Dear Diary.....

[Emanuel My Lord]

Monday morning, woke up naked. Knapped a bunch of flint tools. Built a dirt house.

Monday noon, attacked by bear. Swam into deep water and poked it in the eye with a sharp stick till it died. Hard to believe I survived. Harvested every morsel and packed it all home. Spent the evening cooking a ENTIRE BEAR over a camp fire.

Tuesday morning, woke up a bit peckish. Ate a ENTIRE BEAR for breakfast. Decided to walk a kilometer to the trade wagon.

Tuesday noon. SO HUNGRY, organs starting to shutdown. Who would have thought a 2 kilometer walk would burn 20,000 calories. I thought the rule of threes said 

• You can survive three minutes without breathable air (unconsciousness), or in icy water.
• You can survive three hours in a harsh environment (extreme heat or cold). You need shelter!
• You can survive three days without drinkable water.
• You can survive three weeks without food. (However, many people have gone for over 40 days during fasting and have survived in favourable circumstances

Tuesday night, This is my last will and testament. I leave all my belongings to nature to turn back into soil. My only regret is not killing TWO MORE BEARS so I might have lived to Wednesday.

For real, I got this game because everyone raved about how realistic it is........ My dude got a space tapeworm? Annoying is not difficult.... 

[Vexxvididu]

It's true people have survived long periods without food, but many others have also starved much sooner than that.  There is a lot of variance and not a lot of good, controlled data on how long it actually takes on average to starve to death.  You do make some valid points though.

I think realism in the crafting (while still being fun) is a major selling point, but the food consumption is a bit strange... also know that having anything in the off hand is a 20% hunger increase.  ...which obviously is not totally reasonable.

[Emanuel My Lord]

Ahhh so the wood tongs I keep in my left hand have the tape worm. I will rectify that immediately thank you.

[Venusgate]

It's lauded as realistic *relative* to both survival games in general and Other Block Game.

You do have some fair points that are repeated within the community, but given how easy water is to find and carry in this game, hydration is very much a aesthetic choice, imo. No need to have realism in your survival *game* that doesn't add any challenge.

[Vexxvididu]

2 minutes ago, Venusgate said:

It's lauded as realistic *relative* to both survival games in general and Other Block Game.

You do have some fair points that are repeated within the community, but given how easy water is to find and carry in this game, hydration is very much a aesthetic choice, imo. No need to have realism in your survival *game* that doesn't add any challenge.

Yeah, there are much more realistic survival games out there, but Vintage Story is clearly a big improvement to realism over other block games, I agree with that.

I'll plug The Long Dark as a more realistic survival game, but note that it's not a block game and offers very minimal ability to build anything.

[Crabsoft]

Vintage Story doesn't really seem to go for realism and I really appreciate that. It focuses on being a game first and foremost. Realism is virtually never a good argument both because it relies on the knowledge/understanding of the author and because simulating reality is almost never the goal. In a realistic scenario, you're going to overwhelmed with resources and destroyed by time/specialization. Project Zomboid might be more to your liking, with many realistic things to manage like boredom and stress. Unreal World is good for forest-based survival. Boxing an elk is no easy task!

I do wish gamers could move on from words like "difficult" and "realistic" to describe games. They're virtually meaningless.

[TJ Pepler]

In game, I woke up and battled a wolf who was prowling around my dirt box, I cooked and ate the WHOLE WOLF and I was hungry a couple of hours later.

So I thought to myself NO WAY!  So I tried it in real life, and I could barely eat the whole wolf but, I was still full several hours later....

[Venusgate]

14 minutes ago, TJ Pepler said:

So I tried it in real life

Copper spear, or...?

[Emanuel My Lord]

16 minutes ago, Crabsoft said:

Vintage Story doesn't really seem to go for realism and I really appreciate that. It focuses on being a game first and foremost. Realism is virtually never a good argument both because it relies on the knowledge/understanding of the author and because simulating reality is almost never the goal. In a realistic scenario, you're going to overwhelmed with resources and destroyed by time/specialization. Project Zomboid might be more to your liking, with many realistic things to manage like boredom and stress. Unreal World is good for forest-based survival. Boxing an elk is no easy task!

