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In my eyes I think this mightn't be the best idea, since for it to actually work like this you'd need to remove clothing repair from everyone except tailor. Clothing repair is already something tailor has a 25% efficiency bonus to, and taking that ability away from everyone else would make a big incentive for ruin hunting and trading lategame (finding/buying unique clothing) basically useless if those clothes couldn't be repaired. Story locations and ruins would become less interesting since clothing is a big part of their loot, and things like Nadiyan fur would be a painful gear sink to maintain - you'd have to spend around 100 gears per set each time it degraded to buy an entirely new one. The only way I could see removing repair being an okay design choice would be if clothing traders and the Nadiyan tailor could repair clothes for you at a cost, but that's just less convenient, impossible for Homo Sapiens players and less interesting than having to ration out linen sheets for the repairs yourself. Personally I think that the current repair system is pretty fine, considering that non-tailor Seraphs know how to make things like windmill sails, boat sails, and basic gambeson. It makes sense that they could use those basic sewing skills to fix up clothing, but not make entirely new clothes aside from a handful of basic/survival-oriented things like the homespun set, rawhide set, fur set, fur-lined vest and arctic hunter set, among a couple others any class can craft.

The classes all get unique NPC interactions at a certain point in the story, and have a few special dialogue choices. Assuming there will be more of this in the future, I think classes might help add to the replay value of the main storyline by having slight differences/different paths to take. They're all shown to be somewhat established characters with their own backstories, though left vague enough that the player can project personality onto them and fill in the finer details themselves. In terms of balance though, I do agree there could be changes made. Some classes feel a little weak compared to the more powerful ones like Hunter and Blackguard. Tailor especially feels very arbitrary to me, since their perks are all to do with the crafting grid and stat screens rather than actual gameplay.

Oddly enough the waterwheel (and windmills) use the "generic wood" texture, rather than the normal oak. It's strange, since other mechanical power parts use the normal debarked oak texture. I'd actually really like if waterwheels and windmills used debarked oak, so they could blend in to other connected devices a little better.

I've talked about this before in another thread of mine, but I thought I'd make a separate post for discussion about this and how it could potentially be fixed. I have also put this info on the bug tracker, since it seems a bit strange and unbalanced to me. Anyway, clothing balance in 1.22 seems a little all over the place. It's kind of got me thinking about how the warmth system might be due for an overhaul at some point, perhaps with the future addition of status effects. There's only so much you can do with the current warmth system, where the difference between +2 and +3 degrees on a clothing item is a big progression point. One of the main things breaking the balance of warmth in 1.22 is the new grass clothing. For 8 dry grass per piece, you can craft grass pants and a grass shirt. Both are worth +2 each, totalling at +6 if you are wearing the grass shirt, grass pants, straw hat and straw sandals. Considering these are so cheap to make, it seems strange to me their warmth matches that of rawhide, the previous inexpensive clothing option. As I touched on in another post, I think a decent solution would be reducing this to either +1 or +1.5 per piece instead of +2, and also potentially having their niche be in providing some rain protection despite the lack of warmth. Speaking of rawhide, the rawhide tunic has been added, a shirt slot item that costs either 4 small pelts or 2 medium/large/huge pelts. It gives +3 warmth, which surpasses the previous best shirts in the game, Nadiyan fur. The previous +2.5 shirts were difficult to get and required story progression, but now a +3 is only a few hides away. This one I think could be fixed just by changing it to +2, in line with nearly every other shirt in the game. The fur-lined vest is also a +3 shirt, though it requires both leather and pelts to craft. This one I think is okay, since the leather cost means the player will likely have barrels before making it, but I think it is strange to be a shirt slot item. All other vests in the game are coat slot, which allows you to wear a shirt underneath as you'd expect. I think this could be fixed by making the fur-lined vest a coat slot item, allowing it to function as an aesthetically different option to the fur coat for the same warmth. (Seriously, the fur-lined vest looks so awesome, this would be a go-to clothing item for me if I could just wear a shirt underneath it!) Another smaller thing I noticed was that the new broadbrim hat (which I really like by the way, it's the closest thing we have to a cowboy hat ) only offers +70% rain protection, despite the size of its brim. It is larger than something like the small bamboo cone hat, which offers +85%. I think it could probably stand to be changed to +85%, or even +90%. It is quite large, after all. One thing I do really like in regards to 1.22 and new clothing warmth is the arctic hunter set. It's a new winter set that can be crafted by any class, and offers some of the best warmth in the game. The shirt is +3.5, the parka is +4, and the pants are +4. However, it requires cinnebar to craft, which can be a difficult resource to find. I think this balances it out nicely, offering a quality winter set lategame for players who don't want to do the story content, or don't want to spend their gears to buy Nadiyan fur. Anyway, that's what I've noticed of 1.22's clothing warmth values! Let me know what you think about all this, or how you think it could be improved/changed, if you think it should be.

