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I like this idea, and to add onto it wonder if it'd be interesting if palisades couldn't be placed on top of stone. Maybe not things like stone bricks since that might limit player freedom to build, but specifically raw and cracked rock. I say this because that way the classic cheese of placing fences in caves to wall off monsters would require a bit more time to pull off, since suitable blocks would have to be placed first and then palisades.

This kind of thing would be really nice. I never noticed it when I was a new player, but over time I've slowly come to realise just how disjointed the temporal mechanics are, in a game that usually does a great job at interconnecting its systems. Rifts spawn monsters, but so does darkness underground. Temporal storms spawn monsters, but without darkness or rifts. Monsters can't normally spawn in lit-up areas, aside from during temporal storms. Having low stability spawns monsters, but without rifts. Low stability surface areas as far as I am aware do not have a chance to have higher rift activity, since rifts and instability are not connected. There's three main systems here (rifts, storms, surface instability) that you would think would all be linked in some way, but they aren't really. Darkness and rifts are at least connected, though darkness isn't connected to storms and instability.

While a body type option would be fun (and the game supports such things, as seen with the clothing the traders wear - they're internally Seraph-sized, but trimmed down to fit the trader model) I also think just giving certain clothes 3D detailing could also go quite a long way. Some jackets/coats having the sleeves flair slightly at the ends instead of just being flat, more gloves being worn over the sleeves and given 3D geometry, etc. Quite a few of the gloves feel too flat to me actually, things like fur gloves and the different craftable mittens should probably be worn over the top of sleeves (unless the sleeves belong to something that would realistically be bulkier itself, like a fur coat or parka).

Even if so, I'd imagine it would still have been a lot - the merchant set description makes mention that the Hansa had to charter a massive amount of goods and refugees. Given that the Commoner is also described as a refugee, I think the "goods and refugees" described were those going toward the Grand Machine, or at least the large shelter civilisation that developed around it. In regards to food underground, it does seem to have been incredibly valuable. The most abundant resource found in the fortified "vaults" of the dynamic dungeons is rot, which would have once been foodstuffs. There is also some evidence of attempted farming underground, a small handful of ruins have areas with fences, troughs, aged hay and animal bones.

I also wonder if Malefactors could hold off longer before feeling the effects of starvation (assuming hunger and starvation are to become status effects rather than a flat HP drain when the bar hits zero). Given their expeditions to the surface and criminal background, it'd make sense if they were more used to going without food for a longer time as opposed to a class like the Clockmaker or Tailor who worked a trade. I always thought it was weird the vessels dropped stone tools - back when I was a new player I thought this implied the ruins were left behind by some other stone/copper age civilisation, but I soon learnt that no, most ruins are supposed to come from the old world. In a society that had Jonastech and steel production, I doubt anyone would really be using stone or copper tools unless absolutely necessary. Personally I think your idea of them dropping scraps could make more sense, or even dropping rusted/corroded tools. It'd make more sense for tool vessels to drop things like heavily corroded knives and axes that are just as functionally bad as stone, but aesthetically different and more thematically fitting.

I think a proper stealth system could help Malefactor out a lot, and incentivise their 'scout/stealth' playstyle by giving players options to avoid/sneak around combat encounters. I'm unsure about this one, as I think it leans a bit too far into restricting gameplay considering just how important flax is in this game. Windmills, armour, repairing clothes, sailboats. The Malefactor also seems like one of the classes with the most theoretical survival skills - realistically the tailor might be better at weaving fancy things, but the Malefactor's whole shtick is supposed to be that they're an adapt improvisor, capable of working with what they've got. If anything, the class that makes the most sense to get crafting debuffs would be the Blackguard, since they are described as "not having the talent for delicate work". I think it'd be nice if this was the aspect leaned into further for the Malefactor - alternate recipes for certain items, and maybe even a few outright new ones. I like your ideas of them being able to use nettle for certain flax recipes, as well as moss for early healing. I had an idea a while back that the Malefactor should be able to make upgraded (bronze-tier) versions of the current vanilla metal scrap weapons, that are copper tier, which would also tie into their ruin-hunting traits. You mentioned adding more scrap tools for them to use, and I think that'd bring some unique options to the table.

