LadyWYT

It shouldn't, aside from you'll just need to wait for more creatures to respawn. You can free them if you really want, but it's probably better to just harvest them for food and materials.

Kind of, but not really. To my knowledge the way it works is that nothing happens while the chunks are unloaded, but as soon as the player enters them the game does a "time check" to see what should have taken place in the interim and updates everything accordingly. So you can plant crops, leave home for a while, and come back to a harvest, or frozen crops in the event it got too cold, etc. Ice is bit finicky on how it works though. The game doesn't update ice very quickly, so you can revisit a chunk in winter and it'll take a while for the ice to freeze, or revisit a chunk in summer and the ice there will take a while to melt. Snow, on the other hand, updates fairly fast, so most chunks should be appropriately snowy or not-snowy when the player visits them.

It does, at least solar eclipses, but they are quite rare.

Maybe try a different bait? Doesn't necessarily need to be stinkbait, since regular bushmeat and redmeat should work. I can't say that I know all the specifics of fishing, but different fish are supposed to take different bait and it might be that ocean fish don't like worms.

Honestly, this is partly how I got so invested in the game once I tried it. The creepy gears make sense enough if one watches the game's trailer, but the clock in the tree I just had to figure out. Why is it there? What purpose does it server? How could it possibly represent a game based on realistic survival in a meaningful fashion? In fairness, the tree clock is never directly explained anywhere in the game, but it does make a lot of sense once one digs into the game's core themes and story.

Yeah, plus I mean...whoever was originally living in those ruins probably wasn't in a life-or-death wilderness survival situation like that player, so it stands to reason they would have had the option of making better stuff. Of course, since surface ruins are easy to loot, all the best stuff has already been looted, leaving the stone tools and occasional metal tool that got overlooked. I like this idea too, though I think I would prefer the handaxe be used to strip branches off smaller trees and refine the result into a proper spear pole rather than using a basic stick(with the branches being sticks as byproducts), but...that would also require a rework of trees. I need to test the club as a weapon again though. It's probably still useless at the moment, but I recall someone mentioning it had a faster swing time than the spear, so it may actually be a decent weapon in certain circumstances. I was thinking of that as well when writing the post earlier. Sometimes I break a knife, or forgot to bring an axe with me, and am too lazy to run back to base to get my tools, so I'll just make a stone tool instead since it's convenient. In that case, I might start carrying an antler piece around for that purpose. Additionally, finding antler pieces occasionally in the wild would let the player access those tools earlier in the game, while still preserving the full antlers as proper hunting trophies. Of course, if the player has acquired a full set of antlers that they don't want to decorate with, they could use a hammer to break the antlers down into pieces for knapping if the antlers are large enough, or otherwise grind up the small antlers and antler pieces in the quern for bonemeal.

Yes, maps from treasure hunters lead to treasures like this. That being said... It is vanilla, but not triggered by purchasing a map. I'm not sure what triggers these spawns, but I've found a couple without having bought a map. Go figure. I'm wondering if the feature is a bit bugged, as I'm not sure they're supposed to be this easy to find, or otherwise spawn without purchase of a map.

They will not. At least, not without mods. Perhaps in a future update deer will be able to breed

A fair point, and I apologize for getting a bit heated about it the other day. After having some time to cool off and think about it a little more, I think it could work great as a "quench" mechanic for stone tier tech. By that I mean that the player can still make stone tools as normal, but if they use an antler, then they can make a stone tool that's a bit more durable and can work faster thanks to quality craftsmanship. This way players aren't locked out of faster progress, but have some neat options if they want to take things a little slower. I would also say that the stone tools in cracked vessels and stone parts from panning could be the higher quality stone tools/parts as well, since those drops aren't exactly exciting loot otherwise. However, if those drops were higher quality than what the player could normally craft, then it'd feel a little better to find those things as loot.

Beats me. I've quit trying to figure it out, for the most part, and just accepted that given some of the posts that float through the forums, a few players still manage to starve to death in the game somehow. Oh for sure. I would say it's intentional game design in VS's case, though not to the extent that the player is supposed to be completely ground into the dirt with suffering. Rather, I would say the intended balance is that the player is meant to struggle just enough to be a fun challenge and feel like the game has some serious stakes, but not so much that the average player can't complete those challenges with a little reading and thinking. It reminds me of many of the older games I played as a kid. Some of them were still easy, to be fair, but I think most games back then didn't have a problem with pushing player abilities and allowing the player to make mistakes and sometimes fail. Looking things up on the internet wasn't really an option(dial-up, and gaming stuff wasn't as widespread as it is now), and sometimes one had to just set the game aside for a while and come back later to try again. I think many modern games have discarded that kind of design in favor of designs that allow players to easily succeed on the first try, or otherwise don't really punish mistakes, possibly because that kind of design tends to keep players playing(because there's no real prompt to take a break) and more easily appeals to a wider audience.

