Silent Shadow

2 hours ago, junawood said:

It is a game. You want to play. Playing means doing things and reaching goals and feeling good about it. That's why you craft your tools and gather stuff even if you could just type "/gamemode 2" and get everything from the creative inventory. That's why you start in stone age with nothing (well, with clothes and it might even be a nice option to start without clothes) and then make progress. And that's also why some people struggle to find things to do after they have all the tools and tried everything from pit kilns to steel making, because this game gives you a finite amount of goals, and you have to start creating your own goals, like gathering enough materials to build a castle with a dragon on a tower or a huge farm with nothing but amaranth or whatever, and some people simply are not good at creating their own goals or don't enjoy it that much. So taking things away and saying that "there is still a lot of the game left for them to do" would not really make things better.

You're talking like I am recommending the players start with a fully furnished base and a set of all the steel tools, weapons, and armors and more or less skip the entire game's progression. Except for the commoner (which is just a suggestion that could be changed), everyone is still going to need to pan for, or explore for, their initial copper bits or find traders that will sell them a pickaxe & hammer and buy clay. They are still going to want to make stone knives so they can harvest reeds for skeps and hand baskets to expand their inventory (cause a single backpack or two sacks ain't gonna cut it) as well as harvest animals for meat and hides, they still need to make a stone ax for firewood to smelt the metal, cook meals, and fire the crucible & casting molds (or use peat you cut with a stone shovel you made), and once they get an pick and hammer they are pretty much at the place you would normally be in playing the game as it is now. Everyone will still go through the stone age early game, they just a have one to a few fancy tools/items until they reach the metal age, at which point, it ceases to be the specific advantage they had over other classes in the early game.

At no point will any of the classes miss out on making a farm, a cellar, a forge/workshop, a cementation furnace, bloomeries, a kitchen/bedroom, etc. They will still have to explore to find resources, they will still need to mine for ores/minerals, some classes will even still have to make stone weapons because they don't start with one or when their starting weapon breaks or is lost before reaching the metal age. You wouldn't get new items upon respawning so they cannot be farmed.

I would also argue that starting items makes each class feel more unique right off the bat and encourage a little diversity in the early game which is more or less the same every time you play it right now. There would also be more tension in the early game as you risk losing decent/good items you cannot easily replace at that time. Those starting items will not last forever or even very long, material wise or advantage wise.

You say that you enjoy the feeling of earning an item for the first time or getting one as a rare drop, but it is not like you would be getting the items for free; you are making a choice to embrace an opportunity cost for each class (some benefits of which are unavailable to be changed by the game settings, which most players seem not to do anyway). The starting items are also just one or two weapons/tools or some intermediate items that you will be making very many of throughout the play through so you should have a feeling of accomplishment for acquiring the capability to make it.

2 hours ago, junawood said:

And even after all the time I have spend playing this game, it still feels great to start a fresh new world with nothing and find the first flint and gather the first sticks and craft the first knives. So I don't even want to start with free sticks and stones in my inventory (starter kits on multiplayer servers can be a different thing sometimes). And if you are so lucky (and maybe also experienced enough to know where to look for it) to then find metal tools or a linen sack or something like that in one of your first vessels/chests, it feels absolutely awesome and you're really happy! Just starting with the same thing in your inventory on the other hand feels...meh.

You could still do that, there is nothing preventing you from picking any class and dumping the items if you want. I personally think that most of the early activities are just chores to get out of the way so I can enjoy the parts of the game that are more interesting to me, such as finding a place I want to settle in, exploring the surface and underground, building a nice home, figuring out how I want to layout my farm/base to maximize productivity and minimize time spent working, figuring out what crops to plant first, etc. Knapping and clay forming in the game were interesting the first couple times, but they are not nearly complicated enough industries to garner much interest as there isn't any decision to be made with them beyond 'I need this so I will make it.' If I were "gathering enough materials to build a castle with a dragon on a tower or a huge farm with nothing but amaranth or whatever" I would probably want to focus my efforts on gathering the materials or building rather than sitting down knapping 5 flint sets of tools a day or panning enough copper so I can start my goal proper.

Don't get me wrong, I find parts of the stone age early game interesting, but it is not a challenge for me anymore and I would bet that many experienced players would feel the same. With some starting items the early game could be shaken up a bit and reduce some of the more tedious parts I have heard complaints about, such as knapping 5+ sets of tools a day or searching/panning for enough copper nuggets to start metalworking, without scrapping the stone age phase.

2 hours ago, junawood said:

If you want a certain experience of how to deal with a nomadic lifestyle. If you want another experience of living as a nomad, you might choose another class or change the settings in completely different ways.

