LadyWYT

I tend to have iron by the end of the first summer, steel by the end of the first year(year 0). Fully developed homestead complete with livestock and fruit trees as well. It's a fast pace, sure, but I prefer to reach the higher-end equipment quickly as it's easier to focus on building and stuff with better tools and weapons. Now the main story content is a completely different pace. I can certainly beat both chapters by the end of year 0, but it's not unusual for me to wait until midway into year 1 or so before even starting on the main story content.

That's...kind of the point though. They move fast, with a hit-and-run tactic. Their main weaknesses are that they can't fit into smaller spaces(they need 2x2 to navigate), and that they randomly spaz out leaving the player with a short window of attack opportunity. Pretty much. I think they might do slightly less damage, in return for having a bit more health. Not entirely true. They're more lethal because they're fairly fast and able to chase you down more easily. However, the player can still outrun them, provided the player isn't weighed down too much by armor. As for backpedaling to dodge, it's definitely possible, especially if you time your counterattacks well, but it takes practice and requires good reflexes. If you know what sounds the shivers make, you can easily tell if one is nearby, and whether or not it has noticed you. If you hear a raspy growl, it's time to have your sword and shield at the ready, because it's in the process of charging. Agreed. Or at least, let them climb over one-block walls/fences, but maybe not walls that are higher than that. I believe the bellhead shivers, stilt shivers, and deepslit shivers can all drop the same loot as a double-headed drifter. The deepslits appear during temporal storms, and I think the other two spawn deep underground near the mantle.

I just want to note that one doesn't need alcohol-soaked bandages for the first boss. The basic horsetail poultices will do just fine, and if you pack the raw materials and only craft the poultices as you need them(after taking damage, prior to entering the boss area) you use your inventory slots more efficiently. Overall, I would say the honey-linen bandages are the best choice for first aid when adventuring. Like the alcohol bandages, they heal 7 hp per bandage, but don't dry out, meaning that you can use them at-will instead of needing to stop and prepare them. The drawback is that they're a bit more of a resource investment.

Multiple people should be able to hurt the same target, but I think it heavily depends on the timing of the attacks. There's a very short window of time after hitting a target, where it's "immune" to being hit again. So if you have multiple players after one target, you'll want to stagger your attacks a bit to make sure that multiple attacks aren't landing at the exact same time. Definitely a bit wonky, but I'm not sure how one would go about fixing it. It kinda depends. I'd say plate armor is a stronger choice if you have a friend or two to bring with you, and a weaker choice if you're by yourself. Typically I go for brigandine, myself, as it's easy to make and provides decent protection. Plate armor generally comes much later, and I generally use it to deal with late-game temporal storms.

I play Blackguard as well, and occasionally fail to harvest resin. Most of the time it drops, but sometimes it doesn't. I believe resin counts as a foraged material, similar to mushrooms, so Blackguard suffers a similar penalty to the drop chance with it.

Oof, yeah, didn't even think about that one. I recall reading a post the other day where someone had trouble with their chickens escaping...turned out that it was a mod that allowed drifters to open doors and gates, which somehow also gave that ability to chickens. While it was a funny read, it would certainly not be funny to have a bunch of high level livestock vanish because a rusty miscreant tore apart the fencing.

Strangely enough, I think the Tailor might be one of the stronger combat classes, after a fashion(no pun intended!) They have a lower health pool, sure, however they don't have any negatives when it comes to ranged or melee fighting, putting them on par with the Commoner at least in terms of attack power. They're actually better than the Commoner when it comes to fighting, in some ways, because they have more armor durability, which means fewer repairs. Currently their biggest strength, I'd wager, is the warm clothing advantage(which is very useful if you're traveling in the cold) and advantage to trade(they can craft more valuable things to sell). The reindeer herder set may be a life saver if you're doing chapter two in cold weather, when you reach a certain high point. What about Jack? Er, Jacque. If you're taking suggestions anyway. Probably what I would do, is improve the NPC system significantly and flesh it out with a proper reputation mechanic. IE, you'll have to actually interact with them and maybe run a few errands if you want them to help you or otherwise give you good deals/special items. Some could be more personable than others, but player class could also heavily affect overall NPC disposition, at least when it comes to the standard NPC that isn't already familiar with the player. Not only would it add more depth to the world, but it would be a really good spot for the Tailor to shine, as their refined demeanor and useful skillset would win them friends much more easily than any of the other classes.

