(By Default) Hunger is too oppressive

[Ezekiel Rauch]

To preface, I understand you can tweak difficulty options. This is not a qualm which involves that.

In survival and other "realistic" difficulty options, you can easily starve within a day if you don't find a surplus of food.
However, as is prevalent in speculative research, the human body can survive upwards of 3 months without any food. The difficulty present does not seem to be at all based in realism and rather the sake of artificially inflating the difficulty.

Additionally, most biomes and entire regions can feel unusually scarce of food, and even when you find food it is too undeveloped to be considered edible or provides so little nutrition it could not stave you over for more than 30 seconds.

As a thought experiment, I'd like to go through the existing plants in the game and analyze their real world edibility compared to how useful they are in-game:

• Bamboo Shoots --- Edible in real life --- Edible in game --- 
• Fern Sprouts --- Edible in real life --- Not present in game --- 
• Inner Bark --- Edible in real life --- Not present in game --- 
• Leaves --- Edible in real life --- Non-obtainable in game --- 
• Seeds --- Edible in real life --- Mostly non-edible in game --- 
• Fruits --- Edible in real life --- Partially-edible in game --- 
• Mushrooms --- Edible in real life --- Edible in game --- 
• Cactus --- Partially-edible in real life --- Barely-edible in game --- 
• Water Lily Root --- Edible in real life --- Not present in game --- 
• Croton Plant --- Non-edible in real life --- Non-edible in game --- 
• Berry Bushes --- Edible in real life --- Partially-edible in game --- 
• Pumpkin --- Edible in real life --- Edible in game --- 
• Pineapple --- Edible in real life --- Edible in game --- 
• Flowers --- Half-way edible in real life --- Non-edible in game --- 
• Herbs --- Edible in real life --- Non-obtainable in game --- 

Could be better, especially considering as almost all of the edible things in game are unreasonably hard to come across.

I don't think I've actually encountered a fruit tree or pumpkin or pineapple in game before. And not only that, but any edibles like crops are spawned in such miniscule groups of 2-4 that you can not glean so much as a snack out of them. The separation between seeds and crop is very unrealistic too. The entire concept of 'grain' is the seeds of a grass-like plant, and yet the grain and the seeds are two entirely separate items. Same thing with vegetables and fruit. You can't even plant new berry bushes with berries, or fruit trees with fruit.

Humans survived for 2.5 million years in traveling family units and living for upwards of 60-70 years without so much as a dream of fire or armor or clothing. Life was easy and comfortable, and most peoples only had to seriously look around for food for maybe an hour or two each day.

---

Now, its okay to want difficulty in a game, and many aspects of Vintage Story lend itself to having many ways to do a few things. However, toting a difficulty as realistic and then making food one of the least prevalent materials imaginable is simply laughable. The struggle should not at all be found in the simple act of finding something to eat, but finding enough to eat to have spare time to mine ores and smith and build homes and armor and go questing into ancient ruins.

Perhaps instead of having raw ingredients give you saturation worthy of tears, it would instead wear away at your sanity to eat unprepared foods... bring you closer to the primal and insane. If you want to be above this dark change, or perhaps maintain your mind while exploring the evils of the depths, you would need more refined food sources.

---

Now, back to the game old argument to just tweak settings. Yes, while you can reduce the hunger rate, you cannot increase the amount of naturally occurring food sources. You will still only find 3 carrot plants, with only 1 one of them at most being matured. There is no way to increase this. And as stated before, despite the theoretical abundance of real life edible plants, you will not be able to so much as lick them.

I hope this is seriously changed. Starvation is- unusually- a key aspects of most survival games, but if one were to observe nativist tribes they would find food to be so abundant that it would become a conscious effort to restrict ones over-usage of it.

[Facethief]

The point of having so few forageables is to encourage establishing a farm/other source of food. Also, berries are easily common enough to live off of if rain is common or higher.

21 hours ago, Ezekiel Rauch said:

The entire concept of 'grain' is the seeds of a grass-like plant, and yet the grain and the seeds are two entirely separate items.

