Vincent Morgan

Personally Ithink the last set of changes has been nothing short of spectacular. I updated just in time for a temporal storm and had a great time. Movement speed on open terrain is fair but keeps you on your toes. Haven't tested cave fighting yet, but as long as you don't fight them on uneven terrain you should be fine. The animation change for bladed drifters is absolutely badass and I love every bit of it. A very good example of "Less is more" and makes them more visually distinct. The stat adjustments to the blade seem a lot more balanced now. It's stronger than a vanilla steel sword, and even some modded weapons, but the very low durability makes it feel like a temporary powerup which feels good. It's no longer the end-all-be-all solution to weapon choice, but more of a reward for hunting big game. I wonder if in the future you could expand it in some way, like forging handles onto the blades you get so you can make different weapons. If you think about it, the blade is basically a scrap weapon. You could definitely think about incorporating the weak early-game scrap weapons and weapon kits into the blade somehow. Blade spears? Forging a handle onto the thing gives it more durability? Welding blades to your armor so you can have very punk looking shoulders. Or make yourself a unicorn. Alright, those last ones were a joke. A double headed drifter also did the impossible and dropped two temporal gears stacked together. What a pleasant surprise.

Man, seems like you have a lot of work ahead of you. Wish you the best. And I'd say that you shouldn't worry about not posting for a while. Take your time, because it's a large mod and there have been many updates to the base game mechanics. Kind of like how the slow roast is the most tender, right? Also, that spaghetti texture is very blursed and I love it.

My apologies, I meant for footsteps for NPCs to be added in general by Tyron. I didn't mean for you to add them. And I do know the new swing sounds for drifters, but not what I meant. To me, I just have a hard time evaluating how close I can safely get to a drifter for a swing at them. As in, visually percieve their attack range, because I'm pretty sure that while their models are larger, their reach is the same as it used to be. Maybe I'm just looking way to deep into it, but since the whole point of the mod is to add challenge, I feel it's alright to mention things I feel make said challenge needlessly hard in weird ways. Same goes for speed: I'm not saying what's already in is bad, I'm just spitballing ideas that might improve combat flow even more. And to also make different tiers of drifters more distinct rather than just "Hur-dur I do more damage" And I'm extremely sorry about the damage tiers. I was pretty sure nightmare drifters were a damage tier of 4, but perhaps the latest game version changed that? I've just never liked the idea of having a nightmare drifter chunk off 50-100 durability off of my armor just because it's made of iron, which is literally the second highest tier armor. Thanks and good luck.

Yeah, I understand the desire to not have a "best weapon" and right now the maces have about the same DPS as swords, but with less range. And after the recent combat update range has become a very strong stat. Pernach actually has slightly less damage than the Kriegsmesser because of the swing speed difference. Which seems to go against the usual philosophy I've noticed where more damage means less range. Period accuracy is completely fine, even if by the time you have steel, most weapons are decorative because you've probably explored more than enough. As in, having the weapons be in the endgame only will reduce how used they are. Though I ain't asking for copper sabres or anything. Might be nice to have some more exotic weapons for the iron age then, because the coolest ones currently are steel only. And seax functionality in crafting will be cool to have but I don't think it detracts that much from just how awesome a big knife is.

