Day 1 and the fire pit "recipe".

[Gazz]

When I started playing, I just jumped in. Did not even glance at any guides. What's the worst that could happen, right?

A lot of the game can indeed be figured out with some effort and ingame means.
One thing can not and that is the fire pit.

I looked through all the logs, sticks, wood types I had but found no hint on how to create something like a campfire.
I had found "firewood" in the ingame handbook. That sounded important but again - it wasn't helpful.
I tried using/placing/crouching... nothing worked with any kind of wood.

Using out-of-game means I much later saw that to start creating the fire pit you need an item that you will not have unless you use a specific tool and use it to cut grass for no particular reason.

That's 2 long shots to even get the right item you need and then even then it (the grass) does not even give you a hint on what's likely it's most important use.

I suggest to... change that.
Initiate the fire pit creation with sticks instead of grass and put a hint on the item description of the sticks.
As long as this process starts with some kind of wood this would be a lot easier to figure out.

Edited March 13, 2020 by Gazz

[Kaelty]

Hey Gazz!

The moment you started your first game there was a nice little window sending you here because some things are a bit hard to figure out and the ingame help isn't fleshed out yet.

As for your suggestion to change the firepit creation...

Vintage Storys main charmpoint is realism (well as much realism as you will get in a world made out of blocks with temporal storms and creepy things that wanny eat you at night and in caves)

As such, the pitfire is allready dumbed down a bit as you don't need to make a hole and line it with stones to avoid the fire spreading and once it's placed you can restart it without new kindle and without feeding some sticks before you can go to firewood. But starting a fire right from sticks and with no firestarter like a torch or some petrol is just about impossible, you need that kindle. And thats why you need dry grass. I can see future gamemodes called "realistic survival" where firewood and gras actually needs to be "dry" before you can use it.

Ohh and just saying, rubbing two sticks together till they burn? that hardly ever works and when it does it takes literally tens of minutes nonstop rubbing. And even then the fire will simply go out without kindling

So yeah, Vintage story is not beginner friendly, and even less for those who ignore the beginner guide, but it's intended to be that hard. So if you don't wanna read any guides or outside help thats totally fine, but you gotta accept that there are some things you simply won't know about.

Just a little heads up, you should start reading the beginners guide if you want to advance to the copper age anytime soon as getting copper ore (or any kind of ore really) is far harder than making a pitfire.

And for the closing words, I ain't talking down on you, i totally respect your way of playing and i do think that it would be fun in a way. It's just that changing a game mechanic thats in the game for a long time and that has proven to be good for most of the community probably won't happen, and I simply tried to give you the reasons. Might be my choice of words wasn't the nicest, but i prefer beeing honest and direct over handling people with silkgloves.

I hope this answer will help or at least not ruffle your jimmies in a bad way, wish you a lot of fun with the game and feel free to ask questions if you have any!

Edited March 13, 2020 by Kaelty
making text more fluid