This is mostly so that you can plant fields without accidentally eating your food, as rmb is eat and place for seeds.

[Enjen]

In my current playthrough (it's my longest and has only been about 10 in game days) I have found more food than I even know what to do with! Granted it's mostly meat, mushrooms and berries and possibly just a really good spawn. Crops are quite sparse. 

This is not to say I don't agree with you! I think having more variety or uses for the otherwise purely decorative plants would be really cool!

22 hours ago, Ezekiel Rauch said:

The entire concept of 'grain' is the seeds of a grass-like plant, and yet the grain and the seeds are two entirely separate items. Same thing with vegetables and fruit. You can't even plant new berry bushes with berries, or fruit trees with fruit.

This part confused me as well. They should be the same. Grain is the seed that is also edible when used in cooking. Vegetables and Fruits (most of the time) or the seed you use to plant, of course with a bit of processing like maybe using your knife to cut out the seed from a peach or something.

I'm looking forward to seeing some other responses!

EDIT: Also Welcome to the forum! 

Edited July 1, 2025 by Enjen

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I would classify most of the foods in your list as "emergency" foods... something you would only consume if you're about to starve. There is also one item you missed which is the Cattail root. It can be cooked over a fire and eaten. The point of these being emergency foods is that you are supposed to seek out better, renewable food sources. The wildlife that you cannot breed only drops bush meat which cannot be cooked except over an open fire and provides very little sustenance. My friends and I joke that it tastes like "not starving".

Animals that you can breed produce far better foods. Pigs drop Red Meat, chickens lay eggs and drop chicken and feathers when culled. Similarly, plants that you can cultivate produce better foods, grains produce bread and fibers which can be turned into clothing and sails for boats and windmills. The game all but *requires* you to farm in order to survive, which is why I am baffled by the recent uptick of posts suggesting that farming somehow be made *more* difficult than it already is... baffling. The hunger is oppressive, but perhaps it is a side effect of just being who the player is.

[Lollard]

Disagree, I always find boons of berries, cattails and mushrooms in the default early game with minimal effort. Pigs and chickens are also common sights and easy to take on. Just don't head into deserts if you're empty on food, look for forests and lakes to stock up on first.

[Zane Mordien]

There are the occasional cursed seeds where it's hard to find food, but 19 out of 20 times I have no issues finding plenty of emergency food until I can make a pot and get better food.

On 6/30/2025 at 4:51 PM, Ezekiel Rauch said:

I don't think I've actually encountered a fruit tree or pumpkin or pineapple in game before. And not only that, but any edibles like crops are spawned in such miniscule groups of 2-4 that you can not glean so much as a snack out of them. 

Fruit trees don't produce fruit year 0, which is sort of annoying. Pumpkin's don't grow wild and Pineapples are in the tropics or sub-tropics, but they do exist. There are crops everywhere.. UNLESS you spawned in a 'desert' or a place it rains all the time. It just takes time to learn how to spot the wild crops. Once you get into the hang of it you will see them everywhere and 2-4 at a time adds up to enough to cook a few meals while you wait for the garden to grow.

[Crylum]

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The entire concept of 'grain' is the seeds of a grass-like plant, and yet the grain and the seeds are two entirely separate items.

@Facethief I have to agree, that inital I also found that a bit odd. It is unrealistic? Yes. Does is makes sense from a game development stand point to differentiated between seed and grain/crop? Yes! Let take Minecraft as an example, harvesting wheat will also give you seeds and grain. Same mechanic. I get that Vintage Story want to be are realistic as it can be but you have to draw the line somewhere, like the character never has to use the toilete, gets a cold, or if you die you wake up at the spawn, you get the picture.

In regards to the seed topic, maybe the dev or some modders could add an option to disable seed, but you will need to slightly increase the amout of crop yield. Then you directly use the plants to replant (which is unrealistic as you cannot do that with all crops in real life). Or after you harvested the crops you need to convert the crop to seed via some process and than you can replant.

