Well, I learned something new...

[Mark Watton]

I've had enemies spawn in my base during a heavy temporal storm before, but never like this. I'm idly grinding bones in my quern, getting ready to tear my base down, and start making something purtiful with a waterwheel. I laid down a bunch of extra torches to make sure the light levels were good... Thought maybe it was just a bit dark and the storms had taken advantaged. Then two nightmare shivers dropped in. Boy howdy, my butt puckered. I killed one, almost the other... Thankfully, I'd just used a fresh gear and wasn't sent off into the wilderness. They just kept coming... Oh my gosh. T'was fun.

[Rainbow Fresh]

Yeah, someone on the dev team thought it would be a funny mechanic if Temporal Storms removed any and all spawn restrictions. Tier 4 drifter in your fully lit, fully enclosed room on your kitchen counter 1 block behind you? Yep, sounds good! Though temporal storms are due a rework anyway, is the official stance on it too.

[Demoncyborg]

we once had a heavy temporal storm coincide with apocalyptic activity, and after fighting in our little hut for a while, we ended up breaking a hole in the roof to see what was going on outside... growing pulsing mass of drifters building up outside killed themselves because they all tried to throw rocks at once.

somehow every storm i've been through has just been a little different lol

[Zaph42nd]

Yep temporal storms are painful, there's a reason I suspect a lot of players either tone them down or turn them off, I'm more on turning them off side of things (though that means no Dave visits) since not fun having tier 4 drifters kill you while AFK or making pots. My favorite temporal storm event was having a drifter spawn right next to my fireplace, least it made them easy to kill? 

[VANTABlack2000]

2 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

Yep temporal storms are painful, there's a reason I suspect a lot of players either tone them down or turn them off, I'm more on turning them off side of things (though that means no Dave visits) since not fun having tier 4 drifters kill you while AFK or making pots. My favorite temporal storm event was having a drifter spawn right next to my fireplace, least it made them easy to kill? 

I am fine with Temporal Storms, but I usually turn off Temporal Rifts now because I just find it not fun to randomly start going insane inside my base.

[Maelstrom]

Rift spawns can be reduced/eliminated with proper lighting.  

[CastIronFabric]

22 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

Yep temporal storms are painful, there's a reason I suspect a lot of players either tone them down or turn them off, I'm more on turning them off side of things (though that means no Dave visits) since not fun having tier 4 drifters kill you while AFK or making pots. My favorite temporal storm event was having a drifter spawn right next to my fireplace, least it made them easy to kill? 

I turned off storms and stability pretty much the first day I ever played the game and have always kept it off. There is nothing about its concept or its implementation that I enjoy and frankly I burned out on 'monster threats' in games 10 years ago. I got a lifetime supply of that playing 7 Days to Die

 

[chk1]

1 hour ago, CastIronFabric said:

I turned off storms and stability pretty much the first day I ever played the game and have always kept it off. There is nothing about its concept or its implementation that I enjoy and frankly I burned out on 'monster threats' in games 10 years ago. I got a lifetime supply of that playing 7 Days to Die

Although I also turn off storms, and am seriously considering turning off rifts, both for similar reasons as others have mentioned, I do not think the concept is entirely invalid. I actually remember finding it quite cool when it was first announced, it's just the current implementation that sucks.

I think the crux of the issue is that this mechanic amounts to interrupting the player's "cozy homesteading time" at arbitrary times and forcing the player to participate in "eldritch horror fighting time", with little option in the way of preventing/postponing/ignoring it. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any similar games that would do this kind of thing successfully, usually sandbox games like this give you decent wiggle room to engage with different gameplay loops on your own time, this aspect of it just seems like bad game design.

If they just made it so that it is something that is triggered as a result of player action (eg. by interacting with some story structure underground, or it triggers when your stability has been low for too long, ...). This would give the player a degree of freedom to effectively customize their experience on the fly in an immersive way. People who really do not like the storms and rifts on principle could conceivably take actions to avoid them altogether, or at least mostly, without needing them to be turned off globally.

It kinda reminds me of how people used to complain about the phantom implementation in minecraft - it interrupted their building time at certain intervals and forced them to participate in some activity, when they just wanted to build. As far as I know, this particular matter was effectively put to rest when the devs added an option to disable them, at which point most people stopped complaining about it actively and the devs never got around to improving the implementation after that - I'm hoping that history won't repeat itself here.

All that said, there is definitely also room for improvement along other fronts here (as others have said), eg. the fact that they can spawn anywhere in storms, making any complex defence ineffective, or the fact that a large chunk of it is more of an annoyance than a challange, with minimal rewards etc.