I do wish gamers could move on from words like "difficult" and "realistic" to describe games. They're virtually meaningless.

I hate Isometric games. I am a born again viewist when it comes to games lol. I got tired of The Long Dark for this very reason. Killed a Moose and cooked it and was starving the next day. I do not understand why food drain has to be so stupendously high. So far, in Vintage Story, FOR ME, it has detracted from what has otherwise been a very enjoyable playthru, Make the large game harder to kill. Make the rewards for the kill much greater. But why does my guy need to have a space tapeworm? Raft would be another transgressor in this, eat a cat fish as long as you, then walk around a small island and go eat another catfish the length of you. It breaks any immersion in the game for me. I love the crafting and figuring out how the mechanics work. I enjoy fighting for my life in a deep lake. I do not enjoy having to stop these enjoyable endeavors to go hunt for another 5 berry bushes. If the game emphasizes exploration, it should not punish you when you go do that task. Ark SE did food well IMO. It was a very real need. Especially in a harsher environment. But, It did not dictate the flow of the game. It was not a Sword of Damocles always hanging above you brisk walk to the store. Food drain is a cheap trick to pad playtime.

Unreal World I have never heard of. I will have to look into that if i burn out here.

[Crabsoft]

It's a classic roguelike, you probably wouldn't like it. 

Hunger in this game is like really not a big deal once you get a cooking pot and a bowl. I eat like one meal a day and never think about it. Being injured, wearing armor, being cold, and choosing Blackguard will all increase your hunger. Being injured is really the one folks overlook most often. When you eat a proper meal, your hunger bar stalls for a while entirely. If you get up to like making bread or pies, you'll cook once a week?

This jump from scavenging for food constantly to a full cellar for the winter actually does have a deep feeling of progression.

Edited December 15, 2025 by Crabsoft

[LadyWYT]

First off, welcome to the forums, and the game! 

1 hour ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

You can survive three weeks without food. (However, many people have gone for over 40 days during fasting and have survived in favourable circumstances

While this is true in real life, it doesn't translate well to videogames. One of the primary challenges of Vintage Story is securing a food supply. It's not an especially difficult challenge, per say, but it can easily become a problem if one gets too complacent, and it's not uncommon to read forum stories about players starving to death.

However, if the player could go three weeks without food before having to worry about death, they're not going to have any incentive to store food for the winter, or invest in farms, or really do anything aside from forage the occasional berry bush or hunt the occasional animal. There could be a stacking debuff, however, the drawback to that is that the player could easily find themselves weakened to the point of no recovery(a very slow inevitable death), or the debuff gets reset on death so it's just an annoyance and not a challenge.

1 hour ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

You can survive three days without drinkable water.

Right, but I daresay the main reason that there's not been a thirst mechanic implemented outside of mods, is that level of micromanagement might be more than what the average player wants to track while having fun in the game. And a mechanic that integral to standard survival probably shouldn't just have a toggle in the settings, if it were added.

 

1 hour ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

You can survive three hours in a harsh environment (extreme heat or cold). You need shelter!

If a player stays out too long in the cold, they will start to take freezing damage, and will eventually die if they don't either seek shelter or build a fire(ideally, both). Currently, there is no penalty for extreme heat; it may or may not be added to the game later.

 

1 hour ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

You can survive three minutes without breathable air (unconsciousness), or in icy water.

The issue here is that if one goes unconscious while underwater, they probably aren't going to survive very long at all since they're no longer in control of their faculties.

 

2 hours ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

For real, I got this game because everyone raved about how realistic it is...

At the end of the day, it's still a videogame, and while it's more uncompromising than most other titles when it comes to mistakes, there are some compromises made in order to keep it a fun game for a wide range of players. I'm not sure which difficulty you started on, but assuming it was one of the easier ones then you might try out the Wilderness Survival preset, or Homo Sapiens if you don't want the lore content.

Aside from that, there are many different settings you can tweak at world creation(or after, via console commands). Hunger rate can be decreased, if you don't wish it to drain quite so fast. Oxygen can be increased so that you can stay underwater for a longer time. Cold tolerance can be increased or decreased--by default the player's cold tolerance is 0 C so the weather will have to basically be freezing before the player will start to get cold. 

