Blaiyze

There's a tea mod that I use specifically to be able to make use of the large amounts of flowers. It's super simple and cozy. The original mod creator I think is on hiatus and someone else has picked it up with a forked version.

Honestly, it also helps to study architecture that you actually like IRL. Once you have a good understanding of what things are characteristic of say, Tudor, then it makes it a lot easier to free-flow build. I like to scale things in 5's or 7's for balance and ofsetting but play around with it as well. Look up styles you have a preference for and get to know what features set that style apart from others, then flip through images of that style so you can get a feel for what others have done with it. When it comes to colours and such, really basic colour theory applies here. A good rule is contrasts. If you are using a couple blocks that have say a greyish-blue undertone, then you're going to want to work in some orange or reds to really pop. Too much of the same or similar colours will wash the entire build out. And yes, loooooooads of Minecraft tutorials can easily be adapted for VS and with VS you can have a lot of fun adding extra intricate details that TOBG can't inherently do without extra mods. Happy building!

There's a live fish and aquarium mod if you want to try it out. Otherwise base game just build an aquarium out of glass and fill it, but it will likely be larger than what you're wanting.

Yeah the actual pit kilns themselves have to be surrounded by solid blocks. Most of us with our permanent designs, are building above the actual pit kiln and around. You can place and chisel any blocks you want in the 4 blocks on either side of the pit, but the block immediately above the pit kiln must remain empty to vent the smoke and flames. But the rest of the spaces, except for the ground blocks that form the outer walls of the kilns themselves, are all fair game to build around and have fun with.

I nearly ragequit my first venture into this game too - and it's precisely because I approached Vintage Story with the mindset that I was playing Minecraft. Once I realized my error and settled into the mechanics, and many many deaths (and many more to come) - I find this game is my cottagecore cozy comfort play. It isn't for everyone. If you're looking for something more fast paced, there's other games out there

Yup, I used to chisel little brick chimneys to go over top and around, have two pit kilns side by side with a block in between. Looks really neat when they're both going, esp since I usually do a full blacksmith build in the same area.

Was out for a stroll around my new homestead, saw a mushroom, knew it was a gamble - picked it and ate it anyways. Gotta try 'em all. Immediately began tripping balls. Fabulous. Take two steps forward, and a big ol brown bear stands up, right in front of me. Le shit. Thankfully, I was behind it. It didn't see me. I lived to tell the tale and finish my trip. Wild times in Vintage Story.

I would love to see more in depth ruins and references to the past: VS Archeology anyone? This game is ripe for it. Pan/dig up pieces of broken pottery, etc, which leads to discovering information/landmarks that hint at places to visit/the past/etc. As well as dig up some fun trinkets to wear/decorate with. A few more small villages would be lovely - I know there's already the one story village (yet to discover it so maybe take this with a grain of salt), but a liiiiittle bit more life that give a logical reason for the traders to live out in the middle of nowhere would be nice - perhaps they live along trade routes or something. As is, if there's only one true city left in the world, what money are the traders actually earning by living so isolated from... their customers?

There's several mods that have already balanced it really well IMO. I personally use Sleep Need. To put it into the vanilla game, there would obviously be some balancing and fine tuning done, but it makes sense - especially for animals. Silent and aggressively angry aggro missles aka Bears, can run endlessly without growing tired. Eventually they'll just de-aggro, or if you're lucky and run past a rabbit or fox or something else, the bear may aggro onto them, giving you the time to skedaddle. Refining the hunting system I think would resolve the issue with bears. I play a heavily modded game that addresses a lot of these frustrations, so I don't notice them as much unless someone posts about it.

A lot of these issues would be easily cleared up with a basic stamina mechanic for players and animals. Nothing can run forever and certainly not at a full out sprint, forcing them to eventually slow down to recover. This would feed nicely into updating hunting which is mediocre vanilla without mods as well.

Whenever these conversations come up, inevitably someone snarkily says "jUsT pLaY hOmO sApIeNs" - dude. Many of us WANT the lore content + the cottagecore vibes - stop telling us to turn off aspects of the game we haven't complained about when we're discussing a different aspect of the game that gives some annoyance. That completely shuts down the conversation and adds to the purist mentality bs that isn't conducive to constructive feedback. Bears being unrealistically aggressive would be manageable if, y'know, we were given some tutorial or basic explanation like literally every other game does. I understand it's sandbox mostly atm because, y'know, active development and all that. But bear in mind (pun intended) that there's plenty of people that may haven't interacted with much of the actual lore content, because when you play this game just out-of-the box, it's slow af to progress to the actual story, which is the developers intent. And if there's only one tapestry that you're not likely to come across within your first couple days in-game that gives a vague-ish explanation - then yeah, you missed the mark. The bears sure don't though XD lol My only gripe with bears is that they're too quiet. As mentioned elsewhere, I can hear prey animals from a good distance, wolves announce themselves too, given my personal real life experience with bears - they should be making some noise as well instead of making noise *after* they choose to engage you. I'm really tired of the attitude around here of "game hard on purpose, get gud har har har" because someone made the mistake of opening a discussion/feedback on a public forum... where we're supposed to give feedback.

