LadyWYT

I mean, I'd use them for decoration later in the game, for sure, and maybe one or two early on. I don't see the fat being the problem--it's finding enough shells to make the amount of lamps that I want. Of course, that's assuming that the shell oil lamps take the appearance of the shell you crafted them with, and not the default lamp appearance you get via crafting with a bowl.

More immersive, yes, but don't server admins already take care of things if a player quits playing on the server? I suppose this would be an option to sort of automate the process, but I agree with @Thorfinn, it's better as a mod first.

Gotcha. I'd prefer to stick to more medieval methods for the game than modern techniques(although some processes don't change much), although in this case it may not be possible. My main sticking point is the time/resource investment it requires on top of the time/resources that regular steel already requires. If the durability bonus of Damascus steel isn't big enough for the investment, it risks being relegated to the same corner as alcohol bandages--they're the best in the category, but not worth the effort to acquire. One way around it, perhaps, is replacing the steelmaking process entirely with the one you presented here, although that still poses the question of how to layer the metals in the forging process. The forging process we currently have only produces two results--ingot, or finished item. It doesn't really allow for starting with a plate and ending with a plate, although I could be missing something here. In any case, the other problem with this replacement method is that it takes out the refractory as a mechanic, which isn't ideal. Alternatively, you could keep steelmaking as-is, and add the Damascus method as an alternate way to refine steel from iron(if that's even possible to do, I haven't looked into it to see how feasible it is). Then the player is offered the choice of more easily mass-producing steel(refractory method), or spending more time at the forge to achieve a higher quality steel(Damascus steel). I'm guessing in this scenario, the refractory method will still be the most common choice, as it allows for more steel to be refined at once, whereas the Damascus method will be better suited for making tools and weapons. I can also see the Damascus method being preferred on maps where bauxite is hard to find. You could probably just give Damascus steel its own fancy texture if you left the step out. Plus the diamond vs netherite issue. Diamond was the end-tier material for the longest time, and then netherite came along to add a bit more durability and damage(and fireproofing), at the expense of being more hassle to obtain. Which meant that if you wanted the "best" equipment, you needed to go through all the hassle to obtain netherite. In regards to mending itself...I do like the enchantment, but it is kinda game-breaking. It's so useful that you can't really avoid leaving it off your weapons, tools, and armor, and it renders the repairing feature of the anvil pointless. Acquiring mending books also isn't terribly difficult, but it is rather tedious as it tends to involve either a lot of fishing, or villager trading(which is a whole different mess). The better option would have been making the anvil repair process better(anvils more durable, less costly to repair items, etc). Mending books would have worked better as a one-time-use item that can fully repair a piece of gear(but not enchant it), making it desirable for pieces that are too expensive to repair on anvils. To obtain one, you'd need to venture into one of the Ancient Cities(or some equivalent treasure spot), as they can't be obtained by normal means(similar to Notch apples). Alternatively, the mending enchantment could have just made the item it was applied to drop a broken item when it reaches zero durability, rather than just disappearing. That way, you'd still have the item and be able to repair it, but you'd need to invest actual materials into the repairs and not just experience. That was my general thought. Either that, or have them be unbreakable, but useless when they hit zero durability unless you recharge them with a temporal gear. Similar to how a lot of modded electric tools function in the other block game.

I'm sure it's something on the to-do list. As I understand it now, many of the animations we have aren't really finished and are more just placeholders. Actually, I would keep the up/down attack, or implement a mix of the side/side up/down. You don't really slash with a pick as much as you try to bury the point into something, and it's a bit easier to do that swinging from high to low. Side to side still works, but it just doesn't feel like it would be as effective. I'm wondering too if it could be taken a bit further than just animation variety. If there's a combat rework, I could see some weapons(such as knives and swords) having two different attack modes and a hotkey for switching between them(similar to the scythe and propick, but perhaps a simpler toggle rather than full interface). Then you could switch between slashing or stabbing with the weapon, and do either slashing or piercing damage depending on how you're wielding it. Slashing could cover a broader area(hit another target or two), and stabbing could be single-target only. I'd also expect the attack values to vary depending on weapon type; a straight blade will probably have little difference in attack values between slashing and stabbing. A curved blade I would expect to have a higher value for slashing damage and a lower value for piercing. The one exception to the rule I can think of is the Falx blade. It's a curved blade, which isn't as ideal for stabbing, but the point curves inward. So it's going to focus the momentum into the tip of the blade and pierce anyway, even if you're slashing with it(although it depends on which direction you're slashing). You could probably leave out the interface/toggle entirely and make the Falx blade a slashing weapon only, with some bonus piercing damage for the first target hit(the one in the crosshairs).

