Make firepits without tools

[Broccoli Clock]

1 minute ago, MKMoose said:

And to top it off, whether tools came before or after fire is only relevant to Homo Sapiens.

Man's descendents were using tools before Homo Sapiens appeared, with most evidence suggesting Australopithecus. As for fire, it's pretty much Homo Sapiens that domesticated it.

Now that's all good and all, but in regard to the lore of the Seraphs, I have no idea at all. I'm not someone who leans into fantasy. So I will totally defer to your opinion on that.

[Rainbow Fresh]

1 minute ago, Broccoli Clock said:

Man's descendents were using tools before Homo Sapiens appeared, with most evidence suggesting Australopithecus. As for fire, it's pretty much Homo Sapiens that domesticated it.

Now that's all good and all, but in regard to the lore of the Seraphs, I have no idea at all. I'm not someone who leans into fantasy. So I will totally defer to your opinion on that.

I feel like they mean the gamemode where there is no previous civilization and as such, noone invented anything before us.

[Teh Pizza Lady]

1 hour ago, Demoncyborg said:

I think the only reason I'm against sticks specifically for fire is because there's no vanilla crafting for them. They aren't finite but they're much, much better spent on tools and recipes rather than fuel at any point. its not a huge reasoning but teaching the player at the start to use sticks might make a waste of sticks. Peat/charcoal to start your pit sounds great

 Aren't sticks also a required component in pit kiln construction, along with grass? Because pottery is a pretty massive thing to allow the player to freely do without ever making or using a knife.

I think the real issue here isn't the construction of firepits with sticks and grass harvested without a knife. The real issue is the fact that allowing the player to harvest grass without a knife allows them to ENTIRELY SKIP THE STONE AGE. With OP's proposed "simple" change, the player can now gather all the grass and sticks they need to construct a pit kiln which can be fueled with peat (or charcoal for faster firing times). And here's the kicker. Charcoal is now able to be freely produced without ever making a knife because it also has a grass requirement for getting the fire going and that grass requirement is now also toolless. Although charcoal is made with firewood which DOES require an axe......

.............But a copper axe head can be cast directly without ever picking up or using a knife. Here's how that would be done:

1. Punch grass to harvest it
2. Stuff into pit kilns with axe mold, pickaxe mold, hammer mold and crucible
3. Pile on sticks
4. Cover in peat
5. Light with torch or firestarter
   and wait...
   and then....
6. Use loose bits of coal from the ground to smelt loose bits of copper from the ground
7. Pour molten copper into axe mold
8. Use axe to chop trees and make firewood and get a charcoal pit going
9. Use pickaxe to harvest more copper
10. Use hammer to crush ore bits
11. Use charcoal to smelt the rest of the copper, fuel your pitkilns, make the rest of your molds (anvil mold anyone??) and get a proper smithing setup

All without touching a single knife. And it can be done with bronze, too, allowing a player to skip right to iron, even, without touching a single knife.

How is this a "simple" change? It isn't. It's game-breaking.

I think instead of allowing tool-less harvesting of grass, a better solution would be to allow the player to pick moss off trees and rocks and use that as a replacement for grass when making a firestarter. Moss is historically documented as tinder and has genuine fire starting properties. It would, of course, be hard to find and even harder to obtain due to its delicate nature, making it a genuine last resort for survival rather than a convenient shortcut. It's an alternative for players who can't find flint to make a knife or who are looking for an additional challenge all without overtly affecting the progression chain for everyone else who plays the game.

As a bonus, moss could have additional uses that make it worth seeking out at any stage of the game. Its well-documented historical antiseptic properties make it a natural candidate for wound dressing or the creation of poultices. It could also serve as an insulation material to be sewn into clothing for extra cold resistance. 

Moss would genuinely add something new to the game, giving it more depth instead of removing the basic need to rub two rocks together to make a knife.