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The hunger is oppressive

I believe it depends, yes if you get unlucky with the spawn, you will have a hard time. It happened to me the second time when I was still new in the game, and yes it sucks. Every berry, I got was a lot of work and pure pain... And I loved it. Vintage Story did something, what Minecraft did not, putting the player into constant danger. Night pitch black. No clue what to do. The fear (of starving) and knowing that the one turnip you just found, will only buy you time to find the next, is a feature drives me forward (and game design decision). At some point, I definitly overcome it, well at least until the winter knocks on me door.

In the end, I assume that the dev just decided to just reuse code for all farming plants (give the player both seeds and grains/crops). I believe it is possible to implement separate methodes of planting (grains and onions can be planted directly) and the other need to be turned into seeds. This would than also mean you have to maintain and test two separate pieces of code, doing simular things. But hey, maybe they will add it someday?

Edited July 1, 2025 by Crylum

[LadyWYT]

On 6/30/2025 at 3:51 PM, Ezekiel Rauch said:

I don't think I've actually encountered a fruit tree or pumpkin or pineapple in game before.

Welcome to the forums! Fruit trees are actually pretty common, provided you're not in the arctic. They can, however, be a little hard to spot in the summer(and fall of the first year) since most look similar to birch trees. The way to tell them apart from other trees, aside from having bare/flowering/fruited branches sometimes, is that they have smaller trunks, smaller overall size, and tend to be a brighter shade of green. Once you learn what to look for, they become a lot easier to spot, though I will note that they only bear fruit in the appropriate season beginning year 1.

Pumpkins and cabbages are currently only available from seed. Seeds can sometimes be found in cracked vessels, and I think purchased from agriculture traders, although I'm not entirely sure on this last one.

Pineapples are only found in the tropical regions. Unless you set your world spawn to the tropics, you'll need to make the trek south and explore a jungle in order to find them. Do note that traveling that far south will take several days on default settings!

On 6/30/2025 at 3:51 PM, Ezekiel Rauch said:

You can't even plant new berry bushes with berries, or fruit trees with fruit.

I wouldn't be surprised if berry bushes get changed sometime in the future. As for fruit trees, you can propagate those via cuttings, though said cuttings only have a 40% survival rate(less if you're trying to graft to a pre-existing tree).

 

On 6/30/2025 at 3:51 PM, Ezekiel Rauch said:

Yes, while you can reduce the hunger rate, you cannot increase the amount of naturally occurring food sources. You will still only find 3 carrot plants, with only 1 one of them at most being matured. There is no way to increase this.

Edibles spawns are tied to regional climate, I believe. Regions that are warmer and get plenty of rain are more likely to have more berry bushes, fruit trees, and other crops. Deserts will have very few, if any, edibles around at all. Mushrooms seem to spawn en masse in very wet chunks. There are some maps I've had that I basically lived in a wild grocery store, and there were other maps where I had to really trek in order to find any edible plants(aside from cattails, which I avoid eating).

There are a couple of mods I'd recommend checking out though. Wildcraft: Fruits and Nuts will add a plethora of plants to forage to your heart's delight--I play with it frequently myself. Ancient Tools will add edible barks like birch, pine, and maple. There's also a mod someone made for more realistic starvation, though I don't know if it works with the current version of the game or not(turns out there's a fork). I know that I tried it once upon a time, as it sounded interesting, but in my experience it made hunger pretty much irrelevant. I'll also note that it doesn't play nicely with other mods that add foodstuffs or otherwise alter anything regarding hunger, so it's pretty much a mod you use almost by itself.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/wildcraftfruit

https://mods.vintagestory.at/ancienttools

https://mods.vintagestory.at/realisticstarvationfixed

8 hours ago, traugdor said:

The hunger is oppressive, but perhaps it is a side effect of just being who the player is.

