Xefjord

I still think adding more bars is overcomplicating things a bit. I feel like in the 8+ years this game has been in development. A lot of people have requested thirst, and with it being such a core mechanic, if it was going to come, it would have come already. Which is why I am more focused on how we can work our way up from small victories and easily actionable items to more detailed overhauls that take advantage of currently existing systems to try to implement hot weather hazards. My concern is that over fixating on thirst might just dissuade looking into the topic further if they have already added a thirst mechanic to their absolute no-go list. All of this said, I think we are all still on the same page that extremely hot areas need drawbacks. I just think we need to focus on what fits in with existing systems more or seems easy to implement. Like more dangerous animals in tropical Climates may be easier to implement. Given they already have an animal development pipeline. Tigers and hippos and venomous snakes, etc.

I do agree that playing in extreme heat should still be easier than playing in extreme cold. That is kind of how it is in real life. But I don't think that playing in extreme heat should necessarily be easier than playing in temperate. Your idea of having many more dangerous animals is also good. If we can get that, it would be great, but at the same time, modeling, rigging, and creating loot tables with useful items from their drops. I dunno if that's easier than making a heat exhaustion system.

Hi all, new to Vintage Story and the Forums, this suggestion is a slight expansion off a reply I made to another thread regarding heat exhaustion that I think is interesting enough to warrant its own thread. I want Hot / Tropical climates to have more challenges, especially since I hate them IRL and don't want to just feel like playing in a warm climate is playing on easy mode. Heat exhaustion is one of the ways to tackle that, akin to freezing in cold climates, but there is already a thread for that. An alternative (Or supplementary) idea is to keep the winter months difficult in the tropics by making winter a "Dry Season." You can have decreased spawn rates just like we do in the colder parts of the map for mobs, and most importantly, rainfall, even in rain forests, becomes increasingly rare. The level of moisture the soil keeps, even when connected to water, can also have a seasonal debuff that increases its decay rate, and lowers it default maximum moisture rate when next to adjacent water. (Ex. Normal soil stays 75% moist when next to a block of water, but in the dry months it is only 25 or 50%. You can still manually water it, but it will decrease 2x as fast in moisture back to its baseline). If you want to somewhat attach this Dry Season to Temperate climates, you can just make the Dry Season during the summer, so it feels like some regions can deal with summertime droughts, and it can just be tied to high heat levels that cause this effect. But that is up to the developers. I just want the tropics to be more difficult, and a Dry Season feels like an easier solution to that that doesn't require a deep dive into thirst mechanics, shade, etc.

New to the forums, but this is one of the first things I was looking for after I started playing this game, was if and when we might see mechanics tied to overheating as much as freezing. In some cases, I think the mechanic is being discussed in a way that is a little overcomplicated. The stuff I think we can mirror from cold exposure is just that being outside during high heat can give a visual effect until the point it starts to damage you, you can make and wear specific clothes to decrease your body temperature, and overly high heat already stunts crops in the same way overly high cold stunts others. I think the idea of being overly hot causes you to work slower is good, but I would say you can apply the exact same mechanic to being overly cold. And that isn't a bad thing, I think this should apply to both mechanics. If the heat were to produce serious environmental issues, then perhaps summer should just be drier than the other seasons, so the moisture in the soil becomes really hard to maintain without watering, and the effect of adjacent water blocks on the moisture level of soil is decreased proportional to the excess heat. This would imitate a bit of a rainy season vs dry season you see in the tropics. Rain becomes less frequent, and animal spawns decrease because its too hot for them to thrive. If you really wanted to imitate thirst in some way, I would say just have the hunger bar decay at an increased rate in tropical climates. No need to make another bar for it or anything. But I don't really think this is entirely necessary. Standing in water or being wet can help you quickly cool down in the same way that being next to fire can help you warm up. I don't think we need a detailed hydration system or anything. The most detailed I would probably want to see is maybe the exposure to daylight impacting how quickly you heat up, and thus shade being a little bit better. I just don't want playing on the equator to feel like playing on easy mode, and I think that some of these mechanics can apply to especially hot days in temperate areas that could be interesting as well. As someone who hates hot climates, I want the things that bother me to make living in overly hot climates similarly difficult.