Stone aged pick?

[DeanF]

Kind of an off-the-wall idea:

Picks did exist in the stone age, but they were usually made of antler, and were used more like a crowbar than like a swung pick.  We could certainly have these.  Antler isn't exactly easy to find, so it would not be overpowered.  I would propose that they work excruciatingly slowly, and perhaps only on the soft sedimentary rocks.  Shale, sandstone, chalk, claystone.  Maybe conglomerate or limestone.  The goal definitely would not be to make them actually practical- it's more just for the sake of completeness.  And at some point someone will find a fringe use for one sometime, and they will think that it is awesome that these were included.

This is all sort of a follow-on to my discussion about wooden shovels:

 

[Rainbow Fresh]

Having a much more limited stone age tier of pickaxe could be an interesting idea, even though I personally don't see any immediate use. However if you are saying it requires antler - as in, the stuff grown bucks drop when hunted? - that kinda negates the path of progression. Hunting fast game like deer is basically tied to having access to bows and arrows of decent quality. Lest you play as Hunter class or with disabled class-only recipes, getting a bow takes a while; depending on luck and priorities, longer than it takes to get your first copper pickaxe. So by the time you may even get the "stone age" pickaxe you already made it obsolete.

[LadyWYT]

14 hours ago, DeanF said:

Picks did exist in the stone age, but they were usually made of antler, and were used more like a crowbar than like a swung pick.  We could certainly have these.  Antler isn't exactly easy to find, so it would not be overpowered.  I would propose that they work excruciatingly slowly, and perhaps only on the soft sedimentary rocks.  Shale, sandstone, chalk, claystone.  Maybe conglomerate or limestone.  The goal definitely would not be to make them actually practical- it's more just for the sake of completeness.  And at some point someone will find a fringe use for one sometime, and they will think that it is awesome that these were included.

I'm not sure that it's very useful in this fashion aside from just collecting rocks for cobblestone, walls, and paths. Maybe halite if one is really lucky, but doing anything useful with halite still requires a barrel. Would probably be useful for players doing pure stone age playthroughs, but little else.

7 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

However if you are saying it requires antler - as in, the stuff grown bucks drop when hunted? - that kinda negates the path of progression. Hunting fast game like deer is basically tied to having access to bows and arrows of decent quality.

This is a really good point, though I wouldn't say that the issue is with hunting deer as that's easily done with stone spears. Rather, the issue is that deer only provide antlers during the fall and winter, and even then it's not really until late winter that the antlers are big enough to feasibly make much of a tool from. By this time, players should have managed to figure out copper casting and made themselves some basic copper tools, so an antler pick is really only useful as decoration or in extremely niche circumstances.

[Steel General]

26 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

This is a really good point, though I wouldn't say that the issue is with hunting deer as that's easily done with stone spears. Rather, the issue is that deer only provide antlers during the fall and winter, and even then it's not really until late winter that the antlers are big enough to feasibly make much of a tool from.

Personally, I think we should strive for the 'has antler' milestone before we can do complicated knapping - that until we get one and assemble a knapping kit (antler, hammerstone, small rawhide, at least) we are limited to very crude stonework that cannot make a usable axe, much less nice points. No charcoal, no doors, no stone spears, until antler.

I see no harm, and much good, from slowing the progression and making accumulation of resources difficult until we cleverly kill a deer with poor tools or wait until the antlers shed. It is nevertheless possible to skip ahead with urn loot, and that's fine too - as with pickaxes.

Making progress is fun, and milestones are its measure - adding more near the beginning is at least as joyful as adding more near the end. (Note the difference between milestones and obstacles: milestones can be achieved in many ways and rewards for the achievement grow over time, whereas obstacles are only achievable by grinding the work in the way provided, and once achieved are irrelevant.)

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Steel General said:

Personally, I think we should strive for the 'has antler' milestone before we can do complicated knapping - that until we get one and assemble a knapping kit (antler, hammerstone, small rawhide, at least) we are limited to very crude stonework that cannot make a usable axe, much less nice points. No charcoal, no doors, no stone spears, until antler.

I see no harm, and much good, from slowing the progression and making accumulation of resources difficult until we cleverly kill a deer with poor tools or wait until the antlers shed. It is nevertheless possible to skip ahead with urn loot, and that's fine too - as with pickaxes.

