Rainbow Fresh

I could potentially see merit in running an animal into exhaustion as alternative to capture wild animals for domestication. Seeing as my personal experience with using the one trap that's in the game makes me think running the animal into the ground for a day to guaranteed just... capture it manually would have been a better time than sitting next to a box, waiting for a the baby goat's trap food cooldown to wear off, and occasionally chase it back towards the trap. For hunting purposes though, I, too, still do not see the point. If persistence hunting exists simultaneously to normal hunting with a bow... why bother wasting a day when you can spend 5 arrows? As mentioned before, persistence hunting by itself is rather questionable; if it takes a day you'd spend more energy chasing the animal down than it provides you. Which *could* work, from a balancing perspective, in the early game being like a passive reward of meat for players that keep chasing an animal down while living off of berries and mushrooms along the way exploring in the pre-bow days - but it would still be rather tedious and empower the already existing complaints about hunting. Early players need to run after the animals while chugging spears anyway, this would just replace the spear chugging with more running. On the other hand, if it takes significantly shorter to exhaust an animal it could become too easy to hunt. Especially since I can already see someone exploiting their water AI by just physically sitting at the shore, spook the animal into the water again where it loses "aggro" and swims back to shore in an endless cycle. And, of course, as mentioned above if persistence hunting simply exists besides normal hunting, why would anyone choose more work over shooting a couple arrows?

I'll preface this by saying that I am playing with a fair share of mods, so part of the problem will quite likely be DIY branded. Which in turn means, I am very happy to install another mod, if possible, should that be the solution. Now every now and then when scrolling through crafting recipes, especially for clothing, some of them have many versions. Some of which are alternative recipes for "fewer large and more plentiful smaller pelts", some of which are just... randomly the same recipe but with overall fewer resources needed. Now I am playing with class-based recipes off (I'm just one single player after all) so it could just be that tailors have the magical ability to craft more out of thin air. I am also playing with a fair share of mods so it could be one or another has patched recipes (in a non-optimal way?) to account for modded content now being part of these recipes. But the problem is, I can't tell. I can't tell where a recipe comes from, if it is vanilla, if it is modded. Which would help me in deciding which recipe is the one I "accept" as the correct one to craft X item. Is there a way/mod that allows this?

If you haven't even tried to update yet, what makes you think you would need to fix anything, manually, trying to mess with the database of the save? Just make a backup, update the game, update all your mods. Make sure none of the mods you use have any specific instructions/incompatibility notes for updating. Then just play. The game is very robust when it comes to updating a world.

I am 99% certain you did, especially if the noticed the culprit being there and then disappearing. The first temporal storm, on default settings, is around 10-20-ish days in? You got an exact time when first joining the world. You will also get a further notification when it's about to hit. Also, even a strong temporal storm (which the first one cannot be iirc?) doesn't immediately drain your stability. Standing in a rift for about 30 seconds though does.

Gotta side with LadyWYT here. There is a reason cold regions - and seeing as you are mentioning all the temperature limitations for certain spawns all the way down to basically 0° we're talking truly cold, probably forever-snow regions - aren't the prime hotspots for living. Even with modern technology we haven't metropolized the arctic like all of the warmer climates. So cold climated just being hard-mode is very much in-line. Hell, I can recommed The Long Dark as a game built around that very concept alone. And I don't see any reason to butcher cold regions just to make them more playable, when the only reason you would have to play with/in them would be your own choosing to begin with. It's a challenge, for sure; but one you can beat if you try. As for some individual points of yours: And it's easier to burn something to warm up anywhere than it is to cool down in warmer areas. I would know, for I live in a country that, for the most part, doesn't know what an AC is. Also, with the way things currently are you literally just need to build a 1x1x2 enclosed space to count as "indoors" and will always be warm inside. So if anything, more indepth heating mechanics are required. That, albeit a completely different topic, is true - but the lack of hot climate content is known and will certainly be rectified later down the development pipeline. Vintage Story is half about exploration to begin with. Missing resources can be found by traveling, even if that traveling requires getting to warmer climate to find things that are, indeed, tied to warmer climates. If you are looking for a perma-frost-only challenge run then maybe you want to look into a mod or two to make it truly possible? But that isn't the intended experience of the game and therefor the game doesn't need to adjust for it specifically.

Are you playing as Blackguard? That class eats, what, 30% more? Did you keep holding something in your offhand? Like the stick/grunting stick with which you caught the worms? Using the forbidden hand gives you another 20% extra hunger. Were you hurt from e.g. fall damage? Healing chuggs a ton of satiety. Are you sprinting everywhere? Sprinting also drains hunger faster. Tl;dr it's not an illness/a disease, there are no such things in the game yet. It's just that everything is centered around food and alot of things need alot of food to encourage beginner players to think more carefully about what, and how, they do in order to not starve. Later down the line, however, once you start farming properly food will be a non-issue.

