player burnout

[shockingboring]

Seeing as I've also encountered this issue almost right after I discovered the game I just want to leave my 2 cents as well. By now I've been just playing alone for weeks... after burning through all my friends and it's really sad to be the only one in my circle that is interested in the game with what it currently provides.

Many players leaving is a huge problem as the game, with its unique classes, is clearly built for multiplayer and requires multiplayer to allow each class to shine.

I don't think it is a lack of crafting or building content that drives the majority of players away after a short while, I don't think it is the complexity of the crafting and refinement processes either.

All of my friends found the crafting and refinement, the generated worlds, the game itself great and really cool but quit because of the same thing: 

Quote

whats the point?

Some scattered lore you can find is not interesting enough for many players to warrant spending hundreds of hours preparing for it.

Simply surviving for survivals sake is just boring. I disagree with the opinion:

Quote

minecraft didn't have a goal for a long time so this game doesn't need it either

Minecraft profited hugely of being the first wiedely known voxelbased sandbox game when it came out. Vintage Story is not in that position and needs to provide more to survive as a game. The game needs an end goal, or several. Some ideas that come to mind would be:

• Bossfights
• Finding something special (that has some sort of use other than lore)
• Building some kind of final machine
• Some special degree of character progression
• Surviving a predefined timespan (which would kind of require permadeath)

There are several aspects of the game that can appeal to different kinds of players:

• Building
• Exploration
• Survival
• Combat
• Technology
• Mining
• Hunting
• Farming
• Foraging

Ideally there would be endgame-goals which speak to each of those different kinds of people. The goals should also be challenging, rewarding and repeatable.

Aside from having a goal the gameplay itself also needs to be rewarding in each of those areas. The game does a relatively good job at that but some areas are really lacking (combat in general mostly...).

A big part of the game is acquiring knowledge, materials and building structures that allow for progression. From my experience only very few players in a group take the lead on those aspects and feel a sense of accomplishment after reaching a new milestone. for all others, reaching some milestone is only mildly rewarding as they didn't actually take much part in it other than run errands.

To provide those players with a sense of accomplishment I would like to suggest a character based progression system. the simplest way would be exp, levels and stat points or skills with a slight bonus to existing activities or even new actions in addition to what the classes provide. It would be very important that higher levels are desirable and players have to make decisions and cannot have all skills at some point as that would reduce the value of having a team.

With a system like that, or anything comparable, players that can't feel a sense of accomplishment for a milestone they didn't actively take part in would have something of their own to come back to.

I know that having exp, levels and skills/stats is very cliché and might not be what the developers envisioned for the game. however the value it would have for rewarding players should not be underestimated.

The problem with having no character progression is that playing feels useless as you could just simply come back when someone else has built what you need to advance.

Likewise having procedurally generated worlds makes exploration feel useless as there is no real soul in the places you find.

Those problems can be overcome and I would love to see Vintage Story accomplish just that.

 

So yea. it's not that there isn't enough to do, it's not that it is too complex or too difficult. The game just needs to provide incentive to play and advance as just an extremely small amount of people can deal with a pure sandbox experience.

I need something my friends and I actually want to build that Steelarmor for.

[Heiress]

A lot of your ideas would require huge overhauls, like bossfights for example would require a complete rework of combat, because there's no way I'm going to be interested in seeking out bossfights with the game in its current state, no matter how good those rewards might be for beating it, if the process is just smacking a sword into there and getting good enough armour thats not really fun exactly.

building a special machine, well.. what kind of machine?

Factorio works because the whole idea of the game is to build the rocket, and literally every game mechanic up to that point is building up towards that point, vintagestory isn't that hyperfocused so this will be a lot harder to get the feel right of, maybe a machine that can stop temporal storms that would give you a sort of "win state"

Progression systems are a whole world into its own of balancing complexity, and I'm not sure we'll ever see one outside of a mod for a while at least.

That said, I can agree on it somewhat at least but I do have some pointers myself;

An overhaul to combat and how temporal storms work (making them less of a pillar up with dirt scenario and more of a genuine scary thing where the better solutions are not in fact to cheese the system but there's incentives to either run or fight through it) would do a lot of to the game on its own, and build onto the potential for bossfights, I think since this is such a sandbox game the best solution is to provide multiple avenues and probably have a little mix of everything.

[Game Nerd]

2 hours ago, shockingboring said:

Seeing as I've also encountered this issue almost right after I discovered the game I just want to leave my 2 cents as well. By now I've been just playing alone for weeks... after burning through all my friends and it's really sad to be the only one in my circle that is interested in the game with what it currently provides.

Many players leaving is a huge problem as the game, with its unique classes, is clearly built for multiplayer and requires multiplayer to allow each class to shine.

I don't think it is a lack of crafting or building content that drives the majority of players away after a short while, I don't think it is the complexity of the crafting and refinement processes either.