I think it's an actual gameplay factor, since I've been bonked on the head a couple times when mining or felling trees. It's a very rare occurrence though, so I presume the blocks have a rather small hitbox and need to fall a minimum distance before the game begins to account for gravity. I'd wager it's also limited to certain blocks as well.

I'm still skeptical of a source of renewable flint/stones and sticks(driftwood) solving the issues that large multiplayer servers can have with spawn resources, but being able to find more seashells, potential food sources, and the rare treasure or two would be cool!

I'm intrigued by the idea, but I'm curious as to where you got the information regarding the forging method. For gameplay reasons, it'd probably need to be a hefty boost to justify that much added time investment. I otherwise don't see a lot of players going through the effort to get both carbon steel and meteoric iron and spend extra time forging it into an ingot and then even more time forging it again into something usable. Realistically though, Damascus steel is equivalent to standard steel, for the most part. The main difference, aside from the prettier pattern, is that standard steel tends to be tougher, but more prone to cracking. Damascus steel tends to be a bit softer, which makes it more flexible and crack-resistant, but more susceptible to losing its shape and edge through use. I think the better option might be to have some similar method of fusing temporal gears(or at least, the temporal material they're made of) with steel to make temporal steel, an alloy that is both stronger than regular steel, adds to the lore, and required for more advanced Jonas tech.

Even with a detailed explanation of an idea, examples of how others found success/failure attempting similar things in similar scenarios will still come up in the discussion. Although if the initial idea is presented with a detailed explanation, it becomes a lot easier to discuss and figure out what might and might not work. I'd also note that it's not a bad thing to post less-than-stellar ideas either. While they might not get a lot of support, discussing them may spur ideas for other things, such as mods or gameplay challenges.

So it's not just my imagination that some of these chests don't have loot in them. I've run into a few, and this is one of them. I figured it may have been the game glitching a bit. The first time I found this chest, I got excited because I thought it would have some really cool loot in it due to its more hidden spot. Nope! Just pure disappointment. Now if they happened to be, say, cat people in a certain frosty environment, it would have some really good loot!

Agreed. Although if I misplace one, I typically just fire it up rather than try to move it. They don't take that long to smelt the ore, and I'll be breaking it anyway to get the ore out.

Or just set animals to neutral behavior in the world settings when starting a game. Once you're established enough to feel confident dealing with aggressive animals, you can turn their aggression back on via console command. You'll also know where they spawn that way too, so you don't end up settling down next to a bear or pack of wolves. I would say add a different crafting option for handbaskets, like one made out of willow switches, birch bark, or something similar. That way if you don't have ready access to reeds, you probably have access to some other kind of plant that you can make into a basket, unless you picked a polar start. If you just give the player the materials up front, it takes away from the survival challenge, but I suppose an alternative option would be to enable a "cheat box" option on world creation, similar to how you can choose to spawn with a chest of food and starting tools in Minecraft. Unless there's a way to make multiple handles in one go, I don't see this being a very fun mechanic. Most of the tools need some kind of handle, and a lot of tools you will be making fairly frequently. Having to spend extra time refining a handle every time you need to make a tool is likely to be very tedious. There's actually a new drifter-type mob coming in the next update! Except it does not have glowing eyes(that I'm aware of), as canonically drifters and their like don't seem to have faces at all. Glowing eyes seem to be relegated to the automatons, and I can say from experience that it's quite creepy to venture into a cave and find something staring back at you.

It could just be really bad luck. Occasionally you'll get a tile or two that seems to take forever to grow, although it's a little unusual that the whole plot would do that. Have you installed any mods recently? If you have, it could be due to a mod messing with something. Otherwise, if it's vanilla and the crops still don't grow after several days despite the conditions being right, I'd say you may have run into a bug.

