Trex_Crazy

I'm just an extremely cheap person and don't want to use things if I dont have to

So I was playing and I realized that from the merchants perspective it has to look incredibly strange what I was doing. A man shows up in the dead of night asking what you're looking for, you tell him a tin axe, sae, and hammer. He leaves and sets up an entire forge outside. Starts working metal, takes a short break to kill a monster that shows up, continues. Then alternates between hitting metal and shooting an arrow at a creature shooting at him (all while doing a little dance to dodge said arrows), then plays footsies with a creature that runs away every time he blocks the attack, continues working the metal till it comes back, then finishes the tools. Sells them to you, picks up his entire forge and just leaves without another word.

Ah I see, didn't know it actually sped up harvesting, thatalome makes it worth it.

So I have rarely ever made a copper knife, and never anything over that, and usually just use stone knives. On the wiki, which cpuld be wrong idk, the only difference between knives is durability. So why would I ever waste metal on a knife when I can just keep using stone with no penalty?

So I think it'd be nice if you could grow plants in standing water, that can survive it. ie rice, lettuce, wheat, etc. Since then it would always be at 100% moisture so no watering required.

So for the most part after my initial traumatic experiences with temporal storms I usually just hid in a hole and cooked or something while I waited for them to go away. But recently I realized that early game you can store everything valuable, make a ton of flint spears and hunt a tier 6 enemy and just get a ton of money from them. Granted youll die a lot and you'll only kill 1 maybe 2 tier 6 enemies but thats still a lot of rusty gears.

Ah I see, I've just been unlucky or blind lol. I shall go explore more.

So recently I've been exploring caves. Tentatively, as I only have bear hide armor and the only caves near me, that arent short dead ends, is one thats deep enough for t2-3 enemies and the other is deep enough for t4-5. And theres a whole lot of nothing in them, which maybe I am unlucky or something. (there was like 5 blocks of zinc) Now to a certain extent caves are just caves, theres no rule saying that they absolutely must be teeming with loot. However it seems that there is almost no reason to explore them, you can look for the bomb/fertilizer making material (I don't remember the name, and I also don't remember if it even gets tracked by a prospecting pick) or hope you get lucky with some ruins to pillage. But mostly its just a bunch of emptiness. It'd be interesting if there was a resource that can only be found in caves, giving a reason to explore them. (I mean technically the unique armor sets are only able to be found in caves/story locations, but I feel its more consistent and easier to just buy it from a trader.)There are locust nests I suppose but (they seem rare, idk if they are though) you can get most of what they give you from breaking them easier elsewhere. So far the only big motivating factor to go into the caves is to farm enemies. (since I've only found a couple flax seeds, and haven't found a trader selling linen, my best way to get flax is to loot it. (also playing malefactor so that helps))

I very much enjoy the monster design and how they work in this game. Since they have multiple behaviors, idle behaviors, tactics, etc. And I think bowtorn are quite interesting, for several reasons, because instead of standing there eating damage and point blank shooting you they try to retreat to get a better shot. (Also they usually retreat to other enemies to distract you, but idk if thats their ai or that monsters tend to spawn with other monsters. And the enemies just happen to be there) That said one thing I'm not a fan of is that when retreating and they reach a dead end, usually in caves, they don't realize "theres nowhere left to run" and just kind of tweak in the corner trying to run harder into it. Obviously I don't know the technical side of this but it would be nice if they had a way to realize they're stuck in a corner and the only option is to fight. (I mean they do turn around every once in a while to poke you when chasing them, whether they're in a corner or not, but that seems to have a long cd inbetween attacks.)

Well I don't need a million dollars, but ai would like it. But in all seriousness I've just got a thing for the ocean. Been playing bioshock again (for like the 5th time) so just in the ocean horror mindset I guess.

Why...? As it stands I think there should be more drain. About the only thing it seems to accomplish, as of now, is to make me take a short break from mining or stab myself with a gear. Id like if there were more sources of drain and more negatives/punishments for low stability. Thats probably a me thing since I love horror, I didn't really consider people not wanting more horror lol. Yes I understand it isn't a carbon copy of lovecraft. Also spoilers???? I stoped reading but you should say something before you start writing spoilers. I can see that I suppose, though I like go on long monster hunting trips. Since flax takes awhile to grow (or never in winter) its the next best place to get the stuff. (except a merchant but I'm currently stranded on an island with only a survival goods and treasure hunter)

Well I'd want it to be its own seperate meter/mechanic. And when I say draining sanity by looking at them I mean, very, very, very slow. Not like amnesia. Id want it to be more of an overarching thing that would, much like many things in vintage story, take a long time. Like being around traders, smelting ore? restoring some sanity or maybe not looking at monsters but taking damage from them if thats a better alternative (since it'd be easy to tell your brain "oh it was super dark and I couldn't make outthe shapes" or "that couldn't have been trueI was just making it scarier than it was" But having to wrench a sharpened spine out of your shoulder isn't so easy to cover up) etc. In relation to having more things drain temporal stability I agree and have some, half baked partially thought through, ideas. What if there was a bell variation that had similar health to the regular one but only spawns one or two low tier drifters. But while its ringing it has an aura that drains temporal stability akin to standing in a rift. Another idea would be an enemy that instead of having the normal metal bits and gears sticking out of it it has temporal gears and fluid tubes in it and its attacks do very little physical damage but do large chunks of temporal stability damage. My idea, that I just had while writing what it does, is that it would have cloth (like locust nests) draping from it and it would float (not fly) which would let it go over fences and whatnot. (Honesty just have it graphically float but the collision box is just a regular one that can climb, so it'd "float" over fences) and would hover over water maybe? With some temporal fluid staining it and gears and fluid tanks sticking out of it. As well as make it tanky and slow. It'd be a wraith sort of thing (whether its a mechanical or living being idk, but living would mean it could have flesh for the objects to stick out of and add to the spook factor) itd only be about the size of the player as well. The idea is that its a risky enemy to fight. Slow and easily kiteable but chunks your temporal stability if it hits you, making it more likely for dangerous monsters to spawn and overwhelm you. Or just kill you with the damage from low stability. And it would have a (comparatively) high chance to drop temporal gears (considering you might need to use one after a fight) but also no chance of dropling rusty gears. (maybe have it hold a temporal blue lantern? idk)

No, no thank you. The bears are terrifying enough. lol Also my bad I didn't know he was dave.

That would be absolutely hilarious (and terrrifying depending on what type of locust it was)

So being semi-lovecraftian and eldritch truth/horror themed one would expect a sanity mechanic to be likely in the game. Now I do understand that temporal stability is sanity adjacent with how it works, but its negatives and mechanics aren't really sanity like. Since specific, random?, areas just have randomly low stability isn't sanity like. And spawning more dangerous monsters is maybe sanity like but not really. Like looking at monsters drains sanity very slowly. (since itd be in line with the gnawing drain on your mental health beholding these abominations) Or have fake monsters appear/fake monster noises gaslight you at low sanity or something. You all know the sanity tropes. I'm not certain adding another balancing act would be the best for the game, especially people who just want to craft and explore, but moreso I'm just curious if this is something even being thought of being developed.