What's the goal?

[ThatOldDutchGuy]

I think I am missing the goal of the game... I am not one for end-bosses like Ender dragon (or worse, level bosses like in Valheim), but in playing about 80 hours I can kick myself pretty rapidly into the iron age. Bears and wolves are easy if you dig a moat. I like that struggle of building base, setting up gardens, surviving winter. But then what? There is a little automation, wind and water wheels, but that doesn't do that much to keep the game interesting in the long run.

Look, I know it's a sandbox game, but with the 'threat' (which really is no threat at all, you can just avoid them and sit through the instabilities on a small ledge and shoot 1 maybe 2 guys teleporting in, and the insanity portals don't really do anything except hurt after a while. I was wondering if the threat level and monsters should not ramp up as soon as you mine iron and it all becomes a 'defend the castle', possibly even with automated defenses. So the more iron you mine, the higher the threat level counter goes because the 'threat' really doesn't like the player to get too strong, or it upsets the multiverse, or something. Maybe the insanity portals are actually portals that teleport you to a different place, maybe a different realm even?

Also, if the point of this was to make it sortof realistic in block form, where are there no diseases with various consequences, like less stamina, less health even if left untreated? Blight on the crops?

Just some thoughts.

[Demoncyborg]

i know you said you're not into the enderdragon-type of finish but have you done the story of the game yet? there's plenty of challenge and things-to-do when it comes to the exploration needed.

[Zaph42nd]

I've always read Vintage Story's goal as homesteading and eventually reaching a point where the survival needs are as minimized as possible, allowing you to build to your heart's content. In some ways by the time you get past iron, it becomes more sandbox-like than survival-like.... As to the story, while it's unfinished, I see it less as part of mandatory progression and more an optional thing to do with some fun rewards once you've gotten tired of the homesteading aspects of the game

[ThatOldDutchGuy]

18 hours ago, Demoncyborg said:

i know you said you're not into the enderdragon-type of finish but have you done the story of the game yet? there's plenty of challenge and things-to-do when it comes to the exploration needed.

To be totally honest, I haven't found any clues, hints, or guidance that there actually is a story.

[ThatOldDutchGuy]

18 hours ago, Zaph42nd said:

I've always read Vintage Story's goal as homesteading and eventually reaching a point where the survival needs are as minimized as possible, allowing you to build to your heart's content. In some ways by the time you get past iron, it becomes more sandbox-like than survival-like.... As to the story, while it's unfinished, I see it less as part of mandatory progression and more an optional thing to do with some fun rewards once you've gotten tired of the homesteading aspects of the game

Yea, that is my point as well, and I was the same in Minecraft... I survive until I thrive in homesteading and... then what? 

[DarkGold]

38 minutes ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

To be totally honest, I haven't found any clues, hints, or guidance that there actually is a story.

If you are playing a game mode like Homo Sapiens, the story isn't present. If you are playing Standard, and want to know where to start, try talking to some traders.

[MKMoose]

20 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

I was wondering if the threat level and monsters should not ramp up as soon as you mine iron and it all becomes a 'defend the castle', possibly even with automated defenses. So the more iron you mine, the higher the threat level counter goes because the 'threat' really doesn't like the player to get too strong, or it upsets the multiverse, or something.

I don't see gameplay significantly changing as a result of a mostly arbitrary progression milestone. Especially if it changes sufficiently to actually enforce a different gameplay style, because that would all too easily make people regret or avoid crossing that progression milestone, which is the opposite of what you generally want.

I could see a base defense sequence or a greatly elevated ambient threat level working very well, though, as a mostly or entirely temporary story event - implementing it in this way would allow more controlled activation, more satisfying in-world justification and greatly reduced incentives for the player to avoid it. Preferably, put the base defense in a story location, because free block placement and base defense tends to be an extraordinarily janky combination in 3D environments.

 

20 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

Maybe the insanity portals are actually portals that teleport you to a different place, maybe a different realm even?

The devs have been experimenting with a dimension system and have planned or at least considered to make use of it in upcoming story content in 1.23. The devs have also expressed intent to improve upon the existing temporal storms, to incentivize the player to go out and interact with them. As for what comes out of it, we can currently only guess.

I've heard quite some people say, and I tend to agree, that allowing the player to conveniently move through rifts could largely break the mysterious and otherworldly nature of them. Something is practically guaranteed to be done with them at some point, though I personally wouldn't expect anything similar to e.g. Minecraft's Nether neither in gameplay nor in visuals, in the sense that it seems unlikely that it will be a separate, distinct world. It seems more plausible to me that it will be more reminiscent of the principal Chapter 2 story location.

