Zaph42nd

Regarding oceans, monsters conceptually sound interesting but I think sailing by design is a more laid-back/low-risk activity compared to being on land (fewer predators that would prey upon players); however, I'd not be against there being more considerations when sailing such as gales that might drive a ship off-course, waves that react to weather patterns, potential risks to capsize, etc... Making the act of sailing more risky would add a lot more than monsters alone imo. Along with this, neutral creatures I think could add more to exploring oceans as others have argued, being potentially excellent food-sources but dangerous to hunt down.

Some of the issue of AI mod filtering is that it either requires meticulous code review by site moderation or self-reporting, that I think is part of the difficulty and why it hadn't been implemented fully yet.... Plus there's also distinctions on how AI is/was used for development which means a more nuanced set of tags would probably be needed (AI-assisted, AI-generated, etc... are all unique in the sense of AI contributions, it requires asking: who generated the codebase, did the bug-fixing, asset-creation, etc... all things hard to pin on just one tag). I'm not against a tagging system for that purpose though, in fact self-reporting I think would be useful and so too would content blocklists based on tags, Nexus does this already to some success but it's not perfect either

Like it, I think would also go well with an improved firestarter tool since right now there's no option to start a fire aside from the basic one you can craft at the start of the game (and that has durability limits that while largely negligible, can become annoying). Fire strikers could be a nice late-game option in this case as your lantern could burn out if left open too long (or gets extinguished by the rain or being submerged) and having to wait a few seconds less to restart the fire would be fair I think

Aside from being a replacement for reeds, I'd be interested to see birch bark also used for early-game writing/documenting since bark historically also served as a writing tablet material if clay is sparse.... It'd be a little less useful than say paper given the high cost and growing times, but not bad for when you need to quickly take a note in game before reaching the point of making paper (having flax production scaled up)

Yes low temporal stability is annoying, but I don't hate it either since it gives you an excuse to leave your base often and potentially invest in Jonas devices... Granted there's not really a device to counteract stability loss so much as there's one to mitigate rift-spawns which helps a bit. As others said, low stability also has the unintended side effect of making rust creatures more common so not bad for farming their drops. Still, for a base you plan to stay at for a long period of time, better to go somewhere with higher stability, low stability areas aren't bad as outpost points though or for rust monster farms

Yep rarely but it can happen, mostly it's forest fires if you build a few lightning rods in strategic places (actually I find lightning tends to kill my livestock more so than burn my buildings, but I blame forgetting to get them indoors in a timely manner). Otherwise fire spreading is usually a matter of not surveying your area or building a little too close to planks or wood

Really not too much backstory aside from what your class could say or what you interpret your role as a player to be in the world; however, I think that's deliberate to encourage the player to role-play and find their own identity in game, especially in a server context....

BRT I always read as an emergency tool to get out of messy situations more than a practical/frequent crafted tool, but I've only ever made 4 of them (pretty expensive for a single-use item). I'd be interested to see it be something you could repair/restore with Jonas parts after each use, but maybe that'd be too overpowered? TT is a bit more useful seeing as items can despawn after a while, but very situational in its use (relies on you having not changed your spawn and being decently far away from your last death). I've always wondered if we'd eventually get something equivalent to translocaters that players could move/craft, but that maybe is a bit against some of the design-language of the game (that is, building infrastructure and emphasizing exploration/travel) and would require a lot of balancing (being a very late game thing maybe?)

For sure, Jonas parts are deliberately designed for late-game seeing as Jonas devices on the whole are designed to be pretty powerful (plus the rarity makes sense). What I'm hoping to see soon is a Jonas device that weakens temporal storms or outright ends them at a high-cost (the rift ward only addresses rifts, not storms afaik) but I'm not sure what that'd look like necessarily....

For sure, I could see melee being the first thing to consider reworks but through progressive changes rather than major updates (think it'll require some community feedback to fine-tune any combat changes). I'd imagine armor will be towards the middle of those reworks, likely being introduced but expanded upon later since it's a complex mechanics change. Seems to match the experience I've noticed with some other updates, reworks and rebalancing really only happens in sub-versions, pre-releases tend to feel a little less balanced/tuned in (but in exchange get more access to major mechanics) and first-release/non-hotfix updates tend to start out a little janky or have content need tweaks/improvements. Now what I'm curious about is if reworks will also eventually hit ranged combat too, it's more mechanically nuanced than melee but still worth making some changes to imo