Been fighting them in both open fields and down in the caves and I keep running into the issue where I keep thinking I'll get hit but then I don't because they have less range than they show. Pretty sure it has something to do with their upscaled size. Makes it difficult to make out how far they actually reach, which while I can deal with, really drives home the point that they might be a bit too large for their own good. Tainted and corrupt drifters still feel alright, but nightmare and double-headed ones are way too big. Because of their size, they also feel weak somehow, because they don't take that many hits to bring down (Compared to what their size would imply). But making them any tankier would make them annoying to fight. Instead of looking more intimidating because of how large they are, they instead feel more fragile than they should be and it makes judging how far they can reach harder than it usually is. I think that cutting the size increased in half across the board would only do good for the player. The eyes on the nightmare drifters is a really good addition. It's both creepy but also makes it really clear which drifter is a nightmare one from very far away. I think that's good design. For now double-headed drifters are also easy to tell apart from a crown simply because of how large they are. The new sounds are far less annoying than the vanilla ones, but sometimes they still play way too often. Though this is a hard issue to tackle because while I hate having drifters moan outside my doors, I need to hear them while I'm down in the caves otherwise they keep sneaking up on me. I really wish footsteps for animals and drifters get added already. The speed increases to drifters could be reduced as well, especially for the highest tiers. I'm not saying they're too fast in general, you can outsprint them even in plate armor. Issue is that it caves, you have pretty much no time to react or run away from a nightmare drifter. Combine that with the fact they do a ton of damage and have a ton of knockback, it feels a bit cheap. Even more so if they fling you into lava, which they can definitely do. You see nightmare drifters around pools of lava mostly anyway. And while I don't mind double-headed drifters having a damage tier of 5, increased the damage tiers of the rest is a really good way to make me NOT want to fight them because I spent far too long on my armor set to have it thrashed after 5 hits from a nightmare drifter. It feels like you're being punished for having a good armor set because you still take a lot of damage (Lets not forget steel armor is protection tier 4) and your armor also gets shredded (Steel not so much, but 250 durability off of iron per hit is stupid). If people want drifters to do more damage, they can use the creatureStrength value for that. Bumping their damage tier up only punishes players that decided to invest in a set of armor so they don't have to constantly run away and instead take a hit or two. This doesn't apply to the double-headed ones which I think spawn only during temporal storms so I see them as boss encounters. Asking players to make steel armor only so that they have a set that will last against nightmare drifters doesn't seem very cash money. Especially with how hard and slow getting steel is.

Maces from AnMiTech have a range of 2m and they don't really suffer from bad hitreg. Well, I do get fluke hits but that happens when you try to joust enemies and sometimes get a visual hit but no damage dealt. This actually happens with everything, vanilla swords too and before the combat update, but since they have a range for 2.5m players tend to not swing on the very edge of their range so the window for these ghost hits is much smaller.

I've been really enjoying the new weapons, especially the maces. High damage and short range makes for some fun high risk, high reward gameplay. Though it seems that they didn't recieve any damage increase after the latest update, despite retaining the original swing speed since they're based off of the wooden club. Right now there isn't much point to using them because while they do more damage per hit, they're slow to swing so they're only slightly stronger than other weapons. Which would be ok, if they weren't offset by having just two meters of reach. Not much point to using a Pernach when you could just have a Kriegsmesser, which does only slightly less damage once you do the math while having 0.7m reach more. I had made a patch for myself where I bumped the damage of all weapons by 25% and maces felt pretty good. 25% for the other weapon types was a bit too much though. Also is it on purpose that iron is lacking some weapons that steel has? In general some metals seem to be lacking weapons that they could have, like the Messer, Katzbalger and especially the Seax. Seax knife is iron and meteoic iron only, no steel and no bronze. The seax also can have a bone handle only if it's made out of iron. And I sadly found out that the seax can't be used in crafting recipes that use a knife, like rash matting and the such. Not trying to powergame or anything, I can adjust values myself if I wanted to. Just asking if this is for some historical accuracy or something. Thanks for the very sleek looking weapons. Using the same vanilla sword for the entire game was getting very tiresome so your mod is a mainstay for me.

Oh, I wasn't saying that the previous skills in Blacksmithing should be removed because Master Smith makes them not needed once you get it. It was more of a note in just how strong the skill is. Not sure how you would nerf it while keeping the same functionality, because even if it moved no more than a single voxel it would be just as good. Also always take my suggestions about what level a skill should be with a big grain of halite because I do play with increased experience gains. Reduced experience from helve hammers is nice for balance, most people will get their rank up by working with them anyway. About Duplicator working on plates: I was just relaying it in case it was unintended. Sorry about missing the discussion on it, I didn't read through all 30 pages. It's absolutely fine to have it work as it does now and the expenses needed to "abuse" it would definitely deter people from doing it. I don't really know enough about the code behind smithing so I don't know how to reduce randomness with the Quality skill. And my impression of how much durability it gives could be skewed because I play with double durability and don't know if the ability takes that into consideration. +600 extra durability at quality 5 is nothing to scoff at for something you get pretty much for free, so I might just be tripping. And as for the resulting durability when using sticks: I didn't mention I also play with AnMiTech and some of the weapons there use resin and leather to craft so I apologize for reporting something that's a mod interaction. Then again, the three pieces of plate armor I made (using plates with the exact same quality and chains with the same, but lower that plates quality) resulted in armor pieces with 3 different qualities. It probably has something to do with the amount of chains and plates used per crafting recipe. Chestplate had the highest quality and helmet the lowest, though that might actually be a good thing because chestplates get hit the most often. Anyway, it was an incomplete and messy report on my part so I'll test it out some more so that I can give you more accurate info. Also yes, bombs do often make ores drop three pieces.