Yes, hello, Blackguard here...and I would disagree that hunger is oppressive. Sort of. Personally, I've never had issues with it, unless I got one of those maps where just none of the usual edibles are to be found anywhere near spawn. However, that's also where I would agree, that whether or not hunger is a real problem depends on the player in question. Some might struggle to stay fed, or otherwise find it a hassle to deal with, and then you have others that will crank it as high as it will go and not even break a sweat.

For the average player, I would guess that the default hunger rate is just enough to keep them occupied managing their food supply, without actually being overwhelming.

7 hours ago, Crylum said:

@Facethief I have to agree, that inital I also found that a bit odd. It is unrealistic? Yes. Does is makes sense from a game development stand point to differentiated between seed and grain/crop? Yes! Let take Minecraft as an example, harvesting wheat will also give you seeds and grain. Same mechanic.

An excellent example! 

 

7 hours ago, Crylum said:

I get that Vintage Story want to be are realistic as it can be but you have to draw the line somewhere, like the character never has to use the toilete, gets a cold,

There's uh...believe it or not, there's actually a toilet mod. There's one for diseases too, but it's the toilet mod that really makes me giggle every time it surfaces on the mod database. 

 

8 hours ago, traugdor said:

The wildlife that you cannot breed only drops bush meat

Not all wildlife...just the predators. To my knowledge, rabbits and deer cannot be bred like the standard farmstock, but will drop redmeat when slain. As for goats, they also drop redmeat, but they're similar to sheep in that the player can actually domesticate them for dairy products.

[Crylum]

Quote

[...] the character never has to use the toilete[...]

[...] there's actually (is) a toilet mod [...]

@LadyWYT In the first moment I though, you are "shitting" me. But 30s of google search resulted in: https://mods.vintagestory.at/naturescall and https://mods.vintagestory.at/scatatastrophe Sigh… the Internet is a weird place.

@Facethief So, I take my argument back, as evidently you can technically follow natures call. Also, I had another look at my Minecraft example:

• Give you seed upon harvest: wheat, beetroot
• Seeds need to be extracted: melon, pumpkin
• Can use the crop to replant: mushrooms, berries, carrot, potatp, warts, cocoa beans, sugar cane, bamboo, cactus, seaweed
• Can be propagated using bone meal/ fertilizer: flowers

*my list may not be complete as I did not check the latest versions

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The entire concept of 'grain' is the seeds of a grass-like plant, and yet the grain and the seeds are two entirely separate items.

@Facethief Anyway, it seems that I was only partially right (at least for the grains).

Quote

This would than also mean you have to maintain and test two separate pieces of code, doing simular things. But hey, maybe they will add it someday?

If Minecraft has three separate farming mechanics is may not be as difficult to implement/maintain as I initially though. 

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In the end, I assume that the dev just decided to just reuse code for all farming plants (give the player both seeds and grains/crops)

@Facethief Maybe we could add a list of all the crop in Vintage Story here and figure out in which of the three category is belong (or maybe there are more). 

Edited July 9, 2025 by Crylum

[Vratislav]

14 hours ago, traugdor said:

I would classify most of the foods in your list as "emergency" foods... something you would only consume if you're about to starve.

Then they may fill the saturation only to the one third of the bar, have zero timer to keep the satiety and do not provide any hitpoint bonus like bamboo   (I don't play flora mods, so I don't know if such mechanic is implemented somewhere...)

 

Edited July 2, 2025 by Vratislav

[Facethief]

@Crylum I think that most grains could logically be made self-plantable, although there would be an exponential amount of seeds available. Crops such as carrots, turnips, and parsnips would certainly be replantable in minecraft, but IRL they go to seed. Onions and maybe cassava would be replantable, and pumpkins would be able to be crafted into seeds. Pineapples would also probably be craftable into seeds, but as a byproduct of slicing them. I think that’s everything.

[Crylum]

@Ezekiel Rauch I think the dev, where wise to just stick with the "give player crop and seed" mechanic, as there are a lot of propagation types out there.

Quote

In the end, I assume that the dev just decided to just reuse code for all farming plants [...]

