N EL

Ok so the first few points you make seem to be "X did it bad so it would be bad here" which... i didn't suggest minecraft's repair system, i suggested a different one. Why does it matter that minecraft's repair system is bad? You even bring up the mending enchantment as a reason it's bad but vintage story doesn't have mending so again, i don't get why its being brought up. You follow it up with talking about how the armor in vintage story... currently does something similar to what i suggested but NEVER shatters and how it is a good thing. All the other points come back to your fear it would unbalance the game. You bring up numbers when i didn't and thats where i think the issue comes from. I never said a steel pick should have 10k uses. Just when the durability bar hits 0 it doesn't shatter. I thought the implication was with a major change to the system the numbers would change too. Set it to 500, give it 4 times it could drain and you have 2k uses. Would be less than the current and still have a chance to save a pick thats be used rather than having to start from step 1.

So... is the strawmanning your argument because i didn't include plot relevant stuff? Again, this is an argument that could he used against any update. The only thing you have added is the stipulations that its ok for things "needed to tell the story." Considering one of the preset game modes removes the story i don't see the reasoning story content should get a pass. Also its fine you don't like it, this is a suggestion board so i made a suggestion. You could make a suggestion too, but to me it sounds like you are suggesting nothing ever should be added which is so silly that can't actually be what you really think. This post isn't exactly doing well, I don't think its going to become a thing so you can relax.

That sounds like me like an argument against putting anything in the game. Im not against mods but there are pros and cons to having any mechanic be vanilla or a mod. If its in the game then we get mods built off of it. There is a mod i love that adds handles as an item you need to make as a part of making tools. The problem with it is i have to choose between it and any mod that adds new wood types because they wont have a recipe to make a handle for them. Some mods get compatibility but only the really popular ones like primitive survival. If someone wants to make this idea a mod and thats all I get I can be happy with that. I think it would be a better game overall with this mechanic though, or at least something to solve the problem. This is just my suggestion to do so.

It sounds like it would help but best case would be one of those mods that i wish was just base game. Problem with that is you get updates to the game and then end up having to wait for the mod to update. Already got one of those that also semi-addresses this i am waiting on updating. And then what happens if the mod developer (who keep in mind is doing this for fun and not payment) stops updating for millions of valid reasons?

So you have repairing cost a bit of materials, like it does in real life, instead of ripping off the worst parts of minecraft. Ive found myself nervous to use copper tools long after i have acquired a stockpile of metal, due to the fear of "wasting them." Especially since finding metal is affected by rng do much. Sometimes world spawn screws you and you just struggle finding the resources you need. Balance is such a poor excuse. it implies this is the way it has to be and that no other idea is worth pursuing. I can think of loads of ways to balance this idea if that is really their concern. Durability is not a golden cow too precious to even consider sacrificing.

So i hate the current system of tool durability. You get X amount of uses before what could have had been hours of work disintegrates. Its a mechanic that takes the "realistic means bad" approach to game design that annoys a lot of people. A good well made iron tool could last generations if taken care of. So alternative system i purpose. When the durability hits 0 instead of thanos snapping it, the tool gets a "crack" (cant think of a better word) Some debuff and the durability resets. The debuff persists until it is repaired, and if the durability drains again the tool gets another. Depending on the tier of tool, dictates how many cracks than the tier allows, THEN it can disintegrate. Example: flint axe is tier 0, when it hits 0 durability it shatters completely. Stone tools, you aint reshaping a rock. A Copper axe is tier 1, the durability runs out and instead of shattering it cracks and gets the "blunted" debuff. Now it breaks blocks slower, and the durability is full again. To remove the blunted debuff, a player needs to sharpen the axe head and now its back to tip top shape. If they do not, and keep using the axe until the durability runs out again, the axe then shatters. Iron could have 2 debuffs before shattering, Steel could have 3, ect.

Please note, this is more a thought that COULD lead to a finished idea. Picture a bunch of slots on a crafting bench, each one has a little drop-down menu with options on what you are doing with the item in that slot. Put a slab of beef in and choose slice to make slices of meat, grind to turn it into ground pork, and crush to tenderize it.A possible alternative to the drop-down menu is a "tool" slot, where each tool would have a crafting function. Instead of selecting slice, you place a knife in that slot, hammer for crush, a spook/stick for mix. In an effort to save the players time/headache, I would also suggest some method of "blocking" unusable options. If no recipe calls for slicing a rock, don't let that be an option. Example: player wants to make a pick, it takes a log, a pick head and a nail. The order would not matter, instead the log would need to be set to carve, the pick head set to attach, and he nail set to hammer. Using the tool system, it would just be a hammer set to the nail.