Mods can further alter the game, and are especially useful for tweaking areas of gameplay that the vanilla settings just don't cover. For a thirst mechanic, you might check out Hydrate or Diedrate(which adds some soft heat challenge as well), and for a harder time in the cold you might try Brain Freeze.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/hydrateordiedrate

https://mods.vintagestory.at/brainfreeze

[Vexxvididu]

1 minute ago, LadyWYT said:

While this is true in real life, it doesn't translate well to videogames. One of the primary challenges of Vintage Story is securing a food supply. It's not an especially difficult challenge, per say, but it can easily become a problem if one gets too complacent, and it's not uncommon to read forum stories about players starving to death.

However, if the player could go three weeks without food before having to worry about death, they're not going to have any incentive to store food for the winter, or invest in farms, or really do anything aside from forage the occasional berry bush or hunt the occasional animal. There could be a stacking debuff, however, the drawback to that is that the player could easily find themselves weakened to the point of no recovery(a very slow inevitable death), or the debuff gets reset on death so it's just an annoyance and not a challenge.

Building on this, I'm certain that when someone "survives" without food for weeks on end, they are crippled.  They can't run around everywhere or do normal human things at that point.  Programming in realistic starvation is too much work, which is why nobody does it. ...and even if they did it, it wouldn't be any fun to play!

[Emanuel My Lord]

2 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

First off, welcome to the forums, and the game! 

While this is true in real life, it doesn't translate well to videogames. One of the primary challenges of Vintage Story is securing a food supply. It's not an especially difficult challenge, per say, but it can easily become a problem if one gets too complacent, and it's not uncommon to read forum stories about players starving to death.

However, if the player could go three weeks without food before having to worry about death, they're not going to have any incentive to store food for the winter, or invest in farms, or really do anything aside from forage the occasional berry bush or hunt the occasional animal. There could be a stacking debuff, however, the drawback to that is that the player could easily find themselves weakened to the point of no recovery(a very slow inevitable death), or the debuff gets reset on death so it's just an annoyance and not a challenge.

Right, but I daresay the main reason that there's not been a thirst mechanic implemented outside of mods, is that level of micromanagement might be more than what the average player wants to track while having fun in the game. And a mechanic that integral to standard survival probably shouldn't just have a toggle in the settings, if it were added.

 

If a player stays out too long in the cold, they will start to take freezing damage, and will eventually die if they don't either seek shelter or build a fire(ideally, both). Currently, there is no penalty for extreme heat; it may or may not be added to the game later.

 

The issue here is that if one goes unconscious while underwater, they probably aren't going to survive very long at all since they're no longer in control of their faculties.

 

At the end of the day, it's still a videogame, and while it's more uncompromising than most other titles when it comes to mistakes, there are some compromises made in order to keep it a fun game for a wide range of players. I'm not sure which difficulty you started on, but assuming it was one of the easier ones then you might try out the Wilderness Survival preset, or Homo Sapiens if you don't want the lore content.

Aside from that, there are many different settings you can tweak at world creation(or after, via console commands). Hunger rate can be decreased, if you don't wish it to drain quite so fast. Oxygen can be increased so that you can stay underwater for a longer time. Cold tolerance can be increased or decreased--by default the player's cold tolerance is 0 C so the weather will have to basically be freezing before the player will start to get cold. 

Mods can further alter the game, and are especially useful for tweaking areas of gameplay that the vanilla settings just don't cover. For a thirst mechanic, you might check out Hydrate or Diedrate(which adds some soft heat challenge as well), and for a harder time in the cold you might try Brain Freeze.

https://mods.vintagestory.at/hydrateordiedrate

https://mods.vintagestory.at/brainfreeze

I was merely quoting the rule of threes as some are not familiar with them. Only the starvation rule really applied to my post. I did find the hunger setting eventually. Forcing the starvation loop into the game kills the immersion for me. I grew up in the wilderness and spent years in the military. Starving to death in a virgin natural environment is so far fetched it is game breaking for me. I could accept a frozen wasteland or a desert biome. Not a forest teeming with game and edible forage. But that is just me. I do not mind adjusting the slider. Reading through the other posts I seem to be in the minority on this subject. I am ok with that lol. I love the crafting. Cannot wait to progress to a point I can engage the lore loop.