I think if it's just a small friends group, you should be fine, even if the server is running 24/7. You can set the server time so that it pauses if no one is online, which definitely helps with the game pacing. Likewise, if you're all working together rather than running off to build independent bases, it's easier to manage everything since those who play more often can make sure supplies are stocked and whatnot for those who can't play as often. However, if everyone is operating independently or there are mods like XSkills installed that give a significant power boost to those that play more often, then it gets a little harder to keep things balanced as players who don't play as often will fall behind. My friend and I play cooperatively, and it's always worked for us. Time doesn't pass if neither of us is online, and we both play around the same general times as well. In the event that only one of us is online though, then it's understood that whoever is online is responsible for keeping supplies stocked and making sure the base doesn't burn down, so to speak. As for bigger servers types that you've mentioned...I have no idea. It depends heavily on the server and the goals of the community. I think as a general rule, the months might be set to maximum length and food spoilage rate turned way down in order to help make sure that players don't have everything rot just because they couldn't play for a day or two. I think a lot of players may also tend to settle in warmer regions where they can leave crops in the fields without worrying about them freezing. Depending on the server, they may also have a few mods to help manage such issues as well; I think there's at least a mod or two that's supposed to stop food in the player's inventory from spoiling if they are offline. In any case, I would also say that at least part of the responsibility lies on the player as well, in that if they're going to play on a busy server, they need to make sure they can log in consistently or otherwise have a friend group to work with in the event they're a more infrequent player.

You don't necessarily need worms, as regular bushmeat and redmeat, and maybe poultry too, can also serve as bait. And it's pretty easy to get any of those via killing small animals, though the bushmeat in particular is probably more valuable as bait than as a meal. I actually disagree--overall, berry foraging feels about as strong as before, if not a bit stronger. Fishing does feel strong, however, there also seems to be a good handful of players that struggle to catch enough fish or otherwise forage enough food to feed themselves, which suggests to me that the mechanic is fairly balanced. I want to say that in some of the earlier releases, it did take fish a little longer to bite, or areas could be overfished more easily. As for the fishing pole not losing durability...probably a bug that hasn't been fixed yet. Wooden pans are also supposed to have durability but have similar issues. In any case, based on my experience so far, fishing feels stronger as a supplement to traditional hunting, rather than a full replacement. Redmeat is more filling than fish, and yields hides, fat, and bones that can potentially be used for tools as well. Hunting also feels a little faster, if you know what you're doing.

That makes the situation slightly better, but only slightly. Either the player doesn't need the advanced knapping and can progress to copper as normal, or they still wind up stuck needing to wait several in-game months or rely on RNG to get what they need to actually get out of the stone age. Mind you, they have to do all that while managing to keep themselves fed, dealing with temporal storms, and dealing with potential injuries, diseases, and other natural threats. And that's assuming the player actually has the correct species of male deer spawn, as not all deer produce antlers large enough to be useful for tool-making(or in some cases, perhaps too large). The very best case scenario I can see here is players being left to scratch their heads wondering why they have to have an antler to make stone tools and progress, rather than just use a couple of tough rocks to make a stone tool instead. Logically, if someone were dropped into a real life survival situation, with nothing to work with, knapping with rocks is going to be far more feasible than trying to acquire an antler or other large bone. Sure, but that defeats the trophy aspect of antlers, really. They're mostly a neat item that the player can collect and use for decoration, or otherwise grind into bonemeal. To my knowledge, bones and antlers tend not to linger around for very long in the wild given that creatures like to gnaw on them, but it depends on the circumstances. Eh, I still disagree. Yes, some of new player complaints stem from preconceived notions of what games should be, but that doesn't mean they're entirely wrong in their complaints either. And yes, it's okay for games to be occasionally frustrating, but it's easy to push that frustration too far, which I think this idea does. I disagree. The next step shouldn't be so obvious that the player never has to think, but it shouldn't be so obscure that the player is going to end up stumbling around and getting frustrated trying to figure out just what they're supposed to do. I'll also note that yes, players do have differing ideas about "how far apart the dots need to be", so to speak, but you can't always expect players to just deal with it either. Like I said before, expecting players to spend around 60 real life hours stuck in what's basically the tutorial tech before allowing them to advance is just asking for frustrated players. Also worth noting from the FAQ section(emphasis added): If the overall goal is for the main progression/main story completion to take around 100 hours of playtime on average, forcing players to spend 60 hours just progressing past stone isn't going to cut it. Survival is one aspect of the game, yes, but only one aspect. I could be wrong, but most players don't tend to have very much fun if they're constantly trying not to starve, can't build bases because they don't have tools, can't fight enemies because they don't have weapons and armor, etc. The list goes on and on, and I daresay only gets worse once status effects are added. Challenges aren't fun if the player has no way to deal with them, and players don't tend to enjoy games that demand a huge time investment for the player to make basic progress. Which that kind of time gate also tends to be a prominent feature in MMOs or pay-to-win games, in order to force the players to spend more money. My point is that this kind of thing might be fun for you, but probably would not be a popular change for the playerbase at large by any means. For myself, it's the kind of change I would most likely mod out immediately, or otherwise move away from Vintage Story in favor of other games. I think that if you want to make the early game truly feel more impactful, in a way that is both fun and challenging, there are better ways to do so. A status effect system being chief among them, along with making plant yields seasonal. The game changes quite drastically when berries and other wild harvestables aren't in season, and the player can potentially suffer lingering consequences from getting injured or falling ill due to staying out in the elements without appropriate clothing.