One thing that every survival game I have played has that bugs me is how mechanically I can live in a dark mud hut with a straw mattress eating worms, and be just as well off as someone in a massive castle with silk sheets who eats goose liver every day. So how about adding a "nutrition" bar for Wellness. the idea being it would kind of be a mix of the comfort/environment meters from the Sims games. things that would help your character relax, de-stress that sort of thing. It would give a better use to alcohol which right now functions as food preservation, or giving Honey its own thing to satisfy. it could stop at just adding things like booze or candy, or go on to add using luxurious beds/chairs and such. It would measure the differences between surviving and thriving. I also think it should effect health regen speed rather than total health like the nutrition bars are just to make it a bit different, and make it more a late game reward. Pros: -increases the value of late game/hard to obtain items like alcohols, high quality furniture, plaster walls, or what ever ends up effecting Wellness. -incentivizes moving out of your parents basements and into a castle. -could even be used to punish things. giving gross/unhealthy foods a penalty. right now I cant think of anything in the game that would qualify other than maybe poisonous mushrooms but the health penalty seems like enough. when/if fishing gets added it could be given to earthworms and other fishing bait. Cons: -would be another thing to track. (Maybe add a toggle for it in world settings?) -need to be careful about what does/doesn't affect wellness. Personally would hate to log in one day and find out the latest update decided my favorite building block was "dirty" and now is bad.

Saw on the roadmap that one of the things being looked at is a new crafting system that fits the game better than the Minecraft-esc one we currently have. I had a different game that might be better inspiration. Keep in mind this wouldn't be a change to the systems like clay forming, knapping, ect. those would be left the same in my vision. In Neo scavenger the crafting interface is a large crafting grid. When you go to craft you not only can put on any items you want but you have all of your characters skills as "items" that can be placed on the grid as well. The idea being you put in the items needed, and then the skill to communicate to the game what your intentions are with it. Example: you can put two sticks in the crafting grid and the results would bring up using them to make a longer stick, add the fire starting skill and now the game will make a fire starter with them. It even went as far as making a list of possible results so if you put on the sticks and the skill it would show both possible results and let you pick which one you take. Neo scavenger is an rpg so it would have to be altered to work in Vintage story but I thought about that and had suggestions too. Without a leveling system and thus no skills to earn, I had the idea of unlocking concepts instead. when the player first starts they don't have any concepts or just the most basic ones. when they first pick up a stick or a rock they would get a "tool" concept. this would be used for the obvious assembling tools with sticks and knapped rocks, but two sticks with it would make a Firestarter, or a stick and some string would make a torch. first time they pick up clay they get "brick making" as a concept for making raw bricks, or mix it with stones to get cobble. The idea being that the unlocks would subtly push the idea that the thing the player just got has X use, but reward messing with things still. The big thing is the concepts should be unlocked as a tutorial more than a reward. Don't want the situation of having all the stuff to make a healing salve and not being able to because you didn't unlock the medical concept by getting your hands on linen. Pros -easier to experiment with (player wouldn't need to figure out the specific pattern to make an item they know is in the game, just have the parts and then tell the game what the intention is.) -player can "communicate" their intention with the game. (I want to make a tool, so i put in the tool concept vs I want a wicker chair so I put in the furniture concept.) -multiple items can use the same or very similar recipes. ( displaying all possible results and letting the player click on them to decide which one they want means a chair could be 5 planks, and a book shelf could be 5 planks and even use the same skill.) -easier experimentation. (just throwing in items and concepts to see what the game recognizes, similar to how someone in real life would start putting random stuff together with what they know to try and come up with new ideas.) - could work with a large variety of inventory systems and would not need the Minecraft one. (personally I would prefer a RE4 Tetris like grid system. Neo scavenger almost does it.) Cons - much easier to learn new things, possibly ruining the "hardcore" perception some people have of the game. -would have the pitfall of concepts being too difficult/easy to unlock and each one would probably need tweaking at some point as new recipes are added. (if armor made entirely out of sticks was added, that means the player might have enough sticks to make it but need to first get Leather to unlock the ability to make armor, despite having the items needed to make it.) -infinite possibilities means potentially infinite headaches for dev's. (making my own tabletop game, and while much, much, much easier than a video game they are similar enough I can recognize this is a mechanic that can be tweaked forever without ever being "perfect.") I sometimes have trouble correctly expressing what I mean, so I'd appreciate feedback so I can make it clear. The game I am referencing is not the most popular so the idea kinda needs to stand on my description. I did include a screenshot of crafting in neo scavenger to hopefully make it clear.