge upon a paradise.

interestingly they have the code in place already for the 'pup' situation. They currently use it for the pigs. I like the idea of moving it over to the wolves and bears.

I personally have zero desire to have temporal monsters spawning in my base under any condition at all whatsoever. I am also not a fan of Temporal Storms or Temporal Stability and I do not care what the Lore has to say about it. (rant over).

I do not know who or why some people enjoy monsters spawning in their base, hiding in a hole during early game at night and temporal storms but I personally do not.

If I want high action, high threat based, tower defense game I will play 7 days to die which I did for years. There is a metric mega ton of high action, tower defense survial games out there. From 7 Days to Die to the Forest and everything in between. I personally do not see the point in flooding the market with just more of the same at some point I would think people would have a enough of it. I have said my peace for the day.

Side note: the most 'unforgiving' game I have ever played in my 40+ years of playing video games by a long shot has zero violence in it. That game is Stationeers. You can very easily make a small screw up that does not even manifest in complete base destruction until many days later. So I reject the notion that a game without violence is simply too easy.

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 02:12 PM by CastIronFabric

[LadyWYT]

First off, welcome to the forums!

8 hours ago, LondorShade said:

You need to eat a lot, or at least it feels like you need to eat a lot with how much of a chore it is to hunt and the fact that you start to straight up die if you don't sustain a saturation bar good for only a day. The balance of things is almost good but I believe failing to maintain your saturation should come with deabuff that with time can grow debilitating enough for other threats to kill you rather than you starving to death after 36 hours without food.

The main problem you run into here is that...it's a videogame, and players will act accordingly. Food might be easily dealt with and thus not much of a "challenge", but it's also something that will ruin all other plans the player might have if they fail to properly account for it. Allowing the player to ignore food entirely and rack up a starvation debuff instead has been suggested before, and attempted via a mod or two, but the main issues such a feature presents is that players can more easily ignore food preservation, and can easily lock themselves into a "death loop" from which they can't really escape without starting a new world. Neither one is particularly ideal.

 

8 hours ago, LondorShade said:

On the side of hunting, their needs to be some trail left by wounded animals and the heath pool of pray animals is too high. I personally would add bleeding to the game and sneak attacks along side a small reduction in the heath of pray. The bleeding and sneak attacks would serve to make many interactions in the game more interesting and hunting animals would be much less tedious

Agreed.

 

8 hours ago, LondorShade said:

A change that I think the game desperately needs is that wolves and bears should not be this hostile. You flat out shouldn't be scared of the predators in this game, what you should be scared of is a wolf pup or a bear cub because that is the only real life situation where being attacked by a bear or wolf is a serious risk. The predators should largely avoid you, only attacking to defend their young. Not just for the realism but also because the predators completely overshadow the temporal, eldritch monstrosities that seep from inexplicable rifts which defy understanding. The temporal monsters are only a mild inconvenience while being spotted by a bear is a DEFCON 1 emergency situation.

I only partially agree here. Animals should have more nuanced behavior, yes, but encountering large predatory animals should get the player's attention. Aside from unexplained lore reasons for the heightened aggression, it is still a videogame, and making the predators completely nonaggressive unless the player basically walks up and provokes a fight only teaches the player that 1. they can ignore wildlife and do whatever they want, leading to 2. the player making the mistake of believing the world is safe. In Homo Sapiens mode, the predators are the only enemy, so without aggressive wildlife there's no enemies to actually challenge the player, which can be rather boring. And while it can be quite frustrating to die to a bear/wolf on your first day of playing, letting the wildlife be legitimately dangerous is a very effective way to teach players that the game will allow them to face more than they can handle and won't necessarily give them an "easy out" if they get into trouble. That kind of design is especially important when you consider that many players buy Vintage Story expecting the same kind of experience as Minecraft, when the games couldn't be more different.

