Survival game Vintage Story gets another huge upgrade with improved combat

Played it for like 15 hours and then gave up on it. The wolves in this game are just stupid. You can't avoid them and you can't defend against them (at least for the duration that I played). I don't mind to be punished for mistakes, but being punished for playing is not my cup of tea.

And the game doesn't even tell you about a major game mechanic that kills you. First game I died 3 days in after the screen going wonky and getting overrun by hordes of enemies. Same happens after you respawn so the game is unsalvageable by then. Had to google it to figure out what happens. That and a couple of other things speak to the sadistic nature of the dev. Unless things have changed, I would avoid it.

Quoting: EhvisPlayed it for like 15 hours and then gave up on it. The wolves in this game are just stupid. You can't avoid them and you can't defend against them (at least for the duration that I played). I don't mind to be punished for mistakes, but being punished for playing is not my cup of tea.

And the game doesn't even tell you about a major game mechanic that kills you. First game I died 3 days in after the screen going wonky and getting overrun by hordes of enemies. Same happens after you respawn so the game is unsalvageable by then. Had to google it to figure out what happens. That and a couple of other things speak to the sadistic nature of the dev. Unless things have changed, I would avoid it.

Sorry, but to me that sounds a lot like:


Played the game and after the first encounter, I knew to avoid wolves - which is something you can very easily do and nobody had to tell me how. It's just common sense:
Don't go into deep forests, everywhere else you can spot them AND you can outrun / outclimb / outswim them just fine.
If you struggle with that after 15 hours of playing, then that is VERY MUCH your mistake. Don't blame the game for your shortcomings.

Until a few hours later I got some minimal weapons and armor and could deal with them from then on - though you still have to be careful not to attack a whole pack.

The second thing you describe is a temporal storm. Those happen every few days.
And you can be perfectly safe from them if you hide inside some hut or shack, or hell, even just a dirt hole if you can get some air. Just sit it out. The game warns you of it, too! Well enough in advance.
That, too, is something I'd simply consider common sense. After all, everything in that world is deadly, what did you think a "temporal storm" is going to do? So of course you hide when the game tells you one is coming up, ESPECIALLY when you've never witnessed one.

My only gripes with the game is how many things just take so long.
E.g. it took me WEEKS in-game to find an ore vein. Realistic, sure, but I'd strongly recommend installing a mod that makes finding ore a lot easier. Unless you enjoy mostly blindly digging deep holes until you stumble upon ore.

And also how food is much more of a problem than it realistically should be. Mostly due to the game not being finished in lots of areas, so many ways to gather food are missing - e.g. fishing is totally bare-bones right now. And up until now, no fruity trees were to be found.
But those issues, too, can be well handled with mods - last time I played (1.13 maybe?), the game got a lot better with a good food mod installed .


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 11 January 2022 at 12:00 pm UTC

Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf you struggle with that after 15 hours of playing, then that is VERY MUCH your mistake. Don't blame the game for your shortcomings.

We'll agree to disagree. I have enough experience in survival games to know when things are unfair. Maybe you've had a lucky world roll. Maybe I've had unlucky ones. But nothing I've experienced was fair.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPThe second thing you describe is a temporal storm.

It's not the temporal storm, that is at least announced. It's the cog thing that runs down.

Quoting: EhvisI have enough experience in survival games to know when things are unfair.
Maybe you've had a lucky world roll. Maybe I've had unlucky ones. But nothing I've experienced was fair.

Wait, did you expect a survival game that strives for realism in its approach to present you with... fair wolves? Like what, they should scale to your level?
Or that it magically puts you in a "safe zone" for the first few hours, or... ?

I really don't know what you mean with "fair" in regards to a realistic survival game.

Quoting: EhvisIt's not the temporal storm, that is at least announced. It's the cog thing that runs down.

That's kind of the same thing.
That cog is the temporal stability - if it becomes unstable, monsters spawn.
A temporal storm strongly decreases temporal stability.

All of which is explained in the in-game tutorial/wiki.
Don't get me wrong, that in-game help kind of sucks (it definitely helped me survive the first 20 hours or so, but after that I had to use community wikis more and more), but this part it DOES explain.

Of course, it sounds to me like this new patch changed it somewhat so monsters now only spawn from rifts? Not sure how those things all come together.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 11 January 2022 at 12:33 pm UTC

Quoting: TheSHEEEPWait, did you expect a survival game that strives for realism...

