The Lerf

That's great man, you stated your opinion a few times, and you have no interest in changing it. I'd like to discuss with people on the deeper bits of "Why does clicking an enemy 5 times excite you, or not?" People share their opinions, and everyone learns a little bit about everyone else. Maybe body part specific damage doesn't feel like it fits vanilla VS, and someone can explain their reasoning for it, and someone else can go 'Wow! I never considered that, what if instead...," and we end up having a productive conversation about things that we like, or don't like. If you're bringing up that you like that restaurant, someone asking why isn't always a debate to be had. Maybe it's an attempt to connect and find out a mutual interest. Do they have good fries? Are the napkins soft? Do they embrace an equal opportunity workplace environment? But you're just providing a dead end to the conversation. And now I'll never know why that restaurant is good, or why you like it. And I'll have to ask you to leave my car because I'm not sure if we're compatible or not. It's not you, or me. It's this brick wall you've built between us.

Why do you think there's an opportunity cost involved for a game that's still in development? Is a feature that's implemented in it's basest form considered feature complete the moment it's added in an update, and if they continue to work on it that means we'll never get in-depth shoemaking? "I don't think most players are coming to VS because they like riding elk. The vast majority of things in the game are meant to enhance the caving and underground experience. This isn't Barbie Horse Adventure, so I would expect the devs to keep adding more things to enhance caving." I don't think anyone is in this discussion desires VS to become a overdeveloped combat sim, so let's not try to imply that when someone suggests that a sword swing should behave differently from a club attack. When the game has you making farming decisions about soil based on how much nitrogen and potassium is left in it, I find it bothering that there are people who decry others who want that same level of granularity from other less-involved parts of the game. If you aren't willing to consider any other opinions in this discussion other than your own, then why contribute?

I would love to see some slightly more involved combat, as pretty much every fight in the game boils down to "click this guy 3/4/5 times while running backward". If there were AI improvements to enemy behavior that were more than just "move to player position and melee attack", it would immediately feel so much better without any other changes. Right now, that describes how drifters, shivers, wolves, bears, boars, and goats attack the player, with Bowtorns being the lone exception to do something different, if not that interesting. It's boring. And it doesn't feel very immersive to me, kiting around a pile of 10-15 drifters during a temporal storm, or even just a night of high rift activity. It makes every mob feel like a minecraft zombie. Sure, they're monsters, but I don't think I've ever interpreted them to be dumb horde fodder. This opens up the question, How should they act? I would love to see loose formations, or attempts to circle around the player without necessarily attacking, just to split your focus and let something get behind you. Which is absolutely something that wolves should do. I would love if enemies stayed at arm's reach/melee range instead of attempting to occupy the same space I'm standing in. I'd like to see shivers climb up and hang off of walls to jump at you, or only attack when they have backup. Maybe bowtorns should actively seek high ground, or Drifters should move in groups but attack one or two at a time rather than 20 (like the Batman Arkham games), or shivers always spawn in pairs and try to attack from above. What if the torch got weapon functionality, as a way to scare away wolves and bears during the early game? Some new mechanics? Enemies that do more than just deal damage. What if bowtorns fired much less frequently but their shots would leave a long trail of muscle sinew that would physically impede/slow the player unless you cut it with your falx? This turns the bowtorn into a kind of area denial enemy, which would be much more dangerous while in a cave than on the surface. It would also provide a way to track bowtorns down beyond the sound cue. What about an enemy that blurs your vision, or makes you drop your weapon? What if low-tier drifters were faster, and could tackle you to the ground so other drifters could get hits on you? The combat in VS is simple to the point of being boring. You have slow enemy, fast enemy, and ranged enemy; and each one of them also has the opportunity to be high damage enemy. But if they can all be the high damage enemy, then fundamentally the differences don't really matter. There is no sandbox. It just makes your only strategy into 'Don't get hit'. I don't even bother with shields because they don't add anything to the combat system besides rolling dice to take damage, even if you're holding it up. The most effective tactic to fight anything is running backwards or pillaring. I'd like it to be better, I'd like to feel like wearing full iron/steel plate armor allows me to stand my ground a bit, and not just give me more room for mistakes while I kite drifters. But that begins with changes to enemy behavior before anything systemic like damage types and dodge rolls.