ifoz

Mostly I swap between Aseprite and Paint.net, depending on what features I need at a given moment. Aseprite is awesome for tiling textures due to having an inbuilt tiling mode, but I find Paint.net's layers easier to use. Paint.net also has a built-in noise function which is really nice for VS-styled pixel art, since the base game loves making its textures at least somewhat noisy. I'm unsure if Aseprite has built-in noise, but Paint.net's has always been so serviceable that I've never really felt the need to investigate. Aseprite is also really good for animated sprites/textures, which aren't really natively supported in Paint.net.

No, the Blackguard barracks is a small underground ruin with eight beds stacked on top of each other, four on either side of the room. It also contains an aged torch holder, and a trunk that has a chance to contain the Blackguard pin as well as some other miscellaneous clothing and ruined weapons. The ruin you're thinking about sounds like one of the new dynamic dungeons, which are a special type of ruin that assemble themselves from a bunch of different pieces, so they're somewhat different each time you find them.

In one of the small Blackguard barracks underground ruins, there's Blackguard shoes, a jug, metal scrap and a parallel transfer vessel underneath one of the beds 100% of the time. In my experience this also makes the parallel transfer vessel the most common Jonas part, since it's a guarantee if you find that ruin. For anyone out there hunting Jonas parts, I also recommend poking around in the structures surrounding a certain chapter 2 location (not spoiling anything, but if you've been there I'm sure you know which one I'm likely referring to). The larger structures especially have the chance for quite a few Jonas parts in their loot pools.

What would you recommend putting in as the title? I was debating over this myself, since as far as I'm aware you can't spoiler tag a post's title and naming it anything else (eg; story location 3) might have people think I'm talking about the wrong location since the ch2 locations can technically be visited in any order aside from the Lazaret.

Something related to this that I thought was kind of strange was that when they added the basement to the tower, they kept the 'tutorial' part of the tower's interior despite the fact you have to go through the basement to get there and by then you already understand timeswitching. It's not a huge deal or even really a problem, but it's kind of just funny how the basement now acts as its own timeswitching tutorial, and then you finally get into the tower and rather than continuing to slowly ramp up, the timeswitching puzzles go back to basics again because originally they were the first time you got to play with the mechanic.

This is about how I find it as well. Nowadays with two or three tower climbs under my belt it's not all that difficult, but I think my opinions on the location are still somewhat marred from my first ever experience with it, back in the release candidates for 1.20. The distance there was far longer, and by the time I reached the tower I was already tired of the journey. The parkour was also a lot less telegraphed than it currently is, and Erel used to be able to (intended or not) swoop you while you were climbing, unceremoniously killing you instantly or knocking you to your death.

I've been seeing quite a bit of Devastation critiquing thrown around lately, and was really curious about the numbers, so here's a poll! Also, feel free to write here what you think could be improved about it if anything. I know other threads have no doubt done this in the past, but this one is intended to be good-faith constructive discussion/criticism. x) Personally I enjoyed the Devastation and the basement area, though felt the parkour was a tonal shift that didn't quite match VS' usual gameplay and skillset the ways the other story locations did. Some sidequest allowing players to repair the elevator early and optionally skip the parkour is something that I think would be a welcome addition. [EDIT: Title changed to avoid spoilers from using the word Devastation].

Honestly, I think personally that all the classes should get at least one lategame specialty. The way I see it is that no matter the balance for the earlygame, earlygame is always going to be temporary. Sooner or later the player will make it to the lategame, where their playthrough will then stay permanently unless they intentionally throw away their items or leave for distant lands with an empty inventory. Malefactor's stealth and foraging bonuses are decently handy, but compared to other classes their exclusive item is noticeably more geared toward the earlygame. I also think it's a little strange the trait that gives them their exclusive recipe is named 'improvisor', yet they don't really get any perks to improvising anything. I think it could be fun if they had alternate ways to craft certain things, which would better lean into this aspect. Maybe they are occasionally able to turn metal scraps into makeshift lockpicks, or maybe they can weave birch bark into a hat that gives good rain protection. Kinda just spitballing, but I think the 'improviser' trait has a lot of potential for changing up the gameplay in small but noticeable ways for the class.

The devs have discussed adding a lock/key system for dynamic dungeons (and I'd guess potential future ruins/story locations too), in which case I think some way for the Malefactor to make and use lock picks could be fun. They're a stealthy outlaw whose playstyle encourages hunting ruins, so lockpicks to get past finding keys or into special locked rooms without having to break down doors would be quite fitting!

Any class can find and repair Blackguard armour, it's just that the Blackguard class gets the exclusive matching sword and shield. You can also buy recurves from traders, so they aren't necessarily class-locked. That aside, Malefactor does lack a proper latergame exclusive. I think something related to treasure/ruin hunting would be fitting, since that is part of their incentivised gameplay. I had the idea a while back for the Malefactor to be able to make upgraded (probably around bronze tier) versions of the current scrap weapons that are already in the game. That way there'd be something of a loop of 'go ruin hunting -> inexpensive weapon breaks -> make new one from scrap found in ruins -> continue'

Personally I'd have trapping belong to the Malefactor, given they're already related to foraging and stealth. That isn't to say Clockmaker couldn't get more advanced/mechanical traps later into the game, but for early game trapping I think the Malefactor would be a better thematic fit.

My favourites are aged oak and very aged wood (in that order), they're really nice darker colours compared to how light in tone a lot of the other wood types in the game are. I know the devs have mentioned staining wood with linseed oil before, and my hope is that will one day allow us to get some more deep/rich wood colours. There's textures for 'mahogany' in the game files that only get used for display cases, the creative-only 'cozy bed' and two types of table from a certain story location. That deep brown colour is something I really think the current woodtype palette is sorely missing. If mahogany gets added with this texture, I think that it will quickly become a favourite of mine! In terms of normal wood types that have associated trees, I quite like kapok and oak. Kapok is a nice warm colour, and oak is the jack-of-all-trades old reliable that you can always turn to when you just want something to look like it's made out of generic brown wood. Walnut, birch and pine are also situationally nice, but in my eyes you have to be careful and pair them with a good matching/contrasting colour palette. Also, I think burnt planks deserve a shoutout. They're one of those weird new pseudo-woodtypes that are only available from building materials traders. They're a little too mottled to be used in a wide variety of situations (a bit like how ebony has those orange streaks mixed with its black colour), but I think they still look quite unique and can be useful in certain builds.

I quite like the look of black bronze, especially when lined with electrum. In survival though I usually just make copper, brass, tin bronze or molybdochalkos, since those don't need any particularly rare materials. What actually ends up happening though is that I'll get a handful of lanterns from ruins early-midgame, and then not actually need to make any by hand until the lategame when I want to light up larger areas or expand my base further. x)

Survival changes I'd want to make; -More impactful weather! I personally think it'd be interesting if the wind actually played a part in freezing/overheating, doubly so if the player was already soaking wet. Being soaked with water on a very windy day in subzero temperatures should probably be a bit more of a risk than it currently is in the game. I actually quite like how Zomboid handles clothing warmth, where insulation and wind resistance are broken up into seperate stats. Wind does play a part in freezing, but certain clothes might offer more wind resistance as a tradeoff for being less insulating overall. -I've mentioned it before, but 1-tall fences not being able to stop monsters from climbing over. 2-tall fences would stop drifters and bowtorn, while 3-tall would stop shivers. Palisades would become craftable, and at any height would be able to stop monsters from climbing over. This way players can still use fences for farms and livestock, but would want to invest in palisades, higher fences or higher walls to make a properly defensive perimeter. This is already something the player can do with regular fences in the basegame currently, but I think this would be a bit more immersive, and give a proper use to palisades without necessarily restricting player creativity at all or encouraging all bases to have a defensive perimeter. -More randomised trade lists. Currently every trader of the same type will always be able to offer the same stocklist given their trades are allowed time to rotate enough. I think it'd be nice if some traders just didn't sell certain items that other traders of their same type might, so that finding repeat trader types is more useful than it currently is and maybe even something players might be excited to see. -Speaking of traders, a more variable trade system. Instead of traders saying "I want specifically a bismuth bronze pickaxe and a tin bronze Falx", they would simply have an offer for something like "any bronze Falx", "any bronze pickaxe" that would then pay out according to the bronze type used. This would also be very handy in situations where traders want to buy liquids in containers, like bowls. Instead of gating it to a specific bowl colour like it currently is, any bowl could be used (and might even net a couple extra gears for the expensive beehive kiln varieties). Features I'd want to add that aren't necessarily expanding existing systems; -Custom fabric weaving, or a way to chisel cloth. Currently everyone who makes custom tapestries and carpets with chiselling have to use things like stone and sand, but a way to use the vibrant dyed cloth colours would be really nice. -More trader dialogue. Currently traders all share the same dialogue, but the game does already track their 'personality' (I don't know if that's what it's actually called, but their posture and greeting animation). This is something I think could be integrated into a few variants of the existing dialogue, depending on the specific personality of that trader. It'd go a long way to making them feel less like generic NPCs, especially given their recent updated appearances already went a long way to making them look like distinct people. -More functional clutter/furniture. Things like lecterns to hold one book at a time and braziers to function as a 'safe' (non-flammable, assuming the regular kind became flammable) firepit. (Either that, or they just function like torch holders do). These already exist as clutter items in the game, but can't be interacted with and don't serve a purpose beyond decoration. I've seen at least two instances of people burning down their bases trying to light the clutter brazier. Demand justice for their charred houses, I say! -A rework of roofing blocks, something in line with how the VS Roofing mod does it. We do know that the devs have discussed adding this before though, so hopefully this comes to the basegame one day! -Like VANTABlack2000 said, a way to choose a custom name for your Seraph. Having traders call you by your username feels like a fourth wall break, and I think a way to set a proper name would be nice. By default it would be set to your username, but you could optionally change it in character creation. In multiplayer I imagine it'd display as "Name (Username)" in your nametag, so players don't get confused.