 

1 hour ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

Yea, that is my point as well, and I was the same in Minecraft... I survive until I thrive in homesteading and... then what? 

Beyond the story quests mentioned already by others, since this is ultimately a sandbox, it is even more imperative than in most games that you find your own fun in the available content. Building, chiseling, exploring, various activities like cheesemaking or animal husbandry, different starting climates, nonstandard world configuration like an island world, increased game difficulty, optimizing, speedrunning, self-imposed challenges and goals. Mods can offer a huge amount of variety as well if that is of interest. Multiplayer can be a worthwhile consideration, and there's a number of unique, often modded, sometimes RP-heavy servers which can provide a very distinct experience.

As I see it, most games from a high-level perspective tend to roughly fall into three main categories:

•  A self-sufficient, typically story-driven game with a defined structure and clear ending.
• A gameplay-focused content box that gives the player a large amount of stuff to do. Sometimes turns into a content treadmill.
• An environment that is intended to facilitate the player's creativity and give them the means for their own creative expression.

Good games tend to include some of all three styles, as this generally creates broader appeal and better player retention. VS by virtue of being a sandbox tends to lean towards the last of these.

Edited yesterday at 11:28 AM by MKMoose
Reduce story spoilers.

[Demoncyborg]

1 hour ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

To be totally honest, I haven't found any clues, hints, or guidance that there actually is a story.

talk to all the traders you meet, some of them might have quests for you. they can show you some pretty interesting stuff!

[Zaph42nd]

1 hour ago, Demoncyborg said:

talk to all the traders you meet, some of them might have quests for you. they can show you some pretty interesting stuff!

Totally, add to that the handful of blocks and building materials you can only get from trading and they are worth seeking out (just don't end up with an addiction to using sleek-doors,  it gets expensive fast)

[CastIronFabric]

22 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

I think I am missing the goal of the game... I am not one for end-bosses like Ender dragon (or worse, level bosses like in Valheim), but in playing about 80 hours I can kick myself pretty rapidly into the iron age. Bears and wolves are easy if you dig a moat. I like that struggle of building base, setting up gardens, surviving winter. But then what? There is a little automation, wind and water wheels, but that doesn't do that much to keep the game interesting in the long run.

Look, I know it's a sandbox game, but with the 'threat' (which really is no threat at all, you can just avoid them and sit through the instabilities on a small ledge and shoot 1 maybe 2 guys teleporting in, and the insanity portals don't really do anything except hurt after a while. I was wondering if the threat level and monsters should not ramp up as soon as you mine iron and it all becomes a 'defend the castle', possibly even with automated defenses. So the more iron you mine, the higher the threat level counter goes because the 'threat' really doesn't like the player to get too strong, or it upsets the multiverse, or something. Maybe the insanity portals are actually portals that teleport you to a different place, maybe a different realm even?

Also, if the point of this was to make it sortof realistic in block form, where are there no diseases with various consequences, like less stamina, less health even if left untreated? Blight on the crops?

Just some thoughts.

log on to the public server, go to where people are building stuff and ask yourself 'what is the point of this game' while looking at what they built and then maybe the answer will come to you.

[Kiler_]

3 hours ago, DarkGold said:

If you are playing a game mode like Homo Sapiens, the story isn't present. If you are playing Standard, and want to know where to start, try talking to some traders.

There are also lore books that can be found in ruins or less commonly, through panning, especially boney soil from ruins.

 

As far as what's the point, it's to have fun. For me, it's the exploration and trying to develop my creative side. I'm good at technical builds, but they look like ass. I want something functional that also looks good.

[LadyWYT]

First off, welcome to the forums!

23 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

I think I am missing the goal of the game... I am not one for end-bosses like Ender dragon (or worse, level bosses like in Valheim), but in playing about 80 hours I can kick myself pretty rapidly into the iron age. Bears and wolves are easy if you dig a moat. I like that struggle of building base, setting up gardens, surviving winter. But then what? There is a little automation, wind and water wheels, but that doesn't do that much to keep the game interesting in the long run.

As others have already mentioned, if you've not yet done the story, I'd recommend doing so, although you will need to play with lore content enabled in order to do so(lore content is disabled by default in Homo Sapiens, but can be enabled via console command). In addition to the main story, there are other lore snippets to collect in the form of books and tapestries that you can find by panning loot, talking to certain traders, or otherwise delving into ruins.