[hstone32]

You are right that annoying != difficult, and I would further add that a very common pitfall of amature game design is assuming difficult = fun.

Thing is, I don't think VS is statically difficult, but it's difficult if you don't play by its rules. That is to say, VS is only as difficult as you make it. People coming in from the other block game often don't understand that, because they're used to super-cautious game design that avoids stepping on the player's toes like it's a crime. VS, in contrast, is self-described as an uncompromising wilderness survival game. You play by it's rules, or deal with the consequences.

Almost always when I see someone complaining about VSs difficulty, it is because they're trying to play the game by their own rules. In your case, you broke the rule that says you shouldn't go exploring more than a few hundred meters from home without first getting a reliable source of food, either through farming, or being well equipped enough to hunt and cook along the road. Until you obtain clay cookware, foraging and campfire meals will be insufficient for long treks, so your only exploration at this early stage of progression should be to find clay.

If you don't feel like playing by that rule, then that's fine. You'd be making it more difficult on yourself, but maybe that's what you want. Some people don't like waiting, and try to move to the next stage of progression earlier, even though it makes the game harder. Just don't expect VS to accomodate your own ruleset like the other block game does.

[LadyWYT]

4 minutes ago, Vexxvididu said:

Programming in realistic starvation is too much work, which is why nobody does it. ...and even if they did it, it wouldn't be any fun to play!

Actually...someone did do it! "Realistic Starvation" was the mod name, I believe, although I think it's also been defunct for a long time. I toyed with it once and the concept was interesting, however...it not only made the game way too easy, but it did not include a penalty for overeating so the ideal strategy became just eat pretty much every edible thing in front of you. The other issue was that mod did not play nicely with other mods that add food, or add drinking mechanics.

 

2 minutes ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

I was merely quoting the rule of threes as some are not familiar with them. Only the starvation rule really applied to my post. I did find the hunger setting eventually. Forcing the starvation loop into the game kills the immersion for me. I grew up in the wilderness and spent years in the military. Starving to death in a virgin natural environment is so far fetched it is game breaking for me. I could accept a frozen wasteland or a desert biome. Not a forest teeming with game and edible forage. But that is just me. I do not mind adjusting the slider. Reading through the other posts I seem to be in the minority on this subject. I am ok with that lol. I love the crafting. Cannot wait to progress to a point I can engage the lore loop.

Oh yeah, that's totally. One mod I forgot to mention, that you might be interested in, is this one: https://mods.vintagestory.at/tasshroombodyfat

It adds a fairly simple body fat mechanic that allows you to overeat and store fat, which can be burned off later to delay starvation.

Of course, I can't link that one without doing a shameless self-plug either for a mod I helped develop: https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

Expanded Stomach doesn't allow fat reserves to be burned to stave off starvation(yet...it's on the WIP list), but the mod does allow the player to adjust eating habits from vanilla and essentially just eat more, but less often. Likewise, fat reserves that are accumulated can help insulate the player from the cold, although the player does want to be careful how they balance their habits as bad ones will result in more negatives than positives.

[Emanuel My Lord]

14 minutes ago, hstone32 said:

You are right that annoying != difficult, and I would further add that a very common pitfall of amature game design is assuming difficult = fun.

Thing is, I don't think VS is statically difficult, but it's difficult if you don't play by its rules. That is to say, VS is only as difficult as you make it. People coming in from the other block game often don't understand that, because they're used to super-cautious game design that avoids stepping on the player's toes like it's a crime. VS, in contrast, is self-described as an uncompromising wilderness survival game. You play by it's rules, or deal with the consequences.

Almost always when I see someone complaining about VSs difficulty, it is because they're trying to play the game by their own rules. In your case, you broke the rule that says you shouldn't go exploring more than a few hundred meters from home without first getting a reliable source of food, either through farming, or being well equipped enough to hunt and cook along the road. Until you obtain clay cookware, foraging and campfire meals will be insufficient for long treks, so your only exploration at this early stage of progression should be to find clay.

