Thalius

1 hour ago, Streetwind said:

 

I believe part of it would be to drive progression.

Imagine yourself playing Vintage Story. You just made yourself a set of copper tools. These tools never break. You can now mine rocks and pile up cobblestone walls - or heck, shape them into bricks, or quarry raw stone for building materials. You can saw wooden boards. You can scythe grass. You can chisel fancy blocks. You can craft a windmill.

You're done. Why would you continue progressing? Why bother looking for tin? Why bother learning how to smelt iron? Why bother digging up meteors and constructing cementation furnaces? Nah, just stick with the tools you have and build a fancy home base instead. Eventually, you might go and do the other things, the mining and prospecting and other metal tiers... but you'd do them because there was nothing else left to do. Not because you needed it. You might say: but you need better weapons and armor to fight the harder enemies underground. But that's not true. Because you have no reason to go underground. There's nothing that you need there. Maybe you'll go explore there, sometime. But not for progression. Rather, because you can, and because there's nothing else left to do.

Admittedly: that's an exaggerated picture. But at the end of the day, the fact that your tools break is a progression driver. You want something better than copper, because copper breaks quickly. By contrast, a steel tool will last you a long, long time. One steel prospecting pick lasts as long as eleven copper ones would. It's one reason to want steel.

 

 

Another part of the goal is likely to facilitate longer-term play, particularly on multiplayer servers.

The most common player fantasy about multiplayer in games like these is: let's build a village. A community where everyone has their niche. Where we have a farmer, a blacksmith, a potter, a miller... Let's have an economy, where you trade for what you need with what you can provide to others.

It's not just that this allows people to be part of a community, a tribe (and human beings are still hardwired by evolution to want to feel that way). It also facilitates joining a multiplayer server in the first place. You start off with nothing, while everyone else had weeks to play already. How could you possibly catch up, and find yourself a place in the community? Why, by specializing, of course. You don't have to catch up in all the progression systems, but rather just one of them. Just get the prerequisites for one thing taken care of, and you can be useful.

Unfortunately, that player fantasy is a lot harder to realize than you might think, particularly if the game is supposed to be playable in singleplayer as well. In many ways, making multiplayer better can result in design decisions that are diametrically opposed to making singleplayer better. And vice versa. It's an incredibly difficult problem with no easy solutions.

But, this post is not about that. Your takeaway should simply be that there's a player fantasy that many people really wish to see, but which at the same time is hard for the game designer to provide.

And tool/item durability is one of the few methods the designer has that does not automatically result in a conflict with singleplayer gameplay.

Imagine again that nothing you crafted would ever break. That means as soon as each player has obtained any given tool, or weapon, they'll never need another one. How, then, does a player become a blacksmith in a multiplayer village? Literally no one needs their services more than once. And indeed - if just making one thing once is all it takes to satisfy demand, why would another player bother with visiting the village blacksmith in the first place? They might not even be online right now! Just make the thing yourself and move on. By contrast, if tools do break, then there's just that little bit more of a reason to have someone in the village who you know always has a chest full of pickaxes you can get at a moment's notice. And it makes sense to get multiple tools from them ahead of time, so you have a reserve for when they are not online.

It is an enabler for the fantasy.

Indeed, some people would like even more of this. One of the inspirations for Vintage Story is the Minecraft mod TerrafirmaCraft. In it, handheld pottery such as bowls and water jugs have a 1% chance to break with every use. I've seen people ask to bring that to Vintage Story. Why? Because they play exclusively on a multiplayer server. And that mechanic gives the village potter a reason to exist.

 

 

And well, another part may well be that the game is designed the way it is precisely to make it harder. That there is tool durability precisely to make forgetting to bring a replacement a failure mode. If your pickaxe runs out, you aren't finding that tin vein today, and you'll have to survive some more with lesser tools. If your sword breaks, the drifters eat you and you die. Chances are, the game wants this to happen to you. Because you could have brought more picks. More swords. You could have prepared better. And you didn't. Now you pay the price.

 

 

Not saying that the mechanics as they are now are the best that could ever be. But, you asked for game design justifications for tool durability. These points are some, if probably not all, of them.

I personally agree with pretty much all that is expressed in this comment, and understand why it is necessary and helpful for tool and weapon durability to work the way it does.  I do, however, like the idea of being able to keep a tool or weapon indefinitely for the sake of history, or sentiment, or whatever you want to call it.  I think there is some value to allowing for such things in a game world such as Vintage Story.

