LadyWYT

I'm thinking it might be handled similar to how Dave the Diver handled it. That is, weapons that do a lot of damage are really good at killing things, and killing them quickly, but they aren't really ideal to use if you actually want a useful carcass afterwards. I could see the devs taking it a step further and making it so that certain types of weapons might affect certain kinds of loot, but not others. For example, a falx or other similar bladed weapon might still be good for killing animals, but if you want to actually skin that animal for its hide then you might not want to go slicing up the animal when killing it. A clean kill with a butcher knife might yield more fat and meat. A hammer might be great at knocking enemies back or dealing with particularly fragile enemies, but might also smash fragile loot drops(like temporal gears or Jonas parts) in the process. And of course, a stick of dynamite might be extremely effective against most any enemy, but if you want loot then it's probably not the best option to pick. This is what I would be a little more concerned about when it comes to balancing. A "rock, paper, scissors" system of damage types can make combat quite interesting, but it can also be pretty difficult to balance. Weapons that are hard counters to common enemies can easily overshadow other weapons. Weapons that are devastating to a specific uncommon enemy type aren't necessarily bad, but they can easily fall to the wayside if there's another weapon that can do roughly the same job while still being useful against other enemies. This will be fairly significant, I think, since I get the impression that enemies are going to be more resistant to knockback. Hopefully this comes with an adjustment to sprinting backwards as well. I think it will make the combat feel a lot smoother, once it's fine-tuned and players get used to the new system. I also don't think a shorter attack range is going to be an issue if players are able to land their hits more consistently. When it comes to enemy attacks, I also think it's fair to say that if the player can use the system, so can the enemies, potentially. In the case of hit detection, I would say most enemies should be using it in order to ensure the fight feels fair. Hit detection also feels like it should hinge on the specific attack animation as well, and not just be a static statistic of the particular weapon/enemy. A stab should target a very specific point, while a slash should be more of a cone area. Incidentally, I could see the devs borrowing from Morrowind here, potentially, and typing the damage type to the animation used as well.

Welcome to the forums! There is a mod for that...well, kind of. It still seems to be heavily in the testing phase, and may not be something you want to add to a beloved world at the moment: https://mods.vintagestory.at/tasshardcorewinter Here's the thing though...I'm not sure adding a "harder" winter really solves the "problem", as much as it does just create the other problem of too much pressure being loaded into the front of the game, to the extent that newer/less skilled players struggle to the point of not having fun anymore. Yes, you did mention making the extra difficulty optional, however, depending on what's being added that may or may not actually be possible to do depending on how intertwined the new feature is with other game systems. There's also the matter of it not really being ideal to allow the player to turn off all difficulty(outside of mods and creative mode), or otherwise clutter the settings with a lot of extraneous things. Blizzards would be interesting as a rare winter hazard, but I don't think they should occur too frequently, and the limited visibility should be what affects player movement. Very windy days in general should also have a greater affect on the player's ability to stay warm, and not just blizzards. This is basically winter already though. Farming isn't really possible, hunting is scarcer, and gathering almost nonexistent since nothing is growing. Early spring is somewhat similar, since it takes time for plants to grow back and yield harvests. However, it's worth noting that while it's a fairly easy challenge to account for if the player is thinking ahead, it's one that can turn nasty quite easily if the player dawdles and fails to plan appropriately. There's been several tales on the forums of players, usually newer ones, who didn't do enough planning and had to spend most of their winter hunting whatever wildlife was still hanging around. Incidentally, one thing that does need fixing, is berry bushes having berries in the dead of winter, if they are in freshly generated chunks. Hunting should still be a viable option, since it's not very realistic to have no wildlife at all, and the player needs some sort of option to eek out a living if they failed to store enough food otherwise. Like I said above, this is already a feature of the current winters, and a challenge that's fairly easy to account for but will hurt if you fail to respect it. Do keep in mind too that if the player has to spend their entire summer/fall scraping together enough supplies just to get them through the winter, they're not going to have the time to go off on adventures to find resources or complete story content. Also already a feature--the amount of daylight available depends on the player's latitude and the current time of year. Winter days are much shorter than summer ones. Requires a rework of the temperature system, as well as changing how insulated rooms are actually calculated. Which on the latter, I'm not sure that's a very good idea. Ultimately, I think the better option to add more difficulty to winter prep, is to make crops/foraged foodstuffs properly seasonal, so that the player needs to harvest specific stuff at specific times of year. Miss a harvest window, and you don't get that particular food item for that year. Miss too many harvest windows, and you'll be spending most of your time scrounging around for food during the winter, instead of other stuff you might want to do more. Likewise, a status effect system would introduce potential sickness and other ill effects that may result from too much cold exposure. Right now, getting cold isn't really a big deal, because it's very easy to just warm back up and heal any damage sustained with bandages, let alone the fact that it takes quite a while to actually freeze to death. However, status effects from cold exposure might require more time to actually clear, or perhaps might require special medical attention in order to properly heal. Overall, I don't disagree that winters could stand to be a little tougher--they certainly could. But I don't think what's been proposed in the initial post really provides a long-term solution and good engagement, as much as it does just make the current mechanic take more time and be more frustrating.

