LadyWYT

Nope! The idea is for the player to doodle their own designs, rather than choose from presets. So the only real limit is the player's imagination. That being said, for players looking for inspiration, gear or Blackguard insignia would probably be good example ideas, as would the villagers and certain traders since some of them have tattoos/warpaint. Malefactors might have chosen to tattoo successful mission tallies onto their skin as well as painting the marks onto their masks. Rougher characters might have a few battlescars. Some players would definitely abuse the system, but I don't think there's really any way to prevent players from drawing rude/unsavory things on themselves, aside from sticking to a list of preset options. Which presets aren't the same as drawing your own designs. Ultimately, I think it's fine to give the players the freedom in this case, and let server moderators handle reports, since different servers will have different tolerances on what they do and don't allow. It's very similar to the chisel and building system in that regard--no real way to stop players from building rude sculptures or writing profanity on signs, save for censoring code that can be more intrusive than helpful.

Or like Bruno already mentioned--wood and canvas. Preferably woods that are both light and strong. The wood might even need to be treated in order to be resistant to rotting and warping. As for the canvas, the player might need to treat linen with beeswax in order to both toughen the fabric and make it water-resistant. If a fuel line breaks or other catastrophic failure occurs during flight, the best thing to do is focus on landing safely first, or otherwise bail out of the aircraft if it's not going to be possible to land(ie, plane's on fire, about to explode, or otherwise not capable of flight).

Kind of? But it's also the kind of thing that I think is better suited to linking to the player's equipment choice and their actions over time. Basically, the player's class choice determines their general background and what their character is already inclined to be good at. Equipment choice determines how well said character can perform particular jobs, and since equipment is easily to swap, the player can switch pieces of armor, tools, and weapons as needed in order to do various jobs. They could equip themselves with ranged weapons for a hunting trip, then switch to heavy armor and melee weapons later to clean out a deep cave system or dungeon. To further influence a character's development, the player could acquire additional bonuses to certain actions over time, as long as they consistently put in the practice to maintain those bonuses. Want to be better at ranged combat? Go hunting more often or practice shooting at a target dummy. Want to be better at close quarters combat? Pick up a sword or other melee weapon and start practicing. Class choice could provide some influence with these acquired skills, in that Hunters will obviously be able to learn the ranged bonuses a little faster while struggling with the melee bonuses in return. I think that's kind of how the class system in Morrowind and Oblivion works. The player picks a class, which determines not only which skills will have the highest values at the beginning of the game, but also which skills the character will improve at the fastest. From there, how the character actually turns out depends heavily upon how the player chooses to play the game.

Class bonuses already play into that. It's not something you want to go completely overboard on though, since it's going to be up to the player to do everything in singleplayer and you don't want players feeling like they locked themselves out of portions of the game simply due to their class choice(like not being able to delve into cramped dungeons because they picked Hunter).

Pretty much. I assume that the code for such could also be tweaked and used for other things, like weaving custom tapestries or painting designs on pottery. Or vice versa.

Agriculture traders sometimes sell oak seeds, but to my knowledge the arctic regions don't contain as many traders. Traveling to a warmer area to get oak wood/oak seeds is probably your best bet.

To my knowledge, only the cooking slot qualifies as a heating slot. The output slot doesn't count as being in the fire, so if it sits there long enough the item will cool down. It can probably be done via a mod, though I'm not sure how one would accomplish such, or if there's a mod that already modifies the player marker. I don't think there's a way to disable brick-throwing, unless you make a mod for it, but trying to set down rocks and bricks is definitely a little clunky at the moment. The best work-around I've found is to set down a single brick/rock to start the pile first, and then use the shortcuts to pile the rest on. The hiccups, in my experience, seem to be caused by trying to use the keyboard shortcuts to pile everything on at once.

It's simple: if I make a stew from redmeat, cabbage, and turnips, and get +10% to strength after eating it, then I'm going to expect to use the same ingredients to cook the same recipe later and get the same benefit, regardless of whether it's the same world or a different world. If I'm cooking the same recipe but getting different results, that's not encouraging me to figure out more about the game. That's the game arbitrarily deciding what the outcome will be and telling me, the player, that it's useless to learn anything since the knowledge can't be applied to produce consistent outcomes.

It's a very small thing, but player characters and human NPCs stare off into space and never blink. This ends up making them feel rather stiff and somewhat unsettling, especially when interacting with them for extended periods of time. These characters already have fidget animations and breathing animations, so letting them blink once in a while would definitely help give them more life.

