Chuckerton

I definitely think this is the way to go for classes. Making certain classes the ONLY way to make certain items only incentivizes me to just not use class exclusive recipes and pick commoner. Having strengths and weaknesses statwise is much better. Class exclusive recipes only make sense on servers that have enough people to fill out all the classes.

but its so much fun! Although to be fair, a forum is literally for exactly this. Discuss and share ideas. People are going to disagree and as long as things don't escalate, I don't see that the conversation should just be shut down. Now, THIS forum might not be the best place for THAT discussion, but it is still a forum being used as its more or less expected to be used.

i might have to make one to take with me in caves then because sometimes i have an assault launched against me, and other times looting creatures with the knife sometimes bugs out. If there were human enemies or more non-drifter enemies, then i would say its fine, but theres just too few enemies and too many of them are drifters for a bonus from x weapon type on y enemy imo. So if they do give it a damage buff, then i would hope for new enemy types beyond drifters. I do still think considering realism with fighting drifters isnt a good idea though. We dont know exactly the mechanics of how they are injured or killed in the same way we wouldnt necessarily know how regular zombie media handles injury or death unless the media goes into detail, and currently vs hasnt done that other than saying the falx is the weapon of choice and a few pieces of information about the enemy that doesnt go into very good specifics. I always see realism in gaming as a canvas for which to paint on, it's the starting point but you cannot be afraid to paint over it, most masterpieces do to some or a large extent, because *realistically*, plate armor does not slow you down that much and *realistically* a bear or wolf will absolutely maul you and you are not fast enough to run away from it, and you cant sprint at full speed backwards, and you would have to recraft candles or refuel lanterns, and theres alot more that goes into making a structurally stable structure than the building mechanics in this game... and the list goes on. I usually prefer "authenticity" over "realistic". It doesnt need to copy real life but it can certainly feeeeel realistic.

Autoloot feature? I didnt know it could do that, i basically never use the falx. I just use stone spears until i can make a blackguard sword. I hope they dont give it a monster fighting sword buff though. I dont like the falx as a weapon design. Sure its unique but i like regular old swords. Not to mention having a single weapon dedicated to an entire enemy type and then having a bunch of other weapons, all worse at dealing with this enemy type would suck. What are you going to use all the other weapons for? Wildlife? Why would we get new weapons if we end up being stuck with realistically one choice of weapon anyway? i get why, lorewise, the falx would be a good weapon for these enemies, but we wanted to consider the realism of this (which i think is a mistake, its a fictional time abomination creature, do we even know if they have vital organs? As far as i know all we can infer from them is from bowtorns as they have bones, so we know they have those), then theres still other weapons that would probably be better. I mean the pickaxe is right there, or if you prefer the military version, being a warpick, maybe a 2 handed version like a lucerne. Or a billhook, or a poleaxe/halberd. I guess it really depends on how exactly the metal is in their bodies. If its a thin layer under the skin, or if its like metal tumors in their bodies. If its the former, then any of these options would be fine as they could punch through the metal layer. If its the latter, which i think it might be, then i get the falx, as you cut through the drifter until you are stopped on a metal tumor, you can pull the sword backwards and rip up flesh on the way out, and potentially pull the metal out (which would be my guess as to how that autoloot feature works). Either way, all of these other options would still work. Its still metal weapons being driven into a creature that is more or less fleshy and killable. If i were to figure out the niche for a falx, it would be that autolooting feature. Its unique and interesting and it makes sense, and it could still stand out as the abomination killer without offering an advantage that makes it the ONLY option.

I mean at least this would be nice for hunting. I dont really care for advanced butchering but i think hunting could use some love. If people are uncomfortable with any amount of blood then maybe there can be a toggle to turn it into hoof/paw/footprints when a creature is injured or running away. But red would stick out well against green grass or white snow They might change that lorewise though. Coming from nobody but my own thoughts i guess, but that was in the item description for the falx as the reason that we dont have regular swords, saying that "A simple sword will not do here", but if theyre adding new weapons in the combat update, then will a simple sword still not do? I guess if we dont know what new weapons theyre adding, then maybe it wont change in the lore because we might not get a simple sword. But i hope we do, im okay with just "regular medieval weapons".