[MKMoose]

30 minutes ago, Teh Pizza Lady said:

 Aren't sticks also a required component in pit kiln construction, along with grass? Because pottery is a pretty massive thing to allow the player to freely do without ever making or using a knife.

I think the real issue here isn't the construction of firepits with sticks and grass harvested without a knife. The real issue is the fact that allowing the player to harvest grass without a knife allows them to ENTIRELY SKIP THE STONE AGE. With OP's proposed "simple" change, the player can now gather all the grass and sticks they need to construct a pit kiln which can be fueled with peat (or charcoal for faster firing times). And here's the kicker. Charcoal is now able to be freely produced without ever making a knife because it also has a grass requirement for getting the fire going and that grass requirement is now also toolless. Although charcoal is made with firewood which DOES require an axe......

.............But a copper axe head can be cast directly without ever picking up or using a knife. Here's how that would be done:

1. Punch grass to harvest it
2. Stuff into pit kilns with axe mold, pickaxe mold, hammer mold and crucible
3. Pile on sticks
4. Cover in peat
5. Light with torch or firestarter
   and wait...
   and then....
6. Use loose bits of coal from the ground to smelt loose bits of copper from the ground
7. Pour molten copper into axe mold
8. Use axe to chop trees and make firewood and get a charcoal pit going
9. Use pickaxe to harvest more copper
10. Use hammer to crush ore bits
11. Use charcoal to smelt the rest of the copper, fuel your pitkilns, make the rest of your molds (anvil mold anyone??) and get a proper smithing setup

All without touching a single knife. And it can be done with bronze, too, allowing a player to skip right to iron, even, without touching a single knife.

How is this a "simple" change? It isn't. It's game-breaking.

You can also skip straight to copper or bronze from nothing by buying tools from traders or finding them in ruins, and you can produce steel while completely ignoring pickaxe tier requirements if you get sulfur for bombs (or even without ever using a pickaxe if you buy sulfur from traders), but none of these are game-breaking, because theoretical possibility isn't relevant to natural and practical progression.

Not everything has to revolve around the core technological succession chain, and knives are still required for harvesting animals, collecting cattails, scraping leather, and some crafting recipes. It doesn't really matter that the player  can break a preconceived mandatory progression chain while handicapping themselves by refusing to craft what is arguably the most basic tool in the game.

Edited yesterday at 02:35 PM by MKMoose

[Teh Pizza Lady]

7 minutes ago, MKMoose said:

You can also skip straight to copper or bronze from nothing by buying tools from traders or finding them in ruins, and you can produce steel with mostly Copper-Age tools (except an anvil and a hammer, if I recall correctly) if you get sulfur for bombs (or even without ever using a pickaxe if you buy sulfur from traders), but none of these are game-breaking, because theoretical possibility isn't relevant to natural and practical progression.

Not everything has to revolve around the core technological succession chain, and knives are still required for harvesting animals, collecting cattails, scraping leather, and some crafting recipes. It doesn't really matter that the player  can break a preconceived mandatory progression chain while handicapping themselves by refusing to craft what is arguably the most basic tool in the game.

In that case, let the player be rewarded for their efforts and ingenuity!

There is no effort to be found in removing the basic requirement of a simple flint knife to harvest grass. It's not a genius solution to bypass the basic requirement of "cut grass; build fire" model that we have to advancing through the tech tree.

Obtaining the items for trade will require a significant amount of luck and/or time. That's not nothing.

Otherwise, I agree with you. Not everything has to start with the stone age, but the alternative path to iron and steel shouldn't be a shortcut.

Edited yesterday at 02:36 PM by Teh Pizza Lady

[PineReseen]

Stick or other material firepits are definitely a thing that should be added. Like, say I'm starving, and killed a deer. Now, to cook and eat that meat I'm gonna have to chop down a tree, convert one log into firewood, and only then start building a firepit. Now I'm left with a bunch of logs I don't need, even though sticks are common and I carry them with me all the time. Sure, a deer's worth of redmeat could warrant firewood, but if I instead had gone for a wolf pup or something (Canada-climate winters can get really crazy, y'know) then I'd probably not need 4 firewood to cook a single piece of bushmeat.