Making progress is fun, and milestones are its measure - adding more near the beginning is at least as joyful as adding more near the end. (Note the difference between milestones and obstacles: milestones can be achieved in many ways and rewards for the achievement grow over time, whereas obstacles are only achievable by grinding the work in the way provided, and once achieved are irrelevant.)

I mean, that's fine for those who want a very slow-paced game, but personally I don't want to be forced to stay in the stone age for an entire year. I would also point out that if you really want to say "no stone spears or axes until you get an antler" then antlers are going to have be findable by the player at any time of year, or the early game is otherwise going to need a massive rework to allow the player to do something other than just struggle to survive since it's not really possible to do much of anything without basic tools. Cracked vessel loot also isn't going to be an option at all for Homo Sapiens players, but even if antlers can drop occasionally from cracked vessels or be found in the wild, I doubt most players will be very happy about needing to rely on that much RNG to make any kind of decent early progress.

If you really want to slow down progression, it's typically better to do it by giving the player more options to pick from at certain tech levels. Currently, players don't spend a lot of time in the stone age because a lot of activities are gated behind metalworking. I don't consider that a bad thing, since the stone age is just a stepping stone in the progression tree and not a tier the player is meant to spend a prolonged time in, but if the player had a few more options to distract themselves with they'd be more inclined to take things a little more slowly depending on what priorities they set for themselves.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

47 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I mean, that's fine for those who want a very slow-paced game, but personally I don't want to be forced to stay in the stone age for an entire year. I would also point out that if you really want to say "no stone spears or axes until you get an antler" then antlers are going to have be findable by the player at any time of year, or the early game is otherwise going to need a massive rework to allow the player to do something other than just struggle to survive since it's not really possible to do much of anything without basic tools. Cracked vessel loot also isn't going to be an option at all for Homo Sapiens players, but even if antlers can drop occasionally from cracked vessels or be found in the wild, I doubt most players will be very happy about needing to rely on that much RNG to make any kind of decent early progress.

Step 1: kill deer for antlers
Step 2: use antlers to dig for stone
Step 3: use stone to craft spears/axes
Step 4: use spears to hunt for deer

repeat as needed until you realize it's a catch 22 and will never be resolved without a lucky break

Without axes, you have no firewood so you are limited to whatever raw ingredients you can find on the ground. Perfect, I guess for the vegan player, but a LOT of stuff is locked by killing your first animal including larger inventory and warm clothing for the winter.

no offense to the person you're replying to, but from what I'm reading this idea is better suited for a mod to increase the early game difficulty or for players who want a more traditional vegan survival route. If it were part of the base game, I would probably create a mod to revert it.

Edited Thursday at 06:52 PM by Teh Pizza Lady

[DeanF]

16 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Having a much more limited stone age tier of pickaxe could be an interesting idea, even though I personally don't see any immediate use. However if you are saying it requires antler - as in, the stuff grown bucks drop when hunted? - that kinda negates the path of progression. Hunting fast game like deer is basically tied to having access to bows and arrows of decent quality. Lest you play as Hunter class or with disabled class-only recipes, getting a bow takes a while; depending on luck and priorities, longer than it takes to get your first copper pickaxe. So by the time you may even get the "stone age" pickaxe you already made it obsolete.

So what I'm hearing is that antler sheds need to be in the game?

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, DeanF said:

So what I'm hearing is that antler sheds need to be in the game?

They already are in the game. You can find shed antlers around the late winter/early spring time frame.

[ifoz]

11 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I'm not sure that it's very useful in this fashion aside from just collecting rocks for cobblestone, walls, and paths. Maybe halite if one is really lucky, but doing anything useful with halite still requires a barrel. Would probably be useful for players doing pure stone age playthroughs, but little else.

Honestly, a really slow stone-age pickaxe would be nice peace of mind for early caving. I like to rush caves very early on to try my luck, but if you forget to pack enough blocks, you're in a bit of a tricky situation. You can either hope there are enough loose stones and boulders around the cave to make enough drystone fences to pillar out, or starve to death since there is no way to claw your way up onto a 2-tall ledge.
It's a fringe use sure, but it'd still be useful in the kinds of situations where a player is semi-softlocked due to being trapped by blocks of rock. 