If you don't feel like playing by that rule, then that's fine. You'd be making it more difficult on yourself, but maybe that's what you want. Some people don't like waiting, and try to move to the next stage of progression earlier, even though it makes the game harder. Just don't expect VS to accomodate your own ruleset like the other block game does.

Ahh so VS is NOT a sandbox? If VS requires me to play it exactly this way or never progress..... I will be very uninterested. If I want to watch a movie I will watch a movie. You are not doing a great job at promoting the game as fun. The ability to improvise adapt and overcome are hallmarks of ALL great games.

[Emanuel My Lord]

16 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

Actually...someone did do it! "Realistic Starvation" was the mod name, I believe, although I think it's also been defunct for a long time. I toyed with it once and the concept was interesting, however...it not only made the game way too easy, but it did not include a penalty for overeating so the ideal strategy became just eat pretty much every edible thing in front of you. The other issue was that mod did not play nicely with other mods that add food, or add drinking mechanics.

 

Oh yeah, that's totally. One mod I forgot to mention, that you might be interested in, is this one: https://mods.vintagestory.at/tasshroombodyfat

It adds a fairly simple body fat mechanic that allows you to overeat and store fat, which can be burned off later to delay starvation.

Of course, I can't link that one without doing a shameless self-plug either for a mod I helped develop: https://mods.vintagestory.at/expandedstomach

Expanded Stomach doesn't allow fat reserves to be burned to stave off starvation(yet...it's on the WIP list), but the mod does allow the player to adjust eating habits from vanilla and essentially just eat more, but less often. Likewise, fat reserves that are accumulated can help insulate the player from the cold, although the player does want to be careful how they balance their habits as bad ones will result in more negatives than positives.

Yes, both of these would interest me greatly. If nothing else to prevent all the poor animals from starving to death every winter and the mass extinction events yearly by the inability of the land to sustain thousands of 20k a day caloric intakes. Yes I am being facetious, but this would be the reality from the current in game mechanics. I appreciate the advice.

[hstone32]

39 minutes ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

Ahh so VS is NOT a sandbox? If VS requires me to play it exactly this way or never progress..... I will be very uninterested.

You've misunderstood my post. I never said you can't progress unless you play it a certain way. On the contrary, the point of my post was that you can play at whatever pace you want, but deviating from the intended route adds to the difficulty of the game. In this way, players have fine-tuned control over how difficult progression is for them. Wanna go explore caves before crafting armor? Sure, go ahead. just know you'll have to be extra good at defending yourself and avoiding attacks. Wanna take on the first boss with full steel equipment? Right on. It's not going to be very challenging though.

I love games like this that don't have any arbitrary restrictions on progress, but are modulated only be the player's own tolerance. The one thing you can't do though, is play the game at your own personal pace, and expect the difficulty to be the same throughout. That's not the kind of game VS is, nor does it need to be.

[LadyWYT]

58 minutes ago, Emanuel My Lord said:

The ability to improvise adapt and overcome are hallmarks of ALL great games.

I would say the better a player is at those three things, the easier time they will have in Vintage Story. I think what @hstone32 was trying to touch on, is that it's not unusual for players to come here from other games(the other block game being a big one in that regard), expecting to use the same strategies to succeed in VS as they do in other games, and then getting frustrated when they don't get the results they expected. 

 

1 hour ago, hstone32 said:

Just don't expect VS to accomodate your own ruleset like the other block game does.

Honestly, I think it's fair to say that VS will accommodate the player's specific ruleset...but in order to achieve that the player needs to be willing to fine-tune the game themselves via the in-game settings or mods, since the preset game modes may or may not be what the player is after. 

[Emanuel My Lord]

1 hour ago, hstone32 said:

You've misunderstood my post. I never said you can't progress unless you play it a certain way. On the contrary, the point of my post was that you can play at whatever pace you want, but deviating from the intended route adds to the difficulty of the game. In this way, players have fine-tuned control over how difficult progression is for them. Wanna go explore caves before crafting armor? Sure, go ahead. just know you'll have to be extra good at defending yourself and avoiding attacks. Wanna take on the first boss with full steel equipment? Right on. It's not going to be very challenging though.