All of my friends found the crafting and refinement, the generated worlds, the game itself great and really cool but quit because of the same thing: 

Some scattered lore you can find is not interesting enough for many players to warrant spending hundreds of hours preparing for it.

Simply surviving for survivals sake is just boring. I disagree with the opinion:

Minecraft profited hugely of being the first wiedely known voxelbased sandbox game when it came out. Vintage Story is not in that position and needs to provide more to survive as a game. The game needs an end goal, or several. Some ideas that come to mind would be:

• Bossfights
• Finding something special (that has some sort of use other than lore)
• Building some kind of final machine
• Some special degree of character progression
• Surviving a predefined timespan (which would kind of require permadeath)

There are several aspects of the game that can appeal to different kinds of players:

• Building
• Exploration
• Survival
• Combat
• Technology
• Mining
• Hunting
• Farming
• Foraging

Ideally there would be endgame-goals which speak to each of those different kinds of people. The goals should also be challenging, rewarding and repeatable.

Aside from having a goal the gameplay itself also needs to be rewarding in each of those areas. The game does a relatively good job at that but some areas are really lacking (combat in general mostly...).

A big part of the game is acquiring knowledge, materials and building structures that allow for progression. From my experience only very few players in a group take the lead on those aspects and feel a sense of accomplishment after reaching a new milestone. for all others, reaching some milestone is only mildly rewarding as they didn't actually take much part in it other than run errands.

To provide those players with a sense of accomplishment I would like to suggest a character based progression system. the simplest way would be exp, levels and stat points or skills with a slight bonus to existing activities or even new actions in addition to what the classes provide. It would be very important that higher levels are desirable and players have to make decisions and cannot have all skills at some point as that would reduce the value of having a team.

With a system like that, or anything comparable, players that can't feel a sense of accomplishment for a milestone they didn't actively take part in would have something of their own to come back to.

I know that having exp, levels and skills/stats is very cliché and might not be what the developers envisioned for the game. however the value it would have for rewarding players should not be underestimated.

The problem with having no character progression is that playing feels useless as you could just simply come back when someone else has built what you need to advance.

Likewise having procedurally generated worlds makes exploration feel useless as there is no real soul in the places you find.

Those problems can be overcome and I would love to see Vintage Story accomplish just that.

 

So yea. it's not that there isn't enough to do, it's not that it is too complex or too difficult. The game just needs to provide incentive to play and advance as just an extremely small amount of people can deal with a pure sandbox experience.

I need something my friends and I actually want to build that Steelarmor for.

https://bettermissions.lt.acemlna.com/Prod/link-tracker?redirectUrl=aHR0cHMlM0ElMkYlMkZib2FyZGdhbWVkZXNpZ25sYWIuY29tJTJGc2tpbGwtYmFycmllcnMtaW4tZ2FtZXMtd2l0aC1qZWZmLWZyYXNlciUyRg==&sig=6GMCqdP98YGSAuXaqMbmx7pQs7ZhHE3w9qiU6Xe8QQNj&iat=1629728904&a=25028780&account=bettermissions.activehosted.com&email=YVwbx%2FIAkeOmx4KYGctBO2PiDbNvp12KFZ8CZc3di6A%3D&s=bb843dbad8e3e903b0df30058c4775a0&i=795A885A16A9840

https://boardgamedesignlab.com/skill-barriers-in-games-with-jeff-fraser/

I haven't seen these but board game design lab makes a good podcast, this one is about skill barriors.

I agree with most every thing, but if the game has an end, then you can't play it forever, other then that, great Idea!

[shockingboring]

1 hour ago, Heiress said:

A lot of your ideas would require huge overhauls, like bossfights for example would require a complete rework of combat

Yes I completely agree. In my opinion a combat overhaul is an absolute necessity for the game to succeed. PvE as well as PvP. It needs more variety in attacks and more interesting AI. Its never a good idea to just ramp up damage, speed and hp to make enemies more difficult. I would be interested in some kind of block and dodge combat. but there are enough combat threads out there.

1 hour ago, Heiress said:

building a special machine, well.. what kind of machine?

that machine would have to fit in with the lore of the game so I have no idea. My suggestions are more on a mind-map level than an actually fleshed out concept. I like the Temporal Storm idea. maybe make the machine prevent temporal storms in a certain range around it?

Just adding the machine however wouldn't serve the intended purpose of providing an actual goal. I mean .. in the end it would just be another mechanic to make survivng even easier when it's already not too hard. The goals have to be linked with the lore of the game and provide a satisfactory point at which you, and the game, can say you've beat the game. (in your profession of interest)

1 hour ago, Heiress said:

Progression systems are a whole world into its own of balancing complexity, and I'm not sure we'll ever see one outside of a mod for a while at least.

yea sadly. I think the exp part would be one of the most difficult to balance. like what actions would reward exp? it is just one example of how a game can give every player, regardless of playstyle preferences, some kind of sure reward for invested time and as such I am convinced it would help keep players interested.

In my opinion static characters actually harm the game experience even more than a badly balanced progression system.