Definitely makes combat and looting drifters a lot more enjoyable, though I feel like the speed increase could do with some tweaking. If not else, it makes the higher tier drifters match what their walk animation would imply even less than usual. Interestingly, the speed difference between drifters actually makes fighting groups easier because they don't become one large blob of pain but instead split into smaller groups. I'll actually count that as a win for the mod, because fighting groups of drifters is never mechanically fun. Have you ever tried to flip the speed bonuses? Making weaker drifters faster while leaving the harder ones slow. It could change the feel of combat, where strong drifters are even more like bosses that dish out damage but can be dodged, while weaker ones act like ads during said bossfight that pester you. Same goes for how often they throw stones. Stronger drifters prefer to focus on using their weapons while weaker ones would rather toss a handful of stones first before going in. The (very) recently increased sword damage does offset the health increases you've applied so that's needing to be updated. As long as they don't become too tanky, it should be all good. Having to hit a drifter more than 6 times (with a steel sword) is very tedious, even with the decreased max group sizes. The dropped blades are nice, though I feel like their durability is still way too high for the damage and range they have. And I tend to get between 1 and 2 every temporal storm, so spreading an average of 900 hits over 10-12 days isn't hard at all, even if I spelunk for the majority of them.

Alright, my bad on the report about bombs. They work just fine, actually sometimes making ore drop 3 pieces and not just two.

Seems like Duplicator works on plates. I assumed it wouldn't because plates can be broken down with a chisel and resmelted. Also Blaster seems to be not applying to bombs properly, at least with what I've tested which was native silver in quartz. To elaborate: I noticed the way bonus drops work is that you still get a single item being dropped visually but when picking it up, it gives you two items. (I think it just makes two items drop stacked together?) But with bombs I haven't seen it happen after multiple tests. I'll try and test if Blaster instead makes ores simply drop two separate items instead of the way it normally works when I find the time to.

