runnybabbit

A crop that increased fertility at the cost of lower yields than other crops would be very interesting. Legumes are nitrogen fixers, they activley increase the amount of avaliable N in soil for other plants to use.

perhaps the option to fertilize tree seeds/saplings to increase the chances of more growth height?

Surcoats would be amazing too!

I bring along some friends who are bad at building and think everything with a basic level of attention to design is amazing. Then I relentlessly flex on them to fill the gaping whole my persistent imposter syndrome has gouged out in me. Nah in all seriousness though, I rarely attempt big projects all at once, and instead focus on small 'modular' bits.

Maybe a sort of Stout/Guinness for extra nutrients?

On the subject of 'maybe you can balance something by having it unbalanced but kinda rare'... Can I please have a stick forest that's just sticks? Please Devs?

Valheim ties comfort very directly to progression but not sure that would work as well in VS. I would also expect the implementation to be a bit more limited to a handful of things and minor effects. Since VS has so many furniture options already, (near-infinite with chiseling) I don't think it's likely we'd see buffs from things like tables and chairs, but maybe more like some hanging herbs, an open fire and a rug could give a small buff to healing rate and some minor disease and cold resistance. I think you're right that a blanket 'comfort' status effect may not fit as well as specific conditions. In that vein maybe the buffs mentioned before could be specific to certain elements, so disease resistance t the herbs, cold resistance to the rug etc. (Completely random side note here, but exposure of one's skin to the infrared waves in firelight actually has beneficial effects for healing both physically and psychologically. For the physical side, apart from the warmth value and neurological signals that calm a stressed body, -allowing for activation of immune system in cell repair, - 3000nm light itself does all sorts of amazing things due to it's effects on fluid dyamics and absorption capacity in a hydrophillic capillary, measured by a thing called zeta potential. Anyway, light therapy of some sort has been used for ages in all sorts of applications to treat things with varying but usually at least moderate effectiveness.) Yes but imagine if you put it because it looks nice *and* gives you a small boost. Wouldn't it be nice?

With a new status effect system on the roadmap, how likely do we think we'll see some sort of 'comfort' mechanic added for buffs and resistances from warm fires and well-furnished homes? I've seen this done well before in places like Valheim and always thought it was amazing for cosy gameplay. I love the thought of stopping travel in the night, not because of weather or high rift activity, but just because there's an incentive to sit around a fire and trade stories... or just stare into the coals.

Oops, yep I think I might have come accross wrong in the unclear way I worded things (wrote this late at night :3). Also as I said I meant to post this in discussions instead of suggestions so that's probably lending to the confusion. What I was hoping was people would share the parts of the game that they thought could use some attention in being more profitable/efficent. I brought up building material recipe balance because I thought it easily illustrated my point and because it was easy to discuss what a rebalance would look like since it's not in a direct line of progression, like new or more effective armor/tools/resources would be... Though I guess I didn't want to completely exculde discussion of those. Anyways, I think I was too broad/vauge and ought to repost in Discussions with a narrowed focus a bit. One of the things I was (unclearly) trying to imply is perhaps some mechanics *should* be - in a way - a little unblanced, within reason. That is to say, there is more than one way of balancing things. Could we see some things be highly efficent if the ideal situation arises, and instead balance them by how often that situation occurs vs others where different approaches may be better...? Rather than slapping an equal level of busywork on everything? Again, I was probably too optimistic in my ability to convey my intention of having a discussion so broad.

So this might come across as a strange critique, and it could spill out into all sorts of proposed design mechanics, so I'll just focus on the balancing side for now. That is to say, recipe output. I think there are a number of points where this game makes certain processes unrealistically costly, in the name of 'wilderness survival', when in reality those processes were traditionally used because they were resource/labor efficent. This mostly sticks out to me in the building material aspects, firstly because traditional timber and earth is what I'm more familiar with IRL, but also because that's where the 'unhistorical costliness' makes the least sense to me, as it's only a peripheral matter of game balance, not directly related to progression. A prime example would be wattle and daub. In the game right now 1 dirt + 1 sand + clay + 2 straw gives enough daub (12) to fully plaster a block. Or plaster 1 and a bit blocks (10 + 2 left over) if you're spreading it. That means 2 blocks and some clay + straw to make one block (admittedly very a pretty one). However, I've done this IRL and it's amazingly cheap. The wicker frame and straw both serve to 'bulk out' the mixture far more than you expect. Even without taking into account the straw and wicker, given the two blocks of dirt and sand in the recipe I would expect 2 blocks of output since that's what is put in to the recipe, really it would probably be more like 3x current output. Other examples could be explored like Shingles and Beams. The point is that from a historical standpoint this recipe should go a lot further, that's why it was traditionally used. From a game design standpoint, it would make sense to 'reward' smart approaches with higher resource efficency, rather than making them unrealistically costly. I also think it would not affect game balance drastically to have cheaper building options where it makes historical sense, as it only indirectly affects other areas of game balance. In this case a output buff would put the blocks more or less on par with mud bricks (which have been done quite well imo). I can think of a couple of other examples where higher outputs would make sense, but how likely do people think we'll see some recipe rebalances? Where should they be? There are a small number of cases where I could see the argument for keeping it how it is as game balance (such as in the case of hunting yields, or maybe firewood), but this by no means seems to be the majority of cases. Should 'Uncompromising Wilderness Survival' just be a vibe the game has regardless of historical and traditional methods, or can it allow for productive processes? How does a game design the former so as not to be immersion-breaking for those who have experienced the latter? EDIT: Oops somehow put this in 'Suggestions' and not 'Discussion'. To be clear, I wanted to open up a discussion about game design and the 'meta-issue' around balance and immersion rather than a specific suggestion (though I do offer one).