1 hour ago, Heiress said:

I think since this is such a sandbox game the best solution is to provide multiple avenues and probably have a little mix of everything.

I wholeheartedly agree. thats why I said several goals would be best. My point is just that something where players can work towards needs to be provided by the game since many people are not content with having to find their own goals. 

Just a silly idea but it would be fun if there was even some gardening goal like growing some rare or gigantic crop that is insanely complex to grow. Again, if the game states that this achievement is the gardeners endgame-goal, then it is and people of that interest have something to work towards. 

And maybe some kind of exploration goal where you can find one special place like a underground city or portal if you follow hints or riddles you can find in ruins around the world. (I am not qualified for more fleshed out suggestions as I really don't know much about the lore)

The pure sandbox approach of leaving the goals to the players has its serious downsides (one of which is: it doesn't work for the majority of people)

22 minutes ago, Game Nerd said:

I haven't seen these but board game design lab makes a good podcast, this one is about skill barriors.

interesting.

22 minutes ago, Game Nerd said:

I agree with most every thing, but if the game has an end, then you can't play it forever, other then that, great Idea!

well can you play a game forever if it does not have an end?

the goals should be just something to work towards. theres no reason to force the players to stop playing or delete their progress once a goal is reached.

Like I said It would be best if the goals are even repeatable in my opinion.

[Omega Haxors]

Lets have a rust world you can actually go to.

Suit up your best gear and try to survive an infested world.

As it stands now, the only 'arena' survival is mantle grinding. Bo-ring.

[Jorrit Tyberghein]

For me personally the beginning is always the most fun part. Getting settled, finding your first seeds, making you first metal tools, ... At some point (for me it was at the point I got steel) there is indeed a risk of burnout but for me that's not really a bad thing. I just start over. Maybe with some different difficulty settings. Maybe with some different mods. Try to play differently. But in any case, recreate the fun beginning of the game.

But again, this is a very subjective and personal thing. There are many different tastes and ways to play this game.

To expand on a point I saw. Personally I'm a huge fan of exploring and I love finding dungeons. Even though these dungeons don't always have much that I actually need it's still just fun to find them and see what's in them. On that note I would love the lore of this game to be expanded a lot.

 

[The FT of Reno]

A big draw for me is usually structure exploration and hazards of any kind. Lightning storms are too infrequent to pose any real hazard to all but the largest wooden constructions, and drifters, save for the highest tier ones are more of a nuisance than anything when exploring caves. A couple of things could be done to increase the danger and encourage exploration of the greater area.

1. the addition of larger ruined towns in plains biomes , and larger ruins embedded in cave systems, similar to Minecraft's Strongholds but more common than just 3 in the entire map. These ruins could have a modular roguelite layout of various section, each with their own content, enemies, or traps. 

2. the addition of raiders. Like bigger raccoons with various melee and ranged implements, raiders would add a need to construct defensive architecture and keep your storage out of the open on saves that aren't friendly multiplayer survival games. in addition to this, having some with torches and the like would dissuade people from wood construction

3. Further automation opportunities. The addition of limited autocrafters for basic materials would be able to save large amounts of time for late game, where construction is the main concern. Including mechanically-powered leather conveyor belts to get materials from a quern or pulverizer to a central storage building, or the ability to create large scale metal foundries that can process large amount of iron would open up new tasks for optimizing mass production.

Edited October 7, 2021 by The FT of Reno

[Buggi]

Biggest draw to this game for me is the most excellent foundation it has to offer modders. It's still early yet, but if we as a community can start to draw the big modders away from Minecraft and have them port or code mods for VS then this game would be able to offer near limitless expansion and diverse gameplay.

What's missing from this game is a late-game goal, automation, and reasons for exploration. If you compare VS to vanilla MC as MC was in the early years then VS wins as a more solid foundation to build a game. MC has had dozens of major updates since being 'released' and can't be directly compared to VS as it is now.

Imagine Vintage Story with the Tinkerers Construct mod, Thermal Expansion, Thaumcraft, Create!, Astral Sorcery, etc... It would be unreal how awesome that would be. 

That is what has me excited for VS, the fact the game is so open to modding and the developers embrace that makes me hopeful.

[Irulana]

I was for a long vanilla minecraft player. If you can't find a goal for yourself  minecraft or vintage story can be boring. In minecraft we build on our server with friends giant automatic farms, item sorters, big bases etc. No one cared about ender dragon, I fight him few times just to have more entrances to end cities. I loved to watch hermitcarft they gived a tons of ideas how to play. I wish there will be more vintage story content on youtube.

Now we playing vanilla VS wilderness survival form April, we reached steel age long ago. We have about 6 T3 steel furnaces. All of our equipment is steal, this was was one of goals, along with high efficient base, We building automatic storage system for stones, automatic feeding system for animals. I hope the automatic system will be better in this game in future, in minecraft you could build variety of it.