Edited Friday at 02:49 AM by ifoz

[ifoz]

8 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

If you really want to slow down progression, it's typically better to do it by giving the player more options to pick from at certain tech levels. Currently, players don't spend a lot of time in the stone age because a lot of activities are gated behind metalworking. I don't consider that a bad thing, since the stone age is just a stepping stone in the progression tree and not a tier the player is meant to spend a prolonged time in, but if the player had a few more options to distract themselves with they'd be more inclined to take things a little more slowly depending on what priorities they set for themselves.

Honestly, I think a good way to expand early progression would be with scrap tools. We have scrap weapons, but it could be interesting if scrap was its own miniature "age". Not one required for progression, but just something players could do as an alternative to early stone/copper, especially if their local copper spawns weren't kind to them.
Scrap doesn't just have to be the specific metal scraps item either - it could be expanded to a few different items in ruins. Potsherds and glass shards for making knives and arrowheads, some form of scrap lamellar armour, and maybe some other things as well.
Potentially also tie it into clutter - breaking ceramic clutter without glue would give potsherds, while breaking glass clutter without glue would give glass shards.

Ruin hunting is a fun activity, and the player cobbling together crude tools from the remnants of the past is very fitting with VS' themes.

Edited Friday at 02:57 AM by ifoz

[Steel General]

21 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't want to be forced to stay in the stone age for an entire year.

I don't think it's a problem to have to wait for the deer to grow antlers - it's not like there's nothing to do. That's not a year, just a couple seasons. Also, while a player can choose to go the easy route and just wait for antlers on the ground, it's really not so hard to set up a trap and run the deer into it.

That said, I have no problem with having occasional antlers on the ground from day one - preferably in areas where deer spawn, though.

21 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

even if antlers can drop occasionally from cracked vessels or be found in the wild, I doubt most players will be very happy about needing to rely on that much RNG to make any kind of decent early progress.

I wasn't suggesting that antlers would drop from urns, though they could sure be a foraging urn drop. Rather, all the drops urns already have are fine ways to skip that part of the progression - they are already ways to skip parts of the progression.

The flaw in the thinking is in "decent early progress" - your standard is set by what has already been, but you should consider it with fresh perspective: new players have no notion of what the early game should be, so the real measure is whether or not it brings them joy. If we took the copper age out and trivialized the bronze age so a player could just get right into iron, that would be less joy, but only those who have known what we have now would know that it's less joy - to the new player it's just the game, and the iron age is a joy. If we had started thus and someone suggested ballooning the bronze age and even requiring a brief copper age, that might seem like it ruins the "decent early progress", but we would quickly find joy in the new milestones.

21 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

the stone age is just a stepping stone in the progression tree

The whole game is stepping stones, with no finish line. Take joy in the steps. (Someday we'll have a finish line, and achieving the final step will be a pile of extra joy, but that doesn't mean the other steps are just obstacles, grinds, and chores.)

20 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

repeat as needed until you realize it's a catch 22 and will never be resolved without a lucky break

Spears aren't the only way to kill a deer, but we should have wooden javelins, just like australopithecus used to make.

20 hours ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

Without axes, you have no firewood so you are limited to whatever raw ingredients you can find on the ground.

I did indeed forget that firewood is required for a firepit. This is a flaw and should be remedied - peat, a pile of sticks, the base of a healthy tree, and many more options should be fine ways to start a firepit. As proof that this is not intended design, I point out that after making the firepit the firewood can be immediately removed and replaced with peat, a pile of sticks, a bunch more grass, etc. There is definitely no reason for cooking to be gated behind axes.

I'm sure I can think of other things are only gated behind knapping because the game starts with knapping, and other, still-more-primitive alternatives to knapping with which the game could begin instead (that are not just stupid grindy chores).

[Teh Pizza Lady]

12 minutes ago, Steel General said:

I did indeed forget that firewood is required for a firepit. This is a flaw and should be remedied - peat, a pile of sticks, the base of a healthy tree, and many more options should be fine ways to start a firepit. As proof that this is not intended design, I point out that after making the firepit the firewood can be immediately removed and replaced with peat, a pile of sticks, a bunch more grass, etc. There is definitely no reason for cooking to be gated behind axes.

I can agree with most of these, but you still need a knife to get the dry grass to use as tinder so you still need knapping to make a fire. Go make an axe and chop wood.

