LadyWYT

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I think this answers the question, really. If the sanity drain is very slow, then it's pretty much going to be worthless as a challenge since the player is going to spend more time around traders or doing domestic chores around the base than they will staring eldritch horrors in the lack-of-face. The drain would need to be higher, or otherwise make it very difficult for the player to restore sanity...neither of which are particularly good options since temporal stability already accomplishes the same thing and plenty of players complain about having to deal with that. That's not to say it's a bad idea, just I don't really think it fits. The eldritch horror is primarily background flavoring and not necessarily the main focus of the game, and adding mechanics like this would probably bring the horror to the forefront a little too much. I think it's better to just keep the monster designs creepy as well as the atmosphere for certain story locations, as appropriate, and just let the player's imagination do the rest. You don't need to force the player to sit at base to restore a meter if you can creep them out enough to voluntarily avoid the horror elements themselves.

It already does--the player's hunger rate is reduced by 20% if the off hand is empty. You could flip it around and remove the penalty from the off-hand and just reduce hunger by 20% while the slot is empty, but that's the exact same mechanic implemented in a way that makes the game easier, not harder. I'm saying that it's perfectly fine to do both. Maybe not in every scenario, but if every choice is always going to get framed as a beneficial one to the player, then the world stops feeling genuine and starts to feel pretty bland, since there's nothing bad that can actually happen. Generally, the "carrot" is more attractive than the "stick" when it comes to getting the player to make decisions, but if there are actions the player really shouldn't be doing or otherwise actions that should logically carry some serious consequences, it's perfectly fine to slap the player with a penalty as a deterrent. As for me personally, I'm not convinced the game would feel more satisfying with no off-hand hunger or weapons only providing buffs and never any drawbacks, even if they maybe should. The no off-hand hunger mechanic I've already experienced in Minecraft, and while it's very convenient it also ends up feeling rather unsatisfying since the slot turns into free inventory. Sure, not equipping anything in the slot is an option, but that doesn't feel very satisfying since it's just such a useful benefit. As for the weapons, generally the systems I find more interesting are the ones that have positives and negatives; the positives are nice, but the negatives are what's actually interesting to play around.

It's fairly normal for overhangs to have locust nests, but not the most common occurrence to find overhangs over water like this. In any case, nests will spawn locusts if you get close enough.

Smithing is tough work though, so while it may not be much effort to just hold a pair of tongs, it is a lot of effort to shape metal. I think that's what the 20% is supposed to translate to in this case. I also don't think the player is meant to be juggling the tongs when doing smith work, since smithing requires holding a hot piece of metal in place so it can be shaped. From a game perspective, it's probably a lot easier to code a simple off-hand penalty for tongs instead of trying to write code to account for whether the player is hitting the anvil/workpiece versus just hitting something else. This too. It's similar to the hunger penalty that Blackguard has, which really isn't that much either.

Like @xXx_Ape_xXx already said above, it's difficult to troubleshoot problems without more information about the systems involved.

Not everything needs a penalty, but I don't think games need to always be soft around the edges. It's perfectly OK to slap players with penalties for certain actions, and providing clear drawbacks can make choices a lot more interesting than just an "okay, what buff stick do you want to hit the bad guys with today?" I also think it's perfectly fine to make it clear to the player that not every choice will work to their direct benefit; allowing the player to make bad choices and suffer the consequences helps the world feel real, and invites the player to consider what they're doing carefully since the outcome is actually going to matter. To cite Skyrim as an example: most choices the player can make don't feel impactful, because the end result is almost always the same--some distinct benefit. The player can't actually fail most quests or otherwise lock themselves out of content by their choices; in contrast, previous titles would let players fail quests or lock themselves out of factions and benefits depending on the choices they made. I think this might be one of the reasons why many modern games feel a little lacking compared to older games, and why Vintage Story feels like a breath of fresh air. The player can make many choices, but not every choice will result in something beneficial, and sometimes gaining particular benefits means accepting certain drawbacks.