We play without map, so it's more realistic and make more fun. We find many translocators around base but we only find few locations where they lead to. It's always excitement when exploring, will we find another one? We build variety on roads and temporary bases around main base. We build long road to south to find new stuff, we reached 13 000 blocks, so it will probably need to few more months to finish it. My friend is building map for us in google document so we have all roads and translocators we find there, also document when we have all translocators described. We take this game seriously

We also started to collect items:

-tapestry

-stones

-minerals

-shells

-crystals

-unusual body armors, like gold one

recently stared to collect nice looking crystalized chunks.

We didn't finish collecting all stuff yet.

So can't stop playing this game  and I can't wait for more content. But i think this game require different more creative approach if you wish to enjoy it for long time.

 

[Buggi]

Start an epic building project. Something that pokes into your creativity. The game offers an AMAZING freedom to build. Screenshot is my current work-in-progress build. Helped to make a model of the building before construction... 

[Buggi]

On 11/4/2021 at 4:22 AM, Irulana said:

I wish there will be more vintage story content on youtube

I've streamed it several times.

[Hal13]

okay, let's get back on what VS is advertised to be: "Vintage Story is an uncompromising wilderness survival sandbox game inspired by lovecraftian horror themes. Find yourself in a ruined world reclaimed by nature and permeated by unnerving temporal disturbances. Relive the advent of human civilization, or take your own path"
let's take that apart: uncompromising, wilderness survival, sandbox game, lovecraftian horror, player is free to either relive the apocalypse or to make something completely other

Nothing is said about elaborated combat, just by the way.

Wilderness survival is about overcoming the harsh environment and later on thrive in it. That may include occassional fights, but way more important are getting water, food, ressources, building shelter, improving your circumstances. Fights with anything dangerous are something you want to avoid, because any injury could kill you and even without fighting there are enough dangers which might cause injuries. With it being uncompromising i'd expect to emphasize on avoiding injuries no potionlike medical treatments.

Sandbox games are about finding one's own motivation to play, no linear story no end of the game. Building stuff is the main objective, followed by making one's own story. With it being uncompromising there shouldn't be too much distraction from that.

Lovecraftian horror isn't about fighting bad guys and getting rewards, it's about facing entities and circumstances far beyond understandable, staying sane enough to eventually face something desastrous and DIE in order to not spread the insanity or stall time for others to get into safer places or for them to fix mistakes made long ago (sometimes more recent too). The main enemy in lovecraftian horror is keeping everyone sane enough to do what has to be done to make sure others can keep being ignorant of the prevented apocalypse, In lovecraftian horror stories there are rarely survivors who even only glimpsed at the horrors and even if there is one they don't get a reward (because more often than not they caused the problem themself), become outcasts (because that's sadly what you become in our society if you can't cope and live a "normal" life) and fight mental illnesses (most often described similar to ptsd and depression, but hallucinations and paranoia are common too) for the rest of their life. With it being inspired by i'd expect it to at least live up to the first parts, meaning rather dying for a greater purpose than fighting for loot and glory, and horrors too great to comprehend, with not much to be gained if one dares to face them.

Okay now let's look at what we got already:

I'd say the wilderness survival part is well on its way. We have a sufficiently complex hunger mechanic (would be nice if we at least get some trouble to get clean water too, even if that would only be used in cooking and no thirst mechanic would be implemented), of course it's strange that seraphs stomachs seem to be black holes until they are sated (maybe add a stomach mechanic, i mean a simple cooldown after eating anything would suffice already making it more interesting to eat better food/meals, but it could even be more sofisticated). The temperature problematic one would face is sufficiently implemented too, way better made than in many other games, i'm not sure if we already have an overheating problematic (and cooling mechanic for that) for the players staying in more tropical or even desert areas. I'm a bit disappointed on how the wolves are depicted though, wolves are shy and would most likely retreat instead of attack, sadly it's about the same bad implementation of their behavior over the complete genre of games.

There not much improvement possible on the sandbox part, we have a world, we can change the environment, we can build stuff, we can destroy stuff... That's basically all there is in a sandbox. I mean sure there could be some more stuff to construct or some mechanics to play with, but with the amount of modding support that can be implemented from the community...

Now for lovecraftian horror... apart from some lore aspects not really anything there in VS, which is actually not bad per se, else you'd have to compromise on the survival or the sandbox parts. I mean sure there's drifters and the temporal storms and temporal (in-)stability and a lost (highly technological) civilisation, who quite likely are responsible for their own demise... But the drifters are more like zombies and neither scary nor the biggest problem, the temporal storms are just swarms of mobs to be killed spawning, both drifters and storms are more fitting for a zombie survial game like they are now. As said i don't think it's a bad thing to only have lore in the game about what happened, i mean maybe something lurking in the darkness may become aware of the PC after finding enough lore and maybe we get another insanity mechanic (apart from temporal stability, which for me at this point more looks like a sanity metric, like i explained a few times already) maybe by giving into that madness behind the lore players will be able to build some temporal tech that was lost and maybe that could actually trigger some endgame content? Though with Seraphs practically not able to die... maybe by facing the horrors and the world of decaying iron you lose access to the world you played in (kinda like in hardcore mode MC when you die)?

