Witchfire

Hello! I don't think I've spoken here before, but I'm a bit of a nature enthusiast and enjoy all manner of games that have to do with homesteading. Therefore, my presence here isn't all that surprising. I love this game a lot and have played it for a long while, lately with friends, and I have been running into a few consistent frustrations I'd like to see either addressed in development or explained to me in such a way that maybe a mechanic needs to be handled differently. It IS my understanding this game wants to emulate a lot of nature and biome systems to allow for that simulated homesteading (Rust beasts from an era forgotten notwithstanding). With this in mind, I present my complaints (I don't know how to more politely say this, sorry): Temperature ( in relation to crops ) : This is probably the one of the worst offenders that become immediately noticeable. Blueberries especially, as well as a variety of other berries, are actually extremely hardy when in extremely warm conditions. The warmth and humidity is what usually provides the required energy to flourish those berries (which are effectively the plant's energy stockpile for drought or hardship), yet placing berries in the south essentially kills their growth for most the year. Their heat tolerance is simply too low. Hell, we have variants of blueberries that only BEGIN to die at around 40C IRL. And even then, we're discussing between a 5% to 15% chance of death. (This is generous. The true values are decimal points between 7% and 12%). However, the southern areas are just too hot too quickly, which brings me to the next issue. Biome Erratics : Hyenas? Just south of the presumably European/Nordic North? I understand there's a level of gamification required given the actual limits of the map in blocks, but the transition is SHOCKING and we are very clearly skipping over multiple biomes that would be reflected, at least in limited capacity, in real life. Mediterranean conditions basically don't exist, which is particularly notable to someone who comes from an island. Humidity seems to have no effect on warmth and is not accounted for many plants. This makes the South.... underwhelming. Many praise it because of easier Hyenas vs Wolves and bears that stop being aggressive, to say nothing of longer working seasons, but... efficiency just dies. The heat is just too much in ANY non-snowy area and it's not like wolves or bears are particularly threatening later on. The benefit just seems meager and the move pointless beyond personal want (Which I did. Restoring a church in the savannah. Only to realize these problems and now am making a return trip, potentially permanently, to my northern tavern). Swamps are... "there". I just don't think 1-tile water makes enough of a swampy vibe. Food requirements good lord oh my god what this is not how it works oh god- : To be kind, I don't think I've yet to see a game of this vein where they handled hunger well. It seems to be this bugbear in the room, awkwardly staring at everyone as we have to figure out how to meaningfully put it in. So far though, I disagree that 10,000 calories per 3 hours is somehow reasonable. I'm obviously being hyperbolic, but I think there's a case to be made that you should be able to live off a few bear corpses for a few days. If I don't eat the four bears I have butchered after I finish typing this, I will die. And when I do, I will begin starving in a stark few hours. That's silly. The nutrient system, mind, is great! Freezing hunger for 30s when maxed out per- is a really ingenuous and amazing idea and I'd be devastated to see it gone. That's not the problem. The problem is how much food you need to sustain yourself for very baseline stuff. Even when I'm not sprinting, just walking around and building a slightly larger house, I'll have to make multiple (and I really wanna stress MULTIPLE) rounds back to eat. Assuming I don't have to completely sidetrack to prepare food because, for some reason, food drains so fast in my itty bitty tummy. Animal Spawns ( Predators, especially ) : This is potentially one where I can come out with some fighting words. Finding out that animal spawns are just animal spawns and you gotta live with their location is... inadequate. Putting it really gently. I've all but cleared an entire chunk of forest, built up a small village with friends, only to still be drowning in bears and wolves. Fences are up, we're in the iron age, we have weapons and armor. They are no threat to even the weakest amongst us, meaning most if not all are just wandering pieces of bushmeat. Well, that also means they're incredibly annoying. An open forge suffers regular attacks from bears and wolves despite being tucked in to the back of the village where nothing can cross. It less presents a challenge and more presents a reason to just log off and not come back. I do thank my stars I basically have infinite bushmeat at least, because for some reason bushmeat is so awful it sustain me worse than usual food. Be it light, clearing forests, populating an area with furniture or just plain throwing rocks everywhere: Animals should not be allowed to spawn just whenever and wherever because this one anchor point says so. It's just jarring, I suppose? Which brings up my final point: Is this a homesteading game or is this an adventure game? This is not a knock against the game or another balance comment, but an earnest question. I did come to Vintage Story with the belief that it was a game with a lean into simulation of the wild where you can flourish. The omnipresent existence of monsters and lore adding to an otherwise blank slate of a game, sowing more and more interest in an otherwise normal ecosystem. It's great! I love finding ruins and lost caves filled with beasts! But- A lot of the issues I bring up do strike me as balancing choices. Not necessarily things the dev does because they're bad or ignorant, but a deliberate choice to keep the game (at least in their view) more interesting. A vision, basically, something no game can do without because, well, that's the entire point, no? The vision. So that's why I am curious: Is this game more of a game or more of a simulation? Should I expect certain fixes to be made because real life dictates these rules or are many things, including what I mentioned, going to be twisted in certain ways for gamification? I personally don't like that, and that's fine! It would just reveal this game is not for me, but I have been running into these frustration points and I feel like elucidation is best. Either that or just airing out my thoughts. Thank you for reading all this to those that did! This got a little away from me and I'll confess some of it might've fallen into rants or were me trying to regain the plot, but it was issues that came to me as I wrote it, immediately hot off the heels of quitting a game because I kept getting harassed by a newly-spawned bear I couldn't be bothered to deal with while I made my new house. I fell off the roof and it attacked me to death, prompting a quit. So hi! It's unlikely I'll ever stop completely playing VS and ignoring my wants doesn't equate this game to being LITERALLY RUINED as sometimes detractor forum posts can imply, but it would severely damage my view of the game. Something I take responsibility for as I would apparently have misunderstood the sale. Have a great day!