He did, but it's more immersive to sit. Although I think half the time I'm standing anyway, unless I'm trying to trigger the cooking fire music.

As of right now, it seems that locust taming via tuning spear is locked to the clockmaker class, and there does not appear to be a mod that allows you to have a locust or similar mechanical companion without being a clockmaker. The best I could find is this mod: https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/8986 While it still limits the tinkering to clockmakers, it does seem to allow a clockmaker to repair locusts and gift them to other players to use. So if you're playing multiplayer and have a friend playing clockmaker, it's an option. Otherwise, I'd say it's a matter of either figuring out how to make a mod that removes the clockmaker requirement for locust taming, or finding someone willing to make the mod for you.

TIL! Guess I'll keep sitting then while I'm reading my books!

By default there are 5 nutrition bars: fruit, vegetables, grain, protein, and dairy. Protein is fairly easy to fill, along with fruits, so I'd say the default is closer to 2/5(40%) filled in the early game. With your proposed addition of hydration, it would be closer to 3/6(50%). Each full bar of nutrition gives an extra 2.5 hitpoints, so the end result is a potential extra 2.5 hitpoints in exchange for another stat to keep track of. It's an interesting idea, in any case, but I think hydration is probably best left in modded territory right now. I've been playing with one of the thirst/hydration mods of late and while it brings a different challenge to the game, it also gets a little tedious when I'm needing to drop what I'm doing for a drink every so often. This is how my thoughts are generally leaning as well. I don't think this implementation would be as tedious as either of the mods currently available that do similar, but I'm not sure that an extra 2.5 HP is worth the extra stat tracking. I already do a half-baked job of keeping all nutrition bars full as it is. It's not really unusual for me to let one or two drop pretty low due to wanting either a particular food, or using what I already have and not caring about whether it's filling nutrition or not.

If not an iron stove, then at least an iron cauldron as an upgrade from the cookpot. It could hold twice as many servings, while still cooking at the same speed as the standard cookpot(ie, 8 servings will cook in the time it takes to cook 4 in a regular pot). It would be very handy for preserving winter food, as you can now cook three full crocks at a time, in addition to feeding several players at once in multiplayer settings. Or instead of cooking faster, make the stove more fuel-efficient, similar to how the distiller allows a single piece of firewood to burn for two in-game hours. And perhaps instead of meals being more saturating, food left in the pot could be much more resistant to spoiling, provided that the stove remains hot. Hunter's stew, in other words.

I think it depends on what kind of building you're trying to do. Minecraft is better(currently) if you want to jump right in and start building while keeping some rudimentary survival elements. Minecraft is also more lenient with some of the decorating(you can put cakes in a windowsill and they won't rot), and has(in my opinion) more versatility regarding build styles. You can build realistic medieval, modern, steampunk, fantasy, etc. with relative ease. Vintage Story's chisel system lends itself to much more detail than Minecraft, but I feel like the block options make it a little harder to build outside of medieval, steampunk, or low-fantasy themes. It can also be harder to decorate, depending on what you like decorating with, as you can't just leave food sitting out(it'll rot) or have giant fields of crops planted for show(depending on the climate, they might die to heat or cold).

I meant to comment on this earlier and I forgot. But yes, I agree that sitting should reduce your hunger rate! There's been many a time that I've been sitting in the safety of my shelter, flipping through the handbook while waiting for night/temporal storm to pass, and wondering why sitting doesn't reduce the rate of stamina loss. Now granted, I typically don't have issues staying fed in the game, even playing my beloved Blackguard, but when I'm say...traveling and want my rations to last longer, having a sit-down by the campfire while waiting for dawn would be a great way to do it.