Now what needs to be done to prevent players from burning out rather early?

I think the biggest issue is: Communication and false expectations; of course if a friend tells me VS is similar to Minecraft and i should give it a try, than I expect it to be more about building than grinding. Of course if someone sees horror and believes zombie survival games would be horror survival games (or only even horror games), they will get disappointed (if VS stays true to its advertisement), even more when they figure out survival is a gameplay part way bigger than horror. Of course competitive players will be disappointed, survival needs cooperation not competition, though they could try speedruns (how fast can you get your first steel ingot? how fast can you craft a full set of steel plate armour? who smithes something faster?) and stuff early minecrafters did (dig a big hole as wide as you can down to the impenetrable bottom layer of the world), or some selfimposed challenges (a gamerun without crafting anything for example, how long can you last without dying?)
That actually is partially easy to prevent, just goddamn explain people what they actually should expect instead of vaguely advertising VS to your friends.

Another issue is, some grindy gameplay parts feel just not rewarding enough, the steel making process was mentioned a few times already, tbh i find the pottery kiln in 1.15. even more frustrating (let's say in the world i just started i had to notice that dry grass and actual trees became way more sparse than before, with ferns taking away places for grass to spawn and pottery needing huge amounts of it, until the trees i was able to plant from all the shrubbery will be grown i'm not able to proceed at all) if the kiln could at least be expanded like the charcoal pit (or ferns could be dried and used as substitute for dry grass) that would improve that mechanic massively. The mining could be made a bit less monotonous like suggested in another topic, repairable tools and armours would make smithing them more rewarding (i mean smithing full plate armour takes dedication in VS, having to do it again when it breaks kinda is a punishment for something that will happen at some point as long as repairing isn't possible).

Edited November 15, 2021 by Hal13

[TooSalty123]

I think some of my reasons for burnout are that temporal storms/drifters are cool for the first few instances but later just become an annoyance. Temporal storms end up just being sections of time where you go AFK on top of 2 block pillar and drifters are just fat little grey blobs that seem pretty out place from the rest the environment.

I think temporal storms should be much more rare but much more violent with monsters and drifters breaking your base and causing panic attacks with their screams. I like the idea of having variations on temporal storms (light, medium, heavy), but I don't think there's much of a gameplay purpose for them since especially with the 'light' variation it would just encourage people to go AFK. Also I think that surface drifters should be very rare and/or be limited to temporal storms since they don't fit in and are more annoying than threatening. The real threat should from the wilderness and the existing wolves, which are very scary and can be joined by maybe some other scary animals like grizzly bears, lions, and possibly dire wolves.

[Jorrit Tyberghein]

Note that you can actually configure the rate and length of temporal storms. And you can also disable them

[TooSalty123]

Yeah I usually have them off entirely. I like the idea though I just think it's flawed.

 

[Buggi]

Random nightly drifters is one reason I made the Nightwatcher mod. Was tired of hearing them groaning while I built and chiseled.

[daretmavi]

The worst thing on temporal storms is, that you don't get anything special if you kill drifters. And if you don't loot them right away, they will probably de-spawn before you can.

[Hal13]

48 minutes ago, daretmavi said:

The worst thing on temporal storms is, that you don't get anything special if you kill drifters. And if you don't loot them right away, they will probably de-spawn before you can.

maybe the despawn should be disabled through the storm? that way towards its end it'll be harder to fight the drifters, because of the corpses piling up and giving them cover and as you can harvest (most of) them afterwards it'll be more rewarding too...
You get temporal stability back that you lose in storms and unstable areas constantly, but else surviving is the only reward, which makes just going away and waiting a while or sleeping it away more rewarding than the temporal storm mechanic itself...
But i think we're going on a tangent here.

[TooSalty123]

On 8/25/2021 at 6:57 AM, Ryan Thomas said:

The TL;DR version is I'm hoping for some type of vehicle.

I've started to feel burnout a lot lately. Yesterday, I was sitting in my gem room, waiting for my son's bus to come. Lol, on a side note, that little turd! I was in my gem room because he told me that me being in the living room slows down his morning routine. He was nice about it, but morning routine? He's six, his morning routine is eat breakfast, brush teeth, and watch cartoons until I escort him out to the bus. But I kind of get it, I like a little alone time in the morning, too. Anyway, I was sitting in my gem room (I just procured a glorious agatized Favosite, for those of us that enjoy that type of thing), thinking of my morning routine in Vintage Story, which I was excited about. I've got a new round of leather to check on, animals to feed, a new round of meals to make, and a new cave to explore. I was excited about that, but by the time I put my son on the bus, I was honestly a little nauseous about that. Don't get me wrong, I love the game, I even try to name-drop it in my Steam reviews. Well, when it's organic to my review, anyway, sometimes it's hard to work it in, it doesn't look right if I typed "Blah Blah Doom Eternal Blah blah (Vintage Story is freaking awesome) blah blah (you should check out)..." Anyway, as much as I love the game, I couldn't bring myself to even turn it on, I played a few rounds of Mortal Kombat 10 (Predator's my dude!).