That's not to say that there's not room for improvement regarding wildlife behavior though. The aggression could be toned down a little, with certain animals perhaps giving more advance warning before attacks, or some individuals being more aggressive than others in order to keep the player from getting too complacent about being close to dangerous wildlife. More animal variety would definitely help, since different types of creatures behave in different ways. Status effects would make the hostile encounters more interesting, since getting mauled could easily leave the player alive with plenty of health, but inflict a serious injury that will need time and proper care in order to heal.

9 hours ago, LondorShade said:

The world exploration in broad daylight I believe should be almost entirely safe baring the areas around caves, temporal storms, the predators hostile behavior only around cubs, and the rare very dangerous temporal monster that I proposed.

This seems to run counter to the established lore and devs' intended design. If you talk to various NPCs and read through the various stories, the impression is quite clear that all is very much NOT fine in the world, and traveling outside of fortifications is a rather dangerous prospect due to the rifts and monsters lurking around. As for the monster spawns in broad daylight, it used to be that rifts would only spawn monsters at night, and thus be completely harmless during the day. However, they were recently changed to spawn monsters in the daylight as well, albeit at lower rates than at night, and the devs confirmed that this behavior was intended. I'm guessing this change was made to better reflect the established lore, and encourage players to be more cautious during periods of high rift activity as well as encourage players to invest in things like rift wards in order to protect areas from said rifts.

 

9 hours ago, LondorShade said:

I'd much rather journey in peace during the day to have a brake from the danger somewhere and for the temporal monsters to have a stronger presence as the scourge upon a paradise.

Which is perfectly fine, but this is also where the game settings and mods are very important. They allow players to season the game to their own individual taste, without changing the game for every other player in the process. One setting that is currently missing is probably making some kind of distinction between monster aggression and wildlife aggression; several players have expressed a desire for peaceful wildlife but aggressive monsters, so splitting the creature aggression into two categories wouldn't be the worst idea.

As for hunger, there's already an option to adjust hunger rate, as well as food spoilage, so I don't think much more needs to be done on that front. That's not to say the devs won't add more nuance to that mechanic in the future, just that I think what we have now is fine, and trying to make it overly "realistic" tends to end up creating many more problems than it solves.

[LondorShade]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

tends to end up creating many more problems than it solves.

True. I made a class mod for BG3 with the idea of pushing boundaries and making new spells and mechanics that are different from what you can find in the base game and you really have to be in the trenches to realize just how technically complicated a seemingly innocuous change can be. Both in the sense of technical dept and in balance. I should probably crack the game open and learn a little about how it works so I can give better feedback.

The hunger is probably fine as is. I think I might have been having a problem from extraneous circumstances. I was playing on iron man mode so huger problems are more severe than normal play and wolves are probably not supposed to be spawning as much as they were for me. When I say there were a lot of wolves I mean there were a LOT found in any biome so traveling involved a lot of navigating around wolves and I had to account for them a lot when hunting. This was probably making the process of gathering food harder then the intended balance. 

 

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

That's not to say that there's not room for improvement regarding wildlife behavior though. The aggression could be toned down a little, with certain animals perhaps giving more advance warning before attacks, or some individuals being more aggressive than others in order to keep the player from getting too complacent about being close to dangerous wildlife.

This would probably work a lot better than my "passive unless cubs are present". The gung ho aggression of the wolves had a extended problem because being attacked and chased can lead to running into another wolf. With that factor I had to be extremely careful about being detected and pass up hunting and gathering opportunities but receiving a growl as a warning before being attacked would be a good solution. I also like the idea of unpredictable aggression so their is a risk factor when you choose to enter a wolves aggro range to access resources, you can't get to too confident in how tolerant a wolf will be of your presence but maybe a mechanic where you can buy tolerance by throwing them meat?

