Ceridith

Just because you would enjoy the extra challenge doesn't mean the majority of players will as well. The cave-in, soil instability, and fire from lightning mechanics are disabled by default for a reason. They're extra challenge mechanics that end up feeling more obnoxious than they do challenging for most players. Making rot beasts kill livestock and break structures would fall squarely into the same category of niche enjoyment of an otherwise obnoxious challenge mechanic. If this were ever forced into the game I would immediately disable temporal storms completely and never look back. And I say that as someone who regularly plays with cave-ins turned on. I fully understand that it's something many players would get frustrated with, and while I enjoy that particular extra challenge I don't want all players to be forced into dealing with it unless they have an interest in it.

It's that it feels like an over correction. Preventing digging up and relocating mature bushes and time gating trimmings to propagate bushes does enough to balance out the issues berry bushes had. Requiring fertilizer and reducing the fertility of soil blocks trimmings mature on feels punitive. It pushes into into the territory where many players are feeling like cultivating berry bushes isn't worth the trouble. And then there's also that it's just kind of backwards from a realism stand point. Many berry bushes grow like weeds in real life and have no problem thriving even in what would effectively be low fertility soil. I have a black currant bush in my backyard IRL that I have to aggressively prune back every summer, I have never once fertilized it yet am always swamped with berries.

The changes to prevent berry bushes from being completely uprooted and replanted is a good thing, this made gathering food trivial during the first year's summer and fall seasons if the player simply relocated every bush they came across during the spring season. The addition of traits rewards players who want to go out of their way to min/max cultivation is a welcome change as well. I'm in agreement with others however, that the fertilization requirement goes a bit too far. That's not to say that soil fertility and fertilizer shouldn't have any impact. Planting a clipping on higher fertility soil should allow it to mature faster, as should optionally adding fertilizer. Higher soil fertility and fertilizer should also have a chance to increase berry yield as well, and in my opinion should also somewhat reduce the cooldown for taking subsequent clippings. But most importantly, this should be an optional choice players make to increase berry production beyond baseline, rather than something they're forced to do to maintain a regular amount of berries. The main issue was the ease of relocating and hoarding berry bushes, making it too quick and easy to make a large berry farm. I'd say the inability to uproot and replant bushes and instead having to be time-gated by the clipping system, along with the incentive to be picky about what bushes to take clippings from, addresses this issue well enough.

Doesn't work, unfortunately. I dug through the crafting recipes and the grass shirt has the exact same recipe as haybales, so it looks like it's superseding it. I changed the grass shirt recipe in upperbody.json to be a 3x3 grid recipe of G_G,GGG,GGG with 1 dry grass per grid, and haybales were craftable again.

For a particular story location... Were I to have full design control of the temporally related mechanics, I wouldn't make it a binary effect, but modular. The more or less temporally stable an area is, the more or less portals are likely to appear, how many and how powerful of rust beasts can come through, the chance that unique flora, fauna, or other temporal related resources are likely to appear, etc. Temporal storms should act like a negative modifier against stability for their duration, where already unstable areas are made much worse, neutral areas become unstable, and stable areas are weakened. The more powerful the storms become, the stronger the negative modifier to stability applied, to the point where particularly stable areas could still become somewhat unstable during stronger storms. I would also add ways for players to impact temporal stability by building devices that impact the area around them, either for better or worse. Another possibility is for future story locations that reduce the intensity of storms, or make the world overall more stable, once they're progressed through. But that's my own personal thoughts of what I would like to see out of a temporal mechanics overhaul.