[Mark Watton]

2 hours ago, chk1 said:

Although I also turn off storms, and am seriously considering turning off rifts, both for similar reasons as others have mentioned, I do not think the concept is entirely invalid. I actually remember finding it quite cool when it was first announced, it's just the current implementation that sucks.

I think the crux of the issue is that this mechanic amounts to interrupting the player's "cozy homesteading time" at arbitrary times and forcing the player to participate in "eldritch horror fighting time", with little option in the way of preventing/postponing/ignoring it. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any similar games that would do this kind of thing successfully, usually sandbox games like this give you decent wiggle room to engage with different gameplay loops on your own time, this aspect of it just seems like bad game design.

If they just made it so that it is something that is triggered as a result of player action (eg. by interacting with some story structure underground, or it triggers when your stability has been low for too long, ...). This would give the player a degree of freedom to effectively customize their experience on the fly in an immersive way. People who really do not like the storms and rifts on principle could conceivably take actions to avoid them altogether, or at least mostly, without needing them to be turned off globally.

It kinda reminds me of how people used to complain about the phantom implementation in minecraft - it interrupted their building time at certain intervals and forced them to participate in some activity, when they just wanted to build. As far as I know, this particular matter was effectively put to rest when the devs added an option to disable them, at which point most people stopped complaining about it actively and the devs never got around to improving the implementation after that - I'm hoping that history won't repeat itself here.

All that said, there is definitely also room for improvement along other fronts here (as others have said), eg. the fact that they can spawn anywhere in storms, making any complex defence ineffective, or the fact that a large chunk of it is more of an annoyance than a challange, with minimal rewards etc.

I mean, I had fun since I finally accepted that this game was impossible to play on a proper one life hardcore mode after I made it to bronze without dying and said to myself, "I ain't starting over again." So I was properly prepared to die multiple times, I just didn't expect the spawning in my base even with torches almost every 3 spaces.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Mark Watton said:

I mean, I had fun since I finally accepted that this game was impossible to play on a proper one life hardcore mode after I made it to bronze without dying and said to myself, "I ain't starting over again." So I was properly prepared to die multiple times, I just didn't expect the spawning in my base even with torches almost every 3 spaces.

It's a temporal storm. There are no rules.

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Mark Watton said:

impossible to play on a proper one life hardcore mode

Someone hasn't met @Thorfinn yet. Though to be fair, playing with a permadeath rule is going to be rough on any of the preset difficulties in Vintage Story.

[OBAMFSpike]

6 hours ago, Mark Watton said:

I mean, I had fun since I finally accepted that this game was impossible to play on a proper one life hardcore mode after I made it to bronze without dying and said to myself, "I ain't starting over again." So I was properly prepared to die multiple times, I just didn't expect the spawning in my base even with torches almost every 3 spaces.

I do recall a trader somewhere along the story line telling me that seraphs had many lives and it was odd that we could keep coming back. 

Anyways, I love this game. What a hoot. 

[Michael Gates]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Someone hasn't met @Thorfinn yet. Though to be fair, playing with a permadeath rule is going to be rough on any of the preset difficulties in Vintage Story.

I play "permadeath until I deploy a blue gear," which feels like a nice compromise. If you die before then you've made a Mistake, but having to cancel three levels of excavated Dwarf King's Underground Fortress because you fell in a hole would be annoying.

[Mark Watton]

3 hours ago, Michael Gates said:

I play "permadeath until I deploy a blue gear," which feels like a nice compromise. If you die before then you've made a Mistake, but having to cancel three levels of excavated Dwarf King's Underground Fortress because you fell in a hole would be annoying.

That's a fun little compromise.

[Mark Watton]

9 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Someone hasn't met @Thorfinn yet. Though to be fair, playing with a permadeath rule is going to be rough on any of the preset difficulties in Vintage Story.

That dude has an INSANE amount of patience. Early game is ROUGH. I still don't understand why everyone thought I was getting killed by bears whenever I complained about dying to wildlife though. They've gotten me quite a few times, but it always made sense because it wasn't a prey animal chasing me down, or the impossibility of surviving most early wolf ambushes... I suppose it makes a BIT more sense because bronze lamellar slows you down enough that a bear can keep pace with you, but at that point, I can usually just kill it.

Edited Thursday at 10:41 AM by Mark Watton

[LadyWYT]

3 hours ago, Mark Watton said:

I still don't understand why everyone thought I was getting killed by bears whenever I complained about dying to wildlife though.

It's probably because most wildlife is relatively easy to figure out the limits of and avoid. Bears are a lot more difficult, and depending on the type of bear, may be almost impossible to actually run away from. That, and there's been a good handful of others through the forums complaining about bears.