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, Steel General said:

The flaw in the thinking is in "decent early progress" - your standard is set by what has already been, but you should consider it with fresh perspective: new players have no notion of what the early game should be

I don't think this is a fair statement at all. New players absolutely have notions about what the early game should be--it's why they commonly post various suggestions or otherwise comment on how the early game could be better/what they found really frustrating. Like stone tools breaking too fast or not being able to find clay, or starving to death because they couldn't find enough food, etc. In some cases they want more of a grind, but more often than not the feedback tends to trend toward things should be a little easier/less time-consuming rather than more grindy.

 

1 hour ago, Steel General said:

I don't think it's a problem to have to wait for the deer to grow antlers - it's not like there's nothing to do. That's not a year, just a couple seasons. Also, while a player can choose to go the easy route and just wait for antlers on the ground, it's really not so hard to set up a trap and run the deer into it.

That said, I have no problem with having occasional antlers on the ground from day one - preferably in areas where deer spawn, though.

And a "couple of seasons" is still around 72+ days by default, or about 57.6 real life hours if the player never sleeps in the game, if I did my math right. I really doubt most players will want to spend 60+ hours just trying to progress beyond the most basic tech tier in the game, same as they probably won't be keen on relying on RNG antler finds to skip ahead. Likewise, adult deer are fast, tanky, and do decent damage, so there's a good chance the player could die in the process of trying to kill one unless they rely on trapping the deer in a hole or something(which not every player finds fun).

 

1 hour ago, Steel General said:

I wasn't suggesting that antlers would drop from urns, though they could sure be a foraging urn drop. Rather, all the drops urns already have are fine ways to skip that part of the progression - they are already ways to skip parts of the progression.

Sure, but drops like copper/bronze weapons and tools are quite rare, and more of a "nice to have" when they drop, rather than something players chase for progression. Lock the player to spending most of a year trying to leave the stone age though, and they'll absolutely start chasing those vessels.

 

1 hour ago, Steel General said:

Spears aren't the only way to kill a deer, but we should have wooden javelins, just like australopithecus used to make.

And how, exactly, are you going to make a wooden javelin if you have nothing to sharpen it with? If an antler is required for the player to do any kind of knapping, then I don't see how the player acquires a wooden spear outside of somehow taking a stick and rubbing it against a stone surface for a long time. That doesn't sound like engaging gameplay at all, especially when it's not unrealistic to smack a couple hard rocks together to knap out a simple stone tool.

I would say panning for spearheads is an option, but many players already don't like panning, and you still need a knife and axe to create a pan anyway, so that's still locked behind antler acquisition.

1 hour ago, Steel General said:

If we took the copper age out and trivialized the bronze age so a player could just get right into iron, that would be less joy, but only those who have known what we have now would know that it's less joy - to the new player it's just the game, and the iron age is a joy. If we had started thus and someone suggested ballooning the bronze age and even requiring a brief copper age, that might seem like it ruins the "decent early progress", but we would quickly find joy in the new milestones.

1 hour ago, Steel General said:

The whole game is stepping stones, with no finish line. Take joy in the steps. (Someday we'll have a finish line, and achieving the final step will be a pile of extra joy, but that doesn't mean the other steps are just obstacles, grinds, and chores.)

Sure, but what you're proposing is not something I find to be something that sounds at all fun, nor do I see it being a popular design decision for most players. I don't mind spending more time in the early stages of the game necessarily(in fact this is already the case in 1.22), but I want it to be my choice to do that, and not because the game decided I wasn't allowed to progress for basically an entire year because I didn't have a specific item that only appears via RNG find or months later after starting the game. What you've proposed absolutely sounds like a grind/chore, and not the fun kind. I think it would work as a mod, because some players enjoy really grindy games or otherwise just want to play caveman, but if it became the standard for vanilla I would probably be modding it out immediately or otherwise just looking for a different game to play.

Edit: I suppose to summarize, the main question that needs answering is if the player is expected to spend most of a year locked at stone tools or less, how are they supposed to survive temporal storms, harsh weather, and negative health effects like diseases/broken bones without frequently dying, and what else is there for them to actually do without any real tools other than run around and struggle to find food?

Edited Friday at 05:20 PM by LadyWYT

[Calmest_of_lakes]

The devs intend realism to take a backseat for progression, right?

maybe I'm missing your point, but the early game is supposed to be a tutorial of sorts; forcing you to learn the main gameplay loops via harsh lessons early on.

dont seek a secure supply of food? enter a starvation loop.
dont pick your battles carefully? die, and potentially even lose progression.

dont prepare for winter? be miserable for dozens of irl hours while playing.

