riotmode

Oh don't worry, I won't lol. I really would like to see the temporal aspect explored more, there's so much that could be done with world state editing to make it feel like the manifest past of your world is attacking you without breaking the game. I like this too tbh, the storms seem to mostly disrupt players who are more invested in the survival craft elements getting disrupted. Perhaps giving Storms additional benefits to certain processes would help, eg rapid-aging wines and crops, or causing recently rotted foods to revert, etc. Throwing in some minorly beneficial elements like this might make them feel a bit more chaotic rather than being a strictly negative encounter to stare at a dirt wall through.

I have to say, I'm a bit startled at how twittery this thread is getting. Is it often like this?

I actually quite like the lore, but I'm a staunch anti-authoritarian and hater of monarchies. There's plenty of super hardcore survival games out there, if I want something grounded I can head for Project Zomboid, haha. The fantasy elements are actually what make it more interesting to me, so I'd rather they be improved!

Howdy, new player here. Temporal storms got me pretty tense the first night they happened, but lost my interest just as quickly when I realized they're just forcing me to engage with the underbaked combat mechanics. Getting focus-fired in my home by a swarm of archers piling its way out of my hobbit-hole closets doesn't feel like a sufficient payoff for that cool visual effect and wonderfully horrid sound design, nor does it really sell me on the "temporal" aspect. To that end, I'd like to suggest the following ideas: Work storms into ruins. Ruins being distorted by the temporal storms opens up opportunities like time-limited dungeons, storm-exclusive narrative events, and all kinds of other ideas. It also lets you show players what those ruins might have looked like before falling to rubble, and could even allow interactions with non-trader npcs to give the sense of isolation in the normal gameplay a bit more punch. It would also force me to engage with the mechanic and plan around expeditions into the storms, rather than just hiding in a 2x1 hole until they're over. Another thing it could do is introduce paradoxes as a mechanic, something that could tie into the Rifts. Imagine mining out a vein of tin a day or so before a storm. While the storm is active, that mining is undone, letting you mine it again. However, doing so ticks up a corruption counter of some sort that spawns in a rift, which can either remain permanent or fade with time. This would add another reason to engage with it and enable the creation of "farms" for the various beasts you can encounter. I'm sure there's other things you can do with them, but they really need spicing up, since they're currently just an unskippable time-waste. With the current combat being so basic, there's just not much enjoyment to be had with them.