So, I was thinking "what's my deal today, I love Vintage Story" My deal: it's starting to feel a little monotonous. So, I was thinking "what do I do in the real world when stuff starts to feel monotonous?" I'm in my early 40s; my college days of "let's go streak the quad!" are behind me. Plus, you know, spouses kind of get bummed when they get a phone call at work; "honey, I had a little snafu. Could you pick me up.......and bring a pair of pants w you?". But the answer I came up with: ride/drive something. Maybe launch some type of sailing vessel just for the thrill of sailing and watching some type of sea critters swim around, or jump on a horse just to chase some rabbits around. Something, just for a little change of pace. Because: as much as I love the game, sometimes I feel like the Dunkin Donuts "time to make the donuts" guy (y'all remember that commercial?).

 

A simple sailboat with two seats and a small inventory paired with continent/ocean generation would be the dream. I can imagine the adventures with friends to discovery strange and foreign lands.

[Erik]

I think exploration challenges would be a good way to solve (or at least delay, eventually you'll get burned out on any game) the "player burnout":

Currently the main challenge of the game is survival or more specifically surviving the winter. That can be divided into some sub-challenges, like food, shelter that can be divided into sub-challenges of their own like preservation, storage, protection, etc. So the player will start making basic tools, collect wood, build a house, get some farming going, do some pottery, create some charcoal, process some copper, etc. When the player gets to having a copper anvil, most of the games content is unlocked for him, as he can craft a saw. This is also the point when the survival challenge is basically solved. Wooden planks allow for really easy, cheap and quickly craftable storage solutions, leather working, efficient building blocks, animal farming and even some mechanical automation. The time freed up means having more time to focus on food, trivializing the food problem.

Now the game really turns into a sandbox, as survival is trivial. There is stuff to do, but much less incentive to do so. Better materials and tools are more convenient in the long run, but not really necessary by any means. Things like bee keeping are cool mechanics, but strictly optional. Player motivation doesn't recede from a lack of content, but from a lack of challenges.

New challenges to be exact. There is still the daily grind like tending to your fields, checking the bees, feeding the animals, etc. the trivial solving of the ongoing food challenge. Adding more challenges of this variety, i.e. ongoing challenges, like a thirst bar, building degradation or rusting tools would just further the grind, not adding more fun but more tedium. There need to be challenges the player can overcome without them coming back to haunt him. A goal the player can archive and then move to the next goal until there are no more goals and challenges and the game is effectively done, like a story the player can complete. There is no need to try to make any challenge indefinitely engaging, even sandbox games are allowed to have ends. It's not like the player can't continue playing in a sandbox style after "completing the game" if he can make up his own challenges.

The type of challenge I personally want to see the most are exploration challenges. The general "loop" would be "Go place X find story piece with the next location". The game that had me engaged quite a bit with this was Subnautica. The games main motivation was exploration and story took a bit of a back seat. The areas to be explored where very varied and unique, coming with unique challenges like different sea monsters, difficult navigation, requiring better submarines or upgrades. Another great example of exploration driven gameplay is Hollow Knight, which although it is in a completely different genre still had me hooked mainly by exploration (really fun combat plus a great soundtrack). Exploration focused games like these often utilize the "locks and keys" design pattern, where locks represent challenges to get to new areas and keys the solution to them, often requiring solving other challenges to get them. A simple example would he a cave blocked by an alaskan bull worm you need distract with cake. It creates the challenge of having to bake a cake, which requires farming and other steps. The reward is being able to explore the cave and get whats in the cave, which would probably be some story content, some stuff and another lock or a key or a pointer to a new location.

Traveling and exploring are already my favorite activities in Vintage Story and are currently only required in a limited fashion to get stuff like clay and ore, optionally things like tropic crops. Traveling in Vintage Story always requires some preparation, like stocking up food and food and requires the player to build shelter on the fly and deal with encounters. By providing story goals, the player could be heavily incentivized to travel to new unique locations. The preparations may include getting things like iron or steel, because they are keys to some lock at the location. Then there could also be unique obstacles: Having to cross the north pole, requiring warm clothes and bringing firewood for the nights. Polar bears being a huge threat and requiring adequate gear to defend against. Oceans requiring boats to cross. Jungles having to deal with disease. Deserts needing water at day to protect against the heat and warmth at night. Mountains you need either climbing gear to pass steel tools to tunnel through. Underground caves, dungeons and cities where you need to solve puzzles and fight enemies.