 

I think adding even more steps or features would be detrimental for newbies, as they wouldnt be focused on the core mechanics as much.
 

Edited Friday at 09:41 PM by Calmest_of_lakes

[Steel General]

So I think most objections are settled with two points:

1) The antler is only needed for advanced knapping - we would add primitive stone tools, maybe just 'edge' and 'hammer', which would be a slow-to-use but very high durability knife, maybe also axe. You could even craft them immersively: throw rocks at other rocks on the ground

2) There should be antlers on the ground where deer can spawn from day one. Also, arguably, a bone could substitute for the antler, maybe even a chunk of coral.

4 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I don't think this is a fair statement at all. New players absolutely have notions about what the early game should be--it's why they commonly post various suggestions or otherwise comment on how the early game could be better/what they found really frustrating.

That is true, but I think much of it stems less from an informed and considered opinion of this game and more from preconceptions of what games should be. I mean, I am often frustrated by this game, but I expect frustration to be part of the experience - if it wasn't, I'd probably play something else. I'm sure that tolerance of frustration varies among people (it varies among person at times, so, surely). One key to making progress fun is that the next step shouldn't be obvious - all the skills we must gain and demonstrate could just be a gauntlet of achievement stations, but knowing after each achievement that you just have to step over to the next station would be less fun than not even knowing what it will look like when you find it, much less where to find it. Every player, though, has some expectation of how far apart the dots should be, and exceeding that is going to make the game unplayable until that expectation is adjusted.

I see nothing wrong with an early game that consists mostly of struggling to survive for months - getting dropped into the wilderness with nothing but clothes and making it through the first winter without dying ought be something to brag about.

What I'm describing so far isn't even going to significantly throw off my first day of play (aside from throwing rocks at other rocks), and that makes me think that what I suggest here isn't all that significant. It would significantly change the first month, but not in a grindy frustrating chore sense, just in a difficulty sense, which, to me, is the kind of difficulty to add.

[LadyWYT]

13 minutes ago, Steel General said:

1) The antler is only needed for advanced knapping - we would add primitive stone tools, maybe just 'edge' and 'hammer', which would be a slow-to-use but very high durability knife, maybe also axe. You could even craft them immersively: throw rocks at other rocks on the ground

That makes the situation slightly better, but only slightly. Either the player doesn't need the advanced knapping and can progress to copper as normal, or they still wind up stuck needing to wait several in-game months or rely on RNG to get what they need to actually get out of the stone age. Mind you, they have to do all that while managing to keep themselves fed, dealing with temporal storms, and dealing with potential injuries, diseases, and other natural threats. And that's assuming the player actually has the correct species of male deer spawn, as not all deer produce antlers large enough to be useful for tool-making(or in some cases, perhaps too large).

The very best case scenario I can see here is players being left to scratch their heads wondering why they have to have an antler to make stone tools and progress, rather than just use a couple of tough rocks to make a stone tool instead. Logically, if someone were dropped into a real life survival situation, with nothing to work with, knapping with rocks is going to be far more feasible than trying to acquire an antler or other large bone.

19 minutes ago, Steel General said:

2) There should be antlers on the ground where deer can spawn from day one. Also, arguably, a bone could substitute for the antler, maybe even a chunk of coral.

Sure, but that defeats the trophy aspect of antlers, really. They're mostly a neat item that the player can collect and use for decoration, or otherwise grind into bonemeal. To my knowledge, bones and antlers tend not to linger around for very long in the wild given that creatures like to gnaw on them, but it depends on the circumstances.

24 minutes ago, Steel General said:

That is true, but I think much of it stems less from an informed and considered opinion of this game and more from preconceptions of what games should be. I mean, I am often frustrated by this game, but I expect frustration to be part of the experience - if it wasn't, I'd probably play something else.

Eh, I still disagree. Yes, some of new player complaints stem from preconceived notions of what games should be, but that doesn't mean they're entirely wrong in their complaints either. And yes, it's okay for games to be occasionally frustrating, but it's easy to push that frustration too far, which I think this idea does.