This kind of threads into the whole issue of temporal instability being a half-baked mechanic which could use an overhaul as well. Currently above ground temporally unstable locations seem arbitrarily scattered about with no rhyme or reason, with the only impact being that your sanity drains more or less quickly while in them. It would be interesting to see temporally unstable areas have more uniqueness to them, but also some incentive to visit them as currently they come off as more of a nuisance area to be avoided. The stability of an area should also have an impact with temporal storms as well, in that areas that are already temporally unstable should become extremely dangerous to be in during a storm. Conversely, there should be areas which are more temporally stable which are less effected by temporal storms. Most importantly, this should be presented as an optional trade off for players. Do they make a base in a neutral location and deal with the occasional temporal storm? Do they specifically seek out a temporally stable location to mitigate the impact of storms on their base, at the opportunity cost of limiting where they can settle? Or, do they decide to brave a temporally unstable area with higher risk but with possible higher reward of unique temporal related resources?

Oh absolutely. I'm not saying that there shouldn't be some design vision that the developer aims for, but they also need to be aware of the fact that what they want won't necessarily be enjoyable for everyone. Not that it necessarily has to be either, but there needs to be some compromise along the way that if their vision is too narrow they'll end up alienating most of their player base. With regards to 7DTD they arguably did exactly that, as the developers spent so much time and effort focusing on the horde night mechanic and tweaked so many gameplay systems to try to force players into a singular path of 'acceptable' player interaction with it, that they ended up making the rest of the game unenjoyable for many players. The main reason the game has remained relatively popular is because of player made mods that overhaul the majority of the game to be more in line with what it used to be. For sure, though my main worry is that I hope they don't fall into the same pitfall of obsessively tweaking the rest of the game to try and prop up what they think should be the singular 'correct' way to engage with the mechanic. And it's not just the ability to disable temporal storms entirely. I'm not against engaging with a temporal storm mechanic, but the key point is actually engaging with them, which isn't really an option currently. It's not so much the having to run for cover aspect of them, that's fine and does add some tension. It's the 'and then sit around to wait for them to be over' part that's not fun. Particularly when things can spawn directly behind you in a well lit home, as you mentioned, which adds an extra level of irritation which limits what you can do during them. Even if it's being able to build some kind of crude temporal stabilization device in the earlier game using a temporal gear that 'skips over' the storm, similar to how you can skip over the night by sleeping in a bed. Something that's easy enough to make earlier in the game, but not something that's too easily constructable on the spot or otherwise portable, so it forces players to have to run for cover in their base to activate it safely. To balance things out, maybe the crude device only works for weaker storms, and more elaborate devices are needed to have the same effect for stronger storms. Though the earlier devices should still provide some protection, if even just in a small area directly around them.

It's interesting that you should bring up 7DTD actually. It's horde night mechanic is the closest thing to temporal storms in VS, so it's a fair comparison. But It's also one of the most divisive mechanics in the community for that game. The developers have made countless changes to many other aspects of the game to try to prop up said 'core mechanic' which have been largely disliked by the game's community. For over a decade the devs of 7DTD have been actively at odds with their own player base by trying to force them to engage with the horde night mechanic. Upgrading the AI to have ridiculous pathing calculations, making zombies break defenses with ease, giving them the ability to dig through the ground to get to a player trying to hide in an underground base, amongst other things. All in an attempt to punish players who try to find ways to hide or fortify against hordes, trying to force players to actively fight the zombie horde as that seems to be the only acceptable option the devs wanted players to have. But these changes also arguably ended up going too far in an attempt to stop the min/maxers, that the majority of players were too harshly affected. That might be the 'design vision' for the developers, and sure it's 'uncompromising', but for a huge chunk of the game's players it's simply not fun. I'd argue that most of the game's players like the game more for it being a sandbox zombie survival game, and the horde night mechanic is a side mechanic which many players actually dislike and either turn off or turn down. It's to the point where the devs of 7DTD have finally seemed to realize the unpopularly of the mechanic and related changes and are finally going to add options in the base game to disable most of the punitive changes they've made over the years, likely because many of the most popular player mods do just that. I'd really rather not see Vintage Story go down that path. I can't speak for everyone, but to me my enjoyment of VS is primarily about it being a survival sandbox game with enjoyable survival and progression mechanics. I do still enjoy the story/lore elements, even the concept of temporal instability even if I think it's also poorly implemented. But they're not the main focus of what makes the game fun, they're thematic flavour that gives context to the setting of the game. VS has also been about being to overcome challenges in different ways, offering differing paths and solutions to issues. Temporal storms in their current form are in complete odds with this however, it's one of the few mechanics in the game that severely narrows down player choice and forces them to stop what they're doing and wait it out before continuing on.