The culmination of increasing rift activity leading to a storm (with variations still, so it can still be fluctuating between "low" to "apocalyptic" but the upper ceiling increases and eventually the lowest becomes not calm?) sounds like a great idea.

His name... is DAVE! That aside, here is a consideration. I have learned just enough about the lore so far that concluding the current monsters being rotted/rusted? humans makes sense. That said, locusts are clearly man-made robots that also have gone rogue, and what the hell are bells supposed to be then? My point is - who says humans are the only thing affected? (If the lore DOES cover this already, let my find it out myself). You mentioned shivers and bowtorns being badly mangled and forced in unnatural shapes from their former selves. Well, what if e.g. fish would be affected the same way? Then you could have your horrific sea monsters. And even more terrifiying bears.

While the phrasing "penalty" is certainly rather negative in nature, you are correct there, think about it that way especially in the context of the two-handed system it proposed: If something is designed to be used with two hands, that's its default/max/100% state. Using it with only one hand gives you less. Therefor it would logically be a penalty. If we frame it like a buff it would be more like "everything gets strong if I dual wield it", in which case it would be weird that only chosen things can be dual wielded like that to get a buff. Atleast that's how I see it. This, however, could help selling the system to more people without raising complaints about debuffs again. In the end though I think it boils down to what is easier to balance - establish a baseline and just cut it as necessary to make a point, or create a baseline that is lower to account for the situtions where buffs apply to not get out of hand? While also an interesting concept, even I fear that leaning too far into utilizing the offhand is not the best idea aswell. Aside from the concerns about excessive off-hand utility turning into Minecraft 2.0 which, while not 100% accurate do stem from a genuine and truthful core, The offhand mechanically not integrated well enoug into gameplay to get extended use out of it so far. Think about how reasonably you can access the current hotbar slots and backpack slots, and how you can only access the offhand via manually dragging items there or by swapping them into the main hand first. Combine that with full containers only being placeable, not storable in any slot and having functioning backpack space in your offhand would already forcibly require a rework of how you can interact with the offhand. And just adding another combination of keys to place from/grab into off-hand is not helping the already cluttered control scheme.

At that point we are certainly drifting into essentially implementing Combat Overhaul. Which, you know, I am certainly not averse to. Would also solve a gripe I have with shield as they are right now - passive block. I get where it comes from: It's still a shield, still exists, and can still block. Just not targeted and not effectively. But implementing it as RNG is the cheap way out in a world where hitting is just a hitscan. With swing-radius-aware weapons we would basically already need a collider hitbox model at which point shields could "passively" block when and only when the hit actually physically intersects the shield. Aaaand this is essentially Quivers and Sheaths. Which, you know, I too am certainly not averse to. It's the two mods I'd rather stay on 1.21 for if a kind samaritan didn't pick up Maltiez' work after he decided to forgo updating them to 1.22, probably to work on the official armor rework for 1.23. Of course just slapping it in as it is right now wouldn't really fit (esepcially as the thing has pistol harnesses) but the concept invites a general rebalance of inventory as a concept. Instead of wearing 4 simultaneous backpacks to increase your space, you could have one actual backpack slot for primary inventory expansion, and then dedicated attachments for specific items. Knife can go into a knife sheath. Sword into a sword sheath. Bow... could reasonably speaking go over your shoulder without any pouch, but to stick with the system, quiver for arrows. In order do not clutter the inventory (and player model) with too many things, make them use similar slots. You can either have a big sword or a pickaxe strapped to your back. Either a quiver or an e.g. herb pouch. Something like that, enabling more purposeful equipment storage and incentivising choosing your equipment for the task at hand, not be a bring-all-do-all.