[LadyWYT]

28 minutes ago, LondorShade said:

The hunger is probably fine as is. I think I might have been having a problem from extraneous circumstances. I was playing on iron man mode so huger problems are more severe than normal play and wolves are probably not supposed to be spawning as much as they were for me. When I say there were a lot of wolves I mean there were a LOT found in any biome so traveling involved a lot of navigating around wolves and I had to account for them a lot when hunting. This was probably making the process of gathering food harder then the intended balance. 

An iron man challenge would definitely make those things more frustrating.

Regarding hunger, I think what tends to frustrate most players is that they forget to bring food with them and end up getting to hear their character complain about it, or they're newer players that haven't yet got a full grasp on the game and still struggle to keep themselves fed. Which is understandable, but I also think the players tend to overcorrect when trying to offer a solution to these issues. The best workaround I've been able to find so far is allowing the player to build some fat reserves and then burn said fat to avoid hunger damage for a short time; that is, they can go a little longer between meals as needed without getting penalized or annoyed by character complaints, but it's not something they're going to be doing very often nor are they going to be able to go days without eating anything at all. 

Wolves are kind of hit or miss; sometimes there's more and sometimes there's less. I think at the moment they're over-represented, as are many animals, simply because there's not that many animals that exist in the game yet. I would also wager that if/when illnesses and injuries are added to the game, along with harmful plants like poison ivy, hostile wildlife spawns could be turned down a bit further since there will be more existing hazards to challenge the player. 

40 minutes ago, LondorShade said:

The gung ho aggression of the wolves had a extended problem because being attacked and chased can lead to running into another wolf. With that factor I had to be extremely careful about being detected and pass up hunting and gathering opportunities but receiving a growl as a warning before being attacked would be a good solution.

Ironically, wolves do offer something of a warning growl before they actually become aggressive. However, I think the line between "warning" and "attack" is rather tight, and most players tend to move rather fast, so I think that might be part of the reason wolves seem to be more inclined to attack first and ask questions later. From my own game experience, I've walked up on several wolves and had them run away or take no notice. It's never a guarantee that they'll do that though, so it's still better to avoid wolves when possible unless you're prepared to kill them.

 

45 minutes ago, LondorShade said:

I also like the idea of unpredictable aggression so their is a risk factor when you choose to enter a wolves aggro range to access resources, you can't get to too confident in how tolerant a wolf will be of your presence but maybe a mechanic where you can buy tolerance by throwing them meat?

Throwing them meat I would say would be a better way to tame them, rather than just buy tolerance. While buying tolerance isn't the worst idea, I'm not really keen on players getting the notion that they can just toss a scrap of meat at a predator and walk away entirely unscathed. From the animal's perspective, they probably aren't going to be very interested in food if they feel actively threatened, and will likely be more interested in attacking the threat to either kill it or drive it away.

The other drawback to the "buying tolerance" idea is that the player ends up with a more serious problem by teaching the local wildlife that they're basically a walking snack dispenser. In which case, the animal in question might begin to actively hunt the player.

[TFT]

On 7/21/2026 at 3:34 AM, Rainbow Fresh said:

That is the point I meant with a "more forgiving" hunger system. The magical ever-draining bar being the sole indicator between "alive" and "dead" is oversimplified and could really do with a rework. Whenever they finish the status effect system this should be a no-brainer; malnutration/starvation debuffs and such.

I think this is a good idea. Mainly I'd just want to stop hearing trumpetbeast noises every five seconds because food doesn't always come on a schedule in a survival situation. Really, nothing annoys me more than hearing chip damage from hunger from my own character or whoever else I'm playing with. Hit 0 satiety and your health cap decreases just as high nutrition increases it. Malnourishment should kick in before dying of starvation.