Oh, so more like an old choose-your-own-adventure book! 'Twas a bit before my time here. I've not played any of the Myst games, but from what I've heard of the series they're basically "try everything and keep guessing until you figure out the pattern". Kinda reminds me of trying to 100% the original Crash Bandicoot 2 game. There were secret levels that you could only get to via doing some fairly random stuff in other levels, and a couple of the colored gems you had to get by completing a certain objective in certain levels. Sheep Raider(Sheep, Dog 'N Wolf for the Europeans out there) also had a couple of secret levels to find and play, although the game gave you a way to unlock the secret of how to find them, instead of making you find it yourself. Back to the general discussion topic though--I think that if too many new players are still having issues figuring out the earliest tech tiers of the game, the tutorial should probably be expanded a little more. In that case, I think it would perhaps warrant a special "scenario world", where the player is given a little more obvious direction on what to be doing and what to be looking for. It could be a full world that allows the player to keep playing even after completing the tutorial segments, or it could be a small scenario world that only teaches the basic concepts while leaving the actual practice of them to the actual game worlds. In any case, making it a separate thing from the standard game modes would give brand new players a more detailed walkthrough of the core systems, if they so wished, while allowing more veteran players to easily ignore it.

As @Thorfinn and @Maelstrom have already indicated, it's not so much that drifters need to spawn at distance for your idea to be feasible--it's more about how you build your base. Drifters(currently) cannot climb save for ladders and slopes that aren't too steep, so it's rather simple to build walls to keep them out. Then it's just a matter of lighting the spots you want to defend the most, and possibly chiseling some holes into the structure to allow you to attack the drifters without much threat of harm to yourself. You'll still probably get the odd rift or two within the fortifications, but you could either chalk that up to bad luck/sappers, or figure out how to acquire and power rift wards in order to keep the rifts from spawning in certain areas. Now one thing I think that could be added to the game, to help spice up fortifying areas--stuff like stakes, caltrops, Greek fire, etc. Though I also expect that to be a bit more practical in a PvP multiplayer setting, rather than in a singleplayer game. Drifter AI is...not the best, and while they'd need a bit more brains to avoid being easily farmed, they also don't strike me as entities that are meant to be particularly intelligent.

Which is exactly what folks are discussing in this thread--the general idea that was presented, and the various benefits or challenges it could present in implementation. I agree with the first part--the Handbook UI could use some improvements, such as the ability to bookmark a page, or remaining on the page you were last reading after you close it. I can somewhat agree on the last part, in that locking the Jonas tech devices until the player has completed certain in-world objectives(Archives, certain NPCs, etc) makes some sense. It's a late-game feature that's somewhat out of the normal scope of progression and not really required for survival. I'm still going to disagree with the latter part primarily because of how interwoven the gameplay loops are, and that it would be more cumbersome to try to lock crafting recipes and related knowledge behind specific player actions(similar to what Valheim and Subnautica already do). One potential example I can think of, on how it would be an issue: say that picking up a copper nugget unlocks the copper recipes. You need crucibles and molds before you can actually do any sort of metalworking, but those fall under pottery, which is going to be unlocked by a different action, such as picking up clay. Now assuming the player manages to unlock the pottery stuff before copper, and gets everything set up to smelt their first pieces of ore into something usable...they're still going to need charcoal in order to smelt it, assuming they didn't get lucky and find some coal in a ruin. Now the charcoal pit information could probably just unlock with the chopping of the first tree, but it's still going to be up to the player to figure out how to put all of that information together, which if I had to guess is probably going to take several hours of trial and error. I'm also guessing that the average new player is already going to be familiar with the basics of Minecraft, and thus will likely be trying to prioritize getting a pickaxe first. It's not going to take them long to figure out that Vintage Story works very differently, and they're going to get frustrated more easily if there's no clear direction on what they should be doing to achieve that particular goal. Interesting observation. I've never played Dark Souls, as it's just not my cup of tea. I'll not say what I did to my Skyrim files though, heh heh. I should maybe clarify what I mean when I say that Vintage Story doesn't hold your hand though. Vintage Story does hold your hand a little, in that there's a short tutorial to teach you just enough to be able to survive, before pointing you to the handbook to help figure out the rest. However, you're also not required to use the handbook either; you can in fact never crack it open and still reach the late-game content, but it's going to be a lot slower and a LOT more frustrating than if you had spent some time reading. In short, Vintage Story will hold your hand, to an extent, but only to the extent that you want it held. It gives you access to all the information you need, and lets you decide how to best use it based on the circumstances that you find yourself in(which can vary quite heavily depending on how you set up your world). And if you forget how to get to a later tech tier, it's simple enough to look up at any time(and also lets you plan ahead more easily when it comes to your goals). Where's this from? It sounds like one of those old point-and-click adventure games, which often had you doing something rather arbitrary in order to progress.

