What is, in your opinion, the least utilized mechanic in the game? And your most favorite?

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I'm curious. Please read the two questions and answer as truthfully as you can.

Edited October 16, 2025 by Teh Pizza Lady

[Teh Pizza Lady]

Also, my least utilized mechanic in the game is mining up those decorative blocks. I enjoy picking away at the blocks, but I don't tend to do a lot of chiseling, because when I do it's more for architectural things and less artistic. Finer details are not my thing when it comes to sculpting with voxels.

As a hunter, my most favorite is animal husbandry because it makes gathering the meat for pizza toppings SO much easier!

[Echo Weaver]

I answered Trading for least-utilized, but I do sometimes trade. It's just frustrating because most traders are far away, and you don't know exactly what they're buying and selling. I'd like to trade a lot more than I do.

I answered animal husbandry for favorite, but if cooking had been there, I'd've probably picked that.

[Zane Mordien]

I have never even bothered with alcohol brewing. Guess I should one day just to check it off the list.

[Never Jhonsen]

The massive amount of clutter that's completely useless. So many of those blocks could have function to them.

Like, going through the effort to reglue them just for decoration is useless to me, I'd rather just destroy them to clear the area out. 

[Echo Weaver]

4 minutes ago, Never Jhonsen said:

Like, going through the effort to reglue them just for decoration is useless to me, I'd rather just destroy them to clear the area out. 

I agree. I turn off the glue setting. It would make perfect sense if I were retrieving something useful, but not for beds that don't bed and tables that don't table.

[Kaldo]

Aww, of all the options you missed my go-to complaint: building. In a world with packed and rammed dirt there is no practical reason to use anything else, ever. Advanced building materials, while pretty, are not only pretty expensive and tedious to make but can also in addition to that be flammable or break when deconstructed. It's just one con after the other!

Wish we had practical functional reasons to build better houses with proper roofs. Considering how detailed and complex the game is in other areas I'm always surprised this part is not talked about more often.

I am also just now realizing how much the mods affect my perception of the game. Many of these options are kinda shallow in vanilla game, but with mods like toolsmith, butchery, golden combs, it's a whole new experience and it's difficult to think of the game without them nowadays.

edit: I might have misunderstood the assignment, the title makes it seem like the question is which mechanic the game is underutilizing, but the poll title seems to ask what I used the least. oh well ^^

Edited September 30, 2025 by Kaldo

[LadyWYT]

Tough choice, as I both utilize all of these to some extent(how heavily depends on circumstances) and I also enjoy them all as well. I will also note that you forgot hunting on there, technically, but I suppose that fits under foraging.  In any case, on to the explanations!

Under-used:

Trading. It's not that I don't trade, because I do--it's typically where I get my salt. It's just that generally, traders aren't selling anything I particularly want, outside of salt or the odd decorative item or two. As for rusty gears, sure, sometimes I just sell stuff to the traders to earn them, but usually I'm putting my efforts to work elsewhere, and just saving the ones I find as treasure from ruins and monsters(there's plenty).

Favorite:

Combat is probably what I would pick overall, which is a bit of a paradox since combat is also something I generally avoid. However, I think that's also part of why I enjoy it--there's actually a reason to be picky about when and why I engage. Otherwise, the boss fights are very satisfying, and it's very satisfying to make all that shiny end game gear and then finally bring the pain to the monsters, instead of the other way around. The fact that you can make the monsters fight each other, or try to flee from your onslaught, is just the icing on the cake.

Likewise, the monsters are balanced so that I can't just go unga-bunga with the bare minimum of equipment and expect to come out on top, like I can with the other block game. That's a quick way to get shredded, and the same general logic applies even with good equipment. Get complacent, and you will probably die.

Edited September 30, 2025 by LadyWYT
grammar

[Steel General]

I have never panned nor chiseled. I am closer to someday panning - the stories of nugget availability sometimes tempt me just before I find that fortieth copper nugget on the surface.

My favorite has to be juggling all the mechanics, using each as needed to reach goals. I want more mechanics so that I must navigate a richer option-field - optimization is fun but unnecessary.

[Never Jhonsen]

29 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Likewise, the monsters are balanced so that I can't just go unga-bunga with the bare minimum of equipment and expect to come out on top, like I can with the other block game. That's a quick way to get shredded, and the same general logic applies even with good equipment. Get complacent, and you will probably die.