On 7/21/2026 at 1:00 AM, LondorShade said:

On the side of hunting, their needs to be some trail left by wounded animals and the heath pool of pray animals is too high. I personally would add bleeding to the game and sneak attacks along side a small reduction in the heath of pray. The bleeding and sneak attacks would serve to make many interactions in the game more interesting and hunting animals would be much less tedious

If bows did more damage to prey animals in general it wouldn't be so bad. As it stands shooting something for it to run off full sprint into the bushes or into some random pit is functionally the same to not hitting it at all if you can't find it again. The best source of meat is from the ones that come to you to try and kill you because chasing something across all of creation for a few bits of meat is a complete waste of time. IIRC chickens and rabbits did get their health reduced so you can oneshot them with a simple bow and flint arrows unless you're a blackguard, would have to double check the math.
 

13 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

The best workaround I've been able to find so far is allowing the player to build some fat reserves and then burn said fat to avoid hunger damage for a short time; that is, they can go a little longer between meals as needed without getting penalized or annoyed by character complaints, but it's not something they're going to be doing very often nor are they going to be able to go days without eating anything at all. 

Going with the fat reserve idea this can simply be the nutrition levels you already have. If you want to keep those gains you must keep a healthy supply of food. This would also give more value to nutrition than merely being bonus HP you can safely ignore and thus losing it on death is more impactful.

The running concept goes: your satiety hits 0, your nutrient meters (and thus max hp) fall as they compensate for hunger, then once they fall to 0 you continue starving and a growing debuff status effect shrinks your max hp down to a point where death becomes very easy. Basically skin and bones at this point. When you do start eating again it gradually "heals" the status effect and you're back to normal albeit need to rebuild your nutrients again. You can debate where the minimum is, maybe it's zero, maybe it's five and starvation does normal damage the rest of the way, whatever is a sweet spot.
It just shouldn't be so punishing that you are incapable of playing because you're so fragile a fox could onehit you and needs to be done in a way that doesn't leave you in an inescapable loop of respawn -> starve -> respawn. This is a GAME after all.
Hopefully it also incentivizes actually eating, because I've seen players in multiplayer ignore it whole cloth and constantly starve to death. Because if you just respawn with half a meter and full health anyway and you base at spawn it's a mechanic you can completely ignore if you dont mind the starving trumpetbeast noises.

All this said I don't play on default hunger settings, 75% speed is a good sweet spot for how I play.

 

 

[CastIronFabric]

21 hours ago, TFT said:

I think this is a good idea. Mainly I'd just want to stop hearing trumpetbeast noises every five seconds because food doesn't always come on a schedule in a survival situation. Really, nothing annoys me more than hearing chip damage from hunger from my own character or whoever else I'm playing with. Hit 0 satiety and your health cap decreases just as high nutrition increases it. Malnourishment should kick in before dying of starvation.

If bows did more damage to prey animals in general it wouldn't be so bad. As it stands shooting something for it to run off full sprint into the bushes or into some random pit is functionally the same to not hitting it at all if you can't find it again. The best source of meat is from the ones that come to you to try and kill you because chasing something across all of creation for a few bits of meat is a complete waste of time. IIRC chickens and rabbits did get their health reduced so you can oneshot them with a simple bow and flint arrows unless you're a blackguard, would have to double check the math.
 

Going with the fat reserve idea this can simply be the nutrition levels you already have. If you want to keep those gains you must keep a healthy supply of food. This would also give more value to nutrition than merely being bonus HP you can safely ignore and thus losing it on death is more impactful.

The running concept goes: your satiety hits 0, your nutrient meters (and thus max hp) fall as they compensate for hunger, then once they fall to 0 you continue starving and a growing debuff status effect shrinks your max hp down to a point where death becomes very easy. Basically skin and bones at this point. When you do start eating again it gradually "heals" the status effect and you're back to normal albeit need to rebuild your nutrients again. You can debate where the minimum is, maybe it's zero, maybe it's five and starvation does normal damage the rest of the way, whatever is a sweet spot.
It just shouldn't be so punishing that you are incapable of playing because you're so fragile a fox could onehit you and needs to be done in a way that doesn't leave you in an inescapable loop of respawn -> starve -> respawn. This is a GAME after all.
Hopefully it also incentivizes actually eating, because I've seen players in multiplayer ignore it whole cloth and constantly starve to death. Because if you just respawn with half a meter and full health anyway and you base at spawn it's a mechanic you can completely ignore if you dont mind the starving trumpetbeast noises.