.@Facethief Thanks for your input. I have compiled a list of the (wild) crop and other plant base option, sorted by real live propagation methode (may include errors, please review)

@Ezekiel Rauch I also added the plant you mentioned in your initial post

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Farming crops

Crop = Seed, can be replant directly:

• Grains:Flax, Spelt, Rice, Rye, Amaranth and Sunflower 
• Onion
• Soybean
• Peanut

Crop ≠ Seed, crop produces its own seed:

• Turnip 
• Parsnip
• Carrot  
• Soybean
• Pumpkin
• Bell Pepper 

Special cases: could technically be placed in the Crop = Seed

• Cassava (stem cutting)
• Bell Pepper (stem cutting)
• Pineapple (using suckers, slipsor the crown of the fruit.)
• Cabbage (Using the rooting the base of a harvested head)

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wild crops > Roots (shoots to grill and I'm ready to kill)

Special cases: seed dispersal and rhizome division

• Cattail
• Papyrus
• Bambus
• Tule

Note: Cannot be propagated in game!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Wild crops > Mushrooms 

Special cases: through spores

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Trees (fruits):

Crop ≠ Seed, tree product seed

Special cases: it seems that most fruit tree are propagated by grafting

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Berry Bushes

Special cases: cuttings and self division

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Flowers

Special cases: via seeds, cuttings, division, runners/stolons

Note: Cannot be propagated in game!

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Other (mentioned by @Ezekiel Rauch)

Edible in real life, not in game or not obtainable

• Fern Sprouts (via spores)
• Inner Bark (non-renewable, need to plant tree > @Ezekiel Rauch can you eat from all tree or only specific once? Only certain once, right?)
• Leaves (non-renewable, only certain once, right?))
• Cactus (artially-edible in real life)
• Water Lily Root (division of rhizomes)
• Flowers (only Half-way)
• Herbs (could be used in cooking or medicin(Bandages) or other new heal mechanics/ status effect, if they get added)
• Seeds (not sure if it would make sense to eat you seed, if you want to build a farm. But as emergency food, sure.)

 

 

Edited July 2, 2025 by Crylum
remove bad image links

[Zane Mordien]

1 hour ago, Crylum said:

Wild crops > Roots (shoots to grill and I'm ready to kill)

Special cases: seed dispersal and rhizome division

• Cattail
• Papyrus
• Bambus
• Tule

Note: You cannot propagate these in game, right?

Correct, you cannot harvest them and get seeds. 

[Crylum]

Quote

Correct, you cannot harvest them and get seeds. 

@Zane Mordien Thanks for confirming that! I have added your feedback my post.

[Omega Haxors]

Fun fact: The saturation value of foods is equal to its real life counterpart, and hunger drain is realistic to a human with the proportions of a seraphim.
If you're having issues with food, try not holding down the sprint key near constantly. You'll run through your calories way faster than necessary.

EDIT: Oh right and avoid that stupid 20% hunger debuff when holding something in your offhand... hate that. Makes zero friggin sense. You have this mathematically perfect system and then just ruin it by making overpowered overunity cooking pot to counteract the fact that holding an item in your left hand somehow tires you out super fast.

Edited July 4, 2025 by Omega Haxors

[Crylum]

Quote

Oh right and avoid that stupid 20% hunger debuff when holding something in your offhand... hate that

At the beginning I was always wonder why my guy was consuming food like a black hole. It took me a bit to figure out by myself. The game clearly states it in you character menu, but new player are simple unaware of it.

Once you know it, you can deal with it, but just imagine this in real life, you standing at the bus/train stop, you grap your phone to check the time and Boom! You lost 10 kg, two seconds later. You collapse, instant death caused by starvation.

(Of course it's not that bad in the game, I exaggerated a little)

Edited July 8, 2025 by Crylum

[Facethief]

1 hour ago, Crylum said:

Once you know it, you can deal with it, but just imagine this in real life, you standing at the bus/train stop, you grap your phone to check the time and Boom! You lost 10 kg, two seconds later. You collapse, instant death caused by starvation.