It's supposed to, I think, however I'm not sure by how much it adjusts, or if the adjustment is working as intended. On a recent playthrough with a friend, the boss fights went a lot faster than they typically do in singleplayer, so I'm not sure that the health boost is that noticeable. HOWEVER, we were also playing with mods, and had access to skills and weapons that allowed us to do more damage per hit(though nothing insane--it still took two hits for my Blackguard to kill a surface drifter). Iron tier gear for chapters one and two. So the mods may have been a contributing factor as well. I'd also wager that the boss fights may be a little easier with two people purely because there is one person to keep the boss occupied, leaving the other free to deal out damage. That's essentially what happened when we faced off with the eidolon; my Blackguard soaked up most of the punishment, leaving the hunter free to chip away at the thing from relative safety. The second chapter worked much the same way, although in that case I was purely bait and the hunter did pretty much all of the damage. Steel plate makes you nearly invincible, not totally. It will soak up most incoming damage, even without using a shield, so unless you're getting swarmed by tier 4 enemies you should be able to stay in the fight for a long time, if necessary. However, the drawback is that you'll not only be slower and require more calories to function, but you'll also be unable to heal. Such is the price for that kind of protection, however, there are also few scenarios where that level of protection is really warranted. Temporal storms and diving into the deepest caves are probably the chief scenarios that you'd want steel plate. For surface work, gambeson is perfectly fine, and for most work underground iron is just fine as well. Iron is also quite serviceable for both of the story chapters so far, though when it comes to chapter two I'd say it's the armor style that matters most, and perhaps not as much what it's made out of. If it works(I'm not entirely convinced that it does), it should only apply to bosses specifically, not mini-bosses or other standard enemies. I would assume it simply makes a note of how many players are in the specified boss area when the fight begins, and applies an appropriate HP boost. As for why you might want to make that a feature of a boss fight--it's to make sure the boss doesn't die too fast when you have multiple players. I mean...both bosses so far have been giant metal constructs, which I would expect to be pretty durable. The timing of the fights also feels like it's in a good spot, in my opinion, at least for singleplayer. For multiplayer it might need a bit of tuning. I'd also note that it's technically not out of the question that we'll see a boss in the future that's able to be defeated much more quickly, provided one has the correct equipment and attacks at just the right times. However...it's also not something I expect to see either. Boss fights should take a few minutes, on average, because bosses are entities that are much stronger than the average enemy. If the fight is able to be ended quickly, then the boss either doesn't feel like a credible threat, or it's a glass cannon fight in which the boss WILL one-shot you if it hits you. Which is its own brand of unenjoyable. It is actually possible to forgo heavier armor and still win against enemies, without taking a lot of damage. If you're familiar enough with attack patterns, aren't too outnumbered, and time things correctly, you can go toe-to-toe with a brown bear with nothing but a falx, a shield, and a gambeson chestpiece. Is it the best of ideas? Not really, but you can do it relatively easily with enough practice. The healing penalty when wearing armor is one of the tradeoffs for opting for more protection. The more armor you have, the less damage you take and the longer you can remain in the fight. However, you also can't keep fighting indefinitely--you'll eventually need to seek respite, or else be bludgeoned to death. Regarding first-person view and situational awareness...that really shouldn't affect your situational awareness that much. Now, it would be nice if entities had proper footsteps, so you could hear them coming a lot easier, sure. However, it's a good idea anyway to keep an eye on your surroundings and take a look around every so often to make sure nothing sneaks up on you. In the case of working underground, you're not able to see very much, so it's good to either bring a bunch of torches for temporary lighting, block off passages, or otherwise keep an ear out for hostile noises. Regarding checkpoints--temporal gears can be used to reset your spawnpoint, and if you intend to travel far from home and expect trouble, it's a good idea to bring a couple with you. There's also a fair amount of clues to indicate that you're approaching a boss battle, however, a lot of those clues also rely on the player examining their surroundings carefully and paying attention to things like notes and NPC dialogue. Whether or not the player character is good at fighting or not will depend on equipment, class choice, fight context, and of course player skill. Stone age weapons and armor are better than nothing, but you'll need quality equipment if you expect to get anything done. More experienced players will have an easier time in combat than less experienced ones. As for class choice, some classes are much better at fighting than others, however, it also depends on the nature of the fight. A Blackguard will be the champion in any kind of melee, but will struggle at range. A Hunter excels at range but will really struggle when it comes to melee. Clockmakers are perhaps even worse when it comes to melee, as they both suffer a penalty to health in addition to melee damage. Wasn't aimed at me, but I'll make it clear anyway: I'm absolutely not claiming that you had fun with the boss fights/combat of Vintage Story. It's very clear you did not. Simply making some counterpoints to other things posted in the thread.