That is true. And while I'm all for belts (I am playing with Quiver's and Sheaths - though funnily enough that doesn't come with belt lamps) to attach lanterns to much like the elk (you can do that, right? It's not just the Equus horse?), that would then still need it's own balancing penalty. Which, with how things currently are, would probably once again just boil down to higher hunger drain Well... There are multiple way to approach this specifically, I guess. As I stated originally a two-handed system would certainly need atleast a bit more weapon variety to deal exactly with one-handed vs. two-handed considerations. There could just be long, two-handed pokey stick and shorter, one-handed pokey stick that works with shields and other off-hand items. Or we re-open the can of discussing "why are thrown spears stronger than hand-held ones"... Well, in an ideal world the shield would have debuffs itself aswell, incentivising not having it equiped most of the time. So all I can say keeping your shield close and a finger over F (or whatever swap hotkey you set) is the skill to learn, I guess? Ok, this one I wouldn't really attribute as an issue to this approach itself. The off-hand penalty right now is, to my knowledge/memory, also not really explained. So these new players would equally get confused as to why they need to eat so much while constantly running around with a crude shield they never actively used (Hi, hello, I was that new player). Though I guess off-hand related mechanics could be easily, yet subtly be hinted at. Highlight the off-hand slot in a red-ish border when having a two-handed item equiped while the off-hand slot isn't empty. Subtle enough to not be "Hey, listen! You're playing the game wrong!" but an indicator that something is up nonetheless. Also, of course items would need a clear "is two-handed" tooltip to be able to figure it out even without a dedicated guide page. Can't really do that with a stat modifier number changing from 100% to 120% in a menu you have to actively open.

Phew, for a moment there I thought you literally lose satiety with every single click. But this sounds reasonable enough.

...it... does?

This is exactly what I already brought up in previous threads about this mechanic. But people seemed to be equally unhappy to change the status quo because "hunger doesn't matter later in the game" and changing this barely notable stat change would mean the game got easier. Hence me, this time, proposing something that equally affects everyone, for a reason that makes notably more sense, and also specifically tailors this penalty to the two situations where it matters. Getting penalized for using the hammer for chiseling or the tongs for smithing is just plain stupid. Cause there is no alternative, the game literally forces you to do the latter to progress. Instead now, the penalty only kicks in primarily when you are in dark areas or otherwise heavily armored (with shield) and do stuff. Much like the armor you mentioned. As I said, I too agree the shield should just be treated like armor, because it is for all intents and purposes. Using the shield, no matter how, no matter what hand (can shields even be used in the main hand?) should give you armor levels of debuffs. The price you pay for safety. But with some variety in one and two-handed weapons, the choice of equipment now matters more. Trying to use the biggest weapon for the highest damage with a thick shield won't work so well anymore. Either big defense or big damage, not both. Lighting up the cave with one hand while fighting off creepy crawlies with the other is also now a matter of choice. Mining with a torch in hand heavily disincentivised so you'd rather put down your light and focus on mining. By extent, incentivising proper preparations for mining trips in caves lest you get surprised by a monster and need to run leaving your light behind. I'm not saying my solution is perfect, just that it's an alternative approach to solve an issue the old system doesn't do a good job in solving with while trying to accomodate for the complaints of both sides.

Considering that people can have very strong an fragile opinions to heated discussions topics, like this one seems to be, I really hope you don't take offense when I say this - but your way of reasoning is very much in line with "Might as well get rid of it entirely". Which goes to highlight how delicate a topic and split the opinions on this are, and how a completely different system alltogether could actually help resolve this, if only a little. What you are saying boils down to "Eating more food is nothing, a real otherwise notable penalty is actually limiting." Considering that the decision to put an active penalty on a system, as the current hunger penalty is, is done to actively hinder/discourage use of a system not intended to be used alot actually giving you a reason to not hold a torch while mining or fighting with a two-handed weapon would actually much more achieve this original vision; while still, in my opinion, being more palatable to the player. I feel more people would be able to logically agree with "this is a two-handed weapon/tool, you have your other hand full, so you won't be able to use it effectively" rather than "you are using your left hand. You now drop your hunger bar faster." As it natively makes more sense, even compared to other systems interacting with it. Yes, following a realistic hardcore vision for the game using both your hands to carry different things is more draining than just holding one thing in one hand (both hands), but as mentioned in the quickfire section that would require, if seen through to the end, to put alot more penalties and debuffs on every aspect of your inventory and is therefor less approachable. Following your logic of "If the hunger penalty is a problem just grow more food" you are essentially dismissing that this penalty has any meaning to begin with, in which case we could just go and remove it after all to have the same effect. In my opinion, as stated in the opening post, basing everything on hunger alone is a boring mechanic (especially since, as you said, food quickly becomes a non-issue) and currently just further scews to imbalance between the early struggles (adding more starvation pressure on a beginner player/limiting his options to do things in order to not starve) while becoming entirely meaningless later down the line. My proposed alternative keeps the original penalty vision that discourages excessive off-hand use, in only the situations that matter for balancing purposes (at home you don't have to care 99% of the time), while affecting beginners and veterans alike. It keeps, if not better reflects, the limit people hope to see in this system in the first place.