Hafthohlladung

I'm not 100% certain what you state is true, for example I've heard stories about developers not being allowed to undercut the Steam price on their own websites.

I think your experience is likely one that is shared by a lot of people, this type of game genre tends to have players potentially investing thousands of hours building up just 1 map. But the unfortunate reality is that Vintage Story is by it's own admission "Early Access" and everytime you start a new map, you have to be mentally prepared that at some point it will not be able to keep up with the progression of the game.

I'm also having a few problems finding surface copper, in my current game I've scavanged enough to make a pick & hammer but struggling to get much else. However 1.18 seems to have increased the amount of gravel in the worldgen (well at least mine) and some of the copper I found came from vast areas of gravel I have nearby. So I think my next strategy is increased panning, as I don't really want to waste my one and only copper pick digging speculative tunnels.

I held off buying for almost a year for the same reason, but then finally took the plunge with my Credit Card. Now I'm glad that it's not on Steam, as it helps preserve it's independant character. The developers seem to being doing just fine without it and long may that continue.

I've never played Terraria, but I think you may have misunderstood what the Roadmap is suggesting. The direction of travel in Vintage Story is moving towards having more crafting be on par with what is already in place for clay/metal working. So for example, I imagine in the future there will be an actual 3D depiction of chopping logs for firewood or sawing logs for boards etc.

I respect that but I suppose there-in lies the point I was making, that currently in some areas the game allows you to play "unproperly" far too easily at the moment. And too many features are opt-in rather than opt-out.

For the first game I started on 1.17, I set Gravity to default because I wanted to concentrate on learning the basics. But after a few weeks I started a new map with 1.18 and set Gravity to wilderness settings. Can honestly say I will never go back to default, it adds so much more to the game whilst forcing you to actually play more properly. I don't know why Tyron doesn't just make wilderness gravity the default and let people opt-out rather than opt-in. It's clear from the building materials list that when you have Packed dirt + Cob available so early, that soil was never intended to be a viable building material apart from maybe temporarily plugging gaps in walls.

As I said in my post, I recognise this would need to be "light touch" to stop it being too burdensome. But even at my suggested max deteriation rate of 3%, these will be tasks that would only need attention about once every 30 days. Plus the same advanced tools and resources you mention could have an additional application of reducing the effects of erosion in certain areas (e.g. Bronze fences?) However, maybe the other solution to this is to enable Drifters and some Animals to actually damage blocks/fences at random intervals. Which would have the added side-effect of hopefully putting an end to the abomination I see on Youtube all too often, of Soil being overused as an early building material. (At the very least people, just craft some Cob!) But anyway, what I feel needs to be the case though is that when you do go off travelling for a few days, hunting for rare resources etc. You then shouldn't be able to automatically assume that on your return to base, that every single block/fence has a 100% chance of being exactly the same status as when you left it days before. There should be some anticipation as you traverse the last hill/valley of what you're going to find back home.

Had the game for a few weeks and enjoying the experience, a real breath of virtual fresh air! However one of the first things that I'm noticing is that currently most building structures are seemingly designed to last forever, and I've looked at the roadmaps etc but it's not obvious that building damage/erosion is something that is planned to be addresed? One area where this seems most apparent is farming, as it seems a bit too easy to just Bunny proof a plot of land, import a load of Terra Preta and then the only thing to worry about going forward is crop rotation. I think most outside objects should be subject to erosion, the speed of which could be influnced by climate & weather. A suggestion might be if Wooden fences incurred about 3% damage per day, which could be reduced to 2% if treated with Wood stain. Drystone walls could also reduce by maybe 1% per day. In addition there would probably need to be a semi-random element to this, to avoid entire fences and walls collapsing on the same day! I realise players might shift to using other tactics to enclose their fields, but if the damage/erosion model was more broadly applied it would limit such workarounds. The problem at the moment is that everything just feels a little bit too static and permanent, and I think a bit more dynamism in the world model would be welcome. But at the same time I recognise this needs to be optional and when enabled also to be "light touch" to not overwhelm the player with constant repair work.