Welcome to the game and forums! Well according to the home page, there's a little over 1000 players online right now. That's a fairly typical number to see. Vintage Story may not be as big as Minecraft or other widely popular games, however, it's worth noting that the game has steadily gained traction over the years. Not every name is taken, but if you're trying to use a name that's relatively popular, it's not unusual at all to have issues selecting a name for your account, since popular names tend to be claimed rather fast.

Welcome to the forums! There already is such. If you play through the game's story, you'll uncover some key details that are hinted at in class selection, but not otherwise explained. Some things are also left up to the player's own imagination. To begin the main story, simply do a small favor for your friendly local treasure hunter to acquire a map to the first location. Do note that in order to do the story content though, you must be playing with lore content enabled(so no Homo Sapiens mode). If you want spoilers, without spoiling the entire story:

First off, welcome to the forums! This has been a requested feature, and is kind of on the roadmap since it fits under the "status effects/herbalism" umbrella. However, that's not a guarantee that there will be poisons or poisons crafted from mushrooms, though it is a relatively safe guess that there will be something along those lines. For the vanilla game, the closest you can get right now is the psychedelic mushrooms, since these varieties do induce some interesting effects, but don't come with a warning label(unlike the shrooms that damage health). Otherwise, the closest you'll get is mods, and there's not many that offer that kind of gameplay. Alchemy: https://mods.vintagestory.at/alchemy C&N Alchemy: https://mods.vintagestory.at/simplealchemy Those are the only two I could find that seem to have been kept up-to-date. Unfortunately, both of them also lean more heavily into the fantasy side of things, rather than remain grounded in realism like most of what Vintage Story's gameplay actually is. If you're after something more grounded in realism, @Teh Pizza Lady has been working on such...which I'm supposed to be testing and haven't actually gotten around to. Oops. Hopefully it will be ready for the general public relatively soon™.

Exactly where did you try to timeswitch here? To my knowledge, this area isn't bugged, but it is rather specific about where you need to timeswitch in order to proceed, since it's a very tight space and there's a lot of rubble in the present. The sequence of events should be dropping down into that room in the past, then switching to the present in order to pass the fence. You'll need to crouch in order to enter the small passageway in the present, then use the timeswitch to switch back to the past. The passage will be clear and you can proceed to the next room and switch back to the present. You won't be able to timeswitch while in the passage though, since it's blocked by rubble, and timeswitching in the next room can be a little tricky due to the presence of rubble as well. The center of the room is the clearest spot.