I'm not sure how feasible this would be to code, but it would be cool to have a few layer options for specific parts of the player model so that players can draw warpaint, tattoos, and scars for their character rather than choosing from a list of presets. The interface could be something as follows: Warpaint - Face - Body - Left Arm - Right Arm - Left Leg - Right Leg Selecting one of the above options would bring up a template the player could draw on, with brush settings for size and transparency, a handful of color presets, a color wheel to get a specific color, an option to save a specific color as a preset, a dropper tool to copy an existing color, an option to save a finished design as a preset for use in future playthroughs, and a preview model so the player can see how the design looks before committing to it. The template could also remove the pixels that will be covered by other parts(such as eyes or limb attachment points), or otherwise outline the parts where the design will be hidden, so that players will have a better idea of where to draw and where not to draw. To allow the player to modify these designs in the world, they could visit the friendly local barber-surgeon, or there could perhaps be some of basic "cosmetic kit" they could use to modify these layers at will.

A fair point, but I think a good part of this is due to how swords and other weapons are simplified in a lot of videogames and other media. Swords are meant primarily for slashing and thrusting, so it's easier to limit the weapon to those attacks since using the sword as a club or bludgeoning things with the pommel isn't going to be the primary course of action in most cases. But I do think that opting for the easier route is a missed opportunity to make swords and such more interesting weapons. I don't think it would be much of a problem. A mace or other weapon meant for bludgeoning will be outputting much more blunt damage than a sword pommel ever could. Likewise, those weapons could ignore armor more easily, break bones, or have a higher chance to stun targets for longer periods of time. In contrast, allowing a pommel attack option for swords makes them stronger as a general-purpose weapon and can potentially provide some interesting combat options(smack something with the pommel to confuse for a split-second, giving you just enough time to get in an uncontested attack or make a break for safety), but you're not necessarily going to want to tackle a bell with it or use the blade on locusts when you could smash them with the pommel. On the latter, a Blackguard might still get away with one-shotting locusts with a slash or stab, but other classes could have the option of using the sword pommel to kill the locusts in a single hit since they're weak to blunt damage.

Questions that can't be answered, because the effects that ingredients have are tied to the individual player AND the world seed. It's therefore not possible to learn what an ingredient does and then use that knowledge in future playthroughs without playing the exact same world seed, nor is it possible to share your knowledge with other players since the effects they get will be entirely different. It'd be like trying to play Elder Scrolls alchemy, but the ingredient effects are completely random for each character file. In Skyrim, you can combine butterfly wings with blue mountain flowers to get a healing potion, and have that as a solid option for early game healing potions in every playthrough. However, when the effects are always randomized, then you can't reliably make any potions at all until you've sunk hours into a single save file just figuring out which ingredients do what...and then you get to repeat that process every time you make a new character. No writing notes, no remembering what does what, no looking up information to figure out good combinations, because none of that applies to a new game. Like @Teh Pizza Lady said--it's a good idea for a mod, since there are some players who might enjoy that as a one-time challenge, and a mod lets players opt in to playing that way without changing the game for everyone else. But when you go changing the vanilla game itself, then you're expecting everyone to play that way by default, since that's not the kind of system you just toggle on/off in the game settings.

Sure, but it doesn't make sense to limit that attack to being a purely defensive reaction. My argument is that it should be an aggressive action, and one the player is able to use easily enough if they need/choose to, but not an attack that's going to do the same damage as a weapon actually specialized for blunt damage. It's definitely possible to land backwards attacks, but it's a very clunky system in my experience. While trying to backpedal while fighting is an awkward maneuver anyway, I don't think it's one that should feel awkward to the player to execute. The awkwardness is part of the reason I don't even bother with those attacks most of the time in Skyrim, despite the benefits. It tends to be a waste of time and resources since the attacks are fairly tough to land and it's easy to shift yourself out of position while doing said attacks. Eh, maybe. But I can think of a few scenarios where I might want to be bashing with the pommel and not using the blade. Fighting locusts and most other mechanical creatures, for one. Doing non-lethal damage to a target for another; not necessarily to knock the target out(and potentially rob it), but giving it a stern smack to make it run away and stop bothering me. Or to potentially confuse it for a split second so I can stab it. Also to pester my hunter friend without actually hurting said hunter. Edit: Pommel bashing is also a decent way to avoid dulling the blade, so it could be used as a way to deal with smaller threats and save the cutting edge for more serious ones.