Revisiting "From Golden Combs", but I think this covers my main gripe about the mod. Too many cosmetic options aside, it's fairly easy for the player to build one large Langstroth hive and cover all their beekeeping needs. To be fair, Langstroth hives take a bit of effort, requiring the player to use simpler hives at the start of the game, but they were pretty clunky to use(at least, last time I played with the mod) and it seems to me that the player should need to build at least a handful of hives in order to have solid honey production, rather than just build a single hive box and call it good.

I don't think this is a fair statement at all. New players absolutely have notions about what the early game should be--it's why they commonly post various suggestions or otherwise comment on how the early game could be better/what they found really frustrating. Like stone tools breaking too fast or not being able to find clay, or starving to death because they couldn't find enough food, etc. In some cases they want more of a grind, but more often than not the feedback tends to trend toward things should be a little easier/less time-consuming rather than more grindy. And a "couple of seasons" is still around 72+ days by default, or about 57.6 real life hours if the player never sleeps in the game, if I did my math right. I really doubt most players will want to spend 60+ hours just trying to progress beyond the most basic tech tier in the game, same as they probably won't be keen on relying on RNG antler finds to skip ahead. Likewise, adult deer are fast, tanky, and do decent damage, so there's a good chance the player could die in the process of trying to kill one unless they rely on trapping the deer in a hole or something(which not every player finds fun). Sure, but drops like copper/bronze weapons and tools are quite rare, and more of a "nice to have" when they drop, rather than something players chase for progression. Lock the player to spending most of a year trying to leave the stone age though, and they'll absolutely start chasing those vessels. And how, exactly, are you going to make a wooden javelin if you have nothing to sharpen it with? If an antler is required for the player to do any kind of knapping, then I don't see how the player acquires a wooden spear outside of somehow taking a stick and rubbing it against a stone surface for a long time. That doesn't sound like engaging gameplay at all, especially when it's not unrealistic to smack a couple hard rocks together to knap out a simple stone tool. I would say panning for spearheads is an option, but many players already don't like panning, and you still need a knife and axe to create a pan anyway, so that's still locked behind antler acquisition. Sure, but what you're proposing is not something I find to be something that sounds at all fun, nor do I see it being a popular design decision for most players. I don't mind spending more time in the early stages of the game necessarily(in fact this is already the case in 1.22), but I want it to be my choice to do that, and not because the game decided I wasn't allowed to progress for basically an entire year because I didn't have a specific item that only appears via RNG find or months later after starting the game. What you've proposed absolutely sounds like a grind/chore, and not the fun kind. I think it would work as a mod, because some players enjoy really grindy games or otherwise just want to play caveman, but if it became the standard for vanilla I would probably be modding it out immediately or otherwise just looking for a different game to play. Edit: I suppose to summarize, the main question that needs answering is if the player is expected to spend most of a year locked at stone tools or less, how are they supposed to survive temporal storms, harsh weather, and negative health effects like diseases/broken bones without frequently dying, and what else is there for them to actually do without any real tools other than run around and struggle to find food?