I've been thinking about swamps and marshlands recently as well. I think they'd just be a really cool area to pass through, especially if they had unique environmental challenges like mud that slowed you down. Honestly, more varied environments would be really fun, if they are dependant on climate/temperature/rainfall/etc. Much like VS' deserts and gravel lands I imagine you'd only get swamps and marshes in very wet areas with the right conditions. I also think being caught out in the rain for extended periods should probably be a bit of a bigger deal than it currently is, incentivising you to make camps to rest or warm up, as well as coming packed with a decent hat or poncho. Prolonged exposure to the rain only makes you freeze if temperatures are already very low, and at that point it's more likely to be snowing than raining.

The problem with spears in 1.21 was mostly that they weren't just a reliable all-round weapon, they were the best weapon in the game by far, with bronze spears outclassing steel falxes in terms of DPS. To me the spear changes have felt okay from the small amount I've messed with them, and even with their now reduced damage, you could get that back up with the new quenching and tempering system. The main change has been that their windup to throw is considerably longer, so you can't shotgun them at enemies and rapidly deal insane amounts of damage.

Honestly I think dry grass clothes could be better put to use as rain protection. Have the shirt worn in the coat slot, and provide some level of rain protection with the tradeoff of not being very warm. Dried grass raincoats were a real historical thing, after all!

Just another odd balance thing, has anyone else taken a look at the grass shirt and grass pants? They're both +2 warmth each and only require a handful of dry grass to craft, which means they outclass the majority of clothing in the game through virtue of being decently warm and extremely inexpensive. I feel like if they were reduced to +1 each or +1.5, that would fit a lot better into the balance. Otherwise I can see a large amount of players only ever bothering to remake endless grass clothes every winter, not even bothering with rawhide, the previous cheapest option.

The 1.22 warmth values are kind of all over the place right now in terms of balancing - the rawhide tunic for example is a whopping +3 degrees in the shirt slot (better than Nadiyan fur) while also being very cheap to craft earlygame. (I know I mentioned both this and the fur vest earlier, but they both stand out to me the most. The fur vest really should be an upperbodyover / coat slot item instead of a shirt, as all other vests in the game can be worn over the top of a shirt like you'd expect). It's interesting to me that the tailor's new embroidered fur / arctic fisher boots aren't as good as reindeer herder shoes, I suppose that's because the shoes need cinnabar. Still, the whole cinnabar thing is a bit arbitrary in itself, considering red dye was not an uncommon luxury in the irl middle ages.

Yeah, I get that. You're right, it's just tricky to think of a way to balance tailor that makes sense when some fancy clothes can be crafted by any class - I think really the root problem is that tailor is the only "job" class, entirely focused on exclusive items rather than actual gameplay, but that would be hard to remedy without a proper weaving system or a total tailor rebalance, which seems a bit extreme. Another option would be gating some of the fancier options available for everyone behind tailor, but that just gives most players less choice overall and isn't really fun in any regard. Something else interesting is that tailor is slowly losing the one gameplay aspect they used to have - making warmer clothes than everyone else. They already lost most of that when Nadiyan fur was introduced in 1.20, though that was latergame story-gated. Now though with the arctic hunter set and some of the warmth values on the new clothes, tailor really only makes extra cosmetic choices rather than especially warm clothes. (Some of the new clothes feel like they need a balance look-over, the rawhide tunic is very cheap to craft but is one of the second warmest shirt slot items in the game, at +3 degrees. The fur-lined vest is another +3 degree item, but it goes in the shirt slot instead of the coat slot like you'd expect. I hope they move it there, since then it could be a fur coat alternative with identical stats, and would allow players to wear a shirt underneath it). EDIT: I will say though, I am very glad that all classes have the arctic hunter set. It feels to me like it rounds out winter progression a bit more, since it's a very warm set you can craft with rare materials (cinnebar) that offers an alternative to Nadiyan fur.

Just thought I'd make a discussion about this and ways that it could be changed, because to me tailor in 1.22 feels even more arbitrary than before. Quite a few new clothes have been added, some crafted by anyone and some being locked behind the tailor. The strange part is that there are three new winter sets you can craft (arctic hunter, arctic fisher, embroidered fur) which all share identical stats, aside from arctic hunter being crafted by anyone and the other two being tailor-locked. All three feature embroidered/decorated parts, and to me at least it just makes tailor feel even more like a strange restriction. Why can my Seraph make one pair of fancy fur boots, but is completely locked out of another similarly fancy pair without being a tailor? I think one way this could be remedied if anyone could make any clothing that is usually gated behind tailor, but needed to spend more resources and acquire a sewing kit from traders. That way the tailor is more resource/cost efficient, but there's no arbitrary locks on random items. Let me know what you think though, and if you have your own thoughts about this!

As LadyWYT has already said, there are rare multi-trader outposts, which are really cool. I like the new dwellings a lot, as well as the remodelled traders. Their scrappier post-apocalyptic look fits the vibes of the ramshackle houses a lot more than the old trader models did, since they looked like they were doing decently well for themselves. I hope their outfits become obtainable by stable release, since internally they are all Seraph-sized and then cropped a little to fit on the traders. I asked Saraty, and she said she hoped they'd have time to implement that, though couldn't confirm it since it would be a last-minute addition. Still, with any hope, they might add the trader clothes to the stocklists while they're adding the other new clothes to the stocklists. You can make crude ladders out of sticks, which aren't woodtyped and will all stack together, but yeah I can get that it might be a little annoying for certain players to have the board ladders of different woodtypes not stack. Personally I like the woodtyped ladders quite a lot though, since now ladders finally match with the woodtyped trapdoors.