This sums up exactly why it's currently a bad game mechanic. Firstly in that players can completely sidestep any challenge of it by simply boxing themselves in for the duration, but more importantly that doing so is the only reliable way to survive it in the earlier game for most players. It's arguably even the preferred way to deal with it mid to late game as there's little payoff for fighting off monsters that are spawned during it. If a game mechanic makes the player want to step away from the game to wait for it to be over, it's not a good mechanic.

I have yes, that was my whole point. The inclusion of temporal storms in the game makes sense in context to further completion of the story content and/or the implied addition of devices or other mechanics to mitigate or reduce storms. Their implementation in the current state of the game however, has them come off as needlessly punitive and more of a nuisance to be worked around rather than something that can achievably be overcome. Hence why I skip over them if not disable them entirely, they're currently not an enjoyable mechanic to engage with.

That's the crux of the problem though, temporal storms are an inconvenience mechanic currently with no means of remediation. Engaging with the story doesn't yield a way to lessen or stop them. Nor is there any Jonas device that can mitigate the impact of a temporal storm or otherwise prevent them, which includes rift wards which should have at least some impact. The inclusion of temporal storms might make sense in the longer term development of the game when the story is in a more complete state and there are ways to more meaningfully mitigate the effect of temporal storms, or stop them entirely. As they are in their current state of the game however, temporal storms come off more as a nuisance mechanic that's better to be avoided and disengaged from entirely. I'll typically either allow sleeping through temporal storms on my worlds and reduce their frequency, if not just disable them entirely. They're absolutely a disruption from the usual gameplay loop, but in my opinion it's not in a way that adds positively to the enjoyment of the game.

That's a fair point, and another possibility. Trying to replant an existing bush could carry a chance of failure, similar to how planting fruit tree trimmings work. I'd like it to still be an option of replanting, but having an alternative path of trying to plant a trimming would be safer to the survival of the existing bush at the cost of it taking longer for a trimming to mature into a fruit bearing bush. Some additional depth could be added to this as well, with the quality of the trimming being impacted by the tool used to extract it as well. i.e. using a simple stone or flint knife yields a poor quality trimming, metal knife a better quality, but the best quality would be from using clippers. This would work to both encourage and reward players for progressing through material ages. The frequency is the important part, I agree. Having to fertilize bushes too frequently makes them tedious, and too much like crops. Ideally it would be nice if the soil quality the bush was planted in had an impact as well, in that bushes planted on higher quality soil should require less or potentially no continual fertilization if planted on terra preta. I wasn't thinking of having bushes and trimmings drying out quickly, I was thinking more medium term of maybe 7 days or so. Something reasonable so that players are discourage from digging up every berry bush they come across and hoarding them. Replanting fruit bushes, or their trimmings, should take some planning and forethought beyond just collecting every bush a player comes across and later plunking them down wherever and whenever it's convenient. Which I think should be similar for fruit trees, if you're going to take a trimming you should have some plan for what to do with it and have to act on it somewhat soon rather than being able to simply dump it in a basket or chest and leave it there indefinitely until you decide what to do with it. My personal perspective is that I'd prefer the default game mechanics focus more on positive rewards for choosing to engage more frequently and thoughtfully, rather than punishing players who choose to do the minimum or disengage entirely. I think that's where a weed mechanic starts to creep into the more punitive and tedious side of things. Not that it couldn't be added, but then we get into questions of whether we should also add insect infestations, blight, and/or crops outright dying if left dry for too long. It's a fine balance to try to strike, and while some players might love a more engaging and punitive farming system, others might hate it. Those things would be perfect for optional world settings or a mod though.