 

3 hours ago, Mark Watton said:

Early game is ROUGH.

Early game is pretty rough when you're still learning the ropes. There's a ton of information that you need to learn, and a lot of it needs to be learned simultaneously, and failing to account for certain things doesn't necessarily hurt in the present but can build up to a much bigger problem in the future. Vintage Story really isn't shy about its punches in that regard, though it does give the player a lot of control over how hard the game is allowed to punch. 

In any case though, don't sweat it too much. The struggle isn't forever, and it won't be long before you're dodging bears and sniffing out coppers like a seasoned veteran.

[Mark Watton]

4 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It's probably because most wildlife is relatively easy to figure out the limits of and avoid. Bears are a lot more difficult, and depending on the type of bear, may be almost impossible to actually run away from. That, and there's been a good handful of others through the forums complaining about bears.

 

Early game is pretty rough when you're still learning the ropes. There's a ton of information that you need to learn, and a lot of it needs to be learned simultaneously, and failing to account for certain things doesn't necessarily hurt in the present but can build up to a much bigger problem in the future. Vintage Story really isn't shy about its punches in that regard, though it does give the player a lot of control over how hard the game is allowed to punch. 

In any case though, don't sweat it too much. The struggle isn't forever, and it won't be long before you're dodging bears and sniffing out coppers like a seasoned veteran.

My only complaints are wolves and almost every other small animal killing me in two or three shots. If it weren't for that, early game would be a breeze without a random sheep deciding I deserve to die for running too close to it.

[Mark Watton]

Between storage restrictions and EVERYTHING trying to murder you, it's whack.

[Mark Watton]

Heck, i've had many a bear swipe me once, then not even bother chasing me. Prey animals always run me down to death for some reason.

[Mark Watton]

11 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

It's probably because most wildlife is relatively easy to figure out the limits of and avoid. Bears are a lot more difficult, and depending on the type of bear, may be almost impossible to actually run away from. That, and there's been a good handful of others through the forums complaining about bears.

 

Early game is pretty rough when you're still learning the ropes. There's a ton of information that you need to learn, and a lot of it needs to be learned simultaneously, and failing to account for certain things doesn't necessarily hurt in the present but can build up to a much bigger problem in the future. Vintage Story really isn't shy about its punches in that regard, though it does give the player a lot of control over how hard the game is allowed to punch. 

In any case though, don't sweat it too much. The struggle isn't forever, and it won't be long before you're dodging bears and sniffing out coppers like a seasoned veteran.

Wait, are you telling me there are bears that are fast like wolves and rams?

[LadyWYT]

7 minutes ago, Mark Watton said:

Wait, are you telling me there are bears that are fast like wolves and rams?

Brown bears are faster and have more health and attack range than black bears, so they're much harder to get away from if they spot you. Polar bears are even stronger than brown bears, though thankfully they're only found in the arctic and occasionally on mountaintop glaciers. Panda bears and sun bears are only found in the warmer tropical regions, and are around the same general strength as black bears(maybe slightly weaker) and less aggressive.

Black bears can be kited around and killed with a falx or spear easily enough, with or without early game armor. To be fair, I also don't recommend doing this unless you really know what you're doing, but if you're good at blind navigation and timing the bear's attacks, it's relatively easy to do thanks to the ability to sprint backwards.

[Mark Watton]

Welll the bear complaints make more sense then I suppose

[CastIronFabric]

On 9/30/2026 at 2:21 PM, chk1 said:

Although I also turn off storms, and am seriously considering turning off rifts, both for similar reasons as others have mentioned, I do not think the concept is entirely invalid. I actually remember finding it quite cool when it was first announced, it's just the current implementation that sucks.

I think the crux of the issue is that this mechanic amounts to interrupting the player's "cozy homesteading time" at arbitrary times and forcing the player to participate in "eldritch horror fighting time", with little option in the way of preventing/postponing/ignoring it. Off the top of my head, I can't really think of any similar games that would do this kind of thing successfully, usually sandbox games like this give you decent wiggle room to engage with different gameplay loops on your own time, this aspect of it just seems like bad game design.

If they just made it so that it is something that is triggered as a result of player action (eg. by interacting with some story structure underground, or it triggers when your stability has been low for too long, ...). This would give the player a degree of freedom to effectively customize their experience on the fly in an immersive way. People who really do not like the storms and rifts on principle could conceivably take actions to avoid them altogether, or at least mostly, without needing them to be turned off globally.