Realism? So when you die, wait out the night at your base. Then next morning you go to the place of your death hoping that the wolves have moved on only to find that your stuff has despawned is about realism? No, that's just about making you work again for hours and hours to get it back. No thanks, I'll pass.

Quoting: EhvisRealism? So when you die, wait out the night at your base. Then next morning you go to the place of your death hoping that the wolves have moved on only to find that your stuff has despawned is about realism?

That you respawn at all makes it pretty clear that this aspect is not about realism.
Although, who knows, there could be an in-game explanation for your respawning, I don't actually know. And now there is optional permadeath, too, so...

But the world itself, how seasons work, food, animals, crafting, etc. definitely is striving for realism.
So it is definitely realistic that animals and monsters will have taken some or all of your stuff.
If it was all of it, that sucks. I wouldn't even deny that it might have been a bug, I usually was able to recover something at least, IIRC.
But with the limited playtime, I question what valuable thing you could have possibly lost that couldn't be re-made in an hour or two. I doubt you had metal yet, which does take ages to produce.

Losing your base in Vintage Story sucks (and is practically impossible), but a single expedition's gear? Meh.

Quoting: EhvisNo, that's just about making you work again for hours and hours to get it back.

You lost something due to your own mistakes (by venturing out further than was safe, which always comes with a risk).
You now expect to be handed it back for free instead of having to create what you lost again and are clamoring on about "fairness".

Let me tell you a story:
I died to the last boss in Valheim once. Lost gear that easily took dozens of hours to get. It would have been possible to recover it - but there was still the boss to deal with in order to get to it. And I'd need the gear I lost in order to beat the boss.

It was my fault. I made a mistake. I was not prepared well enough.
Tough shit.
But I never once claimed that it was unfair or that it was the game's fault that I had to re-do what I did before. The game made the rules clear from the get-go (and other times that I got wasted and had to recover my stuff).

Quoting: EhvisNo thanks, I'll pass.

Fair enough. Not every game is for everyone and that's great.
But don't talk crap about a game, just because you cannot handle it and don't take responsibility for your own mistakes.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 11 January 2022 at 2:34 pm UTC

The game is designed to be hardcore, a bit like the roguelike games of old, where you learn by playing, and not everything is in tutorials. Having grown on Rogue and Nethack, I feel right at home in there and I actually enjoy the learning process. There are also a large number of video guides on YouTube for everything, and there's a #gameplay channel on the official Discord where we will happily answer all your questions. There are also many semi-public servers where the communities are fantastic, my favorite is Aura Fury. The players already established on there will happily help you if you ask for it. There's almost always people on the AF discord voice channels that will happily answer any questions if you prefer live conversations.

I have to say it again, for each major update, Vintage Story is probably the best "Minecraft-like" currenttly playable, and better as it’s not a clone but a true game on its own.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPThe second thing you describe is a temporal storm. Those happen every few days.

It does not only happen every few days IT ALSO HAPPENS FOR DAYS. For that time I should sit in my hut/shack/dirt hole?
Twiggling Thumbs and do nothing? Vintage Story is a good game, except this "temporal storm" bullshit! This has no use in the game then just to annoy you. Bring on some "real" stuff and not such "oh I need some shit to annoy the shit out of people" stuff.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPInstall mods for this and for that

Sounds like a lot of mimimimimimimimi to me too.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPWait, did you expect a survival game that strives for realism

Nothing against realism, other games have a lot more then vintage story. But some mechanics are just there to slow you down (crafting) or broken(temporal storm), and have nothing to do with realism.

Quoting: ChronariusIt does not only happen every few days IT ALSO HAPPENS FOR DAYS. For that time I should sit in my hut/shack/dirt hole?

That sounds more like a bug than anything else. In my 60+ (?) hours of playing the game, the longest one I had was of the strongest category and took about half a day at max. I'd say they usually last only a few hours (in-game).

From the wiki itself:

QuoteThe duration of temporal storms will increase in time, by default it can last between 2.4h and 4.8h maximum. The differentiation between light, medium or heavy temporal storms does not influence the duration, but rather the feeling of the storm, meaning specifically the visual and audio aspects of this mechanic.

If a multi-day one happened to you, you were either playing on a server with messed up settings or as I said, a bug.
Both of which would suck, of course.

Quoting: ChronariusSounds like a lot of mimimimimimimimi to me too.

If installing mods sounds like whining to you, I feel bad for you as some of the best experiences in gaming are unlocked only with mods fine-tuning the experience to your liking.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 13 January 2022 at 3:02 pm UTC