This is a feature I love about the game There are many things out there that will humble you, both Eldritch and Natural

[Echo Weaver]

25 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Tough choice, as I both utilize all of these to some extent(how heavily depends on circumstances) and I also enjoy them all as well. I will also note that you forgot hunting on there, technically, but I suppose that fits under foraging.

Yeah, I did think that. It was hard to pick something I didn't use/like because I either do all those things or plan to (e.g. I haven't made alcohol, but while wine isn't really useful, eventually you get to stuff useful for bandages). I like the multi-step creation like leatherworking and cheese, and I've installed a mod to buff cheese because I want more reason to make it.

I do think hunting should be separate from foraging, though. I prefer animal husbandry to hunting, but I enjoy discovering useful stuff in the landscape as I explore.

10 minutes ago, Steel General said:

I have never panned nor chiseled. I am closer to someday panning - the stories of nugget availability sometimes tempt me just before I find that fortieth copper nugget on the surface.

My favorite has to be juggling all the mechanics, using each as needed to reach goals. I want more mechanics so that I must navigate a richer option-field - optimization is fun but unnecessary.

I see so much stuff from frustrated newbies on the forum about how much panning they're doing and how boring it is. Seriously, you don't want to rely on panning as a primary source of anything. I harvest bony soil where I can find it and store it up to pan in the winter, looking for lore books. You get the occasional gear, but not enough to make it worthwhile as a major source. (And, of course, SO MANY BONES. I installed Bones bones and bones so I could do something with them.) Panning sand seems to be the only way to get clear quartz chunks if you want windows in your house before you can mine and build bloomeries for glass, which is relevant to the game I'm currently playing where I'm staying in the stone age for a game-year.

Otherwise, I only see value in panning when I have picked up all the surface copper I can find and need like 3 more. I view panning as a way to deal with a shortage in your landscape, not a primary mechanic.

[LadyWYT]

51 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

I see so much stuff from frustrated newbies on the forum about how much panning they're doing and how boring it is. Seriously, you don't want to rely on panning as a primary source of anything.

This was me when I first started playing, frustration included. However, the tedium is the trade-off for having a method that safe, which is quite fair in my opinion. Eventually, I got better at the game to be more confident about venturing out for surface deposits.

 

53 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Panning sand seems to be the only way to get clear quartz chunks if you want windows in your house before you can mine and build bloomeries for glass, which is relevant to the game I'm currently playing where I'm staying in the stone age for a game-year.

Yes and no. Panning is a decent way to get them, along with other goodies, but if there is a deposit of quartz near the surface it's also just as easy to pick up the surface bits and get some clear quartz that way.

[Veronica Hohenheim]

2 hours ago, Kaldo said:

Aww, of all the options you missed my go-to complaint: building. In a world with packed and rammed dirt there is no practical reason to use anything else, ever. Advanced building materials, while pretty, are not only pretty expensive and tedious to make but can also in addition to that be flammable or break when deconstructed. It's just one con after the other!

Wish we had practical functional reasons to build better houses with proper roofs. Considering how detailed and complex the game is in other areas I'm always surprised this part is not talked about more often.

I am also just now realizing how much the mods affect my perception of the game. Many of these options are kinda shallow in vanilla game, but with mods like toolsmith, butchery, golden combs, it's a whole new experience and it's difficult to think of the game without them nowadays.

edit: I might have misunderstood the assignment, the title makes it seem like the question is which mechanic the game is underutilizing, but the poll title seems to ask what I used the least. oh well ^^

I realy would like to see a more realistic temprature system where blocks and way u set them matters.There is real life fridges with no electricity or cooling solutions for a house again without electricity.They wont work as in the current game and its barely there with crops,u taking damage in cold,rooms being warmer and cellars.Maybe its not on their vision idk but I would like to see a mod for this.

[Calecute]

Surprised so many people don't trade, I find it quite useful, traded for most of the resin I used, for a temporal gear to spawn at base, and some odds and ends here and there. I haven't boght them yet, but the decorated storage vessels also seem really nice. Think it might be better for early game copper too? Panning is really boring, will see if i can try to skip panning by managing some trades my next start. Maybe you can even skip bronze all toguether, just buy enough nuggets for a pick and pro pick and go straight to minning iron? Althou now thinking about it you also need at least enough for a anvil too.

Alcohool brewing is basically a subset of preserving food i think, it's mostly just worth it if you got tons of fruit. At least fermenting. Distilling got some healing use and it's a little more involved, i haven't tried it.