 

28 minutes ago, Steel General said:

One key to making progress fun is that the next step shouldn't be obvious - all the skills we must gain and demonstrate could just be a gauntlet of achievement stations, but knowing after each achievement that you just have to step over to the next station would be less fun than not even knowing what it will look like when you find it, much less where to find it. Every player, though, has some expectation of how far apart the dots should be, and exceeding that is going to make the game unplayable until that expectation is adjusted.

I disagree. The next step shouldn't be so obvious that the player never has to think, but it shouldn't be so obscure that the player is going to end up stumbling around and getting frustrated trying to figure out just what they're supposed to do. I'll also note that yes, players do have differing ideas about "how far apart the dots need to be", so to speak, but you can't always expect players to just deal with it either. Like I said before, expecting players to spend around 60 real life hours stuck in what's basically the tutorial tech before allowing them to advance is just asking for frustrated players.

Also worth noting from the FAQ section(emphasis added):

Quote

How finished/playable is this game?
We consider Vintage Story to still be in early access, not due to its lack of stability and performance, but because our full vision is far from implemented. The game is fully playable and offers rich and varied gameplay from the Stone Age through to the Steel Age, including a number of story elements. The game is being developed with a carefully planned release cycle to always offer very stable gameplay. As for its completion - we cannot really put a time on it because we see no reason not to keep adding new content for many years to come. That being said, going through the main challenges alone should easily offer at least 100 hours of engaging gameplay.

If the overall goal is for the main progression/main story completion to take around 100 hours of playtime on average, forcing players to spend 60 hours just progressing past stone isn't going to cut it.

 

42 minutes ago, Steel General said:

I see nothing wrong with an early game that consists mostly of struggling to survive for months - getting dropped into the wilderness with nothing but clothes and making it through the first winter without dying ought be something to brag about.

Survival is one aspect of the game, yes, but only one aspect. I could be wrong, but most players don't tend to have very much fun if they're constantly trying not to starve, can't build bases because they don't have tools, can't fight enemies because they don't have weapons and armor, etc. The list goes on and on, and I daresay only gets worse once status effects are added. Challenges aren't fun if the player has no way to deal with them, and players don't tend to enjoy games that demand a huge time investment for the player to make basic progress. Which that kind of time gate also tends to be a prominent feature in MMOs or pay-to-win games, in order to force the players to spend more money.

 

47 minutes ago, Steel General said:

What I'm describing so far isn't even going to significantly throw off my first day of play (aside from throwing rocks at other rocks), and that makes me think that what I suggest here isn't all that significant. It would significantly change the first month, but not in a grindy frustrating chore sense, just in a difficulty sense, which, to me, is the kind of difficulty to add.

My point is that this kind of thing might be fun for you, but probably would not be a popular change for the playerbase at large by any means. For myself, it's the kind of change I would most likely mod out immediately, or otherwise move away from Vintage Story in favor of other games.

I think that if you want to make the early game truly feel more impactful, in a way that is both fun and challenging, there are better ways to do so. A status effect system being chief among them, along with making plant yields seasonal. The game changes quite drastically when berries and other wild harvestables aren't in season, and the player can potentially suffer lingering consequences from getting injured or falling ill due to staying out in the elements without appropriate clothing. 

[The Lerf]

To answer the OP-- an antler pick is a great, optional item that feels in the same vein as finding out you can use bones as handles for stone knives and axes. Personally I see no issue with making it a copper or bronze equivalent tool either, as it isn't something that's likely to be found until the first year passes. It's optional, and can play into character costuming/trophy collecting. Wish we had more of that, looking at the ruined weapons in-game.

To answer the current discussion-- hwhy should we need antler to knap? hwhat is the player going to do without progression tools? hwhen does the game get fun with this change? 

[Teh Pizza Lady]

3 hours ago, The Lerf said:

To answer the current discussion-- hwhy should we need antler to knap? hwhat is the player going to do without progression tools? hwhen does the game get fun with this change? 

in order:

dunno, dunno, and...  ... never!

[Steel General]

So, since it might not be general knowledge...

Knapping is complicated.

Hitting rocks together can give you tiny chips and big flakes, and those can be useful tools, but you're never going to get a fine point like that, a serrated edge we typically see on stone points, or the flutes that allow attaching the point to a shaft. To get such fine details a knapper would use an antler to leverage small chips loose, very much in the crowbar action the OP described. It's also used to score the stone, to prepare flats that predetermine the shape of a break before it is struck.

