Bruno Willis

I wish I could be... When I started playing, I was very cautious around bowtorns, even after I killed them. The sight of that spikey rib-cage body slowly toppling towards me was a serious worry, but they're actually perfectly harmless once dead. What! If I'm stupid enough to stand under a bowtorn as it keels over and dies, I want to feel the pain of two or three metal and bone bow-limbs stabbing into me. The suggestion in plain language: When a bowtorn dies it should damage anything its corpse falls on. Cause it looks like it would hurt if it fell on you.

I was so surprised when I got onto the forums and realised some of the old guard hated the bowtorns. They'd only just been added, and I'd never experienced the game without them. I thought (and still think) the bowtorn are sick. So I guess, enjoy the game as it existed, but remember that newcomers only know the game as it exists right now, and their questions, complaints, and suggestions are going to come from that. It's not their fault. Actually, I think it's a very valuable way to see how the game reads without prior knowledge.

This would be a lovely addition. It looked to me (on the recent V.S. video showcasing sharpening) that the Devs are working on moss at the moment. I'd love to see mossy patches on the underside of cliffs, dripping water which can be collected. That'd be very atmospheric.

With the addition of rapids, it seems like V.S. is taking another step away from using the water mechanics from the other block game. That's great, because TOBG's water makes no sense and doesn't look good. There are lots of other ways V.S. might change water to improve it. Waterfalls: At the moment, when water falls, it remains a full block of blue liquid, which looks nothing like a real waterfall. Characters can swim up it too. I would love to see waterfalls changed so that when water drops it gets a different texture, becoming white water, and turning to mist if it falls more than 10 blocks. If possible, it would be nice if falling water could fall in a sheet, rather than as a full block of liquid. It'd be lovely if when falling water hit a solid block at the end of its fall it produced a dramatic water splashing animation too. On top of that, I don't think the swimming up waterfalls mechanic needs to stay. It's not really that useful, and it seems like an emersion breaking hold-over from TOBG, rather than anything realistic or uncompromising. Swimming in Armor: At the moment there is no difference between swimming without any clothing and armor and swimming in full plate armor. There is no risk of drowning if you fall into water on accident. Water is not dangerous. I would like it if different sorts of armor restricted swimming in different ways. Textile armors would weigh you down but not prevent you rising to the surface, while chain and scale would make swimming back to the surface hard. Swimming in plate armor would not allow you to rise at all, except stepping up blocks (so you could walk along the bottom and make your way to the surface that way. I would like it if wearing bags and baskets restricted swimming in a similar way too. I know that would restrict underwater exploration, but now that we will be able to put down bags and access things inside them, I think it'd feel fine. You'd take your armor off, put it in your bags, and leave most of your bags on the shore when you dive. It would be interesting if currents and waves could be used to dunk characters under, making drowning more of a possibility. Water's edge: At the moment if you disrupt water sources by breaking a block, they will stay flowing endlessly, even if the body of water is massive, and the area it is trying to fill is a single block. I would like to see some way for these sorts of weird flowing water spots to heal naturally. They don't look good, and don't make much sense. When it rains, could the game check flowing water blocks, and if they're surrounded on all sides and on the bottom by either solid blocks, or water, replace the flowing water with a source block?

I use https://mods.vintagestory.at/stickydirt and I really really recommend it. It ties soil instability to the plants growing on it (the idea is their roots make the soil more stable).

I love that these meadows would form naturally via normal interactions. It'd feel so good to gradually see grassland change into a meadow as you mow it for hay each year. It might be good for artificial meadows to have a way to regress back into a wild state too though.

I've never used online forums before this, but I've heard rumors so I expected a level of conflict that's just never come up here. I felt really welcomed, and while I've witnessed a few arguments which got silly, I've always felt I could just post elsewhere. Things like the "humorous stories" thread help keep the forums feeling welcoming and cheerful. For the third pole I put "other", because I think arguments do occasionally devolve and get less than respectful still stay contained to V.S. things, and get personal only about people's positions on V.S., not on any outside life things. Most of the time, arguments seem to be between people who really care about V.S. and want it to be better, but have different ideas about what would improve the game. As long as we keep that in mind, that when people get passionate, it's cause they both really want V.S. to be better, then hopefully we can be understanding? Whenever something gets a bit intense, I always remember that there are quiet people who are interested in some of the less contentious aspects, and you can pull those things out and start a new, less contentious thread focused on one very specific thing. It seems like we get the most arguments when people are talking about big, overarching concepts and systems. Small, specific ideas seem to draw in people who are interested in workshopping the idea rather than criticizing.

