Zaph42nd

I think TOPS is conceptually a good idea for live feedback and player engagement, but the execution sometimes leaves much to be desired as being a single-server it has its player and bandwidth limits. Namely my issues with TOPS have always been: limited server capacity, latency (mostly an issue because of my location/proximity to the host-server being as I am in the US), and sometimes certain game-behaviors differ (since TOPS is where testing takes place anyways) but that's a minor issue at most. For just playing, I'd actually say single player or self/community-hosted servers are the better option and much more stable, plus you can easily play around with mods in these environments which is nice. Now if I had any suggestions, I'd push for either an additional server or more proxy-servers, though I don't think it's expressly necessary since TOPS targets players who want bleeding-edge builds and are open to being play-testers (still, I'd argue it's worth briefly exploring TOPS if you get the chance, maybe not playing on it as your main-way of playing the game but plenty of builds I like and use for inspiration in my single player worlds)

For me Minecraft and Vintage Story appeal to very different niches, in some ways the whole VS vs MC debate reminds me a lot of how Terraria historically has been compared to Minecraft, both different games and sharing only perhaps surface-level traits. That said, I find myself preferring VS for its survival and challenge, MC for its breadth of mods and sandbox feel, leading me to flip-flop between the games from time to time depending on my mood and what I'm actually going for gameplay wise (that isn't to say VS can't be a sandbox for large-scale builds, just that its "thesis" is very much focused on survival gameplay first whereas MC markets itself as a sandbox)

I think aside from aesthetics, waterwheels have the distinct advantage of being effective at any height and don't have a major de-buff for close-distance between each other (where windmills are less effective if clustered). Not a major thing for most people but I find it allows me to build in more places which feels nice. I think when rivers do eventually get implemented, waterwheels will definitely be significantly more common

Interesting but I'm not sure if it makes the most sense with the sort of tension Vintage Story pushes (in my mind, that is struggling to survive till you eventually get set up and stable). That said, I'd think temporal storms could include more ambient horror elements since currently it includes: increased rust monster spawns, more drain on the temporal stability meter, and visual and sound changes. That could be expanded for other effects like doors knocking, more creepy ambient sounds, etc... But admittedly, I've never been a huge fan of temporal storms since they feel a bit disjointed from everything else in the game

Fair, I should've probably prefaced, for TOPS my experience mainly has been exploring bases and spawn, not really playing on the server. Learned more in theory from singleplayer and the handbook but certain multi-blocks (for the longest time I didn't know that you didn't need a pit for charcoal making), TOPS showed me those in a tangible way which was useful (albeit I think you can do the same thing by exploring other servers or watching videos)

Definitely like the idea of visual aids for multi-block structures, one other idea akin to this would be tutorial worlds. I know Minecraft was mentioned previously but one of the features its console editions had that I really liked were pre-generated worlds which had structures already built out. Perhaps something similar could be added to Vintage Story which has all multi-blocks built so that you can get a sense on structure dimensions

Vintage Story starts difficult but I suppose the word is uncompromising; however, I think a lot of players seem to come from Minecraft which is fundamentally a different game. My recommendation (and many others certainly) to new players is and always will be, don't neglect the tutorial toast and do use the guidebook since that's where the game lays itself out. Combine that with a good eye, using the map, and much of the game should start to "come-together" if that makes sense. As for non-standard advice, TOPS (official public server) can provide you with some game-knowledge too (spawn and exploring bases can give you insight on some of the lesser-explained mechanics like rooms, cellars, etc...), unless the world spawn had changed since I last played it used to contain some semi-tutorial structures.

Regarding monster spawns, for the most part my issues are that the current light-levels for spawns maybe could use some tweaking and I'd also, much like many others, like to see changes to combat to make monsters more worth fighting (as it stands, boxing yourself in during temporal storms or avoiding monsters all together is more worthwhile than fighting). As it stands, the current spawns really discourage playing with dimly-lit bases and make cellars a bit tedious, lowering the spawn threshold (e.g. light levels of 5 or below for drifters and other rust creatures) helps but currently no option in-game to tweak that (this I think would be a good option to world-creation settings or server-operator commands, it'd also be nice to increase spawn rates in some instances too). I'd also be interested to see temporal storms either majorly reworked or altered in some way as currently they feel a little unfinished mechanically speaking (e.g. there's no effective way to decrease intensity, though a story-progression based tool could be good for this perhaps). Same goes for temporal rifts, they prove more annoying than mechanically satisfying for me at least since while I like that you need to work around their locations when building bases, the amount of control over them players have is limited at best.