The saturation value already tells you that it's an edible item, so the text telling you such is unnecessary. It also stands to reason that fat is something you're going to have to harvest from an animal, given that it's not a plant product. This is already a thing for the native ore bits on the ground--hovering over one tells you it's a good idea to dig underneath that spot. It does, although to me this method seems more convoluted and hand-holdy than the handbook that we have already. I also suspect that the reason a lot of the gameplay loops don't feel intuitive(at first) is that we've lost touch with a lot of those concepts in the modern world. Dishes come from the store, food also comes from the store and is stored in the fridge/freezer. Tools and building supplies you buy from a different store. Lighting, you just flip a switch and there's light. Likewise, I think a lot of videogames nowadays tend to spell everything out for the player, making the puzzles super-easy and/or just giving the player the solutions outright. Whereas several older games would present a hard puzzle with a few hints, but it was up to the player to figure out how to progress(often by using what they've learned to that point). This is my general sentiment, and the seatbelt analogy is golden. A lot of the concepts in the game are already basic, common sense logic(such as needing a torch or other light source at night), but a lot of modern videogame titles have trained players to go through a set of predefined motions like a theme park ride. I think it's something that, if needed, should be worked either into the tutorial, or a separate gamemode intended to act as a more in-depth tutorial. Personally, I think the handbook that we currently is sufficient, and the tutorial also makes sure to inform the player that everything they could want to know regarding survival is found in there. It's a lot of reading, to be sure, but you can pause the game while reading and there's so much overlap between gameplay systems that it's the most efficient method of delivering the information. This is true. However, one issue I see with flavor text is that it's easy to clutter the screen with the text box, in addition to needing to have the mouse cursor hovering over the item in order to read it. Using the earlier-mentioned example of fat: "Useful as a sealant". Short, to the point, and won't clutter the screen with a massive text block. Telling the player via text that it can be eaten or used as fuel is entirely unnecessary, since the item has values for saturation and burn times.

In my case, I watched pieces of Let's Plays and a couple of other videos to get a sense of whether the game would be something I would enjoy before actually buying it(I've been burned on a few titles). That, plus shelling out a few hundred hours in Minecraft meant I had a decent idea of what to do in the beginning. When hiding for the night though, I typically unpaused the handbook and just spent the time reading and figuring out what I wanted to work on. I'll actually disagree somewhat here--part of the charm of Vintage Story is that it doesn't hold your hand very much and expects the player to think things through themselves. Oh, it's nighttime and you can't see? Well of course you need a torch, did you expect to see in the dark silly? That being said, if enough new players are having enough difficulty with it, then it's probably something that should be added to the tutorial in order to reduce frustration. At that point it's an "ignore at your own risk" factor. Alternatively, you could slip that in as advice via dialogue from the traders. Since the player always spawns in near a trader(although admittedly, the trader wagons aren't always immediately visible), they're almost certain to investigate and start asking questions.

I'll jump back in here to say that I'm guessing the initial intention(given the Skyrim comparison) is that there would be an NPC or two to teach the player how to do something like tanning or metalworking. And while that would be a cool, immersive way to learn some of the game systems, it would fundamentally alter the entire storyline of the game. The general idea seems to be that the player is dumped into the world out in the middle of nowhere, with no civilization for miles around. Talking to the trader nearby may further confirm that what civilization there is will be very difficult to find. Once the villages/settlements/strongholds are actually added into the game(perhaps with the 1.20 update?) I expect reaching one to take some effort to reach, perhaps after an in-game year or two for the average player, assuming default settings. Now that being said...a "new game+" mode, where the player has the option of starting in a settlement, could be interesting and make for a nice reward for beating the game's main story in the standard method of play. Also imagine being a veteran player and not being able to leave the Stone Age because the scrap of paper that opens up metalworking won't spawn in any of the ruins you find! I think that kind of RNG could potentially work for late-game items that are intended to be super-rare, legendary status type things, but hard-gating standard progression behind what is essentially lootbox RNG is generally a bad idea.