Thanks for the reminder about the cold vulnerability slider, I'll use that. This is definitely off topic now, but how about if the air timer for swimming stayed the same, but if you were wearing armor you got a little red tag saying "armor weighs you down" and were unable to rise (spacebar wouldn't let you rise to the surface). Perhaps the same could be said if you're carrying more than one bag, now that bags can easily be placed down? That way you might fall into water, realise you're too heavy to get out, and take your armor off, place your bags on the riverbed, and kick for the surface, then do a couple of rescue dives to retrieve your bags one by one. It'd make falling into water while unprepared a threat, but it wouldn't restrict exploring underwater much at all.

I'd love to see a practical use for the planter pots in game already. It would be really cute to plant seeds in the planters (like 6 seeds per planter) and then remove them once they hit the first growth stage and re-plant them in your garden. If you just let them keep growing, one would dominate and you'd end up with a single crop even if you left all six seedlings in.

That's an excellent idea. It'd still need to be able to be placed on a farm plot with plants growing on it, but that'd be a nice change to ladders anyway. Maybe it would only work with the crude ladders (made with sticks).

Bit of a side note, but with the drowning, I really think environmental effects are pretty toothless in V.S. In NZ, there are no dangerous animals, but people still die in the wilderness because of how bad exposure is. In V.S. we get really really cold, and then eventually, eventually, we take a small amount of damage. Same with swimming, it's a crazy long air bar before we take any damage, which is neat, except that it removes the risk of drowning almost entirely. If you couldn't swim up while wearing armor, that'd be really interesting. Imagine seeing a nice flat bit of grass to make camp as you're traveling through the swamp, only to step onto it and find it's a layer of pond-scum over a deep pool, and now you're desperately pulling your armor off so that you can swim back to the surface before you drown.

It always seemed odd to me that you get the same amount of dried grass from a "very short" grass growth as you do from "tall grass." There's a whole set of different heights of grass, why not give more dry grass the taller the grass growth?

I love the idea of trellis and frames for vines. It could be a two-tall block of sticks, which if placed free-standing on farm plot, would make a 2 tall cone of sticks, and if placed against a wall, would form a leaning frame, again 2 tall. Placing a trellis would work in a similar way to placing fertiliser, in that it could be placed on farm land, even with growing plants on it. I'd love it if an unoccupied trellis would work like a tool rack, and even an occupied one could have have sheer, or a knife, or a reed basket or watering can hung from the side. Trellises and tomatoes would add so much to the look of our gardens.

Some people find traveling in V.S. boring. I find it frustrating sometimes myself, especially if I die far from home, or see repeating areas of forest, then hills, then forested hills, etc. I do not think adding more ruins or villages, or any sort of structure, is the right way to add excitement to travel, they would just make the world feel weirdly busy. Everyone wants to see rivers added, and I think they're a really good way to improve travel, and we can learn from them to find other ways to improve travel. Rivers, if done well, can be 1: a barrier to travel, 2: an aid to travel, and 3: a landmark. A person might need to find a wide part of the river to ford it, or a narrow part to bridge it, or they might use a boat to row up or down it, depending on their intended direction. Finding a river makes travel more interesting because it adds a large-scale challenge, which can be turned into a powerful, travel related reward which helps add a sense of narrative to travel. Drawing from that, I think travel would be really improved by building challenges to travel into world gen., which have interesting solutions. Think about stories where travel is a key component. A mountain range becomes a serious barrier, and a pass or tunnel through it becomes a huge reward if found. A swamp becomes a terrible threat, unless one knows a safe way through. It seems like making rivers work will require a serious re-working of the world gen. system. I would love to see, alongside rivers: a system to produce good long mountain chains, which generate with exciting-to-find passes cutting through them. a system to produce swampy regions with sinking mud potential, and with safe paths through, which can be marked bit by bit, using trial and error. a system to produce rocky reefs and regions of stormy seas, with safe, deep channels threading through them. To make those challenges more interesting, I think we'd need to add: avalanches (as purely snow related mechanic separate from the messy sideways stability soil mechanic), some sort of challenging mud or deceptive pond scum, and faster drowning? (because drowning really doesn't feel like a serious threat at the moment), and the possibility for boats to take damage on collision (perhaps only during storms).

Big kelp grows in cold areas, and it's really useful for making carry bags: