ifoz

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.

This is actually a vanilla issue, and while I'm pretty sure the devs know about it, another report wouldn't hurt. I had it happen to a friend of mine while going through the tower on TOPS, and we had to get an admin involved to teleport them back to the ground.

Being able to kick drifters and shivers to deal some damage and knock them back would be funny. Maybe even increase it a little based on what leg armour/boots the player has equipped. I'm just sayin', gives us a reason to have the metalcap boots. So far, it seems like 1.23 is shaping up to be a combat update in some ways - the new armour system, and Redram saying they likely plan to add at least a few new weapons in 1.23 as well. I'm really interested to see how they integrate them, considering it would pretty much necessitate fleshing out combat or damage types in some way.

I mean, you could just have brigandine in the visual style of 'studded leather' without changing the overall appearance or impacting the realism much.

By the way, just a quick question about the new system if that's alright for the topic of this thread. Since there's now plans for all the cool new scrap armours, does that mean that certain clutter items will drop and be used as parts in the process, it'll just be the generic scrap metal item, or there will be special pieces found in ruins specifically for making armour with? Just kind of wondering how modular scrap armour is planned to work, though very excited to see it ingame.

Echoing what LadyWYT said, more colours would be awesome. Even if that's just stuff like being able to colour non-tailored gambeson by throwing it into a barrel of dye. Motley or checkered gambesons would also be fun, having more than one colour. I also think for another set of scrap armour, it would be fun if there was a torso piece made of locust legs that formed a 'ribcage', and a bell for a helmet with eye slits cut out. Very clearly the work of someone making do with what materials they have available. Also, though I already posted it on the Discord version of this thread, I might just put it here as well so it doesn't get buried under a ton of messages; Mockup 'scavenger' set I drew earlier, mainly as an excuse to pitch the idea of a metal mask shaped like a wolf skull. Traders can already wear wolf skulls strapped to their faces, and I just thought it'd look cool. (This version is slightly different from the version I posted on the Discord - I added more of a harness to the metal plates that is implied to go over the shoulders underneath the fur wrap. I just thought that made it look a little better held together). Sidenote, I wonder if the drifter padded layer means that drifters will now drop a unique type of ragged cloth as opposed to flax fibres like they currently do.

From the new devlog post on the Discord, it looks like armour is going to be fully reworked in 1.23, which is really exciting. It also seems like they are moving away from the current armour style of mostly historical medieval armour, and toward a mix of styles that blend historical designs with materials and necessities from VS' world. There's a lot of cool scrap metal armour designs, among other designs themed around enemies/bosses. While the devlog doesn't paint a totally clear picture of how it all works, it seems like each armour slot (head, torso, legs) will be further divided into a padding layer, mid layer, outer layer and decorative layer. The padding is reeds / rags / hide / fur / leather / gambeson, the mid layer is chain / scale / brigandine / lamellar, and the outer layer is plate.

I do also wonder if the eyes have any cultural significance to the traders - we know they have a lot of superstitions and folklore, and eyes are used in a number of real world cultures as a way to ward off evil. Traders actually have multiple eye motifs - the scrap helmet has red eyes above the rim, and one of the trader-specific Nadiyan hoods also has a red eye painted on the back of the head. That Nadiyan hood though is also a colour match for the 'shady' jacket, so it could also be the eyes mark something to do with a sketchier individual. Maybe someone who is fine buying stolen goods?

I always thought it a little bit odd that VS' scale armour is something you wear over the top of chainmail, rather than just being its own standalone armour type. I mean I understand the intent is to have it be a middleground point between chain and plate, but I think the debuffs might be a bit too heavy to feel like it has much use. I think most people probably just craft chain or craft plate, and leave it at that. I think half-plate might be a better choice for a middleground option, and then have scale as its own cheaper set. I can also imagine half-plate theoretically being handy in the world of VS, where attacks are mostly in the form of shivers biting down on you, or bowtorn bolts. Using plate to protect the most vital organs would probably be a good idea, while chain could cover the areas that need more flexibility. It's also why I think brigandine could be given a bit of an upgrade (it is plate armour, after all) and then scale made to fill that niche of the cheaper yet easier to maintain set. While we don't see much new world armour to guage how humanity handles the supernatural threat, the scrap armour traders can wear does provide a bit of an idea. Mostly it looks like it is designed to only protect the vital organs (plate over the heart, metal spine running down the back), with other pieces probably designed to stop shiver bites being as damaging (the legs having strips of metal strapped to them). The helmet is interesting, since the antler-like attachments and the eyes on the rim don't really offer any strategic advantage, but I'd guess are for intimidation. Rust monsters do have a chance to run away when they feel threatened, so maybe that's a valid strategy for defence.

I think the devs mentioned in a recent interview with Mongster that 1.23 might have something to do with armour, and I'd be quite happy if it did considering that as of right now, the armour system feels a bit underbaked in my eyes. The armour system works and does its job somewhat well enough, but I do think hit chance is a bit of a weird inclusion for a game like this. Hit chance workes as a system in something like Morrowind, because they were still kind of figuring out the line between old-school RPG and action gameplay. But in a game with a 3D world and supporting systems for multiple hitboxes per entity, I don't know why armour doesn't function in a more realistic way when the game chooses where you get hit. It's also difficult for the player to figure out this is how the system works, as it is not very inutitive. A drifter can swipe at your heavily armoured ankles, but if you get unlucky, the game might just apply that hit to your unarmoured head and have you take the full force of it. All other possible armour updates aside (armour layering, more slots, making gambeson more necessary) I think one of the most important changes would be doing away with the hit chance system and introducing a more dynamic one. It'd be pretty interesting to see if players would prefer to armour their legs more heavily to help defend against drifter hits, or their torso to better protect against things like bowtorn bolts.

Aside from the craftable ones, there are medallions only sold by traders or found in ruins. The trader ones are: 'full moon', 'scarab', 'cascade' and 'crescent moon'. The ruin ones are all the others: 'forge', 'lake', 'star', 'night sky', 'crown', 'stiletto', 'strand' and 'cross'.