Weight loss drugs would go down the drain if you could just hold a rock in your hand all day and get the same results as a month of medication.

[majestik]

13 hours ago, Facethief said:

Weight loss drugs would go down the drain if you could just hold a rock in your hand all day and get the same results as a month of medication.

The trick that big pharma doesn't want you to know !

[Bumber]

The problem isn't so much finding food, as it is that only meals are filling. Cooking a bunch of red meat is bad. Cooking it into an all-meat stew is great, granting a multiplier on satiation and keeping you full for a short eternity. Cattail roots and bush meat aren't allowed to be used in meals, and thus can't benefit.

On 7/4/2025 at 7:07 AM, Omega Haxors said:

Oh right and avoid that stupid 20% hunger debuff when holding something in your offhand... hate that. Makes zero friggin sense. You have this mathematically perfect system and then just ruin it by making overpowered overunity cooking pot to counteract the fact that holding an item in your left hand somehow tires you out super fast.

And the hunger pause mechanic. What was the point of having a meter if it just mysteriously stops for an indeterminate amount of time after you eat a large meal? You have to eat your berries one at a time to take advantage of it, because it's not cumulative and resets the protection period.

Edited July 13, 2025 by Bumber

[Thorfinn]

3 hours ago, Bumber said:

The problem isn't so much finding food, as it is that only meals are filling. Cooking a bunch of red meat is bad. Cooking it into an all-meat stew is great, granting a multiplier on satiation and keeping you full for a short eternity. Cattail roots and bush meat aren't allowed to be used in meals, and thus can't benefit.

Yes, but...

...In the first day or two, you don't want that pause. Eating is what fills your bonus HP. Particularly in Wilderness (or worse) you want that off-hand "penalty", the "penalty" for healing, and avoid that "pause" at all costs. Only in lean starts like Snowball do you want to reduce the burn rate.

[Facethief]

32 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

.In the first day or two, you don't want that pause. Eating is what fills your bonus HP. Particularly in Wilderness (or worse) you want that off-hand "penalty", the "penalty" for healing, and avoid that "pause" at all costs. Only in lean starts like Snowball do you want to reduce the burn rate.

“Jonas hates him! See how this seraph boosts his health by 5 points in only one day!”

[Bumber]

14 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Yes, but...

...In the first day or two, you don't want that pause. Eating is what fills your bonus HP. Particularly in Wilderness (or worse) you want that off-hand "penalty", the "penalty" for healing, and avoid that "pause" at all costs. Only in lean starts like Snowball do you want to reduce the burn rate.

Personally, I never want the pause. It's extremely difficult to keep your nutrition categories maxed out because the rest all come from high satiation sources.

My current strategy after dying involves sprinting in heavy armor and using the bed a whole lot. I think taking damage might help too.

More concerning is that leaving the world and re-entering seems to work. Something's probably not working correctly under the hood there.

Edited July 14, 2025 by Bumber

[Thorfinn]

15 minutes ago, Bumber said:

It's extremely difficult to keep your nutrition categories maxed out because the rest all come from high satiation sources.

That is a choice. Turnip soup, water and a single turnip, for instance, gives you an almost negligible timeout. You get your (I think) 50% bonus for satiation, and a single 30 second timeout. Same with flaxseed porridge.

 

23 minutes ago, Bumber said:

Something's probably not working correctly under the hood there.

Yeah, there's a bug of some sort afoot, but I cannot reproduce it reliably.

[Bumber]

10 minutes ago, Thorfinn said:

That is a choice. Turnip soup, water and a single turnip, for instance, gives you an almost negligible timeout. You get your (I think) 50% bonus for satiation, and a single 30 second timeout. Same with flaxseed porridge.

What about meat and dairy? Maybe you can eat them while your satiation is almost full, due to how portions work?

[Lugh Crow-Slave]

One of the issues I have with this game is that food is trivial to manage without imposing some sort of extra challenge like starting far north. Past the first few days it becomes something you think about for a few minutes every couple of hours.