Different classes should lead to different playstyles or else there is no reason to have multiple classes, and not all settings can be tweaked by the world creation settings.

I found that low fertility soil, low moisture, and low shrubbery rating would prevent crops and even grass from respawning. When I moved to a more verdant area I only had to wait a few in-game months for the crops to spawn.

I would check the soil quality and the climate (via /wgen pos climate) of the area you are in and move to a better area if any factors listed above are low.

If you dig straight down from any bits you find on the surface you are guaranteed to find that mineral or ore 2-5 blocks below. These mineral/ore bits can only spawn if the top most rock layer can host the mineral/ore, so as long as you stay in that region you are likely to find more. I think that the frequency of these "shallow deposits" is tied to the ore density map created at world gen.

1 hour ago, junawood said:

@Tyron @redram Is that actually the case? Not that it's in the wiki, but that new plants spawn?

You can see the three lowest pictures above as proof. You can also recreate it in creative mode.

I think it really depends on the crop. Some crops like cabbage need to be unharvested left for over a year to get the seeds for the next generation. Others like squash will just grow and grow until they are huge and apparently tasteless. Some plants like the Tomato will rot on the vine and so should be picked when ripe. I am not a farmer or even a gardener though so I don't really know.

21 minutes ago, Streetwind said:

Not sure what caused the crop to revert, then. But much disappointment was had that day

It was back in 1.12.x IIRC.

They just do it on their own for whatever reason or at least that is what the wiki says, I have not dug through the code so I cannot really confirm it.

And now I present proof that wild crops do spawn after world gen. If you want to replicate this, I highly recommend using /wgen pos climate to find a spot with high shrub and rainfall. Some barren, almost desert places do not even regrow grass after several in game years.

All hail the magic conch wiki!

A rabbit ignoring some tasty flax.

A rabbit going straight for freshly planted carrots and eating them.

Now we know for sure.

I think I have seen it happen since I had some pop up in an area I settled in and traveled through frequently, but I have no proof beyond certainty that I had scoured that area clean.

Wild crops are not eaten by wild animals and some crops are not eaten by wild animals at all. Again per the wiki:

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There are a few crops that will not be eaten by rabbits, namely rice, onions and pumpkins. Those could be planted without protection, however rice and onions should be planted in crop rotation with other plants, which would again need rabbit protection.
Wild crops will be ignored by rabbits.

It is only most of the crops that you plant that get chewed on by rabbits.

I am also confident in most of the wiki's articles, as everything I have tested has matched the wiki.

(Pushes glasses up face) Actually, according to the wiki, crops will occasionally spawn after chunk generation.

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Crops or Wild Foods spawn on world gen but also spawn over time on existing terrain.

Grenades and Caltrops are pretty old weapons so they should fit in around the medieval period of this game quite well with the way materials limit them. I would consider both to be primitive compared to the modern era and we are beyond that age.

Both would be historically valid here and useful since there are currently no weapons for fighting groups, and Vintage Story could use some more late game content.

I would like to see an option for engaging groups of enemies such as caltrops and grenades. They would be a nice option for the swarms of drifters found in the caves.

I like peat because it requires no processing and is easy to find and harvest.

There are a lot of processes in the game that work passively over time. There is always something else you can be doing than staring at the progress bar, but planning out your work will help you out a lot, especially when you consider winter and night time.

They can randomly spawn on occasion, but there is no spreading mechanism to my knowledge.

1 hour ago, Omega Haxors said:

So pretty much what this is saying is that classes are designed for multiplayer, and the current state of multiplayer is not worth playing.

Not surprising that people don't want to play as the classes, because Commoner is the only one you should ever pick in a Singleplayer world.

I am not so sure. I would say it depends on what you want to experience in a single player game. If you are going for a nomadic experience, a hunter or malefactor would be the classes to play. If you want to explore the underground or more dangerous terrain like rugged mountains/hills or dense forest where retreat is not always a good option or even possible, then blackguard or maybe malefactor would be better. If you want to focus on trading and a travel network then clockmaker would be best. If you want to find lore and treasure then malefactor is best. If you want a bit of everything or want to learn most aspects of the game, then commoner is the one to play. Tailor is probably the most multiplayer focused one unless you are going for a cold weather game.

As the game is right now, it is not hard enough to warrant specialization nor are the classes sufficiently specialized to emphasize a certain playstyle with them.

I tried a bit to balance them for multiplayer in addition to single player. The idea being that group benefits would come with group cost; such as with the tailor who can create cold weather clothes for everyone, but needs more food that the group has to provide (namely via the soft limit imposed by limited seeds and thus limited farming, as well as winter, so hunting and foraging must supplement the food supply more.) However, a group that is specialized in its labors should be more efficient anyway and I think that is reflected in the class ideas I threw out. There is definitively room for improvement though.