I also think a doctor class could be fitting, but I do also wonder if some medical gameplay could be integrated into the Tailor. I say this because the tailor blouse has faint pink staining, consistent with other bloodstains in the game (barber surgeon apron, Nadiyan barber gloves), along with the description of "artisans provided what assistance they could and plied their craft when able". Together to me this kind of implies the Tailor might have also been stitching up the wounded in emergency situations. I think a herbalist class could also potentially be integrated into Malefactor, given they already have the "forager" trait. Forlorn Hope knight I've always been unsure about, given that the Blackguard already covers the melee/fighter playstyle. I think the only way they could offer unique gameplay would be if they had more to do with alchemy or the sciences. The Forlorn Hope were also scholars, so they might usurp the role of a Noble class, unless the Noble was explicitly something of a challenge class.

Honestly, right now I don't think they really have all that much of a point. This is totally subjective, but I assume the reason for them to exist gameplay-wise (they make sense within the lore, but I mean from a purely 'why is this a mechanic' perspective) is probably to nudge the player towards gearing up, especially since they gradually get more severe the longer you play in a world. With their current implementation though, this kind of falls apart. They're easy enough to cheese, and they're so unpredictable that hiding yourself in a dirt box and waiting them out is usually the far safer option. They also don't encourage you to interact with building at all, since monsters spawned by storms will ignore things like valid rooms, lighting and proximity to the player. I think they're also tricky to design though, since you'd want some way to encourage the player to gear up without having to resort to going AFK in a box or having monsters destroy player builds (given how in-depth chiselling is and how intricate builds can be, myself and many other players would probably be quite unhappy if that was a mechanic). The best solution I can think of is having the storms spawn rifts, which monsters will then emerge from (tying the rift mechanics to storms, as currently they are oddly disconnected). The rifts could spawn at a certain radius (eg, 50 blocks) from the player, but spawned enemies would aggro instantly, creating a sort of "horde" event that a good base can still protect from. This kind of implementation would also line up better with what storms are said to be in the game's lore, as their current form doesn't really match with how they are described. In the lore there's importance placed on survivors building fortifications and defending themselves from storms, but currently since enemies can spawn anywhere during a storm, fortifications don't matter as much as they probably should. Luckily, we do know the devs are planning to rework storms at some point in the future!

I'm pretty sure the elk actually gets a speed boost from roads just like the player does, so road infrastructure is still very handy even post-elk!

I don't know how to add a quote to an existing post so this can just be a separate message, but the sturdy pillion is actually already in the game! It doesn't really serve any functional purpose considering it's just a retexture of the regular pillion, but it is at least nice for consistency's sake. It'd be cool if we also had sturdy saddles and bridles too, so that your entire ensemble could match in colour.

Kind of off the topic of specifically the merchant class a little bit, but I wonder what the tradeoffs between mount types and the saddle with backpacks will be. If I had to guess, maybe horses can only step up one block heights unlike elk, but run faster. I feel like it's also decently safe to assume that since backpack mounting seems to be unique to a new type of saddle, there will probably be some tradeoff there, maybe in lowered movespeed. I do wonder though if the moose and camel will have some unique traits or not.

Yeah, a lot of the smaller dev updates are posted on the Discord, while the forums is usually reserved for the large update posts. Here's the screenshot!

Honestly, I feel like the way trading works could really use an overhaul before a merchant class could truly offer unique gameplay. I think one of the biggest things would be trader stocklists being made more versatile (eg, "looking for axe, will pay better depending on material" rather than "looking for bismuth bronze axe, will not buy any others"). These people are supposed to be scraping by in the wilderness, it doesn't make sense for most of them to be so picky about things like the colour of leather on a shield or the colour of the ceramic bowl you're selling them honey in. I also think a merchant class would greatly benefit from some kind of bartering or haggling system, especially if trader reputation was added. Making multiple consecutive trades could increase reputation, as well as potentially offering a trader supplies for free. Better reputation would mean you'd have a better chance to successfully haggle their prices down by a handful of gears, and a merchant class could gain faster reputation and haggle lower than other classes. Ideally I think clothing sets and clothing condition could also influence reputation/haggling, kind of like how KCD handles it. In regards to the buffs/debuffs you proposed, I think just getting bonus movespeed is a bit basic considering we already have two classes with bonus movespeed as it is - I wonder if something like bonus speed when riding an animal might benefit a merchant more, especially given the new mounts teased yesterday in the devlog that can be seen carrying both saddlebags and backpacks, which would benefit a merchant ferrying their wares across the land.