Antler, because it's both harder and tougher than the stone. Most bones can't do it. Those stones that are hard enough aren't tough enough and will shatter in this usage.

Every knapper I've ever watched work uses antler. Maybe something else could substitute, if they had to, even if it needed frequent replacement.

(Apologies for dragging this so far away from picking - in my defense, it is the same mechanical action upon the same substance )

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, Steel General said:

Knapping is complicated.

Hitting rocks together can give you tiny chips and big flakes, and those can be useful tools, but you're never going to get a fine point like that, a serrated edge we typically see on stone points, or the flutes that allow attaching the point to a shaft. To get such fine details a knapper would use an antler to leverage small chips loose, very much in the crowbar action the OP described. It's also used to score the stone, to prepare flats that predetermine the shape of a break before it is struck.

Antler, because it's both harder and tougher than the stone. Most bones can't do it. Those stones that are hard enough aren't tough enough and will shatter in this usage.

Every knapper I've ever watched work uses antler. Maybe something else could substitute, if they had to, even if it needed frequent replacement.

(Apologies for dragging this so far away from picking - in my defense, it is the same mechanical action upon the same substance )

A fair point, and I apologize for getting a bit heated about it the other day. After having some time to cool off and think about it a little more, I think it could work great as a "quench" mechanic for stone tier tech. By that I mean that the player can still make stone tools as normal, but if they use an antler, then they can make a stone tool that's a bit more durable and can work faster thanks to quality craftsmanship. This way players aren't locked out of faster progress, but have some neat options if they want to take things a little slower. I would also say that the stone tools in cracked vessels and stone parts from panning could be the higher quality stone tools/parts as well, since those drops aren't exactly exciting loot otherwise. However, if those drops were higher quality than what the player could normally craft, then it'd feel a little better to find those things as loot.

[Bruno Willis]

3 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I think it could work great as a "quench" mechanic for stone tier tech. By that I mean that the player can still make stone tools as normal, but if they use an antler, then they can make a stone tool that's a bit more durable and can work faster thanks to quality craftsmanship. This way players aren't locked out of faster progress, but have some neat options if they want to take things a little slower. I would also say that the stone tools in cracked vessels and stone parts from panning could be the higher quality stone tools/parts as well, since those drops aren't exactly exciting loot otherwise. However, if those drops were higher quality than what the player could normally craft, then it'd feel a little better to find those things as loot.

This is a really good point, if early game is supposed to teach lessons which become more relevant later. It'd be pretty cool to get a flint knife out of a ruined pot and realize it not only looks way nicer than your glorified sharp stone, but it's way more effective. Then you'd wonder how to get there. 

I also think if early early stone knapping gave you a hand-axe instead of an axe or knife. It would work as a stone knife currently does, but could also be hit with a club to cut down trees. (teaching about the off-hand mechanic later used for chiseling). You'd have an early early tool which can do a lot, and looks very different to the later stone knife you get from ruins/antler knapping. You'd also get your first weapon (the useless club) as a by-product of wanting to cut down trees, ensuring everyone has a weapon when night falls. 

I also really like the idea of carrying antler late game, (cause you found it, cause you want to make a really nice antler handle for a knife, etc.) and when a metal tool breaks, just knapping up a really nice stone version with the antler, instead of falling right back to the bottom of the progression tree with the crappiest stone tools. 

[LadyWYT]

1 minute ago, Bruno Willis said:

This is a really good point, if early game is supposed to teach lessons which become more relevant later. It'd be pretty cool to get a flint knife out of a ruined pot and realize it not only looks way nicer than your glorified sharp stone, but it's way more effective. Then you'd wonder how to get there. 

Yeah, plus I mean...whoever was originally living in those ruins probably wasn't in a life-or-death wilderness survival situation like that player, so it stands to reason they would have had the option of making better stuff. Of course, since surface ruins are easy to loot, all the best stuff has already been looted, leaving the stone tools and occasional metal tool that got overlooked.

3 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I also think if early early stone knapping gave you a hand-axe instead of an axe or knife. It would work as a stone knife currently does, but could also be hit with a club to cut down trees. (teaching about the off-hand mechanic later used for chiseling). You'd have an early early tool which can do a lot, and looks very different to the later stone knife you get from ruins/antler knapping. You'd also get your first weapon (the useless club) as a by-product of wanting to cut down trees, ensuring everyone has a weapon when night falls. 