I haven't really weighed in much at all with this whole drama, since I didn't feel like I had anything unique to say about it that hadn't already been said a thousand times before. However, I do think it'd be good if the VS team actually disclosed the basics of what Maltiez' job currently is. We know he's an "advisor", but beyond that as far as I'm aware there is no concrete explanation of what that position actually entails. A lot of the fearmongering around this issue seems to stem from the idea that Maltiez could sneak further malicious code into the game in some way, and I think a decent potential way to help quell some of that would be letting it known just what parts of the code he's actually got access to and the basic gist of what he is doing with it, if anything. If it turns out he's really just there to say "yeah, this looks good" or "here's how I would have done that" to changes in the combat update, I think that could help to clear some of the air. And if he is touching further code beyond that, at least then we would know roughly what areas he's working in.

Iirc it was removed because the code for it was kinda buggy (monsters would sometimes spawn in fully enclosed and lit-up rooms if your bed was against a wall, pretty sure) - but then just never re-implemented for some reason. Personally I quite like it conceptually, though if you go back and play those versions it does become a bit annoying when the aforementioned incorrect darkness detection thing happens. Yeah, that is true. I'd hope that before a theoretical trapping update (or hunting update) that animal AI would get some tweaks and improvements. I have also seen people utilise that crop trap method, but haven't tried it myself because I've never really seen the need (I usually get by fine on berries, wild crops and hunting until my first harvest). Maybe next playthrough I'll actually give the basket and crate traps a shot, just to see how worthwhile they actually are.

Honestly, a trapping expansion could be quite cool. We do currently have the basket and crate traps, though something more involved like pit traps could be interesting. While the latter two are just items you place and bait, you'd at least have to dig a pit trap by hand, which plays into this being a block game where you can do that dynamically. While you can currently just dig a hole and then aggro an animal into running into it, I think it'd be nice if there was a more passive way to do this. Having to make wooden spikes or a camouflaged covering for the trap could have animal pathfinding treat it like a solid block, only to naturally fall in. On the topic of combat being required for story progression, I think there's both positives and negatives. Combat does incentivise the player to gear up, utilising the game's other systems like cooking (more max health) and smithing (armour and weapons), while also providing a soft difficulty gate for certain story locations. On the other side, combat isn't necessarily the main focus of the game. While I think it being a large part of certain story locations makes sense, I'm more on the fence about a certain location in chapter 2 being a parkour gauntlet. It's fun for the types of players who enjoy it, and I think it's interesting, but it also feels to me personally more like it was designed that way because "our game can handle parkour, so we should include parkour" rather than something more fitting of the general gameplay loop. If there was some way to avoid certain combat/parkour sections of story locations by optionally substituting them with different systems/pathways (eg; solving puzzle/s to open a door the leads past an area rather than fighting your way through) I wonder if that would help to accommodate alternate playstyles. On the other hand though, that might detract from the soft gate that combat has on the player's story progression, meaning they wouldn't have to interact with other systems that aid them in combat as much. (For the parkour though, I do think an alternate sidequest that allowed the player to skip a chunk of it would be a nice compromise )

Since these are logo concepts, I'm assuming it's probably likely that the finalised logo won't be monochrome. I do wonder in that case how well the gear will stand out if the tree's leaves are green, though if it is mostly in the bark area (like in logos 1A, 1B and 4A) it'd probably still be quite noticable. Personally I think if I had to choose, I'd go with 4A or 1B. In both of these the gear is big enough to be noticeable, but not so big it overpowers the entire image. If I had to guess I'd think the new logo (and the old one as well) are meant to be metaphorical. Mild lore spoilers, but; .

