LadyWYT

This I like better, as it gives spears something interesting to help set them apart more from other weapon choices. I would also add that with a status effect system, the spear could potentially cause a different type of injury than other weapons, such as a nasty puncture wound. I don't think I would give it an anti-armor bonus though, as that seems better suited for a proper mace addition/change to the club. Part of my reasoning there is that clockwork constructs should probably count as armored targets, since they're made of metal, so stabbing one with a spear doesn't seem like it should be as effective as blunt force

No, spoilage timers are definitely a concern in multiplayer, and one reason problems can arise if the server isn't entirely co-op and some players aren't playing as frequently as others. Large servers tend to have the most problems, I think, since there's almost always someone online so time is constantly passing. In any case though, there's at least a couple of mods that have tried to address this. I don't know how well they work, but you might give them a shot. https://mods.vintagestory.at/noofflinecontainerfoodspoil https://mods.vintagestory.at/offlinefoodnospoil

Welcome to the forums! In fairness, I don't think a "random" option in the game solves this issue either, as players are just going to reroll if they don't like what they got. But I don't think it's a bad idea either.

To answer the original question, yes, firepits were changed in 1.22 to no longer reset item temperature when a new item starts cooking from a stack, with the stack of items taking proportionally longer to heat up as a result. Try cooking a smaller stack of flint(such as eight) to get what you need for the initial bloomery. I will also note that item stacks currently don't cool off at a proportional rate, so it's pretty important to keep things heated appropriately once you get them up to temperature. However, if you would like to change that, there is a mod for it: https://mods.vintagestory.at/scs Fire clay deposits can also occur under black coal/anthracite veins. If you're playing with lore content enabled, you can also sometimes find it in cracked vessels or ruins, and can sometimes purchase it from traders as well.

The problem here is that while fighters getting stronger via fighting is pretty self-explanatory, crafters getting weaker doesn't necessarily makes sense. It depends heavily on how you want to classify crafting. If we're talking weaving and cooking and perhaps even leatherworking, then sure, the player isn't necessarily going to build a lot of strength with those activities. Stuff like smithing and woodworking though requires quite a lot of strength, and even passive activities like farming and mining are quite good at building strength, realistically, but don't necessarily mean an increase of fighting skill. Honestly, I don't think the player has to see a number in order to do this. I tend to sprint most everywhere in the game, even when playing with a mod like Vigor(adds stamina, for those who don't know), and I sincerely doubt I'm the only one that does this.

In case your interested, there's a mod to make stacks cool off proportionally slower as well: https://mods.vintagestory.at/scs Flint can also be cooked in a bloomery, so you don't necessarily have to use the firepit either.

Knockback in the game is kind of weird. I'm not sure that it's a feature of specific weapons, as much as it is an odd side-effect of how the physics engine currently works. In my experience hitting a target will knock it around at least a little bit, allowing the player to somewhat keep a target at arm's length(which tends to be easier to do with a spear given its reach). Most of the time, the target is knocked a step/half-step backwards, but depending on the conditions it can also fly straight up in the air several feet or get launched off to the side, etc.

I think it's supposed to be able to be used in place of animal fat when crafting machinery.

Welcome to the forums! 1.22 changed the firepits so that the item temperature no longer resets when a new item starts cooking, but it takes longer to heat up stacks of items as a result. As for calcinating flint, if I'm recalling correctly the temperature needs to be 1000 C for it to calcinate, so you'll want to pop some coal/charcoal in there as fuel to get it hot enough to actually cook. As for Better Firepits, I'm not sure if that mod is still working correctly on 1.22, but I don't think that's the issue here.

You need oak logs, not pine. Just swap the log types and it should work.

Multiplayer is a pretty good reason not to add such. To be fair, I don't think this is a bad idea, but it slides more into the modded realm for me rather than a good fit for the base game, mostly because systems like this make it very easy to snowball in multiplayer so that players who can't/don't play as much quickly fall behind without a good way to catch up. As it stands, the current progression system means that players can still fall behind, but they can easily catch up with some work or help from friends. Personal player stats though can't exactly be shared. The beginning of the game is when the player really wants to be outrunning the wild animals though, given that they don't have any other tools for really dealing with such threats. While it might not be completely realistic to be able to outrun a bear, I think it's fair from a game balance standpoint to allow that to be an option for a player if they react fast enough. Overall, I like the idea, especially since I've been brainstorming with a friend on similar lately. However, I think this is maybe too complex for what most players would find fun to manage. A better solution for this kind of thing in vanilla, I think, is definitely to include a basic stamina meter to make sprinting a more strategic choice, but outside of that I think things like extra damage and workspeed should either be handled by a status effect system or otherwise be a benefit of acquiring better tools. In the case of status effects, players could perhaps earn new traits by doing certain tasks enough times or paying NPCs for training, but could also potentially lose those benefits if they happen to fall out of practice. These benefits don't need to be limited to just damage bonuses, as they could be applied to other things such as foraging, farming, stealth, etc. Basically, status effects can do what you've suggested, but push the idea much further. On the tool improvement, making tools from better materials and quenching/tempering them gives the player more control over their bonuses, in that they can improve more than just workspeed and can also retrieve the tool to keep the benefits should they happen to die. This also allows players to share progress with their friends in order to bring them up to speed if they've not played in a while. Just a side note on the increased hunger for being stronger though--it does make sense, but it's also one of the major turn-offs for some players, at least when it comes to picking a class. Blackguard implements this concept in that the class is described as physically stronger and gets a bonus to melee damage, mining speed, armor movement, and total health, but also receives an extra 30% to their hunger rate to maintain that strength. So even if the suggested strength bonus doesn't kick in until later in the game, when food is less of an issue, I'm still not sure how popular such a thing would be.