I think the main reason the Devs went with a class system is for lore reasons and to facilitate a society as players would be more likely to work together instead of doing their own thing.

These are also just ideas, the commoner maybe should not be able to mine ores right off the bat but there is still a lot of the game left for them to do.

It is a shortcut, not a replacement. You will still have to make more tools, more portable containers, and food. These are not adamantium items that never wear out or a bag of holding. You can see immediately the difference when you are forced to make new stone tools, and more experienced players (who already know the difference) will have the same goal of getting more metal tools anyway.

Plus it is for beginners or people who want a head start.

Some ideas: Note that "starts with x"  refers to the start of the game, respawning does not grant these.

• Commoner -  The learning, jack of all trades class.
  • Bonus: Global 10% work speed bonus
  • Malus: None
  • Starts with full hp clothes, a leather backpack, a bronze mattock (new tool that can break wood, stone, and dirt but at a 50% speed), a bronze hammer, and some food.
• Blackguard - Fighter and miner class.
  • Bonuses: 40% extra melee damage, 5 extra hp, +20% mining speed, two or three bonus inventory slots, halved stat reductions from armor.
  • Maluses: +35% hunger rate, -30% forage/loot drops, -10% ranged aim.
  • Starts with a bronze sword, and leather armor (no helmet).
• Hunter - Ranger class, good for hunting, ranged combat, and exploration.
  • Bonuses: 30% extra ranged damage and aim speed, 10% faster walk speed, 20% better animal harvesting amounts/speed, and can tell the direction he is facing and time till nightfall (Can be replicated with a iron compass or watch selected in the inventory bar).
  • Maluses: +20% Hunger rate. 20% slower mining speed, 20% faster temporal stability loss rate.
  • Starts with a bow, and 16 bronze arrows. No longer is the only one able to make crude bows and arrows.
• Clockmaker - Businessman class that utilizes teleportation the easiest.
  • Bonuses: Halved temporal stability loss rate, 50% extra damage to mechanical enemies, 20% more favorable deals with traders who have 20% more gears to spend. Propick also reveals translocators on the Density Search mode. Can forge machine parts and watches from steel (usually found as loot or bought from traders).
  • Maluses: 2.5 less Hp, 15% less damage to organic enemies.
  • Starts with 5 rusty gears and one temporal gear.
• Malefactor - Scout/forager/treasure hunter class
  • Bonuses: 30% better loot/forage drops (except food, seeds are fine), 20% slower hunger rate, Hostile mobs have a 20% lower detection radius and are highlighted in a color visible through blocks (can be toggled on/off), better panning probabilities, propick reveals ruins in the node search with a much bigger radius.
  • Maluses: 2.5 less health. Stat penalties from armor doubled.
  • Starts with a bronze spear, and two linen sacks.
• Tailor - Clothier and armorer class
  • Bonuses: Armor and clothes are made with 15% more hp, can make clothes (traders sell them too), gets 20% more reeds, flax fibers, and hides from drops and crops. 
  • Maluses: 2.5 less health, 20% faster hunger rate.
  • Starts with full hp clothes, 4 twine, 4 linens, and 25 flax seeds.

You can use water to make the run shorter if you want since you are not as penalized in water as they are.

The adults run at a faster speed than the chicks so chase them all into a corner then approach from a side until they run (at different speeds) towards the coop you have for them. If they have enough room, the chicks will fall behind and you can catch up to the hens and fence them off before the chicks enter the coop. The latest generation (chicks) should be separated in the main area then. Repeat when each hen "gives birth". You need a fair distance to make this work easily so I build a little "chicken run" of maybe 30 blocks. You can then put coops at either end to make the separating easier each generation.

Per the wiki's greenhouse page: 

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It might take a little bit of time before the +5°C buff appears on the farmland blocks inside of the structure, and not all blocks will be updated simultaneously. To be precise, every farmland block checks for a greenhouse after a maximum of 4 ingame hours - plus minus a few seconds - and will check in every direction for walls & roof stopping the search in the allowed distance of up to 7 blocks.

The best method I have found is to get a little brother or sister to do it for you. Very historical too.

Have multiple small coops to separate the generations until they are all 3+ generation, try not to get any beyond 9 generations as moving them gets to be much harder since they do not flee from you anymore.

The skep just needs to be near the hive with some flowers around, I think the hive could be encased in stone and still populate nearby skeps. I would also recommend a fence around the skep so raccoons do not pillage it.

I think you have to have the same material too for some reason.