Welcome to the forums! This looks pretty normal to me. Terrain generation can get a little strange. If you're looking for fewer mountains and hills though, you'll want to turn down the upheaval rate. You may try tinkering with the Landform Scale setting, as that's supposed to determine how big things like mountains, hills, and lakes can be. Otherwise, you'll need to install a mod that overhauls the terrain generation, most likely. Sometimes changes can be a little subtle, but if you aren't seeing any differences at all despite drastically changing the settings, you may want to backup the worlds you care about in a separate folder before reinstalling the game.

All traders have the "Know of any interesting places around here?" dialogue, but only the treasure hunter actually knows of such a place. Other traders will simply point you to the nearest treasure hunter they know of, for a small fee, of course. Regarding story content and clues, Vintage Story isn't a particularly straightforward game in that regard. It's not overly cryptic, but much of it is left for the player to discover and explore on their own, rather than the "guided tour" that other games tend to resort to. Depends on what you find interesting, really. I like watching the wildlife and appreciating the neat little bits of world generation, along with the sweeping vistas that happen from time to time--pretty much just...living in the world. There's also the aspect too of just wandering around and marking down resources and other points of interest you may want to revisit later. However, I'm guessing that what you might be after when it comes to travel, is things like the jungle temple, trail ruins, and whatnot from Minecraft. Which Vintage Story is currently lacking right now. Traders are kind of hit-or-miss. Surface ruins are useful in the early game, and can be a good source of aged building blocks, but otherwise aren't the most exciting thing to find. For dungeons, there's really not much to see yet, since they were only just recently implemented in 1.22 as a proof-of-concept. There's only a single type available right now, and if you aren't paying attention it's quite easy to miss since the entrance looks like a small hill. There are more dungeons coming in the future though, and I daresay travel will be a bit more interesting once they arrive. In the meantime, you might consider checking out a mod like Better Ruins. Do be aware that it does add some of its own lore, so not every lore detail you come across is necessarily accurate to what's actually canon, but I do think this mod offers the kind of content you seem to be looking for. https://mods.vintagestory.at/betterruins

I would say early 2027, maybe mid 2027 at the latest. Mainly because 1.23 sounds like it's going to contain some rather significant changes, and not as much minor additions and bugfixes(like 1.19). Plus I would be surprised if the Maltiez drama hasn't gummed up the works and further delayed things. I suppose another way to put it is that I do expect some combat changes next update, since yes, it would be a little strange to tease that kind of change and not deliver. However. I don't expect the massive overhaul that some players seem to expect/have demanded. A change to how armor is crafted, and what stats it grants the player, yes. A few new weapons to play with, yes. New weapons behavior itself, not really, save for perhaps needing two free hands in order to use items that qualify as two-handed. Maybe a new monster that poses a different kind of threat to the player. Perhaps status effects, finally. But I don't really expect new combat moves/concepts like power attacks, stamina, dodge rolls, etc; I still expect the combat overall to remain the relatively simple system we have currently.