Plus find ALL the butterfly pins.

Don't need a mod, just need to go into creative and give yourself the admin sword. It was a bit buggy when I went through it the first time, HOWEVER, that was also on a release candidate and not a stable release. I've also played through it with a friend on the stable release(modded), and it was a lot smoother. There was, however, an issue with the lift and mode switching, in which I was suspended in the vacuum of space for a short time. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but switching again fixed it, I think. In regards to falling through solid objects--some props have goofy hitboxes and look bigger than they actually are. However, there is also a bug where you can get knocked back into blocks. Usually when that happens, you're only partially clipped into the block and can walk free, but sometimes you will actually be stuck in the block itself and need to switch gamemodes in order to free yourself.

I think it's mostly likely a weather effect. If the weather is really bad outside, the inside of your house can sometimes be foggy too, for whatever reason. If you built underground, it could be a side affect of the new underground fog mechanics as well. I'm not sure exactly how it works, but sometimes chunks underground will have a dark fog effect that keeps light from shining quite as brightly. I don't think it's a permanent effect, as it seems to come and go, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Yeah, some of the new locations have had some distinct growing pains. There have been some improvements, but I think overall, it will boil down to what kind of content one enjoys doing. Players who enjoy parkour will enjoy chapter 2 a lot more than players who hate parkour. Also no shame in this.

At a glance, I'd say you have some mods that are out-of-date. Older mods can work on newer versions, depending on what changed in updates, but it's never a guarantee that an older mod will continue to work on a newer version of the game. 1.20 changed quite a few things, so I'm guessing it probably broke something related to one of the older mods. I'd check your mod versions, making sure that everything is updated to the most recent stable version of the game(or at least a stable version of 1.20) and removing anything that's older and not confirmed to work on 1.20.

Very true. And if you could turn those scaly pelts into shoes, that means you can have a comfy pair of crocs to wear!

The hippo scares me. Something tells me the tropics might no longer be the safest climate zone to settle in! Loving the progress so far though!

This is actually already a thing: an optional challenge setting that prevents buckets from placing water source blocks. Firepits shouldn't be burning anything, save the fuel you put in them. Pit kilns, on the other hand, will happily set fire to whatever flammable thing happens to be near them. Which is also why you don't want to build them in your house(learned that the hard way!) Maybe, but I think it would make flax a little too easy to acquire, in addition to encouraging players to hunt the drifters and whatnot in the early game. Not that actively hunting them is bad, but in my opinion the monsters are more of a hazard to be avoided, unless you need to deal with them for some reason. I haven't tinkered too much with those crops, but cherries and peaches don't have the same shelf life as pears and apples, which is why they have a shorter time window for harvest/use. If I'm recalling correctly though, cherries don't have as good of nutrition value as other fruits, which is a shame. If I were to change anything, I'd increase their nutrition value so that it's more worth investing in them. Also already a feature: cave-ins and soil instability. If you have those turned on, not only will you need to be careful about your mining process, but you'll also be unable to build with just plain dirt as it will collapse. You'll need to pack/ram the dirt first, if you wish to build anything with it. Or a simple Jonas contraption. Or even a complicated one that functions like an airlock--it only opens for the player, and closes shortly after being opened.