Combat Overhaul is great as a mod, but goes too far for what the vanilla game should be, in my opinion. That's not to say combat couldn't be made a little more complex/interesting, but Vintage Story isn't an action game. Most of the challenges are rooted in the player being able to plan ahead rather than just react to the current moment; keeping a simpler system helps the game maintain a better balance between all the gameplay loops offered, as well as makes it easy for new players and returning players alike to jump into the game and start having fun. Given what's been teased so far about the armor rework, the devs seem to be doing a good job of adding more complexity without unbalancing or overcomplicating the gameplay. Eh, as neat as it sounds, I think that's going just a bit too far. A single extra slot or two for certain equipment/bag types is fine, but pushing it further than that would make the inventory system very cumbersome to use. Sticking everything into what's essentially four magic backpacks isn't particularly realistic, but it gets the idea of backpacks/storage containers across while being a system that's easy for the player to use. Of course, I could just be misreading the concept, but basically, I'd rather keep my magic backpacks than be stuck juggling a single backpack and tools/weapons into and out of storage slots whenever I want to use them.

This is probably the best solution, that I've seen/can think of, anyway. One of the main problems is players not being aware of the penalty and getting confused about why hunger drains so fast, and then understandably getting frustrated/upset when they finally figure out why. I assume that many of these players are also assuming that the off-hand slot works similar to Minecraft or other games, where the slot is just there as an equipment holder/stat boost and otherwise has no impact. At any rate, having a note in the tooltips or handbook to alert the player to the penalties would solve that particular issue. I wouldn't mind seeing a two-handed system for weapons, but I would take it much further than simply preventing the player from using the off-hand/penalizing them for using the off-hand with a two-handed weapon. If two-handed weapons are implemented, I want to see spacing rules put into effect as well--that is, the player isn't going to be slinging around a greatsword/dane axe in a confined space, and polearms would have limited poke ability in such spaces. Overall, the two-handed system isn't the worst idea, but I'm still skeptical that it will really solve many complaints. Maybe, but part of the complaints about the current hunger mechanic seem to be that players need to swap items out of the off-hand slot. In which case, I don't think they're going to be thrilled about needing to learn this skill in an alternate system either. Maybe. But a belt slot feels a lot more limited, so I'm not sure the hunger penalty would be needed. It's also less tiring to strap something to your waist and carry it around than it is to carry something around in your hands. If balancing is really needed though, I think it's as simple as making other useful items that can also fit in that slot. Maybe the player can carry a tool(like a pickaxe) there and simply retrieve it when they want to use it. Maybe that slot could be equipped with a small bag that can carry specific items, like herbs, or a handbasket that could act as additional storage; perhaps it's also storage that could be retained on death rather than dropped. In any case, those options give players more flexibility, while also requiring the player to make choices about which benefits they gain versus which they give up.

Your best bet is probably to regenerate the location via command, or at least part of it. Do note that doing so will respawn the boss and other enemies, but this can be solved by strategic applications of the admin blade. According to the wiki, the command you're looking for is /wgen regen 7, but if you float above the Echo Chamber's center(that's the big device in the center of the RA) then /wgen regen 3 should suffice. https://wiki.vintagestory.at/Resonance_Archives#Notes You could teleport via console commands, but if you want to do it without "cheating" then investing in a elk and saddlebags will make the job easier. There's also mods that you could use to increase backpack space, but you may not want to go that route since removing mods mid-playthrough can be dicey and you may not want to otherwise play with those mods either. Alternatively, you could embrace the challenge and build a road to the Archive as a potentially fun, interesting way to flesh out your world.