4. The new procedural dungeon ruin often seems to have chalk/limestone stones within, if it doesn't have lime itself. As far as I'm aware though, what you've described about your adventures so far is the intended game design, at least somewhat. Once in a while you get a super lucky seed and have everything you need within a couple thousand blocks of spawn, but more often than not there's going to be a couple of resources that you're lacking, that you will need to actively seek out. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but that is why many of us gravitated to Vintage Story rather than stick with Minecraft. One of the core weaknesses of Minecraft is that it tends to just hand everything to the player, and there's not really much effort or skill involved in acquiring most resources. That quality makes it a very good game if you just want to build cool stuff and play casually to unwind, but it's not very satisfying if you're after a game that will actually push you to sharpen your skills and knowledge. Do keep in mind that turning on "keep inventory" is an option, as well as an option that can be toggled on/off anytime after world creation as well. I played with this rule enabled for a while in my early days, and it helped a lot. Bear armor is okay, as long as you don't delve too deep and have good situational awareness. Bronze lamellar or gambeson are better options though, as both will block more damage and have more durability. You don't want to go toe-to-toe with nightmare enemies or regularly fighting corrupt level enemies until you have better equipment, but it is fine for general poking around. As others have already said, mounts don't need to be fed(at least at the time of this writing). Likewise, livestock doesn't need to be fed either in order to stay alive--all they need is bright light, since they will despawn if it's too dark. The only reason to feed your livestock is if you want them to breed, or otherwise want to fatten them up before slaughter. Chickens specifically are an exception, since you do need to feed them regularly in order to keep them laying eggs or sitting on nests(in my experience, they seem to stop brooding if you don't keep them fed). Honestly, I think what happened is that you got dealt a tougher world by RNG. Granite/igneous spawns can be quite fun and have some unique benefits of their own(like surface tin), but they can also be a bit more challenging due to the leather bottleneck. I wouldn't discard your current world, but you may wish to set it aside for a while and start a new world, making sure that it has sedimentary rock at spawn. You might also consider enabling the true map colors, since this can make it very easy to find different types of rock simply by opening the map. In any case, this option allows you to play around with your settings, try different classes, or try different strategies using the new skills and knowledge that you've learned. Aside from that, you may also consider talking to your friendly local treasure hunter and doing them a small favor to get a special map. Acquiring this map will get you started on the main story; working on the main story for a while should not only be interesting, but you may wind up discovering valuable resources along the way(I use this strategy if I'm having trouble finding a specific thing). Likewise, treasure hunters also sell temporal gears from time to time, so if you're up for a bit of bartering you can just buy the gears that you need rather than fight monsters or delve deep underground trying to find them.

Welcome to the game and forums! Here's the thing though: those games are also built and balanced around that kind of gameplay and progression. Vintage Story very much isn't. How good a tool is or isn't is mostly related to the materials it's made from, and in certain cases whether or not the player took time to utilize other finishing processes such as quenching or sharpening. If the player wants a better tool, they need to seek out better materials rather than grind an arbitrary skill number. Same goes for building materials--not all are created equal, and some are better than others for certain things; there's also the plumb-and-square for making blocks even stronger by reinforcing them with appropriate materials. In contrast, the system you seem to be suggesting requires the player to invest their time in grinding out arbitrary numbers to get better blocks and gear, rather than taking advantage of their actual game skill and knowledge to acquire better materials to make things. That kind of system tends to work better for MMOs or other games intended to be primarily multiplayer, where it's ideal to keep the player playing for as long as possible. But it doesn't really work so well for a game balanced more around singleplayer and small multiplayer groups, where the general goal is to reward the player for leveraging actual gameplay skills and knowledge. Inventory clutter is also a major drawback in a game like VS, where inventory space is a premium resource. I don't think many players will be particularly thrilled about having cobblestone made of the same materials, that doesn't stack because the quality isn't the same. Block durability also isn't really a concern outside of PvP/anarchy servers, since there's not really anything in the game that breaks blocks, aside from the player. You mention block stacking in a single slot to combat the clutter, however, that's still going to be a rather clunky system for something that doesn't really offer much gameplay value, and I'm not really sure how feasible it would be to actually code(that seems like it could be rather clunky as well). Here's another problem--a vanilla flint knife is worth 150, if you make it with a bone handle. A vanilla copper knife is worth 300 points. The durability increase is one of the major incentives to upgrade your tools from stone to metal, since the metal will last a decent bit longer compared to the stone. If the "perfect quality" suggested here tacks an additional 100 durability onto the flint knife, then you suddenly have a flint knife that has the same durability as baseline copper, so there's not as much reason for the player to invest the time and resources into the metal tools when the stone tools are just as good. On the other hand, if you're suggesting that the "perfect quality" for a flint knife would be 80-100 points of durability, you're actively making the best version of the reworked tool worse than what the original iteration of said tool was. And there's already a good handful of players that complain about tools breaking too fast already. There's also the question of...what exactly are the numbers supposed to look like for other materials? An extra 100 durability is a significant upgrade for a stone tool, but is nothing when it comes to iron or steel. Overall, this kind of system is really best handled via mod. That way the players that really desire this kind of gameplay can have such, without changing the game for everyone else in the process. There's already at least a couple that do a decent job of adding this kinds of skills and effects to the game: XSkills and Prosequor. https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/44074 https://mods.vintagestory.at/show/mod/68368