[LadyWYT]

21 minutes ago, Calecute said:

Panning is really boring, will see if i can try to skip panning by managing some trades my next start.

Should be possible, though a pure trade strategy will hinge on access to survival goods and commodities traders, as those seem to offer raw materials specifically.

[Echo Weaver]

36 minutes ago, Calecute said:

Surprised so many people don't trade, I find it quite useful, traded for most of the resin I used, for a temporal gear to spawn at base, and some odds and ends here and there. I haven't boght them yet, but the decorated storage vessels also seem really nice. Think it might be better for early game copper too? Panning is really boring, will see if i can try to skip panning by managing some trades my next start. Maybe you can even skip bronze all toguether, just buy enough nuggets for a pick and pro pick and go straight to minning iron? Althou now thinking about it you also need at least enough for a anvil too.

Yeah, actually, I probably voted wrong. I love to trade IN THEORY. In practice, I can really only trade with the 2-3 closest traders to my base. If it takes me a day to get to the trader, and they don't have the trade I want, I just wasted my day. 

Someone modded a way to "call" traders to check their trades before you leave. It seems anti-immersion, but maybe it's a good idea to try it.

[Echo Weaver]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Yes and no. Panning is a decent way to get them, along with other goodies, but if there is a deposit of quartz near the surface it's also just as easy to pick up the surface bits and get some clear quartz that way.

Oh, you can get clear quarts from surface quarts? I don't think I've seen any, but I don't tend to pick up surface quartz. I just mark it on the map for sometime when I might need it. I'll have to start actually checking.

[Lollard]

I have never used glue to fix ruins. I don't even know if the stuff is functional once repaired, like beds and ruined lanterns.

[LadyWYT]

9 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Oh, you can get clear quarts from surface quarts? I don't think I've seen any, but I don't tend to pick up surface quartz. I just mark it on the map for sometime when I might need it. I'll have to start actually checking.

You can, it's just a more uncommon drop compared to regular quartz. You might have to pick up several pieces in order to get a couple pieces of clear quartz.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

I ran out of reactions, but I am reading all your replies and I love the discussion!

[Echo Weaver]

39 minutes ago, Echo Weaver said:

Oh, you can get clear quarts from surface quarts?

I can't believe I spelled it like this not once but twice. Clearly I meant the unit of measurement. Quarts of quartz?

Edited September 30, 2025 by Echo Weaver

[Vratislav]

My least utilized mechanic (i know about) is cheese making. I have never get to milking goats, so I did not have an opportunity to make cheese at all during 500+ hours of gameplay.

My most favourite mechanic is chiseling.

Edited September 30, 2025 by Vratislav

[Never Jhonsen]

11 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

I have never get to milking goats, so I did not have an opportunity to make cheese at all during 500+ hours of gameplay.

I've got an couple thousand hours in with this game, and I have never had cheese either. Dairy's one of those foods I haven't delved into yet. The only driving force to get to dairy is "I made Cheese!" and a tiny extra bit of health, both things I've not cared enough to tackle.

If there was more reason to make cheese, then I'll do it, but for now I have other things I'd rather do

Edited September 30, 2025 by Never Jhonsen

[Zane Mordien]

I tried to make cheese one time as well, but got bored with it.

[LadyWYT]

15 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

My least utilized mechanic (i know about) is cheese making. I have never get to milking goats, so I did not have an opportunity to make cheese at all during 500+ hours of gameplay.

 

3 minutes ago, Never Jhonsen said:

I've got an couple thousand hours in with this game, and I have never had cheese either. Dairy's one of those foods I haven't delved into yet. The only driving force to get to dairy is "I made Cheese!" and a tiny extra bit of health, both things I've not cared enough to tackle.

If there was more reason to make cheese, then I'll do it, but for now I have other things I'd rather do

I've made cheese a few times, but usually by the time I'm acquiring dairy in any reasonable amount in a world I'm dropping the old world in favor of starting over fresh for an update or new modlist. For just building the initial dairy nutrition, I think drinking milk is the best way to build up the points. From there, it's just a matter of eating the occasional slice of cheese or so to maintain it. 

Cheese is definitely something that could be a more appealing trade item though. Currently, only the agriculture trader offers it for sale, and even then only on occasion(and it's expensive). Make cheese available at a cheaper price though, and available at survival good and commodities traders, and now the player has a feasible source of early dairy nutrition until they can acquire proper dairy livestock themselves. Or in the event the player doesn't want livestock at all, they have a viable way of obtaining and maintaining dairy nutrition.