I honestly feel like waterwheels are just too OP in comparison to windmills. I got lucky with two rapids near enough to use them both and i can gear up a single helvehammer twice and its ridiculously fast (i know eventually theyll catch fire when they add that). Even with one wheel it was really fast. I dont think windmills are bad, i just think the niche they would be good for doesnt really exist right now. I think they would be best as a backup mechanical power system for when your main "on demand" power generation is unavailable. I keep hoping for livestock driven mechanical power, so you can lead an ox or something to a thing that it can walk around to generate mechanical power, maybe at the cost of food. Then windmills would find a good spot as the "auxiliary power" option when the animals are too tired, for power setups that arent near rapids, instead of the ONLY power setup that isnt near rapids. In the meantime, i just say explore until you find a rapids in a pretty area and setup there, but still make a windmill for things that arent "on demand", so grinding a chest of grain into flour or pulverizing stuff. Then you can save your waterwheel for helvehammers and grindstones.

I think low tier drifters are fine. Higher tier gets boring. More health and damage, yahooo! The most boring kind of difficulty. Id prefer it being more variants of drifters spawn. Either a swarm of the lower tier basic ones in place of a high tier one, or instead an armored drifter, thats larger and has metal plates on it so its extremely tanky and persistent, though slow and with weaker attacks. The nightmare drifters look like the "damage" drifter already, with the sword hand, maybe it shouldnt have as much health in comparison to its current state. It would be tricky to not step into other enemies territory with other variants. Maybe having drifters as a more exclusively low tier enemy type and then introducing new rust world enemies. Maybe an enemy that can pull you towards them, or some kind of explosive lobbing one. I think more meaningful differences between variants of the rust creatures we already have would be nice too. Like bowtorns, maybe a variant that can fire much more rapidly, or a ballista variant. Anything that isnt JUST "more damage and health".

I definitely agree. It also doesnt really get much better as you get better gear because you tend to be fighting stronger drifters because you spend more time underground. In fact, i would even say the problem ends up branching over to shivers too, although they are interesting with their speed at least, but they can get stupid tanky too. Usually i would just play blackguard but the early game while solo is so brutal with them that i end up picking commoner and just turning off class-exclusive items. I generally like the idea of keeping combat simple...ish, but drifters need something to make them more interesting.

I dont think i like the idea of a bunch of different damage types for pretty much this reason. I like the idea of different weapons or different attacks being able to apply different status effects, like slashing weapons causing bleeding more often than stabbing weapons, which might do some other disability, which differ from statuses from blunt weapons. They did talk about making more visceral hit reactions, which to me sounds like attacks causing noticeable injuries or effects to the target. But i dont like "this enemy just resists the damage numbers from this weapon more and this weapon less". I think different damage types and strengths and weaknesses of the total damage you deal overcomplicate things a little. Otherwise, it should be which weapons feels nice for which players. Some players might prefer the range of a spear, others might prefer the heft and wide sweeps of a greatsword (meeeee). I also dont like the idea of "stances" as the way to select attacks. Having different movesets for different types of weapons is fine but having to switch stances in a fight would be clunky. I prefer directional attacks like bannerlord or chivalry (1 or 2), though really just having a choice between 2 types of attacks would be fine i think for this game, seeing as theres not complicated enemies that you would be "dueling"... yet i guess. I guess we might see how they cook with this, maybe drifters can become a more interesting fight. If they were once people (i dont know if they were but they look humanoid enough), it would make sense that they could swing a blade like people used to (for nightmare drifters).