All this said I don't play on default hunger settings, 75% speed is a good sweet spot for how I play.

 

 

Regarding food in the early game, I suggest Fishing. I would take it even further and suggest Primitive Survival Mod because of trotlines, although they are a bit OP.

Regarding hunting (which personally I enjoy unlike fighting monsters) I use copper spears, I do not 'chase', sneak, hit, then watch where it goes and then get close, sneak again. 

OR build a hole in the ground and case them in or have them chase you in.

 

[Maelstrom]

On 7/21/2026 at 8:26 AM, LadyWYT said:

 As for the monster spawns in broad daylight, it used to be that rifts would only spawn monsters at night, and thus be completely harmless during the day. However, they were recently changed to spawn monsters in the daylight as well, albeit at lower rates than at night, and the devs confirmed that this behavior was intended. I'm guessing this change was made to better reflect the established lore, and encourage players to be more cautious during periods of high rift activity as well as encourage players to invest in things like rift wards in order to protect areas from said rifts.

I would add that it also further differentiates VS from TOBG.  At first I didn't like this change, but I have grown to appreciate it.  It keeps me on my toes and further scratches that itch of mine to overcome difficulties and challenges instead of being handed things whether on a silver platter or not.  The satisfaction of this game is that everything is earned due to hard work and determined planning because some mistakes cannot be undone.

[CastIronFabric]

17 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

I would add that it also further differentiates VS from TOBG.  At first I didn't like this change, but I have grown to appreciate it.  It keeps me on my toes and further scratches that itch of mine to overcome difficulties and challenges instead of being handed things whether on a silver platter or not.  The satisfaction of this game is that everything is earned due to hard work and determined planning because some mistakes cannot be undone.

Just as a point of reference.

The most challenging and by far the most 'unforgiving' game I have ever played is Stationeers. Its a game that has zero violent threats. The reason I bring this up is because I used to have the assumption that if there was not a violent threat the game was too easy. I was wrong, there are other ways to remove violent threats and not make the game too easy.

[Ravensblade]

I actually recommend playing as Malefactor class. That -35% seeking range is actually huge change. I'm pretty sure it not only change detection but also when animals give up too, so it's also easier to run away from them. I also almost always change walk speed setting to slightly faster, just because it makes traveling much easier, but running away is also easier with it.

Malefactor have actually huge buff to hunting early game, as seeing rabbits/chicken etc in tall grass before they see you is much better then same lost distance you probably wont use. Spears and sling still has better range then their detection range and that's all that's matter. Sling is actually quite good at hunting small animals as their HP is low and you are not that limited in ammo. 

And for hunting there is already Blood Trail mod and Footprints mod. There is also mod like Flee Exhaustion that make damaged animals slower. It's make hunting easier, but the effect is adjustable. 

 

[Maelstrom]

13 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

Just as a point of reference.

The most challenging and by far the most 'unforgiving' game I have ever played is Stationeers. Its a game that has zero violent threats. The reason I bring this up is because I used to have the assumption that if there was not a violent threat the game was too easy. I was wrong, there are other ways to remove violent threats and not make the game too easy.

Try playing the original Rayman from the PS1.  The violent threats are a piece of cake compared to the obstacles you have to overcome.  It is hilariously whimsical too.

[CastIronFabric]

11 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

Try playing the original Rayman from the PS1.  The violent threats are a piece of cake compared to the obstacles you have to overcome.  It is hilariously whimsical too.

yeah, its easy to find one self assuming that if there are no threats of violence then something is then by default a piece of cake without considering the possibly of counter balances. I am to blame for that decades ago for sure.