For the most part it is, the only time you need to log-in as others have stated in on initial installation or updates, though once logged in once, you don't need to re log-in. Mainly I suspect log-in is there for multiplayer and game-authentication purposes, otherwise it's not really too intrusive

Highly recommend making meals with crocks, usually I cook up a couple crocks of each major food group, then mix/match for optimized food-sources since sealed crocks in cellars last anywhere from 3 in-game months to over an in-game year or more. Cheese and wine are not bad options for dairy and fruit, but I'd say sealed crocks still beat out most options in versatility and storage longevity. Other options to consider are charred bread for grains (lower satiety but good for keeping once winter hits) and pies (just a good year-round food and easy to get most food-groups in a single pie)

Sticking with the same world but moving north or south by a couple thousand blocks is a fun diversion, temperature differences means your base has to adjust especially in arctic conditions (greenhouse matters a lot more). As for other ideas, I'd suggest looking into building up infrastructure (roads, canals, markers, etc...) and maybe think about dappling in automation, usually those are good late-game tasks since material costs get exponentially higher with time. As far as my goals in longer-worlds, I've actually started looking into making steel tools for every tool-type which means even niche tools (though this is something I've only done on one world so far) since the steel-making process takes substantial time and resources. Far as mods go, rivers is nice but works best on new worlds, I'd recommend also getting a mod like shipwright which expands boat-options since the default boat works best on oceans (which do spawn very rarely in normal worlds, albeit they aren't as wide or vast as you can achieve in modded world-gen) or large-lakes

Not sure on bones for repair but agree bear-hide armor is a bit weak as it stands since the cost to get it is pretty high, hides and pelts are good for repair since they are semi-common compared to bear-skins but I digress. Armor rework may fix this, at least assuming bear-hide armor takes the role of either an under-garment or over-garment to existing armor (this makes it more valuable for getting extra warmth from armor that may otherwise not be a great fit for winter or simply add additional buffs for getting an already somewhat difficult armor-set).

Definitely agree on both points, I wish we could also adjust spawn-rates in world-settings by default, currently the passive/aggressive/off just doesn't really feel right, would be good to just be able to set light-level limits for rust-monsters (possibly a sub-setting on temporal or story-content?). Chase-radius reductions would be good for bears/wolves, I've always felt that chases were way too long and territorial behaviors weren't well expressed... Namely I feel like bears/wolves and other territorial creatures should have a capped distance from their spawn where they chase the player (in essence creating a territorial space which you can either plan to sneak around or fight for) but suspect that'd be somewhat difficult to implement. Far as deeds go, the idea is neat but I wonder if perhaps could utilize Jonas-tech to prevent hostile spawns rather than deeds or trader-interactions. Maybe as a reward for story-content to incentivize exploring the story further? It'd also fit nicely with the other Jonas-tech in game already (translocators) which behave akin to admin/server-owner commands. In the interim, land-claim systems could be expanded further to also include spawn behavior reductions. Far as passive-settings, I'm not against the current approach but it does feel a little bit odd especially for mobs that normally behave hostile, but then again I rarely play with passive mobs enabled since it feels like it detracts from some of the survival challenges the game presents

Have noticed the other change is being able to utilize Game-Mode (Sonoma feature) automatically which allows CPU/GPU prioritization, although I'm not sure if that really brings much performance or stability changes. I have also noticed fewer issues with resolution scaling and window management too. But Vintage Story I've always had some performance hiccups on my Mac, nothing game-breaking aside from minor stuttering every couple of hours (which I suspect has to do with rendering or chunk-loading), mods definitely seem to have the greatest negative impact to my performance in game though irregardless of ARM64 build.

For snow shovels I've mainly used them for cosmetics rather than actual utility since rarely do you need snow-blocks and if you already invested in a decent shovel, it'll do just as well. Still, agree with others that it's not bad for edge-cases or if you want more cosmetic-flare to either your builds (placing/propping against blocks looks very nice and making paths look a bit more used is nice I suppose). Far as buffing goes, would be good if durability was increased somewhat, although with how rarely it gets used, not sure what the ideal durability actually is

Regarding hostile mob spawns, my recommendation is to try out Low Light Spawns which allows you to configure a specific light level other than 7 for monster spawns (default for the mod is 5, I lower to 3 which means almost no surface drifters or other rust monsters). For bears, wolves, and other animals, I believe there are probably some mods to make them not attack unless provoked (e.g. you attack first) but not sure on exacts (in-game you can only set aggressive, passive, off for behaviors but I've never tweaked these). So to answer the question, mods help you tweak settings further as do some other edits to spawning behaviors, the game feels a lot more enjoyable to me with rust monsters requiring very low-light conditions (e.g. those found in caves or story structures) and disabling temporal storms (this can be done easily in settings upon world creation) but ymmv depending on how difficult or easy you want the game. As for default options (no mods), I suggest playing around with world-settings from one of the presets as it allows fine-control over a lot of (but not all) mechanics