For berry bushes, I think the main issue is to do with the ease of relocating them. It's definitely too easy to collect and replant them in a single location, there should be some hurdles to clear to do so successfully. In reality you would have to carefully dig around the root structure, you can't leave the bush dug up for too long otherwise it will dry out and die, and after replanting you would need to make sure to water and possibly fertilize the bush to ensure the root structure takes hold. Sensibly carrying this over into the game could mean it taking some time for a dig interaction using a shovel, which slows down the process of digging up a bush. Dug up berry bushes should have a spoil/decay timer, if they're not replanted before the timer runs out, they dry out and die. Which leads into the main hurdle of replanting, relocated berry bushes should require time and effort for them to recover before they begin producing fruit again. This could be helped along by players attentively ensuring to water (either through a watering can, irrigation, or getting lucky with rain), and/or fertilizing said bushes while they're still in the recovery phase. If we're feeling particularly punitive, the longer a berry bush is left dug up before replanting the longer it takes for it to recover from being replanted, and/or berry bushes still in the replanting stage could dry out and die if they don't get enough water which would require more player forethought and interaction. Beyond that, I think continually requiring fertilizing all berry bushes goes a bit too far into making them tedious. Especially so if needing to fertilize wild berry bushes becomes a thing. And as for fruit trees, which were previously mentioned earlier in the thread, similar changes should likely be made for them. Fruit tree trimmings should have to be replanted or grafted before drying out. Also, players should be able to increase the chance of successful replanting or grafting by engaging in extra interactions such as watering and fertilizing. Fruit trees in general should also be able to bear fruit during the first game year though, it's silly that they don't.

Temporal instability makes perfect sense in lore locations that have it, both from a lore and gameplay perspective. The arbitrarily unstable areas below and particularly above ground ground make less to no sense in the context of gameplay, and often only serve as an annoying mechanic that detracts from gameplay rather than adding anything. The mechanic needs more coherent reasoning to why it's applied to locations. Maybe there's large ruins, a broken translocator, etc. But the mechanic should also present more reasons to interact with it, or not, beyond just having your sanity meter deplete. Temporally unstable locations should also be more prone to spawning rifts, and having stronger entities spawning from them, as well as spawning enemies during the day, which would give more reason to avoid the locations earlier in the game but also make them a potential location to more easily gather Jonas parts when the player is more prepared for the challenge. Temporally unstable areas should also come with more incentive to want to enter them, such as more or better cracked vessels and broken chests, that could also possibly respawn after a time -- they are in a place that's temporally unstable after all. I'd also like to see ways for players to impact temporal instability of areas. If an above ground area is going to arbitrarily be temporally unstable, at least give players the opportunity to construct a Jonas device to stabilize the area. I've had countless times where I've found an otherwise ideal spot to build a base save for the fact that it's in an unstable location, which is just annoying.

You're misunderstanding my issue. I'm saying the only impact surface stability has is a negative impact on my gameplay, which makes the mechanic an annoyance rather than a challenge to be interacted with. It doesn't actually add anything to the overall game other than arbitrarily denote certain areas as places to not linger in. Wandering around in them doesn't even impose that much of a negative impact, just don't set up a base in one and you're fine. I want there to be reasons to interact with low stability areas, some risk vs. reward to engaging with low stability areas rather than simply avoiding engaging in them. Adding more ruins, lootable items that can respawn, but consequently other forms of danger such as higher chance and stronger supernatural entities spawning, to low stability areas would be a step in the right direction. It would actually incentivize venturing into those areas, but also add more risk aside from just making sure your stability doesn't drop too low from hanging around in them for too long. Additionally, being able to impact local stability would be welcome as well. Maybe creating a base in a low stability area in early game is a net negative, but mid to late game using a Jonas device you could negate the negative impacts of low stability in an area. Or maybe you want to drop the stability in an area using a similar device for other reasons. I want the mechanic to be additive to gameplay to be engaged with, not just something that's to be avoided.