I mean if they aren't quitting, they're going to be submitting bug reports and complaints about how they aren't getting the same buffs as their friends despite eating the exact same meal. Imagine being the one guy in a group of friends who doesn't get any useful buffs because none of the local ingredients happened to be what the game decided his character enjoys.

Damage types are meant to help push players to use different strategies every so often, as well as meant to help different equipment choices actually feel different. For example, a piercing weapon like a spear or bow would be quite strong against wild animals, but struggle against mechanical enemies since they're made of metal. A mace would be really good against metal enemies since it can crush the metal parts, but might not be a good choice for confronting a bear since flesh and hide is squishy and can absorb the impact. For games with magic systems, it means playing a frost mage build will give you a distinct advantage against opponents that are weak to frost, but means you're going to suffer if you fail to account for enemies that are resistant/immune to frost damage. That could mean learning a couple of basic spells that do other damage, or it could mean using scrolls, potions, or buying a weapon specifically for that encounter. To use TES games as an example here--in Skyrim, undead creatures are immune to frost and poison damage, but are weak to fire and holy damage. Holy damage won't hurt living creatures so spells and enchantments that deal that kind of damage aren't something you'll use all the time, but it can be useful to have a few "turn undead" scrolls or a weapon with that enchantment with clearing a barrow or vampire lair. Characters that choose to specialize in that kind of magic will be exceptionally good at battling undead creatures. In previous TES games, ghosts could only be damaged by spells, enchanted weapons, or silver weapons, which meant that more martial characters would need to invest in specialized weapons or spell scrolls every now and then. For a Vintage Story context, I would still expect the player to be able to take pretty much any standard weapon into most encounters and still be able to win. It's just that they might struggle with some encounters more than others depending on their choice of equipment.

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It's not the smoothest, but it does allow the player control over what kind of damage they're doing, and perhaps acts as a bit of a balance. That being said...most tools that have different modes only have a couple of modes available, so it probably wouldn't be too hard to turn F into a simple toggle rather than bring up a full menu. The one exception is the chisel, which should still retain the menu due to how the item is used. This is probably why Skyrim's combat is set up the way that it is. Forwards/backwards tends to focus on a single target, while sideways can create a sweep attack with the right weapon. The best thing about charging at a target with a power attack is that while the attack can do a lot of damage if it hits...it's very easy to miscalculate and have the momentum carry you past the target. In which case, your backside is going to be wide open for a counterattack while you take a couple of seconds to recover. I think I would still prefer some sort of key-cycle rather than directional input here. The reason I say that is that forwards and sideways attacks are easy enough to land, but backwards attacks are actively moving you away from the target, if only a little bit. Striking with the blade it's not a big deal, since the pointy end has a lot more reach, but trying to strike with the pommel means you need to be fairly close to hit the target since you're not using the full reach of the sword. So either the range of the pommel strike ends up unrealistic, or the attack itself winds up useless because the benefits just aren't worth the difficulty of trying to land the attack. Yes, the elk will still be a bit faster, but that's why I said about the same time. The stance animation could change depending on what weapon mode is selected. Using the sword as the example again--when slashing is selected, the current default hold animation could be used. When thrusting is selected, the character could lower the sword's point and hold the weapon back slightly. When bashing is selected, the character could hold the sword higher, with the pommel facing forward. It also removes adding a more streamlined block/parry system to right-click. Overall I do like the write-up, but I would be concerned about the sharpness stat getting confused with the sharpness the grinding wheel adds. Sharpness is sharpness, but the base sharpness value isn't quite the same thing as the bonus the grinding wheel adds.

I was mulling it over earlier about various damage types, and one general drawback of such systems is that blunt and piercing damage end up being incredibly useful in certain scenarios while slashing damage tends to be resisted by everything. In some ways it makes sense--swords are a staple weapon and you want to encourage players to pick different weapons from time to time, and slashing damage is also a little easier to mitigate and serves as a solid "general purpose" damage type. However, it can also be a little disappointing to stick to a slashing weapon as your main choice, and never really have a chance for that choice to shine. What could give slashing weapons their own special niche though, I think, is different damage modes. Take the sword for example--a sword is often used for cutting, but it can also be used for stabbing or even as a club. From a game balance standpoint, a sword might do slashing damage by default, but could also have modes for piercing and blunt damage rather than slashing. Piercing damage could be about the same as slashing, but with a much smaller hitbox than a slashing attack, meaning that the player will need to be more precise with their attack in order to actually do the damage. Blunt damage could be rather low, so the sword isn't going to outclass proper blunt weapons, but it's there if you really need it for some reason. Daggers could operate in a similar fashion to swords regarding damage. Axes could be somewhat similar, but rather than have two different damage modes they could instead have their total damage split between slashing and blunt. And of course, the falx specifically should probably deal some bonus damage to non-mechanical monsters, since in the lore it's supposed to be more effective at fighting the unnatural.