Do keep in mind though that the game is still very much in early development, and of a planned eight story chapters there are only two currently implemented.

23 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

Also, if the point of this was to make it sortof realistic in block form, where are there no diseases with various consequences, like less stamina, less health even if left untreated? Blight on the crops?

Likewise, there's quite a lot planned for other areas of the game that just hasn't been implemented yet, because there's only so much that the devs can fit into an update, and sometimes other things have to be added first to lay the foundation for things to come.

Regarding crop blights though, I'm pretty sure that the devs have confirmed those won't be added to the game, with the reasoning that it's not fun gameplay for the player to just lose crops to something that's outside of their control. That's not to say that players can't play with those mechanics, just that it's the kind of thing that will need to be handled by mods.

23 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

I was wondering if the threat level and monsters should not ramp up as soon as you mine iron and it all becomes a 'defend the castle', possibly even with automated defenses. So the more iron you mine, the higher the threat level counter goes because the 'threat' really doesn't like the player to get too strong, or it upsets the multiverse, or something.

This doesn't really fit the overall design direction that the devs seem to want to take VS, and personally I don't find that kind of gameplay very fun. I'd like to see more defense options, yes, however, I didn't pick up VS because I want to play tower defense, and automation goes against the spirit of the game. The player can semi-automate some of the more tedious tasks, as seen by the helve hammer and quern, but they can't really go full "AFK mode" like what the other block game offers.

I will also note that games that insist on always scaling enemies to the player's current power level end up having progression that feels mostly pointless, because getting new stuff doesn't have a noticeable impact on the gameplay. It doesn't matter if the player manages to upgrade from stone tools to metal ones if it's still taking the same number of hits to deal with the enemies the game throws at them. Vintage Story's progress feels meaningful in part because getting upgrades means that enemies you had trouble dealing with before become a lot easier to fight.

23 hours ago, ThatOldDutchGuy said:

Maybe the insanity portals are actually portals that teleport you to a different place, maybe a different realm even?

Yeah, no. Part of the reason the "other world" is interesting is that the player can't go there, and not much is known about it otherwise. If it was a place that was fully explained, or that the player could otherwise just visit whenever they liked, then it would quickly lose its luster. That's basically what happened to Minecraft's Nether and Deep Dark--those places are interesting the first few times you explore them, but easily become just a spot you visit occasionally to strip for resources and otherwise ignore because the place is a hassle.

Also worth noting that rifts have nothing to do with sanity, but rather temporal stability. Without spoiling too much of the story, what's basically going on is that some really bad stuff happened in the past that shattered time, and the player's foothold in the present day is tenuous at best.

[ThatOldDutchGuy]

7 hours ago, DarkGold said:

If you are playing a game mode like Homo Sapiens, the story isn't present. If you are playing Standard, and want to know where to start, try talking to some traders.

Cool, thanks. I never found the traders really useful.

[Zaph42nd]

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Yeah, no. Part of the reason the "other world" is interesting is that the player can't go there, and not much is known about it otherwise. If it was a place that was fully explained, or that the player could otherwise just visit whenever they liked, then it would quickly lose its luster. That's basically what happened to Minecraft's Nether and Deep Dark--those places are interesting the first few times you explore them, but easily become just a spot you visit occasionally to strip for resources and otherwise ignore because the place is a hassle.

For sure, I've always seen the rust/other-world concept as an infestation/invasion type mechanic, wouldn't really make sense as a place to visit (not only from a lore perspective but gameplay would feel a bit uneven introducing new dimensions into the mix) so much as a place that interacts with the world (this is already sort of expressed in temporal storms and stability). Later story structures also tap into this idea but I can see it getting expanded with the next few chapters, just never as a full on dimension to visit.

[Michael Gates]

I do about four speedruns to steel per year, and that's most of my time in game these days. That said, the occasional megastructure is also fun:
https://imgur.com/a/obelisk-big-dumb-object-Rm0rdEj
 

[CastIronFabric]

What is the point of Minecraft?

[Hanril]

Once you go to any metal age the game really opens up, but I quite like roughing it out. I find early game in most titles very exciting. You're still low at the food chain,

[Hanril]

Once you go to any metal age the game really opens up, but I quite like roughing it out in stone age. I find early game in most titles very exciting.

I never kept bees and always missed out on jams and sealing crocks. This time I don't have to juice all the berries to keep some fruit for winter. I keep a small garden, but you can gather a lot of mushrooms to be up on veggies too. Hunting with a bunch of flint spears is always fun.

You will only have as much fun as you allow yourself, so slow down and smell the flowers.