I wouldn't say it's "barely notable" if players are intent on complaining about its existence--that would suggest that the feature is notable enough to produce a reaction. Pretty much. Some players don't like it, and that's fair, but an extra 20% hunger is...really not much. Blackguard gets penalized more just by default, and letting the player run around with a free utility slot doesn't quite seem in the spirit of VS. It'd be one thing if the player were just fastening a lantern to their belt or helmet and having a light source that way, but the off-hand is used for more than just lighting. Equipping a shield should be a conscious choice the player makes for situations that warrant it, not something they just wear all the time so they can be lax about paying attention to surroundings. Likewise, forging and chiseling are both rather demanding on energy, realistically, so boosting hunger rate while the player does these activities seems fair. As far as the late game, I know we veterans like to say "hunger doesn't matter in the late game because food is so plentiful" argument a lot, and to an extent it's true. However, players who get a little lax about their food supply can quickly find themselves in a bind and need to drop whatever plans they had to acquire more food lest they starve. It's happened to me a few times. For a game that touts itself as uncompromising survival, I don't think that's an unfair balance either; food should be easy enough for the average player(especially new players) to get a grasp on so they can move on to other things, but difficult enough that the player will still need to manage their resources a bit and not just eat a meal once in a blue moon. If the player doesn't manage their food supply properly, then they're going to have trouble accomplishing much of anything in the game. This suggestion I do like more though, since instead of just demanding that the feature be deleted with nothing to take its place(and therefore make the game easier), it offers a different sort of penalty instead. I was toying with similar thoughts the other day, however, the main strike I see against this idea is that while it does make sense, it may end up a little too confusing for players or produce other frustrations. For example, if one wants to go mining, they're going to need to set down their lantern each time, unless they're using night vision goggles or a feature is added to allow belt-lanterns or something. Same goes for fighting at night. It's also likely that some players would complain about not being able to use spears with shields(as was done historically in some cases) or otherwise being able to mine with a shield equipped for faster reaction times. Likewise, there'd probably be players getting confused about why their work speed is so slow or why they suddenly can't use ranged weapons effectively when they have something in their off-hand. Mind you, I'm not saying it couldn't work, just that I'm not sure it really solves an issue as much as it exchanges one set of complaints for a different set. I'm reminded of something I read about Age of Empires II's development a long time ago; basically, the game has a bonus for ranged attacks if the unit/building is standing on high ground and firing downhill. It's a nice bonus that makes logical sense and is decently easy for the player to figure out just from playing the game. The devs also wanted to add facing mechanics, where units that were attacked from behind would take extra damage, but they ended up cutting that feature since it would be difficult for the player to figure out and manage that mechanic in the midst of battle(and thus lead to a lot of confusion and frustration).

Bellows are for the forge and won't affect firepits. Otherwise, no, you're not doing anything wrong, but 1.22 changed the way stack heating works. The temperature of items no longer resets after each one cooks, but in return the items will heat in proportion to their stack size. The more items you try to heat at once, the longer it takes everything to get to temperature. What's probably happened is you're trying to cook a lot of things at once, so cooking smaller stacks at a time should speed up the process. I will note that item stacks don't cool down proportionally, but there is a mod that fixes that: https://mods.vintagestory.at/scs

It is, since it causes major issues with story integrity. The player is a specific person, with specific ties to specific characters, so it's going to get very confusing when said characters always keep referring to the player as the same guy. It also creates problems for adding opportunities for the player to have more in-depth interactions with NPCs, since respawning as a completely different character should logically mean that all prior relations cease to exist. For newer players especially, it would probably be rather disappointing/confusing to select the option that as clearly "be a new character on each respawn" only to have the story and NPCs completely ignore that. It's a neat idea, but not really something that warrants a special option since it's already possible to achieve this kind of play in the vanilla game. All the player has to do is turn up the respawn radius significantly and never use a temporal gear to reset their spawn, as well as consciously make the choice to not return to their old base if they're playing with the map enabled(or disable the map to remove the temptation). Wilderness Survival and Homo Sapiens difficulties are set up like this by default. Edit: also welcome to the forums!