Well, aside from the clockwork/steampunk nature of certain things... In any case, I ended up voting for the old logo. The new one is nice, but ultimately the old one does a better job of feeling more like the gritty survival game with a few bright notes that Vintage Story actually is, and the new one just doesn't really do a good job of selling that idea. Clean visuals are important, yes, but I would say that in some ways it's more important to make sure that the image really captures the full spirit of what it's supposed to represent, especially if said image is going to be the logo for the entire game.

I like the new logo due to the cleaner colors and better attention to detail, especially regarding line weight. That being said...it's missing something rather important. Maybe it's just because I'm so used to seeing the old art every time I boot the game, but the old art really feels like it says "Vintage Story" while the new art feels a bit too...generic. Generic, upbeat, not very gritty...it's still good art but just doesn't quite fit the tone of what Vintage Story seems to be. On the new logo, I think some of the reason it doesn't quite fit, is that it's trying to match the blocky aesthetic of the game, however, the trees in the game don't look like that. The old logo also blends the nature parts with the rust parts a little more, given that there's a dead branch hanging off the tree on the left, and some of the machinery seems to be part of the tree itself rather than a separate entity. On the new art though, the tree appears to be perfectly healthy and completely separate from the machine. Didn't @DuarArts do the artwork for the short stories under the Media section of the forums as well? While I do like the blocky style and the realistic style both, I prefer the more realistic approach that the current art for those short stories has. It's still a bit cartoony, but serious, and it allows details to be shown that don't necessarily translate well to the game's graphics. I think if the goal is to make sure the visual style is the same across the board, then that art would need to be changed, which is a shame. Overall, I think I would prefer these styles be blended a little more, with a definitely preference for realism over blocks when it comes to art outside of the game. The best example of that currently is the current short story art. Trying to make all the art exclusively blocks might make it match gameplay visuals, but also makes it look more like a generic block game, and in some ways just isn't as interesting to look at outside of the game since the gameplay itself already shows us what things look like as blocks.

They already are in the game. You can find shed antlers around the late winter/early spring time frame.

Except in this case, hardware differences may make an impact, and I could see it being a little tricky to figure out how long the button has to be held in order to qualify as a "hold". Long windows can end up feeling clunky or sluggish, while short windows can wind up feeling too trigger-happy. The current balance feels fine to me, since most controls feel very responsive when I use them. Even so, I still like to harvest while I'm holding a weapon, as that leaves me able to respond to threats quickly. I don't really like shuffling inventory around to make sure I have an empty hotbar slot to do something, and I also don't want to be prevented from breaking things like bushes just because I happen to be holding berries or nothing at all. I think this case also goes with what @williams_482 noted about left-clicking being associated with dangerous/destructive actions; if I'm left-clicking on something, I'm generally intending to destroy or otherwise alter it in a very proactive fashion. Right-clicking tends to be more intuitive for using/interacting with blocks and items in a more subdued fashion. I think one of the main overall sticking points for me here is that by trying to consolidate/simplify controls, it solves one set of inconsistencies/problems while introducing other sets. Yes, excluding weapons from being placed automatically on tool racks would stop the player from accidentally losing their weapon mid-fight thanks to a misclick, but then you've got weapons behaving inconsistently with tools when it comes to how they're placed. It's a similar issue with trying to switch right-click and left-click actions around; left-clicking is usually reserved for breaking blocks/attacking things while right-click tends to be reserved for safer interactions. I think it's also important to note that just because the controls are internally consistent for a game doesn't mean that players won't find them confusing; if the controls are inconsistent with other titles in the same genre, players can easily get confused. Just a note here, but I don't think this is behavior that should be restricted. Sometimes you want/need to give an animal a slap on the rear to get them moving in an intended direction, without actually hurting them. If the player is barred from attacking animals without having some sort of weapon though, this action becomes a lot harder to achieve. Probably a prime example of where if left-clicking works to break blocks and attack things in other games, and right-click is used for more passive actions like setting items down, using blocks, or harvesting stuff, players are gonna get really confused when left-click suddenly becomes the harvest button and right-click can place stuff but not retrieve it, etc.