If you take a look at the texture file for the whitewood mask, the answer is birch! Rotating the debarked birch wood texture by 90 degrees and then giving it a whiter hue matches the whitewood mask exactly, aside from the eye holes and tally marks. While on the topic, something interesting is that the tallies of the whitewood and sheep skull mask are very slightly different in colour. The sheep skull also has a noticeable blemish/blotch on the texture, which could either be there to make it appear more bone-like, or as an indicator that the wearer was one of those unfortunate scavengers who was infected with the Rot while on a surface mission. Another kind of interesting but mostly useless fact is that a lot of masks in the game actually use this rotated birch texture, though given different colours. My best guess is that the whitewood mask came first, and then they just reused its underlying texture since it gave a nice subtle noise effect. Even things like the festive cat mask that don't visually have this wood grain texture actually have the grain surrounding their usual texture in the files, since it would have just been edited over to draw the mask.

I mostly suggest it because of TOPS - playing over there, I originally had my expression set to 'grin', but an update then came out that swapped 'grin' and 'kind' around. To swap it back, I'd have to wait for the six-month .charsel allowance. I do think static expressions are nice for character personality, but maybe something like posture/stance could fill that place instead if expressions were made more versatile.

Additionally, it'd be nice if NPC expressions could change based on dialogue, or upon making a successful trade. So many traders look depressed because the game decided to give them weary and sad expressions, even when making gears from the player. Player expressions could also be selectable via a menu or keybind, I think it's a bit strange there is no way to change your expression other than the .charsel command.

The lore is interconnected once you start figuring stuff out, but it's intentionally very vague on the surface in an attempt to hook the player with that element of mystery. The references to the real world are actually pretty important, though do be warned this next part has timeline/world spoilers. This is something I do think could stand to be improved, but that also sort of makes sense. Considering the timespan between when everything went down in the old world and the time we actually play in, humanity has had a long time to get accustomed to rifts/monsters/other temporal weirdness. For the traders, that stuff would just be a part of everyday life. As said though, I really hope trader dialogue is expanded upon eventually. Being able to ask more direct questions to get the player curious about the world would be nice, and make a lot of sense given the perspective of their Seraph. Stuff like different traders also giving different answers to questions is something I think would be fun, since it'd both encourage interacting with more traders and establish that they are unreliable storytellers, but that there might be a kernel of truth in their folklore. I think this is something the devs are working on - in a recent developer stream, Elvas discussed their future plans for NPCs and traders. He said that eventually, they would like for the game to somehow map paths between trader outposts, and have traders either trek or cart their wares between one another. Given the newer NPC systems added in 1.20, I'd also expect traders will gain things like the ability to sleep at night, dress warmer in the winter and eat at certain times of day in the not too distant future, as those things are already possible.

As long as you have a bone flute you're basically fine, provided your elk doesn't take lethal fall damage. Even then, as long as you're in a region where there's horsetail and cattails/papyrus, you can make poultices and heal it! Very very useful, especially when on a server and the game decides that desync means your elk should be launched a thousand blocks in the air.

I think it'd also be nice if scrolls had variants, like books do. Scrolls from one lore series might have the current blue band around them, while scrolls from another series might have a red band. This would make it a lot easier to differentiate which lore series scrolls are from, as currently they all look identical. Also, not all scrolls should use the 'rotten-parchment' texture, as they currently do. Player-made parchment and scrolls relating to new world stories should probably use the clean parchment textures that are in the game files.

It's kind of strange, but they're listed like that because of clothing. When you craft some smaller clothing items out of larger hides, you will get the clothing item, as well as a smaller hide in return.

It's based on how recently a post got a reply - all the lower posts haven't gotten replies in increasingly long times, and as soon as one does, then it jumps to the first spot in the list. The only way to have a post stay at the top is by having it pinned, but only the moderators / devs can do that. On the topic of map markers, as far as I know they're working on something. RedRam mentioned a while back in the Discord that they are at least working on new icons for the traders, since the wagon marker no longer makes sense. A more uniform spread of colours would be great though, same for translocator pins being visually linked. I also think the currently useless anchor item could be used to give the boat a map pin. Right now you can craft a stone anchor and put it inside your boat, but it serves no purpose.

We don't really know how the gear is used to restore stability, but nothing in particular suggests it's necessarily by inserting it. I always saw it as slitting the palm of a hand and pressing the gear against the wound to absorb the prima materia/energy from it, considering the animation and the low amount of damage taken. Slicing open something like your own chest would probably deal a lot more than 2hp of damage, after all! Iirc the knife blade also faces away from the player's body in the animation, more in line with the idea of cutting a palm.