It kinda reminds me of how people used to complain about the phantom implementation in minecraft - it interrupted their building time at certain intervals and forced them to participate in some activity, when they just wanted to build. As far as I know, this particular matter was effectively put to rest when the devs added an option to disable them, at which point most people stopped complaining about it actively and the devs never got around to improving the implementation after that - I'm hoping that history won't repeat itself here.

All that said, there is definitely also room for improvement along other fronts here (as others have said), eg. the fact that they can spawn anywhere in storms, making any complex defence ineffective, or the fact that a large chunk of it is more of an annoyance than a challange, with minimal rewards etc.

I have made the same point regarding 'interruptions'. All my suggestion (on the forums anyway) has been summarily rejected which where

1. Use Deeds in the game to have rifts or hostiles not spawn within the Deed. Wurm Online has effectively been doing this for more than 20 years now and its solid and makes sense

2. A setting to turn on or off Surface Drifters specifically. 

3. Start from a design foundation philosophy that this game is either a tower defense game (like nearly every single building game in the market today) or it is not a tower defense game. If it is not, then make threats something you go to instead of threats coming to your base. Dungeons, Caves, Story Quests. A place that you plan for, suit up for and maybe such a plan takes several months. Making the cart to carry your stuff, make your best armour, best potions etc and you go to it. Rather than as you say randomly hitting you while your brain is busy working out how you want to make your cellar. In short, either make 7 Days to Die or make a game focused more on building and crafting as it main structural pillar.

For me personally, I have settings set to Passive but given I like lowish lighting, 100s of hours of me running around doing things in my base while trying to ignore the drifters that some times get in my way just feels like a bug in the game for my personal gaming experience. A bug that is easy to fix.

 

 

Edited Friday at 01:31 PM by CastIronFabric

[Teh Pizza Lady]

2 hours ago, CastIronFabric said:

I have made the same point regarding 'interruptions'. All my suggestion (on the forums anyway) has been summarily rejected which where

1. Use Deeds in the game to have rifts or hostiles not spawn within the Deed. Wurm Online has effectively been doing this for more than 20 years now and its solid and makes sense

2. A setting to turn on or off Surface Drifters specifically. 

3. Start from a design foundation philosophy that this game is either a tower defense game (like nearly every single building game in the market today) or it is not a tower defense game. If it is not, then make threats something you go to instead of threats coming to your base. Dungeons, Caves, Story Quests. A place that you plan for, suit up for and maybe such a plan takes several months. Making the cart to carry your stuff, make your best armour, best potions etc and you go to it. Rather than as you say randomly hitting you while your brain is busy working out how you want to make your cellar. In short, either make 7 Days to Die or make a game focused more on building and crafting as it main structural pillar.

For me personally, I have settings set to Passive but given I like lowish lighting, 100s of hours of me running around doing things in my base while trying to ignore the drifters that some times get in my way just feels like a bug in the game for my personal gaming experience. A bug that is easy to fix.

 

 

Two points I'd like to make:

1. It's not a tower defense game. It's a survival sandbox with more emphasis on survival than sandbox. Unlike other survival sandbox games it has actual lore and not just a mystic credit roll after you defeat an entity that has no explanation for existing.

2. The rust world doesn't care about the rules. It plays by it's own rules. More to come Soon!   But anyway, that's why the drifter spawns feel like a bug. You're literally trying to play the game in a configuration that differs from the developers' default configuration. Everything is balanced around Standard difficulty so once you start changing things, the game is going to get a lot harder (or more annoying) and start to feel like things are missing or not implemented correctly.

Edited Friday at 03:52 PM by Teh Pizza Lady

[CastIronFabric]

47 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Two points I'd like to make:

1. It's not a tower defense game. It's a survival sandbox with more emphasis on survival than sandbox. Unlike other survival sandbox games it has actual lore and not just a mystic credit roll after you defeat an entity that has no explanation for existing.

2. The rust world doesn't care about the rules. It plays by it's own rules. More to come Soon!   But anyway, that's why the drifter spawns feel like a bug. You're literally trying to play the game in a configuration that differs from the developers' default configuration. Everything is balanced around Standard difficulty so once you start changing things, the game is going to get a lot harder (or more annoying) and start to feel like things are missing or not implemented correctly.

regarding number 2 I agree. I am playing the game counter to the developer intentions and what I assumed was clear is that I do not agree with the developer intentions in this area at all. So with that in play, perhaps add a setting to turn off just surface drifters? It is literally the only aspect of this game I find silly and yet in my face all the time regardless of that with no setting to turn just that part off. So...lets add it!

 

Edited Friday at 04:38 PM by CastIronFabric