Honestly, I think they went way too far with the changes. The earthquakes are neat, but that's pretty much the only new addition to the mod that actually feels like it fits in the world. The rest feels like it's trying way too hard to scare the player, to the extent that it's just not spooky anymore. In any case, the thread title has sparked an idea. We'll see if anything comes of it.

It's not as far-fetched as you might think. In the last interview I watched, Tyron expressed a wish for another tier of material above steel, such as a more refined type of steel. So it's entirely possible. Though I think if it's going to be limited to a particular type of ore, it's going to be one that's fairly easy to find, and not one that you only see once in a blue moon.

Why not both?

Oceans were supposed to be included in 1.20, but got delayed to 1.21 due to technical issues and a need to get an already-delayed update actually launched. Status effects, as far as I'm aware, were initially being developed for 1.22 before getting postponed in favor of the team pivoting to shelves. I'm not sure if there were any technical issues prior to the pivot--it doesn't seem like there were--so while it's a little disappointing in some ways, the shelves are still very nice to have, and having them now means having a place to store all the ingredients needed for herbalism, since it's likely(but not guaranteed) an herbalism system would be added alongside status effects.

This is my general thoughts as well, in addition to the fact that while some ores might be the same general thing, it's decidedly not quite the same thing. For example, limonite, hematite, and magnetite are all varieties of iron, but they have different properties that distinguish them from each other. Those properties could also be more fleshed out in the future depending on the ore, especially when it comes to iron since as I understand it, magnetite is already magnetized and hematite is not, while limonite seems to only be weakly magnetic in its natural state. Having some sort of toggle in the accessibility options isn't the worst idea either, though I don't think it's particularly necessary. It seems better-suited to a mod.

Welcome to the forums! That does appear to be an older version of the mod, so you might want to try updating to the latest version, if possible, and see if that clears up the issue. Have you made any changes to the server since she was last able to play? Game updates? Mod updates? New mods installed? Has she changed anything on her computer, either with the game or other software? The only other thing I can think of to check is the operating systems that your players use, as sometimes problems are specific to the OS(that is, certain bugs might occur on Linux but not on Windows), but I'm not sure this is a problem like that. You may also want to check the server logs and other client log files, just to see if there's anything weird going on. Also, if it's not crashing immediately and she's able to play a little before it crashes, knowing what she's doing at the time of the crash might also be helpful, as sometimes that can hold clues to what's causing the crash.

Fair enough, but the armor rework is the only thing I've really seen direct evidence of. I'm not saying the other stuff won't be in the update, mind you, but the devs do tend to get overly ambitious and it's not unusual for a few things to need more development time and get pushed to a later update. Oceans and the status effect system being examples of such. Thus I do like to keep my expectations somewhat tempered, especially when speculating about it.

I actually want this now, as long as it's friendly. It doesn't need to be anything for combat, but a deployable light that follows me around would be great. Perhaps the light color could change if there's something dangerous in the area(like monsters or poison gas, if added), and the tinkling bell sound would mean it doesn't get lost as easily. In the meantime, if one wants goofy monster noises, there is the following mod. I have no idea if it still works though. https://mods.vintagestory.at/sillyshivers

So...giant spider boss?

In my experience, the devs don't really post estimated release dates, save for maybe when they're on the final RC candidate and about to release stable. Basically, updates are ready whenever they're ready, and how soon that is hinges heavily on how much content the devs are trying to shove in the update, how many bugs they have to squash in the process, and how much community drama they have to deal with during it all. Aside from that, I will also note that based on what I've seen floating around, I'm not sure that 1.23 is a full overhaul of combat specifically, as much as it is just making some major changes to how the armor works. To be fair, that's no small change either, especially with some of the other goodies it could potentially come with, but I don't really expect the combat to be too much of a departure from the relatively simple system we have currently.