I think the best way to do this while keeping with the established lore and survival gameplay would be a reputation system among traders, as well as potential radiant quests. Traders could generate with a preset personality and backstory, which would each influence one another. A trader who has a shady personality might have one of a few 'thief' backstories, while a trader with an introverted personality might have one of a few backstories involving their choice to live alone in the wilds. This could also influence player interactions and trades. Shadier traders might trust Malefactor Seraphs more, while polite traders might strike a better deal with Tailor Seraphs for their manners. It could also lead to some unique dialogue per trader, even if that's just in the form of different greetings and maybe a few special dialogue choices dependant on the trader's backstory and player's class. If they really wanted to go all the way, personality could even influence trader occupation and stocklists. More timid/cautious traders might be much more likely to have occupations like clothing or artisan, while more confident ones might be treasure hunters and survival goods traders. It wouldn't be hard locked or anything, but just different chances at the likelihood of each personality belonging to a different trader category. I think something along these lines would make traders feel more like proper NPCs, as opposed to all having the same generic dialogue as they do right now. Their looks were updated in 1.22 which is something I love, making them more visually distinct from each other, but their dialogue has stayed the same, and I think that's a real missed opportunity. -------------- If I had to make a list of ideas for potential personalities, I would say something like; -Cautious (more likely to be a clothing trader or artisan trader. Probably also a little more wary of the player, especially the Malefactor. This could be alleviated after continuous successful trades, proving the player is friendly. Their prices might also start higher and then decrease with this). -Confident (more likely to be a treasure hunter or luxuries trader. Their prices might start out reasonable, but ramp up a little bit with many continuous successful trades, realising you're a repeat customer). -Shady (more likely to be a treasure hunter, commodities or luxuries trader. Their prices might fluctuate, with some being outright scams and some being more reasonable. Like the cautious traders, this would get lowered the more trust they had in you. They would also trust the Malefactor more to begin with). -Stoic (more likely to be a building materials, agriculture, survival goods or furniture trader. The usual run-of-the-mill trader, with no gimmick).

You can also buy elk medallions from traders, or find them in ruins. Even this one bronze doesn't truly unlock, since you can buy shields from traders, as well as finding a gold-plated shield or silver-rimmed shield in that one particular ruin. In homo sapiens these would be hard locks, however. -------------- One thing I hope about the upcoming armour rework is that the earlier ages are given more reason to actually make a set of proper armour. Currently any armour below iron isn't really worthwhile, considering the sheer labour that needs to be poured into it pre-helve hammer. The proposed new system of many different armour segments could potentially allow players to make something like a bronze cuirass for much less material than a full chest plating like there is currently in the game, giving more of an incentive to spend some time in the bronze age making armour. I imagine scrap armour will help a lot as well, especially if it can be accessed in something like the copper age (since you'd probably also need leather). Scrap armour would also offer a different way to get protection, finding and assembling scrap pieces rather than smithing it out entirely by yourself.

I think this could make sense for certain more fragile clutter, but if this was applied to all clutter in the game I can see it just being annoying and even a bit immersion-breaking. Some things like ruined protective suits, locust/bell/Eidolon parts, and metal tanks I don't think should really require glue in the first place, and the fact they do only makes sense from a gameplay/unification perspective. Stepping on a lead-plated protective suit isn't going to make it disintegrate, same for stepping on a cast iron Eidolon limb. I could see this making sense for things like ceramics and some wooden rubble, but even then it'd probably get a bit annoying hearing that snap sound effect over and over again when walking through a dungeon. Especially if it's from enemies spawning in other rooms and immediately breaking everything in sight before you can get in there. I do think it would be fun if cracked vessels would shatter when dropped from any height though, to make their excavation as a Malefactor more interesting. For other classes it wouldn't really mean much, since they get shattered 100% of the time regardless. Things like wooden rubble having gravity would be nice though, to match up with how stone rubble has gravity. It would also be nice if wood rubble was flammable, even if other wooden clutter wasn't considering it'd probably require going in and setting properties for the thousand clutter items currently in the game. [EDIT]: I also don't really agree with the mining speed change, just because I can see that annoying players when they accidentally misclick on something. I do think though that clutter should be mined faster with respective tools (wood clutter breaking faster with an axe rather than a pickaxe for example). Currently all clutter has the pickaxe as the fastest tool, which isn't very intuitive.