I have one in particular that comes to mind; (This was a vanilla ruin too, not even Better Ruins!) Other than that, I did once find the "candlemaker" buried treasure within the first month or two of a new world, which gives you a gold-lined silver lantern and some extra gold plates (that I then used on another lantern I'd found in a ruin). Another time I found one of those 0.3% chance gold lanterns inside a ruin chest, which was lucky as well. (Actually, why are so many of these stories about lanterns? )

This is a really interesting interpretation of the Rot - while I'm not sure that's the direction the devs will take it in, it might help explain why the prison-themed ruins in the game often contain high status clothing, given the descriptions we have of how some of them treated the lower classes. While we know the Lazaret was where those too wealthy or important to simply be let die were taken, some of the other prison-themed ruins (like "mistery_grave" [sic]) also contain high status clothes. It could also be that while lower status criminals were just directly exiled to the surface, only those with enough influence were kept in the (relative) safety of the underground, though under lock and key. The following is a bit less about the Rot, but I've been wondering about the high status prisons for a while now; I also wonder what use the jailors actually were in the underground - their set's description makes it sound like they were torturers, but for what reason I don't know. We know criminals were exiled to the surface because they could spare no manpower, and torturing them seems pointless as it would only reduce their chances to come back with useful supplies in tow. Perhaps they were used by the Blackguard to extract information about rebels, though there is also no real evidence that connects them to the dread company other than one Blackguard ruin containing a small holding cell. Oddly enough, "mistery_grave" seems the most like a torture chamber (what with the skulls on spikes and the chains hanging from the cieling), though is filled with discarded high status items - the belongings of nobles, aristocrats and the like. Exile to the surface also already covers the main reason for torture in the middle ages - a particularly grizzly way to show would-be criminals what would happen if they were to be caught, hopefully deterring them. The exile also has the added benefit of showing offenders just how valuable a position in the shelters was, hopefully making them play nicer if re-integrated. The one group I could see connections drawn between to the jailors is the Forlorn Hope, due to their identical blue colouring on parts of their sets. However, that same blue is used quite a bit throughout the game - certain Nadiyan sets, the Malefactor's sash and scarf. I think it most likely is supposed to be the deep blue of lapis-dyed cloth, since the tailor in Nadiya will buy lapis from the player. It could be that there were still factions vying for power in the underground - while Jonas was the main thing humanity banded around, perhaps others with power were still plotting to outlast the Rot on their own terms and re-establish their own empires afterwards. The nomad set does mention a khanate, though we don't know if that was specifically around underground or not.

Kind of off topic, but just something I've been thinking about in regards to In Memoriam and player character lore; (I also don't remember if this is something I've talked about on the forums before, but I don't think it is. Pretty sure. ) Ever since I read it I've wondered if In Memoriam was originally planned to be the Malefactor's backstory, before they decided to make player lore more open-ended and never directly confirm anything. It hits most of their established beats - commoner steals something (the fancy garments), sneaks into somewhere (the Lazaret), and then pushes a woman down a pit, killing her but allowing them her food and jewellery ("terrible things are done in the heart of despair - she is gone, but you remain"). This might not be the case at all and personally I'm glad they decided to take player backstory in a more vague direction, but I just thought it was at the least an interesting coincidence. Tobias also seems sympathetic of the Malefactor, moreso than any of the other classes, which I doubt he'd be if they killed someone in colder blood instead of out of necessity, if that is indeed what they did. While he says he doesn't know their exact crime, I've noticed Vintage Story likes to have NPCs be able to infer certain things/aspects about the player through physical characteristics. For the Malefactor specifically, Sedna says she can tell they have a 'secret', and Kat warns them to watch themselves, as if she can tell by demeanour alone that they're a thief. If their crime was in cold blood (it's kind of debatable if the killing in In Memoriam was out of necessity/self-preservation (starvation) or jealousy), I doubt Tobias would be so glad to see that they survived. (A little further off topic, but it is kind of interesting that the Malefactor is amongst those who Tobias seems the happiest to see alive. Not that he isn't happy to see the other Seraphs, but for the Malefactor specifically he state's he's "truly glad [they] survived to find [their] freedom again". Given Tobias' already revolutionary stance in the old world, this makes me wonder if the Malefactor wasn't also a rebel, or a member of the Flock). Anyway, all that to say I think class lore is interesting, and I wonder if In Memoriam's outline was originally written as a prototype for some before they took a different direction and it was rewritten/repurposed. I'm pretty sure the devs have talked before about eventually adding the other named locations, but as alternate paths to Nadiya. So you could choose to visit the Lazaret, or some of the others instead. We don't know if that is in reference to every single one of them or just some of them, but it's worth keeping in mind if speculating that the other named locations will be part of future chapters rather than an expansion of chapter 2. EDIT: This is all speculation, but I wonder if one of them won't be the "Innswood ruins" mentioned in the Ghosts short story. In that story a Seraph asks around a village for directions to "Innswood", unknowing it was overrun decades ago. They way this is worded makes it sound like Innswood was a new world settlement, so their knowledge of it couldn't have come from old maps. I speculate it might be that this Seraph came across one of Tobias' letters, and was directed to Innswood by it. That'd explain why a Seraph established to be so clueless would have knowledge of the place to begin with, as well as why they'd be searching for it without knowing it is now in ruins. I have my own theories regarding Jonas, mostly around the fact I doubt the game/writers would let him get out of things unscathed. Personally I believe that Jonas is in some way, shape or form the "machine god" mentioned in The Morning. In the old world Jonas was seen as a messiah figure, and in the new world Tobias is hailed as a 'saint'. Tobias is also said to "command angels", which could be in reference to his search for the Seraphs. If the Seraphs are 'angels' and Tobias is a 'saint', it'd make sense for Jonas to be the metaphorical 'god'. Not to say that Jonas (if he turns up) couldn't still blame himself for the disappearance of the Seraphs and the return of the Rot, but I just doubt he's going to show up as a human or as a Seraph, rather something else entirely.