Welcome to the forums! The reason you don't do this, is that players need hiding to be a viable option for dealing with the storms. It's not an exciting option, but it doesn't need to be either, since absolute safety has a price. This would probably be a more viable option, since a temporal storm is basically the collision of realities. The structures that appear during storms could be quite esoteric since they're part of the Rust world, and contain useful bits like temporal gears and Jonas parts, possibly even metal scraps or ingots, as well as fun little collectibles. Of course, the structures could also just be purely decorative in nature too, similar to the gigantic gears that erupt from the landscape. To prevent issues with player structures, these structures could be barred from spawning in areas with player-made structures or other protected areas. Or instead of a structure, make it the Vintage equivalent of an AT-AT or something. Basically a giant clockwork beast-machine that walks around indifferent to the player, but that the player can scale like a mobile parkour course for some goodies. Mistiming a jump though or failing to return to solid ground before the storm ends could have disastrous consequences. Likewise, perhaps there are puzzles on some of the machine-beasts to solve to get the loot, and failing a puzzle might result in some nasty injuries.

Negative. Hunger rate can be adjusted, but cannot be turned off entirely unless one changes to creative or spectator mode. Players can adjust their respawn radius from world spawn, as well as how many "lives" they get for that world, but cannot change their spawn via sleeping in a bed. Tool durability can be increased, but tools can't be set to never break. The only way the player can accomplish that kind of gameplay, is to use mods. I disagree. As @Teh Pizza Lady already noted, dev time that is spent on a minor feature like this is dev time that's not being spent on other features that would be useful to/appreciated by more players. Likewise, seemingly simple changes can sometimes snowball into massive headaches to actually code. Plus I can't say that I'm particularly keen on reading through an influx of more demands for Minecraft-style bed spawn rules or other concessions to make the game easier, nor am I really keen on the game I enjoy getting watered down to a shadow of its former self in order to please a broader audience. If I'm not mistaken, this is one reason many players became disillusioned with Minecraft; the game used to be harder in its earlier days and over time pivoted heavily toward player comfort and convenience. Other games have suffered similar fates.

Sure, but what I'm saying is that making concessions like that leaves the door open to making similar concessions in the future. Things like bed spawning, turning hunger off entirely, making tools never break, removing the hunger penalty from cold and armor, etc. That's my main point. But it's a game, so who cares? Players should just be able to do what they want! Ultimately, it's up to the devs to decide. They have a specific vision for the game; sometimes concessions need to be made to achieve the intended experience, but in other cases it's necessary to tell the player "no". In the case of the latter, that's where mods come in handy.

You're going to die quite a lot in this game, and that's okay! Vintage Story subscribes to some older game design, where the player is taught the basic controls but otherwise left to figure out the actual game on their own. This means a lot of trial and error and learning from the mistakes, even for players who are quite experienced with the game. In keeping with the above--there's no shame/issue with playing the game on easier settings for a more relaxed learning environment. Most settings can be adjusted after world creation without issue, so it's possible to turn the difficulty back up once you feel ready for it.

This right here. The offhand penalty is there to keep the player from using the slot as "free inventory", which is what happens all the time in Minecraft. In that game, there's really no reason not to carry something in your offhand, because there's benefits to carrying items there(quick shield access, easy torch placement, handy food storage, etc) but no drawbacks. Vintage Story tends to lean more heavily into realism and challenge by requiring players to make different choices in order to accomplish different goals and reap the benefits; basically, the player doesn't get much for free. A toggle wouldn't be the end of the world, but I would prefer to just keep it to the modded realm rather than add to the main game. Having lots of customization options by default is generally a good thing, but it's also very possible to clutter menus too much and end up with a system that's very clunky for players to use. I'm also not really a fan of watering down the overall difficulty like this since it can easily start pushing the overall experience to be more like Minecraft rather than a game that's doing its own thing.