As someone who lives in a country with bears (black, brown, Kodiak, Grizzly and Polar) - I concur. Bears in this game aren't in the slightest bit, realistic. Bears are more likely to get spooked and run away than they are to outright attack. I grew up hiking in the mountains, I'm fully bear educated. It's why we're taught to make noise when we hike, especially if you're hiking alone - make. noise. It alerts bears to your presence long before you ever become aware of them and it drives them off. The only bears you truly have to be on the lookout for, are mama bears. Literally. They're the most dangerous bears in the bush. And autumn is a dangerous season, as they're eating ravenously to prep for winter, but it's not typical for bears to just full send at you unless you've startled them (even then they'll typically run off), they have cubs, or they're legitimately hungry and they see you as a food source and even the last one isn't a common thing, they prefer their regular diet. If the goal of the game is to keep bears realistic, they've missed that mark. Just speak to anyone that lives where bears are. Bears also aren't quiet, they typically snort and make sounds as they walk along - point is, you should be able to hear them. Bears are a solid, legitimate threat when you decide to engage them in combat, they're fine in that department. It's the silent homing missile angry mach truck mode that can sense you from an obnoxious distance that is a bit much.

Majority of my favourite must have mods are already listed, so I'll add: Ancient Tools: https://mods.vintagestory.at/ancienttools - fantastic for early gameplay Art Of Growing: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/28845 - I don't like the breeding addon so I don't use it, linked to the unofficial version as the OG creator is MIA but unofficial version is being maintained by the person updating it. I can't play without this mod now. This one with Immersive Fibrecraft is just *chefs kiss* Algernons Watersheds: https://mods.vintagestory.at/algernonswatersheds - While I do wish the rivers it creates were longer for decent waterway travel, but even as is this mod makes the world absolutely stunning and makes navigating without a map a lot easier via landmarks, since you are able to visually see where water is just by the plantlife.

It's because of how irrigation and moisture work in game as it currently stands. Trying to handwater a massive grain field is obnoxious especially if you don't have a water source nearby to constantly refill the watering can and without any other reasonable irrigation beyond rain and the watering can, building near water, plopping a water source in the middle of the field, or with the mod I mentioned, dig irrigation canals.

To answer the question: yuuuuup. Big time. This is why I pause time and flip my game into creative and free build my homestead. I live for the cottagecore vibes and just want a cozy home to kick back in and pre-building it before I get going eases that anxiety. Yeah, some will call that cheating but whatever, it's how I want to play. I like having a dedicated place and structure for everything. Like others have suggested, I look up buildings that I want to replicate or take inspiration from and then exptrapolate a bit for what I'll be using it for in game. I do keep a save file for when I want to rough-it vanilla style - or, at least without pre-building everything. But the anxiety very quickly builds up because it just takes an obnoxious amount of time to manually gather all the resources just to build reasonably sized, and aesthetically cute (it's important, ok XD), home base. I've built large structures in MC and VS where I've manually collected and gathered all the pieces myself and I just... it's too much. I just want a cute homestead to tuck into and explore from.

One of the reasons I liked the Primitive Survival mod, was the ability to dig irrigation ditches. Why this isn't vanilla I truly don't understand, considering the relative goal is realism. It's simple, it's effective, not over powered, and gets the job done. All you need is a nearby pond or water source to start the canal and you're good to go. It also occasionally gets blocked up and you have to clear them.

Had this happen in one of my worlds. Thankfully it was enough of a distance away that it wasn't the main forest I was harvesting wood from - was a really neat sight to see. I use a mod that increases drops of tree seeds from leaves slightly, and auto plants them when they hit the ground. I would love to see natural forest regen/regrowth become part of vanilla. Love me a good cleansing forest fire

Worm pie ftw

Where's the interview at?

All fine and dandy, but one of the intentions I read from one of the devs somewhere, was that they wanted the player to spend more time in each tech era, instead of doing what TOBG players do - which is rush the tech progression. And people like to play nomadic. Being nomadic doesn't mean carting around clay pots - why is that playstyle punished and gate kept behind a higher tech tier, when the stated intent from the devs was to have the player spend longer in each tech period? It becomes a little too forcing players down a playstyle pipeline imo. I agree that there should be an accessible, non-clay tier purpose for hide working - which existed IRL - using non rendered fat. It doesn't have to be OP equipment, but something accessible for those that opt to play nomadic for longer than the average player. A sandbox game is all about those options. Keep the rendered fat, it makes sense and I agree that fat should spoil unless processed.