Perhaps give the heavier armors a noise penalty, so enemies will notice those players more? Additionally, there could probably be some sort of check to make certain enemies prioritize attacking the closest targets, especially if those targets are actively attacking them. After all, it's difficult to ignore a big armored individual that keep poking you with a sharp object. The noise penalty also gives more trade-off to having that level of protection; you might be able to shrug off most attacks while wearing plate armor, but you'll also get more unwanted attention as well.

I agree that dodging shouldn't be more than a block or two, since that equates to about a step. A roll would use more distance, but a roll is not a move you want to make if you can avoid it, since it's easy to mess up and leaves you more open to attack. I-frames I wouldn't worry about too much, really; if I'm not mistaken those tend to be more heavily abused by speedrunners and minmaxers, and not so much the average player. As for the cooldown...that I'm not sure. I think a stamina cost might be more appropriate here. That way the player can spam the ability if they really want, but doing so will limit how much stamina they have to use for other things, like more dodges, running away, chasing enemies, stronger attacks, etc. Vigor handled stamina cost rather nicely, in that it would recover fairly fast under typical circumstances, but if you drained too much stamina from the meter than you would become a little sluggish and stamina would recover much more slowly until you took a proper rest. Pretty much. Dodging and parrying are most useful when dueling an opponent that's a similar size to oneself. It can still be somewhat useful against an onslaught or larger opponents, since blocking partial damage is better than blocking no damage, but its usefulness drops off rather quickly. For facing multiple opponents at once, the better tactic is probably to armor up with plate and use a shield, or perhaps a polearm/greataxe/greatsword to control the space nearby. You're still going to take some hits, but if you can make good use of the available space and effectively force the enemies into dealing with you a few at a time rather than all at once, you should be able to survive. Alternatively, this would also be a good scenario to use a scrap bomb or other AoE weapon. Large enemies are going to be tough to deal with because they don't need numbers to make your life difficult. A large enemy will typically be stronger and have more health, potentially more armor as well. They can also have more reach, making it easier for them to hit you than it is for you to hit them, and that extra reach can make a big difference in a fight. Likewise, if they're much stronger than you are, dodging their attacks is going to be a better option than trying to parry or block, since both of those options require absorbing or redirecting the incoming attack force.

I would be inclined to agree if not for the fact that you can achieve leather without touching bronze or borax. A copper pick can mine rock, and limestone, chalk, marble, and seashells can all be ground into lime, or the player can purchase lime from certain traders. Borax is just more efficient for leatherworking. It could just be an oversight, as that does happen, but it could be as Michael Gates was suggesting--a skill check to help push players to bronze before they start messing with more advanced stuff. If that is the case, it would be similar to quartz in that regard; the player can make glass without actually needing to mine quartz, but it's going to be rather tedious relying on the surface bits and whatever the player can pan or find as loot.