Welcome to the forums! Are you trying to use 1 L of honey per serving? The correct ratio should be 0.2 L of honey per serving of stew; you can use a bowl to add the honey in increments of 0.1 L. Also make sure that you aren't trying to use bushmeat for the stew, as that's not a valid meat for meals in the vanilla game.

Welcome to the forums! If the game is actively crashing, it should be generating a crashlog, so I recommend posting that if you can. Aside from that, it would be handy to have the modlist posted as well. Unfortunately the log snippet doesn't really give many clues as to what could be the problem, aside from something related to scythes and sound. Mods that affect tools or sounds are primary suspects, so I would start with checking those out first. Additionally, make sure that all your mods have been appropriately updated to 1.22; older mods sometimes work on newer game versions, but 1.22 introduced several code changes and broke a lot of older mods, so there's a much higher chance of things breaking when using an outdated mod.

Both of those sound like pretty good ways to make bombs a more involved process, without making them so frustrating that players won't bother with them. The hammer tiers being connected to ore smashing in particular could be a standalone mod itself(if you don't provide toggles for the options in the config), since that affects metalworking in general and might be something other players want to try out on their worlds specifically, rather than the bombs. You could also just require the player to set up a pulverizer for more advanced ores, rather than allow them to continue refining the raw nuggets. Another idea is that rather than change how the hammers work, you could just add different tiers of blasting powder, and make that what determines the effectiveness of a bomb. Coarse blasting powder might be really easy to make, but the bombs might not be that powerful, so it'd be expensive to rely on long-term. Better blasting powder would take more time and effort to create, but the player would have better bombs for it. It also sounds like the reason your players are relying on bombs is that they're very easy and efficient to use. Another solution is to increase the amount of ore that can be potentially lost in the blast, or perhaps add some sort of tools aside from bombs that allow the player to mine ores more efficiently by hand. Or perhaps simply buff the pickaxe to have a higher chance of obtaining crystallized ores or extra ore chunks for the players that bother to mine by hand. If you want to be really dastardly...maybe not all ore should be mined with bombs. If it's something higher flammable, like coal, perhaps the deposit gets set on fire instead and burns away to nothing. If the ore is something more delicate and can't take rough-handling, perhaps the ore is shattered in the blast and drops very little. That way players can still use bombs to mine out things like iron veins efficiently, but they can't just use bombs on absolutely everything.

Bragging rights, in addition to aesthetics. Grafted fruit trees bearing multiple varieties of fruit look cool, but are difficult to actually create. Tule may potentially be the only resource for thatch roofing one day, but we'll see. Sedge provides a source of dry grass in the winter, if you need it, since it never gets buried by snow. Aside from that, both create more visual interest in the world by providing more variety of plant life, which is always nice. How difficult it is really just depends on the hand you're dealt when it comes to map generation. Bronze is rather easy to acquire en masse, since the ores required to create it are generally rather easy to find. Regarding the long-term though, no, you don't want to be relying on bronze, because it's a mid-game material. In the late game, you want to be refining and using better stuff, like iron and steel, but that doesn't mean that bronze doesn't still have its niche. It's still good for lanterns, nails, and other tools that you might want to be cheap and easy to make(ie, casting instead of forging, and no long refining process). Oversight, I assume. They are still burnable though. Because sawing a debarked log produces beams, not planks. Otherwise, I would assume it's oversight again. Regarding the last four things listed, keep in mind that new items, systems, and creatures are going to require more time and effort to create, in addition to the testing required to make sure it's relatively balanced before a stable release. The devs do update older content as they have time, but it's not unusual for older content to get left on the back burner while the devs add other things that have been planned but aren't yet in the game at all(like herbalism).