These ideas however come with a challenge of their own: preventing frustration. Traveling for hours only to find that you need to return and create a steel pickaxe is definitely something the player should experience, challenges that require extensive prior preparation need to communicate this before the player even starts to solve it. Traveling for an hour and dying being reset is also not fun, nor is the player traveling back simply by dying, the respawn/spawn point system may need to be overhauled to be more manageable on huge journeys. The items dropped by dead players shouldn't be able to despawn, further preventing mayor setbacks.

This type of exploration challenges of course provides less replayability, but I think there is enough other content in the game and the possibility for different starting areas and mods that this shouldn't be a cause of concern. The goal isn't to create a game that is endlessly playable, but a game that is fun, even if not endlessly.

[Hal13]

33 minutes ago, Erik said:

Currently the main challenge of the game is survival or more specifically surviving the winter.

It IS a survival game after all...

34 minutes ago, Erik said:

Now the game really turns into a sandbox, as survival is trivial. There is stuff to do, but much less incentive to do so.

And it IS a sandbox game. Which means people who are not able to set challenges for themselves aren't fit to play it. I mean it's even in the first sentence of the description!

Quote

Vintage Story is an uncompromising wilderness survival sandbox game inspired by lovecraftian horror themes.

Hence getting rid of it being a sandbox game obviously is getting rid of Vintage Story itself.

37 minutes ago, Erik said:

A goal the player can archive and then move to the next goal until there are no more goals and challenges and the game is effectively done, like a story the player can complete.

That describes the opposite of a sandbox, which means it doesn't fit a game marketed as a sandbox game. You can set yourself the goal of finding every type of ruin or every piece of hidden lore there is to find, it might be good to get a reward like an achievement for such a completionist task, but there mustn't be any punishment for not doing it.

43 minutes ago, Erik said:

Exploration focused games like these often utilize the "locks and keys" design pattern, where locks represent challenges to get to new areas and keys the solution to them, often requiring solving other challenges to get them. A simple example would he a cave blocked by an alaskan bull worm you need distract with cake.

That type of "exploration" (really that's just making sure the player follows the prgrammed story line) doesn't work with fully destructable environments. There's something blocking the entrance to the cave? I'll just tunnel around it... It's like putting up a door without walls around it, expecting people to use the door. And the "locks and keys" design pattern doesn't even work with open world games either, as the definition of an open world game is: there are no artificially closed off areas, you might run into areas intended for the lategame right from the start (it's fun playing dungeons backwards starting with the boss fight and going to the entrance enjoying the scenery).

That "lock and key" design is the very definition of linear storytelling and again i'm gonna quote the front page:

Quote

Take on the role of a lost being in the body of a tall blue creature and discover the remnants of civilization. There is no linear storytelling; it is up to you to piece together who you are and what has happened from the little evidence that remains.

So your suggestion to prevent a few players from losing interest in the game (they aren't burning out, they never really catched the spark) is basically abandoning Vintage Story and developing another game instead.

 

48 minutes ago, Erik said:

These ideas however come with a challenge of their own: preventing frustration.

You mean like the frustration of getting promised and advertised an open world sandbox game, and then finding out it's neither open world nor sandbox?

55 minutes ago, Erik said:

This type of exploration challenges of course provides less replayability, [...] The goal isn't to create a game that is endlessly playable, but a game that is fun, even if not endlessly.

The first is correct, the second only partially. A game built without a fixed storyline and with an open world randomly generated is endlessly replayable and can be endlessly playable and fun. A game which betrays the expections that lured players in, is neither fun for them, nor endlessly (re)playable. As long as there's the refund policy we have now, it only will increase the refund requests, which will frustrate the devs leading to the game getting sold off or abandoned, and if the refund policy changes it might lead to a steep increase in negative reviews, leading to even more frustration leading to a higher chance of abandoning it,

[Erik]

33 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

Hence getting rid of it being a sandbox game obviously is getting rid of Vintage Story itself.

I didn't propose getting rid of the sandbox gameplay in any way or form. I'm just suggesting adding environmental challenges and story based reasons to take them on.

39 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

That describes the opposite of a sandbox, which means it doesn't fit a game marketed as a sandbox game. You can set yourself the goal of finding every type of ruin or every piece of hidden lore there is to find, it might be good to get a reward like an achievement for such a completionist task, but there mustn't be any punishment for not doing it.

I also didn't say that these challenges would punish players for not pursuing solving them. I suggest you look at Subnautica. It is in many ways the best example of what I mean. It is even a survival sandbox game (with horror elements), so I don't see any reason why a comparable approach wouldn't work in Vintage Story. Something as simple as starting with a (player class specific) note, talking about an important place in the southern jungle, with some description of the challenges the player would face there and what preparations would be suitable. There would be a rough map marker on the minimap. The player can still chose to ignore the note.

50 minutes ago, Hal13 said:

That type of "exploration" (really that's just making sure the player follows the prgrammed story line) doesn't work with fully destructable environments. There's something blocking the entrance to the cave? I'll just tunnel around it... It's like putting up a door without walls around it, expecting people to use the door. And the "locks and keys" design pattern doesn't even work with open world games either, as the definition of an open world game is: there are no artificially closed off areas, you might run into areas intended for the lategame right from the start (it's fun playing dungeons backwards starting with the boss fight and going to the entrance enjoying the scenery).