I've been playing with the mod for a few days and I have to say it's amazing. It's a lot of fun and has made me do things I wouldn't bother with otherwise, just because of the promise of cool abilities. Before I continue, I must say that I'm playing with double experience because I wanted to sort of "catch up" to the time I've spent playing without it. I also allowed myself to specialize in all skills, because since I'm playing solo, I have to do everything. Also all the cool skills are locked behind the specializations, which is a cool concept but I'm grateful for the ability to change the limit in the config files. Some feedback: Master Smith is incredibly strong. The fact that it needs Metalworker is the one thing that would keep it in check on a multiplayer server. It makes Heating Hits, Finishing Touch and Automated Smithing obsolete. You can work anything and everything in mere seconds without breaking a sweat and it's lovely. I do understand that working the hammer is a skill one must learn and improve on, but by the time you get Master Smith you're probably a bit tired of moving voxels around manually so it actually avoids boring repeated gameplay. I would still consider increasing its level or something to make it a bit harder to get. But at this point, on solo play, I can't live without it so I'd say it's the best skill out of the entire tree. Helvehammers still let you get experience. Not sure if intended, but I was happy to find that out because even with double experience I still needed over half a year of working with nothing but iron and steel to get to level 11. And before Master Smith getting that much experience working nothing but blooms and plates is very grindy. The Blacksmith skill quality feature is nice, if a bit RNG. The durability bonuses, at least up to quality of 5.0 aren't anything special but I would still need to make higher level ones to really be able to tell. The biggest thing about it is that I've found a way to get very high quality plates. When making plates, if you have two plates of a differing quality in your inventory, their qualities average out, which I assume is the intented way of dealing with stacking plates of different qualities. But on the other hand, if you put a plate down on the ground, any other plates you stack on top of it will inherit its quality in full. As in: If you put a plate with a quality of 2.34 on the ground and then stack a plate with a quality of 5.15 on top of it, then take both plates from the stack both will be with a quality of 2.34. This works the other way around as well, which has let me get 30+ plates with the exact same quality of 5.15. You just put the highest quality plate on the ground and then stack the rest on top of it. All the while you check each new plate you make to see if it has a higher quality which, if it does, you make a new stack on the ground with it and then toss all your other plates on top to upgrade them. Speaking of quality, one issue I have with it is that if even if I make a sword blade with a quality of 5.0, the fact that I then need to craft it with a stick which has no quality whatsoever, results in a sword with a quality much lower than what I had. It's rather disappointing. Huge Stomach, Beemaster, Master Smith and Canteen Cook are the best abilites to ever exist, hands down. I think you've spoiled me and I wouldn't be able to play without them. Addendum: I forgot to talk about Geologist. That skill is also incredibly strong. At max level it's a propick integrated into a normal pickaxe. I feel like it should instead either enable the secondary tool mod for prospecting picks or simply transferring the currently existing functionality from the normal pickaxes to them. Having it as what's pretty much a passive ability might be a bit too strong and it would be cool to have some extra functionality on the prospecting pick instead of the normal one. Another thing about Geologist is that it loves to spam your currently open chat window with messages, even if you've already found the ore. Here's some suggestions: 1. Limit the Geologist readings to the Info chat window only. Currently it posts in whichever window you have open which can drown out general chat. I know that in singleplayer you don't use chat a lot but I think it belongs in the Info window anyway. 2. If the ability remains on the normal pickaxe, maybe let the player choose when to trigger it. The normal pickaxe has no special functions when holding the crouch or sprint buttons so maybe have it trigger when having one of them pressed? Though that might just make the ability too annoying to use since you have to either crouch or sprint, which players either do for other reasons or wouldn't want to do every time they want to use Geologist. 3. If the ability is moved to the prospecting pick, it could either be done by enabling the already existing but disabled feature on it. Though as far as I'm aware that mght require a world/server restart so maybe just moving what's already in the mod could be just as good. In a way, moving it to the prospecting pick would nerf it because people would have to stop, change pickaxes and test instead of just having it on all the time. Honestly, even with how strong it is, you could argue that's a good thing because otherwise looking for ore is either spelunking, which not everybody likes to do, or a literal crapshoot in the dark where you hope you hit something and Geologist makes it a lot easier. 4. Since Geologist readings are very short-lived you could, instead of putting them in the chat window, make them print out as the red text that shows up when you can't place something down. The one in the bottom middle of the screen, above the hotbar.

Before anything else, great mod. I love the look and feel of it. Long story short: If this gets incorporated into vanilla I wouldn't be able to tell because it's just that in-tune with the original game. As for the AI issues, it's not much but after updating to 1.16 all animals seem to sometimes ignore any hits they recieve and just go on about their day. This includes vanilla animals as well as using melee weapons. Before 1.16 you could maybe punch them once to no reaction, but anything more would trigger something. Now I can go up to a bighorn or a boar, stab it and have it just sit there. My headcannon is that they're too weak to even run for their life, but that's just because it's winter.

Thanks for keeping this updated. It makes the world feel more dynamic and corrects some odd behavior, such as wolves letting other animals sleep right next to them. Interestingly it also makes hunting a bit harder, while also giving you the occasional warning that a wolf is in the area because animals keep running away from it. Feels just right. I assume the behavior changes apply immediately to all animals? As in, you won't have pre-existing animals running about with the old ones. I know it makes sense that's how it should work, but I have to make sure. Also, I suppose the mod is safe to remove if ever necessary?

Ditto on Survival skill not gaining any experience. Everything else seems to work fine for now. All other skills gain experience properly and no crashes in any capacity, tested for over several hours in singleplayer. On a side note, I'll admit I haven't checked all the pages here to see if this has been asked already but, does "Exclusive" mean you're able to pick only a single skill from a tree to rank up to level 3? If yes, have you planned on ever making it possible to remove the limitation via a config option? And just because "Happy Meal" can be this risky to use, I think I'll just skip over it. I'd toss the idea to make an alternative version of the skill that does something else for the people who want to max the skill out but don't want to risk future problems but I'm just spitballing. Thanks for the quality mod. It's a breath of fresh air to my ongoing save. Kudos for continually updating it. RE: Survival skill. I'm using the v0.6.6 version.