I don't disagree that controls could use some polish sooner or later, but I'm not sure the proposal here really solves the issue rather than just make a different mess of it. The reason I say that, is there are multiple different actions the player can perform in the game, and actions are pretty specific. It can also be pretty difficult to predict exactly what the player is trying to do in every scenario. A simpler control system might be easy to learn, but generally has trouble handling multiple different interactions easily. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding, but needing to click multiple times to harvest a single block probably isn't going to be a very popular decision. It's rather clunky and tedious, and if I understand correctly, repetitive actions like that can cause physical issues for some players. I would also note that if the block is broken, it tends to drop the harvestable item, so if the player is breaking a harvestable plant they're probably intending to both break the block and harvest the items as well, so requiring two different actions instead of just one probably won't feel too good. Additionally, it's also nice to be able to harvest bushes while holding a tool/weapon in one's hand, especially if there's otherwise no free inventory available. This isn't correct--a knife is not needed to harvest animal bones, and isn't needed to harvest certain plants. Cattails, tule, papyrus, and sedge require a knife to leave the roots intact. Grass will require a knife as well to get anything useful from it. A knife is required to take berry bush cuttings, but is not needed to harvest the bushes themselves. Honestly, I hate this combination. It's the control system that the mannequins currently use, and very clunky for frequently used items like armor. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding again, but if I'm holding the item already, I just want to right-click to equip. This seems like it could cause issues with items getting put/taken from storage by accident. If I'm fighting unwanted intruders or otherwise trying to work on my base, I don't want the game assuming that I'm trying to put a tool/weapon away just because I looked at a wall/storage unit funny. Overall, controls are something that are pretty specific to individual taste, I think, and what makes sense to one player might not make sense to another. I wouldn't mind seeing some polish, and definitely appreciate the detailed write-up, but something here just isn't hitting the right notes for me.

I mean, that's fine for those who want a very slow-paced game, but personally I don't want to be forced to stay in the stone age for an entire year. I would also point out that if you really want to say "no stone spears or axes until you get an antler" then antlers are going to have be findable by the player at any time of year, or the early game is otherwise going to need a massive rework to allow the player to do something other than just struggle to survive since it's not really possible to do much of anything without basic tools. Cracked vessel loot also isn't going to be an option at all for Homo Sapiens players, but even if antlers can drop occasionally from cracked vessels or be found in the wild, I doubt most players will be very happy about needing to rely on that much RNG to make any kind of decent early progress. If you really want to slow down progression, it's typically better to do it by giving the player more options to pick from at certain tech levels. Currently, players don't spend a lot of time in the stone age because a lot of activities are gated behind metalworking. I don't consider that a bad thing, since the stone age is just a stepping stone in the progression tree and not a tier the player is meant to spend a prolonged time in, but if the player had a few more options to distract themselves with they'd be more inclined to take things a little more slowly depending on what priorities they set for themselves.

It's a valid concern, though I will note that in my experience it's not unusual at all for little interactions like this to be cleaned up over time. Most updates typically contain at least a handful of quality-of-life tweaks. A good example of that for bowls and crocks specifically is it wasn't long ago that the player had to physically place the crock in the world in order to retrieve the contents with a bowl. Crocks and cookpots were later updated to allow the player to click on them with an empty bowl in the inventory and be filled that way, thus enabling players to easily eat from crocks/cookpots on the go(very handy in story locations!). Also a good point, especially on technical limitations of code. Creative mode is a great way to fix little goofs that happen, though that won't necessarily be an option in multiplayer.

Oh I don't dispute that it's silly. I'm not sure how one really solves the issue though without becoming incredibly restrictive on player movement and block placement. Unfortunately I'm not aware of a mod that adds this feature either. The problem here is that while this would stop some cheese strategies, it would also make building a lot more tedious. Pillaring up with blocks might not be realistic, but it's very handy for laying out build foundations and whatnot. I think in this case, it's probably best to not worry about it and let players make their own decisions, rather than become too restrictive on how players can interact with the world. In my case, I don't find that kind of cheese particularly fun, so I don't often use it and play in ways that I enjoy more.

I'm not sure that it's very useful in this fashion aside from just collecting rocks for cobblestone, walls, and paths. Maybe halite if one is really lucky, but doing anything useful with halite still requires a barrel. Would probably be useful for players doing pure stone age playthroughs, but little else. This is a really good point, though I wouldn't say that the issue is with hunting deer as that's easily done with stone spears. Rather, the issue is that deer only provide antlers during the fall and winter, and even then it's not really until late winter that the antlers are big enough to feasibly make much of a tool from. By this time, players should have managed to figure out copper casting and made themselves some basic copper tools, so an antler pick is really only useful as decoration or in extremely niche circumstances.

When I first started playing I built a pit kiln inside next to my hay bed and reed chest. It's the kind of mistake you learn from rather fast in this game.