I'd like to see a mechanic where, when a tool or weapon wears out it's durability, it becomes "damaged". It can still be used at that point but has a fairly good chance of shattering to bits and being lost.  To fix it and restore it to like new condition, one needs to take it to a smith and repair it, basically taking an ingot of metal and repairing it.  Metal resources consumed, favorite tool or weapon retained. A win on both sides of the discussion, in my book.

I know this was not a suggestion post. The author asked what we like about the system while they also expressed some things they wished were different. I like the system as it works and understand the reasons for it, but would like to see that one extra dynamic added that allows for some nostalgia with regard to tools and weapons we have used and acquired over time.

~TH~

3 minutes ago, Digitalr said:

Not sure about fueling, but other things i try to implement. May be this sunday.

\0/

Thank you!

4 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Well, don't keep them to yourself! Post it!

I was in process of editing my previous post to add the suggestions.
Got a little too quick with clicking the buttons and posted before I was finished writing out the response.

9 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Well, given that it's still working, I guess it's still supported. The mod's simple enough to where, if needed, someone else could fix it if it gets broken by an update somehow.

Right.

This won't surprise you probably, but I'd like to tweak it a bit, if it is abandoned. If the author is still around I'd like to make some suggestions.  Easy enough changes to make, but I don't want to mess with it if the author is still around.

Feedback on our server has some balancing requests coming in.

Suggested edits:

• Triple the amount of metal required.
• Require a lit torch in place of oil lamp in recipe.
• Brazier extinguishes after a certain time in the rain, and can be re-lit with a torch or fire-starter.
• Fueling mechanic requiring firewood, with an added modifier that greatly extends burn times.

Sorry for the double post. Not sure how I did that...

24 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Supported how? It works fine.

Is the author still around, making sure it stays working?

Is the author still around, making sure it stays working?

Anyone know if this mod is still being supported?

On 9/7/2021 at 2:40 AM, Jorrit Tyberghein said:

Is this mod compatible with 1.15.5?

The mod seems to be working fine on 1.15.5. No issues so far, in a single player world at least.

4 hours ago, l33tmaan said:

It's fine if they LOOK cool, though. Right? 

No. No it is not fine, even if they look "cool" (...whatever a "cool" nerd pole looks like anyway)..

On the subject of removing the glider from the mod and the issue of it being so integrated into the mod that you can't remove it, you don't need to remove it from the mod to remove it from being used in a server setting.  When you figure out how to add a proper config file to the mod, you can disable the crafting recipe via a config option, effectively making the glider un-craftable and a creative mode only item.

I like the idea of adding the glider to our server, but I have nightmares of giant nerd-pole like launching towers springing up all over the place.

56 minutes ago, Travis Pluid said:

Or, another suggestion- use Mortar to fill in Compromised stone, and restore it.

Personally, I'd enjoy that much more.

Hello again!

Had a thought to share, based on feedback I've seen from my server now that the mod has been live on it for a while.
For the most part the mod has been well received. Folks are loving the big caves and are doing a lot of exploring down there in the depths.

Some are not too keen on the cave in mechanics, even though I have them tuned WAY down from the mod default settings, but I sort of expected not everyone would like it. It requires a lot more care when cutting on stone, and you have to think about how you are going to set up and continue a proper mine shaft you can support if you want to mine safely.  I knew it would hit on some nerves, but it is a perfect fit for the feel I'm building into the server.

The one complaint I am hearing though that I think needs to be shared here is with regard to the look of compromised stone. 

If one wants to build anything underground at all, then all the stone basically needs to be mined out and replaced with building blocks in order to keep it looking nice and clean.  Building anything underground of any significant size has a whole set of new challenges, made irritating to some due to the look of compromised stone everywhere.  Personally I'm find with carving out all the stone and replacing with building blocks to get it looking the way I want, but not everyone has the same build styles or tastes for such things, and on a multiplayer server it is an issue for some.

One suggestion was that the stone does not crack, but merely makes sounds when surrounding blocks are compromised, sort of like the way the mod was in the beginning, as I recall- pretty sure surrounding blocks did not crack and fissure, but you could hear the sound of stone and gravel falling whenever blocks became compromised. 