I love games like this that don't have any arbitrary restrictions on progress, but are modulated only be the player's own tolerance. The one thing you can't do though, is play the game at your own personal pace, and expect the difficulty to be the same throughout. That's not the kind of game VS is, nor does it need to be.

Then the misunderstanding was mine.

[Emanuel My Lord]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

I would say the better a player is at those three things, the easier time they will have in Vintage Story. I think what @hstone32 was trying to touch on, is that it's not unusual for players to come here from other games(the other block game being a big one in that regard), expecting to use the same strategies to succeed in VS as they do in other games, and then getting frustrated when they don't get the results they expected. 

 

Honestly, I think it's fair to say that VS will accommodate the player's specific ruleset...but in order to achieve that the player needs to be willing to fine-tune the game themselves via the in-game settings or mods, since the preset game modes may or may not be what the player is after. 

You are probably entirely correct. I like the game already. Out of all the systems in play, only being able to find fault in one is admirable. 

[Slam]

Jokes on you I play with 125% hunger, though I changed it after I got set up, and felt it was too easy, so I don’t know how much it effects the early game, probably torture until the first decent crop harvest. Though, while exploring new areas, finding more berry’s bushes, mushrooms, and odd vegetable or grain easily keeps me fed for the adventure, and I can explore a different area on my way back, unless you don’t play with a map, then I’m stupied.

I mean hunger just feels far less like a problem once you get the cooking pot up, increases most saturation of foods by 50% and freezes starving for 30 second per 100 saturation, though it ain’t easy if one doesn’t know what they’re looking for and what to do. Finding clay, knowing how to build a pit kiln, waiting a day for it to finish, and forgetting to make a bowl, and heat that up, and then still actually having food to cook up.

[LadyWYT]

10 minutes ago, Slam said:

Jokes on you I play with 125% hunger, though I changed it after I got set up, and felt it was too easy, so I don’t know how much it effects the early game, probably torture until the first decent crop harvest.

It really depends on how good the player is at hunting and foraging. Assuming the player is decent at it, 125% isn't much different than 100%, and I say that as a Blackguard enthusiast. If the player struggles with finding food though, it's definitely going to be more of a slog until farms are established.

Of course that's speaking in terms of singleplayer, and not multiplayer. Keeping one player fed is easy enough, but when there's another player or two to account for at mealtime with increased hunger rates, food quickly starts to become more of a concern.

[Loosebearings]

1 hour ago, LadyWYT said:

Of course that's speaking in terms of singleplayer, and not multiplayer. Keeping one player fed is easy enough, but when there's another player or two to account for at mealtime with increased hunger rates, food quickly starts to become more of a concern.

Even with multiple people it's not hard to stay fed. Before my first harvest comes in I usually just walk around the fields and forests surrounding my base collecting any berries and mushrooms I find. Of course this isn't exactly sustainable because eventually you'll eat berries faster than they regrow, but even with one of us being a blackguard I had no issues with feeding two people.

[Emanuel My Lord]

8 hours ago, Slam said:

Jokes on you I play with 125% hunger, though I changed it after I got set up, and felt it was too easy, so I don’t know how much it effects the early game, probably torture until the first decent crop harvest. Though, while exploring new areas, finding more berry’s bushes, mushrooms, and odd vegetable or grain easily keeps me fed for the adventure, and I can explore a different area on my way back, unless you don’t play with a map, then I’m stupied.

I mean hunger just feels far less like a problem once you get the cooking pot up, increases most saturation of foods by 50% and freezes starving for 30 second per 100 saturation, though it ain’t easy if one doesn’t know what they’re looking for and what to do. Finding clay, knowing how to build a pit kiln, waiting a day for it to finish, and forgetting to make a bowl, and heat that up, and then still actually having food to cook up.

The point of the diary entry was to point out the unrealistic food drain in a "realistic" sandbox? I never pulled out a tape measure and asked for a competition. Good for you? I was giving a fresh players POV on a unrealistic system in game.