Agree for sure, just adding toggles for drifter spawns would be nice, I'd maybe go a step further and add optional server commands to change light-level spawn rates/spawn chances, that way you could disable spawns entirely or tune up spawns (or down) to player/server owner preference. Maybe a world-generation option (as part of difficulty selection) or just a server operator command (/ commands). Deeds/land claim could also integrate additional flags to the claimed land-plots, claimants maybe could have limited access to some server-commands specific to their claim, although I suspect that'd be difficult to implement

Yep definitely the way to go rather than just stockpiling tools, I usually spend a few days in Fall and Spring exploring ruins for things to sell to traders (Better Ruins makes this a lot more fun as does playing malefactor since you can sell cracked vessels). Depending upon your class, might also be a good time in winter to use up whatever excess leather, twine, etc.. you might have for trading. As for buying, I can't resist buying more sleek doors, paintings, and wallpaper, makes your home a little more "homey" I suppose....

Yes but would have the consequence of potentially causing a forest fire and maintaining a fire-trap is a pain (fire travels to the next available burnable block within close proximity), plus damage over time isn't nearly as efficient as trapping + spearing down predators.... I will say controlled burns are good at clearing out an area to build but fire spreads quickly if you don't pay too much attention (and for your own sanity, don't set a fire near peat-blocks, you'll be struggling to put that fire out). Pit-traps wise, I find them ok for boars and deer, but for bears I prefer hunting them (just maybe more satisfying? for me) once I get better equipment and I get to winter

My thoughts too, mods exist to allow players to shape the game in some ways but not necessarily the core experience, the modularity and mod potential is what I think really is the draw of vintage story. And even if there are changes I don't always agree with, it is fairly easy to roll-back versions or find mods that otherwise revert changes, for example berry-bush reworks initially I reverted via modding till I decided to engage with them more and found that, while I don't think the system is perfect, it does make sense with the other mechanics already in game.

Figure many of these will come with an alchemy-related update alongside reworks to existing flowers and bushes, maybe tea would come part of that? Otherwise, I could see spices being used within reworked body-temp mechanics, namely with regards to overheating (spices could maybe add some minor cooling effect to meals and more exotic or rare spices could be trader-locked?). As for other fruits, veggies, and grains, I think it could be possible to add more, but I am skeptical on their niche use-cases, already the game has several in all of those categories which means adding more variety might not really make a huge-difference...

Yep temporal storms are painful, there's a reason I suspect a lot of players either tone them down or turn them off, I'm more on turning them off side of things (though that means no Dave visits) since not fun having tier 4 drifters kill you while AFK or making pots. My favorite temporal storm event was having a drifter spawn right next to my fireplace, least it made them easy to kill?

Fair, for me the difficulty was switching up from playing more close-ranged on the whole to ranged, blackguard definitely pairs with eidolon, crow with hunter. I do wish it was a bit more telegraphed/communicated that ranged weapons would be needed for the crow fight (yes, you don't need to bring a bow technically, but it does make the fight a lot less annoying if you bring bow + plenty of arrows). I admit though that last time I played through to the devastation was back in 1.20 rc-2 (pre-nerf?) so been a while and a lot has likely changed since then

Personally loved the concept of the devastation but the boss feels like it needs a lot of work (feels great as hunter, abysmal to fight as black guard or any class with changes to ranged attacks). I also found the time-shifting mechanic cool for the parkour sections of the tower, but definitely took a bit of time to learn and I feel like could've been introduced a little earlier (maybe an additional puzzle to resonance archives?) at lower-stakes?

For sure in favor of this, even regardless of the AI discussion extra filtering options make it easier to find specific mod author published mods (or contributed mods) without needing to necessarily always visit an author's page.... Maybe be interesting to see if in the future we can follow/block authors on moddb too

Very much behind this idea, I've always found it odd how the non-crafted item related differences between classes are very minor at best, most noteworthy distinction I think is felt on blackguard where hunger is higher and food management becomes more of an issue early-game; however, I think this also fits with the role blackguards are said to play in lore being protectors and guardsmen, therefore would likely not be well-adjusted to having to forage and farm for sustenance.... One idea in my mind for making things a bit more noteworthy aside from minor changes to yields and crafting is also impacting how hunger and diet play together with classes, specifically: Hunters could potentially focus on meat and forage but fail to succeed at farming. This would reflect in an increased depletion of their veg and grain and slower depletion of their protein Blackguards already meet this by having increased hunger, maybe expanding upon it they could have longer retention of all of their nutrient groups in exchange for the higher hunger needs? Malefactor being the foraging class, fruits I feel like would be depleted less and hunger might be a tiny bit slower too, but I'm not sure on balancing that out Other classes (tailor, clockmaker) I'd probably orient towards avg hunger rates on the whole Aside from that, commoner I think could maybe have some uniqueness too, nothing extraordinary or unique items but maybe being just slightly more unique in the sense of farming could fit well? Ultimately this would still encourage balancing diets out to max your health-pool, but playing in a server each class would have its own way of staving off starvation and there'd be more need for classes to work together to achieve balanced diets