Could be a neat way to do ocean exploration, have special ocean-only ruins (shipwrecks??) with decent rewards or progression but lock them behind having appropriate gear and preparation. Maybe something about being underwater prevented certain things from being affected by the rot so you can scavenge old world stuff there you couldn't elsewhere? Or maybe the best quality subterranean ruins were built under the oceans.

There are methods of earthenware that do not require a pit kiln, just a sufficiently hot open fire. You won't make anything spectacular or especially durable, and there's a moderatley high risk of failure, but there's no reason a nomad wouldn't have access to pots and the like. This just gave me a thought, shouldn't survival traders sell pots? Makes sense to me that in a world simultaneously inhabited by both nomads and small settlements that tools like that would be sold... why else would those traders be camped out in the middle of nowhere except to pass on goods to passing nomads, bandits, vagrants and the like.

Don't forget, just as there are extra problems and processes real life farming has to deal with, there are also things farmers can do to increase yield/save labor. For instance, grain crops often produce types of hay in addition to grains, which can be mulched or fed to animals. Those animals can be run on fields to return nutrients though their droppings and even seed the field with nutrient-fixing microbes. There were also crops like clover which would fix nitrogen and could be plowed into the ground to increase carbon content, which helps with water retention and the afore-mentioned microbes. Ye-olde farm methods could result in land becoming more fertile over time, compared to modern fertilizer methods that have much better yields, but leave the land nutrient deficit and must be fertilized again next season. Speaking of animals, pigs and to a lesser degree chickens can be used to 'turn' soil, mixing the organic matter on top. Sheep and especially goats are good at eradicating all sorts of brambles and weeds (so long as they are not toxic) and for clearing land. Farm animals were very important to pre-modern agriculture without even considering their use for drafting to plow fields or run mills etc. Another thing, usually done at smaller scale today, is companion planting. Certain crops/herbs benefit other crops, like keeping pests away or providing a natural trellis while not really competing for nutrients. Most plants actively put biochemicals into the soil to either support their growth/growth of friendly species or inhibit competition. Most pre-modern cultures had some grasp of this and knew to 'plant x next to y but not with z'. If we were to see more depth in crops, I would like to see some of the above added as beneficial mechanics along with the extra 'chores'. But as I hinted at before, currently the game has something more closely inspired by modern farming practices, which usually rely solely on fertilizer and crop rotation but generally ignore many other tools used by most of human history. I would love to see and overhaul that adds some of those traditional methods, as you'd get opportunity for more overlapping gameplay systems, like having a reason to get goats other than for fancy milk.

Brain tanning is also a thing. Bit of a different process with more manual labor required, it might be confusing gameplay-wise to implement two systems for leatherworking. I echo the sentiment that shells turning up in panning would go a long way to feed my compulsive collection addiction for helping with leather struggles.

I feel brigandine armor is in a bit of a weird spot at the moment, too many drawbacks to wear around generally, and there are more protective options available for only slightly more work, especially when considering iron tier, where metal quantities isn't as much of an issue. There's probably a discussion that could be had around balancing but that's not the point of this post. Instead I want to propose a different way to bring more love to Brigandine: STYLE The suggestion is to make brigandine a Tailor exclusive (joining a long list of exclusively Tailor items that are a bit meh...) but also to make it that using colored cloth in colored brigandine, much the same as tailored gambeson. You would have to swamp out some of the leather in the recipe with cloth, but I personally feel that's an acceptable trade gameplay-wise as the materials are roughly comparable in value. It's historically accurate at least... What do people think? Should some of the metal plates be swapped out with cloth as well, making it an easier entry-level armor that can be quickly produced with a simple helve hammer setup and some leather? Or is it simple to make enough already? At any rate, since there seems no indication we would be getting sir-coats soon, I see this as an excellent way to allow for one to have their own style of livery. Speaking of which, here's some simplistic real-world examples of what I'm getting at, found online:

I have no idea and you might be correct, but just for the sake of consideration: Could it also be that timed raid mechanics are by their very nature difficult to design within a sandbox as expansive as VS? Look to games like Valheim where the design philosophy focuses around extremely polished, limited (compared to VS) systems... their raid mechanics are still one of the most controversial parts of the game. The lack of mods could simply be a matter of scale and difficulty. Could be sample bias but everyone I've personally talked to about the game has expressed disappointment with the temporal storms in one way or another.