If by "wall" you mean fences and stone walls...yes, yes they should be allowed to climb over those, in my opinion. Not that I dislike trapping them in my farms and killing them from safety, but it is rather sad when they can climb two block heights, but can't crawl over a simple fence. I don't think such a change would be too unbalanced either--you'd need to plan your defences a little more to account for the better climbing ability, but they otherwise are still weak in tight spaces.

Oh definitely! I just find it funny because I've digging around on a Decent reading for halite on a friend's server and found absolutely nothing. Yet here I'm not even looking for halite, and just happen to find it floating in the air for whatever reason.

Oh this is really cute! Do the more experienced players sometimes act as tour guides?

Could just pass it off as those darn temporal storms or a translocator gone awry. Depends...for the Archive, no that's not normal. As @Thorfinn already mentioned, the Resonance Archive tends to spawn somewhere between 4k and 6k blocks from the world spawn. As for other points of interest though...you might be traveling those kinds of distances in order to get to them.

Depends on which class you play. Blackguard is at the strongest advantage for the first boss fight, since that class has a bonus to melee damage and a health boost. Hunter is probably one of the weakest, since ranged weapons aren't as useful there and Hunter having the penalty to melee. The script flips entirely on the next boss battle, as Hunter becomes the strongest class with Blackguard perhaps being the weakest. In my opinion, the boss fights on default settings have felt fine. They're challenging, yes, but they haven't really felt unfair, and I say that having had my rear paddled by them a time or two. That being said, it probably wouldn't hurt to add a specific damage/health slider for the bosses, so that players who would rather just play the story(with some challenge posed by the regular monsters) without difficult bosses, can. Or, possibly, add a class that gets a bonus to damage vs. boss monsters instead. It'd be a very niche trait, but one useful for speedrunning/making those fights a little easier.

Welcome to the forums! It's a neat idea, but I'd be concerned about it both taking up processing power that's better used elsewhere, or becoming more tedious than fun to deal with. Immersion is nice, but having to constantly maintain your base to keep it from literally falling apart will get frustrating fairly quickly, especially if you have a large base. Likewise, the main plot has the player venturing away from home for extended periods, so having one's base fall apart while away could be a big turn-off from ever venturing too far from home. However, I could see it potentially being an interesting challenge feature for Homo Sapiens, since I don't think there's as many challenges/hazards in that gamemode. Now if it was structured so that the weathering only takes place on player-made structures if they are away from the chunks for a long time, then it might work as an immersive feature without being too frustrating. However, I'm not sure how you'd take chiseled blocks into account, and I'm also not sure how it would work in multiplayer, given that it's possible for a lot of time to pass if you haven't played on the server in a while. Could be a hassle there, but then again that might be a feature that a lot of servers end up turning off.

For those wondering, there did turn out to be a halite dome buried in the ground underneath the floating blocks. Ironically, a propick reading only gave it a miniscule chance of spawning, but there it is.

I don't think this is how you're supposed to find it!

There's a whole 'nother chapter, my friend. Though getting bad luck on the treasure hunters like that does make it harder to start on chapter two. I think the next update is rumored to be focused on improving the end-game tech options, but I wouldn't swear to it. In any case, more Jonas tech options would come with the need for more Jonas parts, which makes hunting the highest tier monsters a more attractive choice. I also figure the overall story pace might be designed with the intention that the player will be taking breaks between chapters to return to their base and replenish supplies/repair or otherwise improve gear. Depending on what conditions you set for your world generation, you may also be needing to wait for specific times of year before tackling some pieces of the story as well. I don't think it really needs fixed, as it's nice to have the option of quick progression, provided you're willing to push that hard for it. Generally, I think I'm usually getting to steel around the first of Year 1, on average, maybe a bit later. I like to take my time in many cases and build for aesthetics, not just pure function. One "fix" that would probably work though, to stretch out the progression time a bit...just add some more options of things to do when progressing. Some could be mandatory, some could just be optional gameplay loops, but more choices for the player means they'll need to make decisions on what they spend their time on, since not everything can be done all at once.