As a fix= Allow cracks in compromised stone to fade over the course of a few game days? That or add a config option that allows for disabling rendering the cracks in compromised stone but keep the sounds of stone and gravel falling whenever a block becomes compromised.

Most on our server are loving everything else so far, and I am personally looking forward to the gasses being fixed so we can turn them on.

~TH~

Playing around in single player and I can't get the glider to equip. Tried reassigning the hotkey and still will not equip.  I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Seems pretty straightforward- "Press F to equip glider" but it is not equipping. Both hands are empty and glider is in the inventory bar.


[Edit: Never mind. Figured it out. Need to equip it to upper body like an armor piece. Simple enough.]

One other question: I thought that with the newest mod release a config file was supposed to be created that allowed for editing stamina levels and burn and a few other things. After loading the mod and starting the game, I am not seeing a config file for this mod in the modConfig file.

Greetings…

Here with another random idea…

Is it possible to link temporal instability in a very localized area to a specific mob?

The idea is to have a rare entity that, when it spawns, makes the area around it temporaly unstable until it despawns or is killed.

The while idea would entail an entity that phases in and out, ghostlike, as if caught in between our world and the Rust world, almost like we see in temporal storms, but the entity is at times altogether invisible.  It would have an instability that accompanied it till the player killed it or left the area and let it despawn.

Not sure how to pull all that off yet, but that is the idea.

~TH~

A suggestion for a future release- Is there a possible way to add a config option that would allow you to configure how quickly a player runs out of air?  I always looked forward to breathing/oxygen mechanics being brought to the game, but also I was sort of enamored with the idea that a seraf was a  being that could swim under water and hold breath for a long period of time, along with being super strong and other characteristics.  

The way the mod works now, exploring under mountain lakes and the deep abyss some lakes afford is off limits.

1 hour ago, jakecool19 said:

Released a patch that will disable gases for the time being as they cause a lot of lag and will be completely overhauled when I have the time.

Darn. Saw a post had been made on the mod and was hoping you'd gotten around to that.
Already disabled on our server, after your comment that gasses were causing problems after I reported on my lag issues.

Since turning off gasses, I have not seen any lag/freezing issues on any game I've ran the mod on.
Looking forward to being able to turn them on though.

The thing I am the most interested in is, I have ideas for some ai aggression options for drifters that I've not put into place because we have no ways to efficiently dodge them.
If this mod can work in on a MP server, that changes things.

8 minutes ago, Dante said:

Truth is i never tested it on a MP Server since i wrote it with SP in mind. Most parts might work just fine when installed server and client side.
There are a few things that might need to be altered. If you provide me with some data / problem reports i might be able to rewrite the parts that need to be altered for MP.

That would be sweet! If we can locate a test server that will let us play around with it, we'll be happy to report back.

4 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Wait, I thought this mod was singleplayer only?

We have only looked at it on single player. We were in the process of searching for a test server to try it out in multiplayer.

Just now, l33tmaan said:

Wait, I thought this mod was singleplayer only?

Is it??? Maybe that is what was meant by "mostly client side".
Dang.. just saw the "likely never going to be MP compatible" line.  We were getting excited.

Sigh...

Maybe one day...?

Checking out the mod with the view to possibly add it to The Wilderlands server.

The new config file option was the deciding factor. Looks like we would be able to  adjust stamina levels and costs to ensure that the new abilities are not overpowered. Thank you for that!

Testing things out now, but loving the way it looks and works so far!

1 minute ago, l33tmaan said:

You may have picked a bad time to ask, but good luck! It might be quicker to just look at the files yourself.

I am in the process of doing so as we speak. I'll message him if I have questions.

11 minutes ago, l33tmaan said:

Yes, Caelum Terras has flying locusts that can shoot at you.

Yes, it is terrifying.

Yes, Jakecool did it again.

Hmm.. I'll have to check that out and reach out to him then.

Thanks

I feel like this is a long shot at this point, since I've not seen or heard of this in a mod yet, but has anyone figured out how to give mobs a ranged attack yet?

I have a tribal entity mod I've been working on but it feels not quite ready yet. One big thing I want is to be able to give them blow guns and crude bows, which are pointless if there is no ranged attack they can use with them. 

Without ranged attacks allowing me to give them blowguns and crude bows, they are just little tribal orcish looking entities running around with flint knives and clubs.  Still fun, but incomplete feeling.