There is always the option to just make certain blocks indestructible until the player has "opened the lock", though that requires a lore explanation to not seem out of place, but it is definitely not something that is entirely unthinkable. Though, I rather thought of systematic locks, not actual locks. Think extreme weather like blizzards or sandstorms, areas of extremely high temporal instability. The keys would be things like proper clothing, bringing firewood, proper weapons to defend against enemies, special devices to combat the instability, etc. That the game is set in a randomly generated world posses some challenge for implementing such natural barriers without having every world feel the same, but I don't think it would be that hard to add a huge desert with a unique structure deep inside it somewhere randomly on the map.

Your definition of open world is also very narrow. Is Skyrim not an open world game because you can't access Sovngarde from the start or after you have been there? The only games maybe somewhat included in your definition would be Breath of the Wild and maybe Morrowind (may be very hard to accidentally run into Baar Dau at the start of the game). But things like Minecraft? Arbitrarily closes of the nether and the end, definitely not open world.

1 hour ago, Hal13 said:

That "lock and key" design is the very definition of linear storytelling and again i'm gonna quote the front page:

It would only be linear, if there is only a single lock with a single key (and a single lock behind that lock and only ever one lock behind "deeper" locks). Though that would just be linear progression (which is already a part of the game), the story pieces could just be out of order or even in random order, then it would still be non-linear storytelling. But the reality would most likely be that there are multiple locations the player can tackle in any order, finishing locations often revealing a couple other locations.

I'll quote the roadmap: Procedural dungeons, Add story rich game content, About a dozen main story events, Improved combat, A number of high-stakes boss fights

1 hour ago, Hal13 said:

So your suggestion to prevent a few players from losing interest in the game (they aren't burning out, they never really catched the spark) is basically abandoning Vintage Story and developing another game instead.

You mean like the frustration of getting promised and advertised an open world sandbox game, and then finding out it's neither open world nor sandbox?

The first is correct, the second only partially. A game built without a fixed storyline and with an open world randomly generated is endlessly replayable and can be endlessly playable and fun. A game which betrays the expections that lured players in, is neither fun for them, nor endlessly (re)playable. As long as there's the refund policy we have now, it only will increase the refund requests, which will frustrate the devs leading to the game getting sold off or abandoned, and if the refund policy changes it might lead to a steep increase in negative reviews, leading to even more frustration leading to a higher chance of abandoning it,

Such gatekeeping can only hurt sales. A lot of people really enjoy the game for the exploration, as it is undeniably a huge aspect of the game and already really fun. Survival, sandbox and horror aren't only pillars this game is build on. Furthermore "story" is featured prominently in the name of the game, although not much of it is currently implemented. So not expanding on exploration and story would also definitely "betray the expectations" of many players. Just expanding on another pillar doesn't betray the others.

[Sikandar]

Same complaint No Man's Sky had

Though I think I'd prefer that the survival systems be worked on before the story (fluid mechanics)

Surviving your first winter or two should be the point of the game to start with

[Thorfinn]

What I'm encountering is issues with initial spawn point.

Many of the people I've tried to introduce to the game are not very good at combat, nor at mousing skills. (TBH, my mousing skills leave something to be desired, too, though I'm pretty good at combat.) The fact that they start bare-naked, often within spittin' distance of a wolf, the worst surface enemy in the game, sometimes on the Handbook screen when they die because they have no idea how the game plays, is something of a downer.

Like @Hal13says, it's more a problem of people not getting the spark in the first place.

IMO, it would be better for new characters to spawn into a reasonably safe area (i.e., not wolf domain) like the middle of a plains area, sparse trees, and let them learn the game. Like I said, I'm pretty decent at the game, but it still can be an issue when there's a wolf right behind a small bush who gives no indication of his presence, and you get hit once before you have a prayer of responding. Yes, you can run away at 1/2 health, only to run into another wolf, or you can try to nerdpole your way out of danger, but definitely not something someone new to the game should have to deal with.

This "safe" area should not allow one to get past copper, or maybe even into it. Definitely the better metals should require travel into areas with increasingly worse monsters/mobs.

I don't care if your game progresses through high carbon steel, titanium, vibranium, light sabres, whatever, those should require exploration in increasingly challenging environments.

[Maelstrom]

I think there should be a tutorial world that teaches the basic survival skills - gather essential materials, clay crafting, cooking, quarrying, etc. and ends at smelting copper.  Make a small world (maybe a couple thousand block radius) that has everything needed to get to copper.  Make the game a bit easier, buff player a bit (higher HP, lower hunger) lower wolf aggression some.  Provide pop up bubbles that give direction about what to do, i.e. when player comes near clay bubble informs player that they will need clay to form items, like storage vessels.  Overall it would be the exact same world to help people conquer the huge learning curve.