I don't think any of the monsters are really capable of eating food. Not that they have to be capable of eating it in order to beg for it, but it doesn't really make much sense. Likewise, making them more passive pretty much removes them as a threat. I wouldn't mind it if they perhaps had lower perception than other monsters, since drifters don't strike me as particularly intelligent, and thus weren't likely to notice players crouched/sneaking nearby. However, monsters should be creatures that are unnaturally aggressive. As for the locust throwing--it's definitely funny, but also not really needed since locusts already have a spring attack. That being said, it does remind me of this mod: https://mods.vintagestory.at/drifterbombs Not that drifters need to be tossing bombs, but...the mental image is hilarious, and if it were a rare occurrence for tougher drifters they would definitely be a more concerning threat. I'm not sure the player should be able to aim them like that. They're animate creatures, unnatural and fairly large, and not likely to be forced into service like that without some intense struggling. And the time the player takes attempting to subdue it is time that the player can't react to other threats in the area. Locusts I would actually push a bit further in this regard, potentially. Or at least, add a clingy variant that accomplishes this idea, since the strength of standard locusts is numbers(which is more than enough). But instead of just weighing down the player, they would actively be drilling through whatever armor the player is wearing. They might not do much damage themselves, but the idea is to wreck the armor and leave the player open to more serious attacks, if the player doesn't deal with the locusts. The problem is figuring out a good way to get the locusts off of yourself. You can't really see your own body outside of immersive first person mode, and you can't slam yourself against the walls to dislodge hitch-hikers either. Bears I wouldn't mind seeing be a little more defensive than aggressive, in return for making polar bears specifically more aggressive. The reasoning there is a defensive bear will still be very dangerous, but will be a little easier for players to deal with, especially new players. Polar bears, however, are one of the few animals that take the concept of "people food" literally, so they would be inclined to stalk a player in order to get a good meal. Also worth noting that bears enjoy a variety of food, not just meat, so if the player was carrying a lot of food the bear would be happy to eat most of it. Fear of fire could apply to many wild animals in general, not just wolves. Waving a torch might be a crude early game solution, but the player could perhaps have access to some kind of flare later. Flares could be better at spooking animals, as well as potentially used to confuse certain monsters. I'm not a fan of Zelda games by any means, but I do think they serve as a good example of what kind of combat is perhaps a good fit for VS. It's complex enough to offer the player some interesting options, as well as chances to improve their skills, without being so complex that the player is going to struggle to jump back into the game should they take a break for a while. The hitboxes are easily the biggest problem with combat right now. It's pretty easy to clip into the hitboxes of larger entities(like bears) and be unable to hit them, while they can still hit you. There's also been times that I've been standing right in front of an attacking enemy and somehow not been hit, despite the fact that there was no way the hit could have missed. Short steps backwards or to the side is all dodging really is. I do think dodging and parrying should be able to be performed consistently enough for the player to rely on as primary defense, but only if the player puts in the effort to master the timing, and only in situations where dodging and parrying would actually be decisive. That is, you're not going to parry a charging rhino or eidolon slap--you can try, but you'll learn pretty fast why that's not the appropriate action to take. Same case with dodging--you need to be both dodging in the right direction and be able to put enough distance between you and the opponent for the attack to miss. So you might be able to sidestep an arrow or small rock, or a surface drifter's swing, but you probably aren't going to dodge the sawblade arm of a nightmare drifter or a hail of projectiles fired at you. So yeah, in the right circumstances, a well-timed dodge or parry could absolutely be the factor that determines whether you survive the fight or hit the respawn button. But that's also part of the appeal of such mechanics. It also feels quite satisfying when you finally master the timing enough to dodge and parry incoming attacks consistently.

Welcome to the game and forums! When joining a server, only clientside mods will continue to function, and even then that's only if the server allows modded clients, I believe. Otherwise, the mod will need to be installed on the server in order for players to be able to use it. Now if you can't see the handbook information at all when you try to play on the server, not even after giving it a few moments to load--that's a different mod. Try disabling your mods and then log in to the server to see if the issue still occurs. If the game starts functioning normally, then there's mod interference somewhere. The first thing to check in that case is making sure all your mods are updated properly for 1.22, since code changes broke a lot of older mods. Otherwise, the easiest way to find a problem mod is to re-enable them one by one and test each time you do so--when the problem reappears you will know exactly which mod caused it.

Knapster is the culprit--you seem to be using an outdated version. 1.22 introduced changes in the code that broke a lot of older mods. Luckily, Knapster is updated for 1.22, so updating the mod to the correct version should fix the problem.

They can be somewhat persistant, but as a general rule I've not found it difficult to outrun them with a few moments of sprinting either. Though I do think it's fair to say that if situations like this did prove to be a big problem, creature AI could be tweaked so that bears will charge a player but not necessarily pursue. In that case, the player can still run away, even if their stamina reserves aren't entirely full, but if they were careless and pushed to the point of exhaustion upon encountering the bear then they're probably in for a rough time. I do agree that the Archive is designed the way that it is currently in order to push the player to make one trip on foot before they get a mount and ride around everywhere. That being said, acquiring a mount is similar to animal domestication--not an easy thing to do, even with the recent adjustments to creature tameness. So I would still expect going by foot to be the most expedient option for the first chapter, but players who want to acquire a mount first shouldn't experience that much of a delay. In some ways, that time delay can work in the player's favor--while they work on catching and taming a mount, they could also be working on better gear or stockpiling better medical supplies or other consumables. Newer players could be nudged toward focusing on surviving the winter and improving their skills as they work to tame the mount, meaning that they'll be able to handle the challenges in the Archive more easily. When it comes to chapter two, it definitely makes having a mount a more attractive option for travel. Currently, you can cover the distance on foot in about the same time as you can on the elk, partly due to the fact that if you're on foot you don't really need to make a detour around dense forest or rough terrain.