Fair, agree on the scaling/payoffs, my thought is late-game malefactor becomes a lot more designed around pilfering dungeons and maybe engaging in outlawish things (stealing from other players, breaking into places, etc...)... Lockpicks fit this role nicely, maybe late-game you'd be able to craft more durable lockpicks which would keep the class relevant in the metal ages while not necessarily making them too powerful.... It's all down to specializations with tools and their utility, each class at least can shine in that regard in addition to their unique traits. In a DnD/fantasy archetypes sense this works well too, the blackguard being stand-in for knights/paladins, clockmakers for artificers, hunters for archers, malefactors for rogues, etc...

Always forget about that, but yes just sword and shield are uniquely for blackguard crafting-wise. Then again for me I always prefer going for light-armor (my main armor since I usually play tailors is the tailored gambeson) True, it's one of few class-items you can get without specializing into a class, which is conceptually balanced I think? Although without story content it'd be impossible to make (and I think that's also coincidentally where some classes like hunter and tailor stand out) unless disabling class-exclusive recipes.... For sure, if trapped ruins get added, I'd think it'd be nice for malefactor to have some way to mitigate or disable traps, although perhaps that'd lean too much into the high-fantasy realm? I've always envisioned them as aligning loosely with rogue and thief archetypes so something like lock picks or trap-mastery would be nice too. Upgrading scrap weapons to some higher damage, low durability equivalent could also be nice as well especially when exploring procedural dungeons/ruins, perhaps this'd encourage malefactor to explore ruins and keep a more nomadic gameplay style since that's somewhat implied with their increased foraging yields (I always read that buff as designed to make players consider scouting out and exploring more as it does at least somewhat reduce food-related worries during spring/summer)

Fair, yeah would make a lot of sense for primitive traps to fall under malefactor, something like deadfall traps could easily get implemented and behave as class-exclusive, it'd fit nicely into primitive/Stone Age hunting options.... Clockmaker I think as a class makes the most sense for late-game/high-tech items/equipment. But for me at least, I'd love to see all classes have at least some unique/class locked tool/item in each stage of the game (primitive/Stone Age, copper and Bronze Age, steel age and beyond), right now each class (aside from commoner) fits into either early-game benefits or late game benefits, not having unique-crafts in all ages/stages of progression.... Hunting is a good case-study for this, trapping, archery, and other skills all could fall well into the class-system where each class has uniques as this already sort of exists (malefactor's sling, hunter's crude bow + crude arrows, etc...) only classes lacking in this regard are blackguard, tailor, and clockmaker of which I think each could get at least some primitive item(s) locked to them (tailors for example could have unique hide-based armor and clothing, blackguards an early-game melee option, clockmaker I'm not sure on). Oddly the inverse seems true in late-game as blackguard gets unique armor, tailor gets tailored gambesons, and clockmaker gets a unique spear-type weapon, hunter has recurve bows but malefactor gets nothing in this regard

So I've been thinking about wood-types and curious, what type of wood do you tend to default to/prefer aesthetically in most builds? For me, I find I'm a big fan of how kapok or pine looks for most builds (especially as a flooring material), never cared much for maple (which to my eyes is a little green?).

Yeah, blood trails feel very appropriate for hunting, it'd also play nicely into predator/prey systems, perhaps if you injured but did not kill an animal, wolves might also follow blood-trails too, leading to an eventual battle between the player and wolves for the same prey? Far as other hunting options go, I'd also love to see more traps and baiting options available (cages and pit-traps are the main options), snare traps, deadfall traps, etc... would fit nicely. Same goes for using prey-animals to attract predators, would be a neat way to encourage hunting more dangerous creatures such as wolves/bears using prey-animals as bait.... On a progression level, trapping also fits well since could easily upgrade your traps to more advanced and deadly equivalents (from a deadfall to foothold in the steel or post-steel stages?) and perhaps maybe even fit into the class system (hunters already seem to excel at archery and ranged combat, perhaps clockmakers could excel at making advanced traps?)