I haven't yet played the new version as I prefer to wait for the stable releases, I do still have thoughts. The TLDR: overall, I like the changes. When I first saw the fertilizer requirement, my initial knee jerk was "oh great, we have to fertilize ALL THE TIME?" and then I saw people who actually have tested it, and I think it's written more specifically in the update (my knee jerk just hopped over this part I think), that the fertilizing is literally once per year. Which honestly, that's nothing. Seriously, I don't see the big deal if it's one slap of bonemeal per year. If it were more tedious, with having to fertilize throughout the entire initial growth of the cutting, I could understand that being a frustration. I've always thought that berries were far too OP early game, but I think they were made that way partially for early game food security. The addition of fishing really bridges the gap. I also prefer the concept of berries ripening and having a single harvest window per year, which is on par with how berries work IRL and simply makes more sense. Especially considering berries became useless pretty quickly once farms were up and running and food stability had been achieved. This makes them more viable long term particularly with the variants. It makes foraging early game perhaps a touch more complex but means actually paying attention to/marking down those berry patches as you explore. I've been wanting to try playing without the map and go in blind being forced to play slower and more focused, so I'm interested to see how the new berries will impact this.

And I gave you an answer. The current version of 1.22 is unstable, there's bugs, glitches, and issues galore. Whether it be your pc or not, the version itself is not yet stable. You don't have to like the answer, that's fine, but that's the reality of the current build.

Ah yes, ye olde Content Creator trying to swing around the wallet proclaiming their word should be worth gold, therefore bend to my whims - argument. Sir, no one here knows nor cares about your streams. Your frustration however is valid - we've all been roflstomped by the silent nuke that is Brown Bears on more than one occasion. Thankfully in the latest update they've at least made it so they make noise so we can hear their approach/presence much sooner than accidentally happening across them and being nuked before you get a chance to respond. Playing as a Hunter will give you the fleet foot to be able to outrun them - which is what I usually play. In your case, might I point you in the direction of the world options where you can tune down animal strength? Not the cleanest resolution but would at the very least, make it so your permadeath runs don't end by being one-tapped. Or you could adjust creature hostility to passive unless attacked/provoked, which would do away with being chased unexpectedly when just exploring in the first place. You came in here d!ck swinging and started with the abusive language and are now "shocked Pikachu face" that you're met with the same level of hostility? You went the dishonor route very quickly. Pot, meet kettle. Consequences for thine own actions.

Ancient Tools is one of the mods that has made it into my 'must have' list - it's truly Chef's Kiss. But you're right, a touch OP alongside vanilla leatherworking but very nice if you weren't lucky with spawn. Combined with the Butchering mod, it tickles exactly what I wanted. No it's not the Seasoned firewood mod, it's Jacks Dryable Firewood which for me, just makes sense. More in-world crafting is the right direction for development to go, which will really set VS even further apart from TOBG.

Honestly, with a game that is already tedious (I'm not saying that in a negative way) with the busy work, adding a minigame to non grid crafting would be way too much and would very quickly annoy players. The obsession with mini games for everything to make people feel as though they're doing the work is an overcooked concept in the gaming world, primarily because the mini games aren't interesting in the least, or add an extra layer of tedium for no reason to games where it otherwise doesn't belong. I feel that, as they move towards more in-world crafting it will feel satisfactory as the entire process doesn't need to touch the crafting grid. The grid is faster in some ways, but less engaging. Once the entire leatherworking process can be done in world (and if you use mods like I do, then it already is mostly in-world) you won't feel the need for an extra mini game to make the entire process feel worthwhile/like you did/accomplished something with the work you put in. Vintage Story is all about the tedium and I like that they've managed to, so far, strike a balance. Honestly, I already play with as many in world crafting mods as I can get my hands on - it feels far more intuitive than opening a screen and farting around with a grid - which honestly is one of the main reason that TOBG annoys me eventually. The crafting grid was a breakthrough for games because none had done it before. Over time however, it gets annoying and tedious very quickly, having to constantly look up recipes. The floor scraping I'm hoping is just step one - it should take a bit longer to do without a stretching frame, and the player could make the frame to scrape hides and it go a little faster. I already play with Ancient Tools which adds a stretching frame and creates a nice process to leatherworking beyond just slapping things into the grid. Another mod I have allows you to craft tools in world by slapping a stick on the ground and then right clicking with the toolhead then right clicking to pick up the finished tool. Simple, effective, feels a lot better than the crafting grid. The more they can move away from the crafting grid, the better IMO as I'm thoroughly enjoying the mods that have already given me a bunch of in-world crafting options. There was a mod I used a while back that created a crafting table that you didn't open with a UI screen, you just aimed and right clicked the items into the grid on the table surface - it was a neat go between for grid crafting and in-world crafting. Honestly, chopping wood in-world is one of my favourites lol. There's something that scratches my cottagecore homesteady itch about it. But I do also play with increased burn times for firewood so that I don't have to chop an obnoxious amount.