They do, yeah. Monsters don't care about claims or defences at all during storms. I was pretty much just saying this behaviour is inconsistent with the lore, where defences are established as being important against storms despite not being that way in actual gameplay.

That's fine lol, I wasn't trying to have the lore win you over or anything. You've already well established you don't care about it.

I actually really agree with this point. Something I like about VS' lore is that despite the horror themes, some of the lore books paint a picture of the remnants of humanity banding together to face the darkness, regardless of their backgrounds or social class. It's things like that where VS establishes that one of its main themes is human spirit / tenacity, as opposed to other similar horror themed games where humanity might be portrayed as divided or irredeemable.

This part below: Basically "lore direction is good, but if a game can do fine without it, that's also good".

I kind of just said "lore is good, but also games without lore can be good too". Agree to disagree then, though.

All good. I think even if lore totally doesn't matter to some players, it's still important in holding the overall tone and setting of a game. With no lore to shape direction, games can sometimes feel random or chaotic, though there isn't anything necessarily wrong with that if they handle the lack of lore/worldbuilding direction well enough. The lore of VS isn't for everyone though, luckily they do offer settings to disable lore content if you aren't a fan. Still, the devs (and a good chunk of the playerbase, myself included) do care about it, so it's good in my eyes the traders are much more fitting of it now.

Oh I wasn't talking about the ladders at all, just your comment on the vibes of the architecture. I don't really care about the ladders either way, though do know that not all trader houses have them. The underground bunker ones do, but the forest huts, stilt huts, desert huts and arctic huts don't have ladders.

The architecture is more supposed to convey the idea they they're struggling to survive in the wilderness, Elvas mentioned that in one of the devstreams where he was building them. Shelters that would be decently quick for a group of traders to cobble together in a week or so, while being practical and defensive enough to live in somewhat longer term. He also mentioned that another reason the huts are so thrown-together looking is that while they wanted the new trader dwellings to be more detailed than the wagons, they didn't want to overshadow the landscape or player builds. Elvas repeatedly mentioned this when adding random beams to the builds and small holes in the roofing, that he didn't want to make them "perfect" so that players who aren't the best builders wouldn't feel put to shame by the structures dotted around the world. The old wagons weren't quite lore accurate, since they portrayed the traders as travelling nomads doing well for themselves, as opposed to the scrappy, ragged traders of pre-5. The rare multi-trader outposts in 1.22 seem to be doing better for themselves, since they have things like proper fireplaces with brick chimneys, paintings, thatched roofing, etc.

I agree with the fact the lore is very important and can hold sway over game mechanics, but at the same time canonically storms seem different from what we experience in gameplay. This to me seems like evidence toward storms canonically acting more like raid events, where monsters would spawn at a distance and then try to find their way into the settlement. If storms functioned in the lore like how they do in gameplay, all of the defences shown in the 1.22 trader huts and that certain spoilery location would be useless since monsters could spawn inside the walls/fort. There's a clear mismatch here with how storms are portrayed in the lore and how they actually function in gameplay, which is a bit unusual for VS when otherwise the game likes to have lore content and gameplay match up nicely. To me it seems like the storms are more of a placeholder mechanic, since I'd expect one day eventually they'll be overhauled to match their canonical counterparts. At least, I hope they are.

As far as I know, they won't. They were added because Elvas wanted players to have a way to light up the dynamic dungeons with torch holders, but since dungeons aren't claimed like story locations are he also didn't want to give players access to a whole lot of functional torch holders for only visiting a single dungeon. The ruined ones allow you to light up the dungeons, but don't break game balance since they shatter when broken.

Honestly I think integrating the idea of a potential herbalist class into the Malefactor would be an interesting way to give them a definitive lategame buff, even if it might not be the strongest out there. Since they're already foragers, herbalism might be a decent fit given their existing knowledge of plants. Alchemy is a system I can see potentially being like smithing - something the devs might want all classes to engage in equally, and so might opt not to have a specific alchemist class who is any better. I have no idea if this will be the case when alchemy is added, but I do wonder if they might choose to go that route. Alchemy is very important to the lore after all, so it'd make sense if it could be used for a variety of useful things.

I saw these yeah, I'm really excited. The sheepskin vest might be my favourite shown here, but they're all great. I wonder which ones will be crafted, which found and which bought. I asked in the Discord and they said they wanted the hose craftable, though I'd also guess the tunics will be too since they come in all the colours, same for the chaperons, though I don't know if they'd tailor-lock those or not.

I accounted for that yeah, the word "cloth" Elvas searched in the upcoming pre4 had 277 search results, while the same search for "cloth" in pre3 had only 100. This means that some 177 items with "cloth" somewhere in their name, description or file name (if unnamed) have been added between pre3 and pre4. Exciting!