This baffles me. Clever use of waterways and pools was something ancient hunters used to slow and exhaust their quarry. Why on earth can I be out-swum by a chicken?

This was my experience as well. I think an unintentional effect of what you might call 'systemic design polish philosophy' in the last few updates (which I've been very pleased with in general), has been to highlight the temporal storm as needing some real help. With all the little touches towards integrated systems, clearer progression, and multiple paths to get there that's been happening elsewhere (slowly but surely, granted), the temporal system feels more and more disjointed. It sticks out. What I mean is, I get the impression that a couple of years ago (I'm relatively new, just got in for 1.19), you'd play VS as a 'jank' but charming and surprisingly deep experience, but for those that have come on sooner and didn't get to see the early builds, it seems like everything *else* is moving towards a design vision. So it's hard for new players not to feel like the current place temporal storms are in is intentional by design. Kinda like a reverse 'broken windows' theory. Or maybe not even reverse. Just a big ol' broken window. It is something that makes me hesitate from introducing VS to friends until it's fixed in case it drives them away. It's already done so to one. Minor psycho-analysis aside, personally I'll happily be on 'sleep through storms' till then.

That's fair. I was thinking something that wasn't dropped from monsters, so that they remained the 'inefficent hazard' the game seems to be going for, but I get that there's already plenty of special doodads that don't really do anything worthwhile. In my mind's eye I had something that collects upon the ground because compulsively picking things out of dirt under time pressure is a tried and true gameplay mechanic, Stardew Valley et al. This has got me thinking, what if a small number of surface flint and stones replenished after a storm? Could solve the multiplayer flint issue I've seen raised.

I agree this seems like the ideal. The purpose of the original suggestion was to offer a small tweak that had gameplay implications but would not require any system redesigns. I'm not sure how easy it is to mod classes currently, but I would be interested to see if anyone has done something like this and how it turned out. Yeah, I said it's a bit hand-wavey. I had no clue it was feasible a healing class was going to be added. I thought it backed the 'support role' and very slight 'homesteading class' niche.

This got me thinking about some sort of resource that appears during temporal storms and a short time after. If you don't want to engage with the storm you can just wait for it to pass and rush out to grab the things, but going out into the storm will give you more. It should probably be something that's very useful for a lot of things but mostly not critical to progression, kind of like how Hailite and Saltpeter sit currently.

So I've long time been a fan of the tailor. Most of my singleplayer time has been spent with Tailor. I love the theming of during a survival civilization rebuilding situation, people skilled in clothing would be notably crucial. I like the cool clothes and gamberson is my beloved. However, there are complaints and I get them. I've seen a few suggestions for a rebalance, with people pointing out Talior has too many debuffs for the advantages, especially in singleplayer... and yeah, it's probably true. That said, I don't believe that is the issue at heart. Plenty of the classes have rough debuffs, and people have no problem playing around them. Yeah sure, maybe the advantages are a little better but Blackguard and Malefactor's drawbacks are much more punishing... and it doesn't seem to be as much of an issue. I believe this to really be a matter of class identity. Playing tailor just feels too much like playing commoner. It's not that tailored armor and nice clothes aren't necessarily strong enough, it's that they don't lead to unique gameplay. In other words, they don't leave a comprehensive framework of limitations and advantages to make choices within, except maybe what to put the first few harvests of flax towards. My proposal would be to give Tailor a very small buff that a handwave-y lore reason could be contrived for. The point of this slight buff would only be to give the player an option for a slightly more defined playstyle in certain situations. To this end, since we have a time to apply healing items now, I would suggeat a buff to healing item *application*. Not actual regen, but the time it takes to apply a poltice or something. The justification for this is tailors are good at working with fabric and getting between folds I guess. The point is, this would leave put Tailor in a position where the player has a very slightly increased survivability if they do not engage in a intense fight, favoring running away or potentially using wits to draw the fight out. This also means Tailor can act as a quick medic to high-armored friends, further backing their 'muliplayer support' potential role. Even if this is not the right tweak, I suspect it's still fundamentally a class identity problem, which means it's a opportunity to adress it in a cool way that gives more depth to the game. But what do people think? Is Tailor tailor-ey enough? Does the class already come out better in multiplayer and I've missed the point? EDIT: Whoops clicked post before I had finished typing EDIT EDIT: typos

Has the potential for reactive storm intensity been fleshed out? Maybe if you engage with combat by killing a lot of drifters from rifts, the next storm will be heavier. Lore reasons could be drawing the ire of the rust world or something... Of course heaiver storms would bring mobs that drop a bit more. Also, first lurker post hello people.