I just chisel blocks of the same texture as the underside of the roof to look like a slope - it does make the roof line a bit thick, but there currently isn't a much better way to make the underside of your roof sloped unless you decide to go all out and make a fully custom roof via chiselling and/or support beams. We know from the devs that a roof rework is planned at some point though, so hopefully whenever that comes out the problem of the blocky underside is resolved.

The devs have said that one day down the line they'd like travelling traders, but that it probably won't come any time soon due to the difficulty of implementing it in a realistic way. I think the idea is that traders could ferry goods between one another, and/or have a courier that does it for them. To do this though, the game would need some way of making/validating 'trade routes' between traders, to make sure they could path there without getting stuck. Elvas also mentioned carts in the dev stream where he discussed this, and how while the devs have thought about them, they probably won't be added if/until they can come up with a way to make them not look janky when rolling through VS' blocky terrain. I also heard from Elvas in regards to villages that they had the idea to have the player able to more permanently rent a room at the inn in Nadiya, which would revoke claim protections for that room and allow players to decorate it as they wished. Again, no idea if/when this will be implemented, but we know they've been thinking about it. There was also mention of smaller settlements whose claim radius wouldn't be so large, as so the player could set up shop close by. We don't know though if these smaller settlements would be the size of the rare trader outposts or larger, though.

I think I've mentioned it before on another Devastation thread, but I think another smaller, optional sidequest to allow players to repair the elevator early would really go a long way. That way there's an element of player choice - do the parkour like normal, or go to some other smaller location, fight through it, and retrieve some item that allows the elevator to be partially or fully repaired, taking the player higher up the Tower. I still think it'd be a really fun detail if the game tracked if players had died at least once - if they had, use the normal dialogue when you tell Gerhardt that you're immortal, but also include some hidden dialogue for deathless Seraphs who don't know that yet! Something along the lines of "You need not worry about me. I may have been through hell and back, but I always manage to come out the other side". The game does after all already have hidden dialogue for if you talk to Tobias before finding his note about the Lens.

I think the main problem with enemies breaking doors is that this is a block game, and so players would likely just start blocking up their doorways with things that are fast to break, like hay or dirt. This already happens in the earlygame, where players will often use hay / dirt or fence gates as 'doors', since the crude door has a chance to break when used. Allowing enemies to break blocks would fix this, but opens up a whole other can of worms in regards to player freedom / creativity. Honestly one of my favourite suggestions for making enemies a little scarier / bases less safe is palisades becoming craftable and some changes to fences - monsters would be able to climb 1-tall fences, and shivers 2-tall fences. Animals wouldn't be able to, so fences would still serve their purpose of protecting crops and livestock. Palisades (like the traders have) would become craftable, and would stop monsters from climbing over. To balance this they'd probably be more expensive than fences. That way you'd actually have to invest some time (and tree chopping) into properly fortifying your base (or just build larger walls out of regular blocks). This wouldn't really be related to any sort of 'siege/raid' mechanics, but just a way to give palisades a use, incentivise players to make bases that look realistically defensible, and cut back on using basic wooden fences as a hard barrier to the horrors of the night.