I like this idea too, though I think I would prefer the handaxe be used to strip branches off smaller trees and refine the result into a proper spear pole rather than using a basic stick(with the branches being sticks as byproducts), but...that would also require a rework of trees.

I need to test the club as a weapon again though. It's probably still useless at the moment, but I recall someone mentioning it had a faster swing time than the spear, so it may actually be a decent weapon in certain circumstances.

6 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I also really like the idea of carrying antler late game, (cause you found it, cause you want to make a really nice antler handle for a knife, etc.) and when a metal tool breaks, just knapping up a really nice stone version with the antler, instead of falling right back to the bottom of the progression tree with the crappiest stone tools.

I was thinking of that as well when writing the post earlier. Sometimes I break a knife, or forgot to bring an axe with me, and am too lazy to run back to base to get my tools, so I'll just make a stone tool instead since it's convenient. In that case, I might start carrying an antler piece around for that purpose.

Additionally, finding antler pieces occasionally in the wild would let the player access those tools earlier in the game, while still preserving the full antlers as proper hunting trophies. Of course, if the player has acquired a full set of antlers that they don't want to decorate with, they could use a hammer to break the antlers down into pieces for knapping if the antlers are large enough, or otherwise grind up the small antlers and antler pieces in the quern for bonemeal.

[Bruno Willis]

9 minutes ago, Bruno Willis said:

I also think if early early stone knapping gave you a hand-axe instead of an axe or knife. It would work as a stone knife currently does, but could also be hit with a club to cut down trees. (teaching about the off-hand mechanic later used for chiseling). You'd have an early early tool which can do a lot, and looks very different to the later stone knife you get from ruins/antler knapping. You'd also get your first weapon (the useless club) as a by-product of wanting to cut down trees, ensuring everyone has a weapon when night falls. 

Damn, I'm completely wrong. Hand-axes were just the convenient way to make a very early knife, they weren't used to cut down trees, there's no historical reason why they could take the place of both a knife and an axe. Apparently they were used for digging though, so there's our stone shovel-knife! 

I really like the idea of the stone age tools not fitting neatly into the exact same categories as the metal tools though. I like the idea of a wooden shovel+hoe, and a stone knife+hand shovel+axe head. 

I'd also like to see antler get more uses. It would be lovely if knifes could be handled with bone or antler all the way through the metal ages as well as the late stone age. 

23 hours ago, Steel General said:

1) The antler is only needed for advanced knapping - we would add primitive stone tools, maybe just 'edge' and 'hammer', which would be a slow-to-use but very high durability knife, maybe also axe. You could even craft them immersively: throw rocks at other rocks on the ground

2) There should be antlers on the ground where deer can spawn from day one. Also, arguably, a bone could substitute for the antler, maybe even a chunk of coral.

Apparently you can get a good knapping effect with wood as well as with antler, although I'm guessing it's a very hard wood, not your average pine branch. 

[Thorfinn]

On 4/23/2026 at 10:40 AM, Steel General said:

I see no harm, and much good, from slowing the progression and making accumulation of resources difficult until we cleverly kill a deer with poor tools or wait until the antlers shed.

Fire-hardening is a thing, and fire-hardened wooden spears are nearly as good as stone-tipped.  Dock them a half point or even a full point and your first deer isn't an issue. You could pretty easily have the current rock-on-flint break off a blank, which you could use to harvest kills or cut the grass for the firestarter, or you could further knap to a better tool with antler or bone. It's also how you produce a crude hand axe.

Alternatively, you could just throw rocks to get your first kill. Rabbits and coons are easy. If you are lucky, maybe you find a jackalope and get its antlers, and are able to skip the whole deerslayer thing.

Sure, it can be done, and has its appeal, but only slows you down, what, maybe a half day?

[EDIT]

On reflection, one thing it would do is make more consistent rock placement. Currently, soft stones, hard stones and flint all place differently, some just placing, others go to knapping. This would add the step of making the blank (one hit with the hammerstone) but placement of any blank takes you straight to knapping.

Edited yesterday at 02:07 PM by Thorfinn

[Thorfinn]

16 hours ago, Bruno Willis said:

Apparently you can get a good knapping effect with wood as well as with antler, although I'm guessing it's a very hard wood, not your average pine branch. 

Yes, fire-hardened wood works well. Even pine.