They aren't located in any particular spot, but after you've found the first couple and learn what to look for, it gets easier to find more. Currently there's only one dungeon type, and the entrance will look like a small, round hill with drystone peeking out from the dirt and two rusted iron doors on the front, similar to the special doors you see in the Resonance Archive. The entrances also tend to occur in larger flat areas rather than hilly regions, which also makes them a little easier to find. There's definitely more planned though, and some of them look pretty wild given some of the teasers that I've seen floating around.

Make sure each firewood pile is a full stack(32 pieces); if a pile is incomplete, it leaves an air gap and the firewood will burn to ash rather than turn into charcoal. Also make sure that you're covering the pit with something airtight and non-flammable immediately after lighting it, such as a dirt block or solid iron trapdoor. The other thing to check is mods; if you're using them, it's possible that one is interfering with the mechanic somehow. Make sure all mods are up to date for your game version, especially if you're playing 1.22. Older mods do sometimes work on newer versions, but 1.22 had some alterations to the code that broke a lot of older mods. Otherwise, disable your mods and verify that vanilla works correctly, then re-enable your mods one by one and test each as you do so--it'll be quite clear which one is the problem. If you can't verify that vanilla is working correctly, then I recommend backing up your saves and mods as needed before reinstalling the game.

I wouldn't mind seeing this either, though this also leaves the door open for players getting too confused/frustrated over the lack of information. "My crops all died to cold and now I'm going to starve! How was I supposed to know that would happen!?" Perhaps it could just be some sort of forecast reader instead, so the player can figure out what the weather patterns will be for the next seven days and plan accordingly. Lots of wind? Good time to work the forge or other machines. Lots of rain? Might want to do things indoors or go fishing. As interesting as circular stories are, it's a plot device that really only works once, and tends to leave an unsatisfying ending.

Eh, I dunno. A temporal gear doesn't seem very likely to me. Rather, seraph bodies have probably just absorbed enough temporal energy to be able to display curious properties, such as oddly colored skin or bending the rules of time.

I mean...isn't that basically why the world is now messed up? This is kind of what I do and don't want to see at the same time. Tech packs are popular for Minecraft, and I think that's probably what many players think of when they think of potential Jonas tech, but at the same time...it's the kind of gameplay that doesn't really feel like Vintage Story, even if it's a real grind to actually acquire and set up the tech. Using modpacks as an example, Vintage Story feels more similar to the original "Life in the Woods" modpack for Minecraft, where the focus was more on exploring the natural world and crafting via "traditional" methods, rather than building rockets and robots and machines to automate everything. I think the latter part of this example works rather well though, since it's something feasible for clockwork machinery and also not something that's fully automated--the player still has to physically interact with the machine to get the job done. Minecraft's Create mod probably fits into this category at least somewhat, though I think Create also goes a little too far by allowing the player to automate just about anything. For me, I tend to like the more esoteric machines, like the rift ward, teleporter(base or terminus), night vision mask, etc. They have their useful niches, but they're not necessarily things that the player will need to always build or use in that many situations. They're also not the general power tools/weapons/armor/electricity resource trope that many games tend to rely on; in this case, there's more wiggle room to have different rules to operate by. Perhaps instead of the standard redstone/electric rules, it's pressure gauges, fluid dynamics, and clockwork that the player must manage.

I know bandits are a somewhat common suggestion, but the main counterpoints against such an addition is that...well, it would really only make sense for them to hang around a settlement or known active trade route so they actually have things to pillage, and those are pretty few and far between from a lore standpoint. The other is that the player is generally presented as a hero type and the game tends to focus a little more on humanity's better qualities(like working together to overcome a challenge), so adding a human enemy can run contrary to that. That being said, given what's happened in the lore, I could see an antagonistic human faction being perhaps more than just bandits. I'll post behind spoilers just in case.

Well...kind of. I'll drop a note on what it is, for anyone wondering.