Probably almost never since it's still a world-goal? Poll probably needs to be adjusted a little

Curious about y'all but rarely find myself motivated to go beyond meteoric iron tools in most saves (aside from my long-term saves) which makes me wonder, how often do you make steel-tools? And what tools do you get to the steel-age? I usually only upgrade my pickaxe, axe, and chisel to steel, rarely if ever any other tools or armor (armor especially unlikely with the high material and time costs)

Pies are pretty good overall, as far as meal transit, elks can carry cooking pots so transporting meals can be done (sort of), albeit pies are usually a bit more convenient than making meals (meals are, however, good for longer storage in theory with crock sealing and cellars). Specifically for crocks, I prepare meals and seal them away for winter or just as a forget-it and return food source since meals can cover all the food-groups easily (and cellars + sealing can mean food that lasts greater than an in-game year) which is nice for winter if you don't plan to migrate south (or prefer more northern areas for bases)

Fair far as hit-boxes and detection goes, I've noticed that too and it's especially an issue with swarming-type enemies (locusts), feels like something where sweeping-type hits may be better although I'm not sure how that'd get implemented. Damage increases more so would be supplemental, although I'm more favorable to damage-increases/scaling with tool-grade (metal age) and quality (tempering, durability, etc..), therefore incentivizing blacksmithing, upgrading your weapons, and quenching/tempering (which itself feels like it doesn't really contribute much to combat) since the current system doesn't have substantial jump ups (1-2 difference doesn't feel like it incentivizes making weapons in every metal-age). Definitely agree on sound design as a major needed addition, I think adding in an extra sound cue either from enemy response to being hit or an actual swinging sound would go miles to improve combat feel, while enemies already react somewhat to being hit (slight recoil and muted hurt-sounds) it's not really much. Good points, I think active hit/block could be interesting but maybe not really suit for Vintage Story given that ranged weaponry would suffer (as in, you'd be missing out on a game system, kind of an issue with Skyrim too since "stealth-archer" is quite broken and not fun). Morrowind-style progression would be interesting but maybe a bit clunky since it'd require adding in more RPG-like systems that could feel a little out of place in the sandbox setting.... Conflicted on it but do think hit-box changes are a good start as is increasing weapon damages.

Regarding combat, one of the biggest gripes I have always had was the "weight" behind attacks, feels like animation timing and damage could be increased or adjusted to make hits feel more significant, it'd also help if enemies equally hit harder (but slower) to incentivize balancing your attack timings and blocking (you'd also need to learn how enemies attack and respond accordingly). If combat is more "weighty", I suspect it'll be a lot more satisfying to fight albeit I've always thought fighting is not the primary-solution to most of the encounters you'd have in VS (actually often times getting some distance works just as well, although some enemies and animals still chase endlessly which I feel like somewhat hurts that side of combat) so would also need some reworks to AI behaviors (e.g. losing pursuit of a fleeing player, set territorial behaviors, etc...)

Love the idea, it also reminds me that quite a few existing in-game plants and trees already have the potential to be used for alchemy or medicinal purposes, birch bark for example is known for its anti-inflammatory properties and sometimes is used for topical poultices, poppies acting as natural sedatives, etc... All of these would expand the use of trees, flowers, and non-crop plants which at the moment aside from beekeeping (and on occasion dye-making or poultices) and, for trees, a way of getting wood, serve more aesthetic purposes or very niche-use situations

While mentioned a few times, I'd like to refresh/rehash the idea of introducing and expanding simple machines to the game to assist in creating more complex contraptions, namely screws, pulleys, levers (already sort of in game), and wheel and axel systems. These could supplement the already existing rotation-based automation solutions (querns, mills, etc...) by allowing players to build rudimentary storage-transfer devices (e.g. basic elevators capable of transferring chests up/down large shafts), move water in more unique-ways (e.g. archimedes screw systems, wells, etc..), and have more options to mid to late game bases while still largely fitting in universe. While some mods exist for this purpose, I think more simple machines would also do nicely for vanilla as a way to expand and encourage automation as players advance to the Iron Age and beyond

Always thought ambient music or no music at all fits very nicely with VS, namely think dynamic soundtrack would be very nice since the more cheery default music sometimes feels a little out of place when you are being chased by bears... That said, for vocal-forward tracks, I really like more folk/neofolk music since it feels more thematically appropriate given the setting and all

Somewhat doable already by tweaking landform scale, landcover, etc... I think Rivers mod (and Watersheds) helps a lot too for giving more scope/scale to the world and justifying longer trips or building more infrastructure projects. I'd also suggest looking into reducing surface deposits in settings since it makes locating resources a bit more tedious/involved (at least till you get a prospector's pick). Otherwise agree on the need for more world-gen spacing/depth, but I suspect that will come when rivers become a vanilla feature