My best guess is that implementing something like this is the easy part. The hard part is probably going to be figuring out how to get it to do exactly what you want, how you want, in addition to fixing whatever the mod manages to break in the process.

Oh I'm aware, and I don't really expect the mod authors to go to that much effort. But if they did want to integrate stuff like the trait system and whatnot, I sure wouldn't mind seeing it happen. Maybe, but that's also partly what mods are for, is it not? To my recollection, there's been other game changes, like the quern crafting recipe and I think fireclay crafting as well, that had mods to revert them almost as soon as the changes launched. Hence my surprise that there's not yet been a mod to revert the berry bush changes entirely, or otherwise modify the parts that some players really don't like.

Not necessarily. If lore content is turned on, Commodities and Survival Goods traders can both sell halite, while Commodities(and maybe Agriculture) traders can sell potash. Seawater has a slightly darker coloration, in addition to containing saltwater flora and fauna like kelp and coral. I believe it also tends to have a sandy bottom. Freshwater will have plants like lily pads, crowsfoot, or milfoil, and tends to have muddy gravel bottoms rather than sandy(though not always). If nothing else, scooping a sample via bucket or other liquid container will tell you whether the water is fresh or salty.

I'd like this too, though I suspect it's the kind of thing more likely to be added with herbalism than just a standalone feature. In that case, we'd not only be getting nice foliage options for decorating, but those bushes and flowers would have practical use as well.

Wonder no more! https://mods.vintagestory.at/wildcraftfruit At a glance the mechanics seem to be unchanged from old Wildcraft, so no bush traits, new visuals, or care requirements other than potentially needing trellis or making sure you plant the cuttings at the right time. Which is a shame, in my opinion, but oh well. Maybe they'll include an option in the config later for the new vanilla mechanics. For as many complaints as there have been, I'm a little surprised that no one's made a mod to revert it yet.

I don't know how well this works, or whether it's an option for the server you play on, but luckily there is a mod to fix this, at least. https://mods.vintagestory.at/universalhusbandry

If it's in a boat and not a player, it seems like it really ought to be safe from pests and other hazards. Can one of the server admins replace your stuff for you, maybe, since it was an accident/glitch? It seems like it would be a reasonable request. Also because inquiring minds just got to know...can you eat the elk after it dies, or does it just turn into a bony carcass?

Try throwing the spear instead of stabbing with it; as far as I know, throwing spears still works. Be warned though that some fish will try to bite back if the first hit doesn't kill them.

Personally I'm not really a fan of the hunger change, at a glance, but that's also why I linked the "Hungry While Injured" mod earlier. That way we both get to enjoy our preferred game balance. Good luck with the story content, and if you have any humorous encounters make sure to post them here:

I think the short answer is "Yes, but it depends on the player preference". I don't know that anyone has taken a shot at modding allergies, but there was a disease mod(XDiseases) that was...decidedly not popular. Probably because the common cold was way overtuned, but otherwise the diseases didn't really pose any threat unless the player was deliberately sabotaging their own gameplay. Such things are also best handled by a status effect system, which the game doesn't have yet. Disease would make sense to add as some of the negative consequences that players could experience from certain things, but it does need to be done carefully since diseases, for the most part, aren't exactly fun. The key to making disease mechanics fun, I think, is to make sure that the player has clear options for mitigating risk of catching them/avoiding them entirely, and otherwise has good options for treating diseases they do catch(especially in the early game). I think Elder Scrolls games are a decent example of how to make a disease mechanic more fun than annoying; there are clear actions that result in diseases, like getting attacked by dirty animals/vampires or getting caught in filthy traps, and the player suffers a penalty to certain abilities until they drink a potion or visit a shrine for a cure. In the case of Vintage Story though, the player isn't necessarily going to have the correct medicine on them for treatment, and may need to gather herbs and make camp or otherwise return home to rest for a few days before they make a full recovery.

When you play Blackguard, anything edible tends to become lunch if it's not fast enough to escape you. As a general rule though, I don't bother them if they don't bother me, but if they're too close for comfort or I otherwise want a nice new rug and meat to compost, I'll hunt them down. Wolves I'll provoke in melee since they're easy enough to kite around, but bears I tend not to mess with unless I have some decent weapons and passable armor. Before the bears were buffed again for the stable release, I was kiting the bears around too.

Had this happen as well. Definitely a bug, though I dunno what causes it.

Oh there definitely is room for adding more, and I have a sneaking hunch that the devs have already teased one, as per my post here: That little figurine looks nothing like an animal; rather, it looks like a drifter that's been crossed with a shiver and given enormous scythe-like claws and powerful hind legs for jumping. I'm guessing it might fit the role of "climber", since the only enemy we have right now capable of actual climbing is locusts, and those aren't particularly dangerous unless there's several of them(or it's a sawblade). It might also be much more of an ambush-type enemy, given that front claws like that aren't very good for running. That's assuming, of course, that it can't just go sprinting around on two legs.

This isn't mine, but one scene in the trailer comes to mind, if you haven't seen it: It's probably not a very efficient way to farm at all, but it does look very nice.