I think i saw someone else here talking about a way to stun many enemies instead of outright killing them for the strategy of escaping, and it made me think that we only have 1 actual grenade, the beenade. The ottoman janissaries used glass balls with explosive material in them as grenades and i think that could be something applicable here. A glass or ceramic ball with some kind of bright and fast burning filler to make a primitive kind of flashbang. I love the limited chemistry in this game and would love to see people making magnesium grenades. Or you know, just filling them with explosive powder and throwing them. You could even make iron ball grenades which cant be thrown as far and dont explode on contact but are very lethal due to the shrapnel \:,'

I dont really anticipate enemy types changing much (although i think bandits would be a cool new enemy, though i doubt we will be getting that for many reasons). If were not getting new enemy types then that rules out equipment strategy in that regard. i do think that armor strategy exists in this game and i think weapon strategy would follow it in the same thing, which is environment. You dont typically walk around exploring and gathering and all that in plate armor, but if you know youre going somewhere that you expect to fight in, you bring it if you have it. I think weapons would be the same way, you bring the weapon depending on the conditions you expect to face. If weapons swing in arcs, maybe they can collide with walls? A big broadly swinging greatsword probably wouldnt do great in a cave, but a polearm you can poke with would be nice to have. Same with a temporal storm on the surface, a polearm that pokes in a straight line at a single target would probably not be as good as a greatsword that can threaten many enemies at once and doesnt have issues swinging in wide arcs. Either way i do hope we get multiple attack types with weapons, at least just stabs vs slashing. Some weapons could be better than others at different attacks but considering the advantages of either kinds of attack during a fight would be very engaging i think.

1.23 COMBAT UPDATE LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO I will wait as long as it's needed, but the hype train has indeed departed. Also, love Alpha 4A and 1B as the logo designs, those are definitely my favorites

Or if theres a hole from one side of the block to the other or something. Would probably stop weird lighting like this

I always prefer a more interesting injuries system over persistence hunting. A crude bow with crude arrows, even if not immediately fatal, should cause animals to slow down and bleed if you hit them with it. Like this. I think that stalking and ambushing should be the opener to a successful hunt. The cruder the weaponry the less disabling it will be. A steel arrow out of a longbow is gonna make for a very short hunt and a very slow animal, but a crude bow with a flint arrow might let the animal run hundreds of blocks and make the player follow a blood trail to figure out where it went down at. I think it would even be justified to make prey animals much more skittish and sensitive to sounds as a consequence. that and maybe let predator animals hunt in much the same fashion. Imagine finding out a wolfpack has been stalking you just a little too late As for chasing, pit trapping is fine and does kind of work in this game already, but drive hunting is something that requires a group of people to do and is generally done against herds of animals, which is cool and would be amazing to see in servers with a coordinated set of players (i would absolutely love seeing a video of everyones perspective in a hunt like this), but it shouldnt be THE way youre expected to hunt, because that completely kills it for solo players. Not to mention if the time to kill is just as long as it is now it kind of makes this a waste when you would still have to shoot and chase normally. if I were to design hunting in this game (i gotta get into modmaking at some point), the challenge of the hunt would be getting in a position or situation where you can make an effective shot. Tracking, sneaking, and very good aim would be essential, as animals will detect you and run from further away if youre not sneaky. A well-placed hit from most hunting weapons (anything from flint arrows to steel spears) is fatal to most prey animals (deer, maybe boar), but not immediately. A fatal hit with a crude hunting weapon might let the animal run hundreds of blocks before it bleeds out, requiring a lot of time to track and increasing the risk it falls off a cliff or is attacked by a different predator. Even if you dont hit it somewhere fatal it should slow it down somewhat. Using better equipment shortens the distance itll be able to run if it is fatally injured or increase the severity of whatever injury you do give it if you fail to make a fatal shot. The goal isnt to make hunting easier, its to make it more engaging. It takes a good amount of work to sneak up on and a lot of patience to get a good shot, but those actions are much more decisive. Right now, when im hunting im just running the animal towards a cliff or lake so it can get stuck on terrain or in water, and when i finally kill it the relief i feel isnt the tension of the hunt its that i can finally just do something else and stop dealing with frustrating animal pathing. Thats just me though, maybe im unique in feeling this way with current hunting but with how involved a lot of the other things in this game is i feel like the animals as a whole are really just not that engaging.

Both in my survival world and in this creative example i have 5 blocks on the waterwheel that are rapids, which i think is as good as it can get. I think waterwheels might just be that good. I guess i dont need to make a large windmill anymore.