As for the grass thing, I don't particularly care. If I had to add it, then I'd probably make it like a 50% chance for dropping dry grass upon breaking grass with no tools.

[DeanF]

Oh, the hyperbole in this discussion! 
Nothing is "game-breaking" about this.  It's a possible fringe use.  If someone really wants to work that incredibly hard to "skip the stone age" for some reason, what is it to you?  It's a solo game.  And you can already skip the copper age if you get lucky.

Edited 21 hours ago by DeanF

[Teh Pizza Lady]

4 hours ago, DeanF said:

Oh, the hyperbole in this discussion! 
Nothing is "game-breaking" about this.  It's a possible fringe use.  If someone really wants to work that incredibly hard to "skip the stone age" for some reason, what is it to you?  It's a solo game.  And you can already skip the copper age if you get lucky.

"It's a solo game" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here, because Vintage Story is not only a solo game. It has full multiplayer support, active community servers, and TOPS -- the official public test server -- is frequented by a large number of players as well as the developers themselves. Changes to base game mechanics don't exist in a vacuum where only one person will ever experience them. They ship to everyone.

The concern wasn't hyperbole. It was a straightforward walkthrough of how the proposed change interacts with existing systems, using the game's own mechanics as the framework. Whether anyone would actually perform that specific sequence is beside the point -- the point is that the design space matters, because the devs have to consider it whether we do or not.

I'm also not sure "fringe use" and "what is it to you" are really the counterarguments you want to be making here, because the answer to both of those is: game design. The reason we're all in a suggestions forum discussing whether a mechanic should exist is precisely because these things are worth thinking through before they ship. That's the job this forum exists to do: weigh ideas and demand better thought where they are found wanting.

[Rainbow Fresh]

While I don't disagree that overall balancing concerns in a multiplayer-enabled game like Vintage Story require proper thought outside of the "It's my single player world and I want things like X" and that a clear-cut path of progression helps with that; I do also want to point out that Vintage Story is a sandbox game (with harsh survival rules first and foremost), not a linear experience. We don't get popups of "You need to check these three boxes of tasks off and reach level 20 and smelt 20 tin bronze bars to be able to press this button to increase arbitrary number X and be allowed to use bronze-age crafting recipes". We get mechanics tied to resources that exist in the world, with an intended path through following "Stone Age -> Pottery Age -> Copper Age -> Bronze Age -> Iron Age -> Steel Age". Some of which are more unavoidably required (nothing replaces pottery), some being skippable and ignorable through RNG and niche side-paths of "progession" (like finding a tin bronze pickaxe in a vessel). As such, "What's it to you" has a little more value than you are currently giving it credit for. The game doesn't need to enforce one singular path of progression; the fact that the alternative to bypass things is its own, drawn out challenge that also skips half the fun of the game and makes things more tedious than the intended path is a price people can voluntarily take. E.g. in Minecraft these days you can get the highest tier of equipment and as such "progression" without ever setting a single foot into a cave, where you are meant to obtain those resources. Or, hell, better example would be the speedrun ability to beat the final boss in under 20 minutes by skipping any non-mandatory parts of progression at the challenge of being incredibly frail, RNG dependant and only getting a single try. Doesn't make the game less well designed (if only focussing on this "strict path of progression" side of things, at least) and doesn't stop people who want to enjoy the game in its fullest from doing the normal progression after all. And while in a multiplayer setting imbalance in progression speed can be detrimental - the guy beelining for steel will be better prepared than the guy spending an entire IRL week in the copper age - there are many more factors far outside of the reach and concerns of the game and devs influencing this - like one person being able to play 8h a day, every day and the other person having a job only allowing them log on for like 2, 3h in the evenings.

[LadyWYT]

9 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

As such, "What's it to you" has a little more value than you are currently giving it credit for.

I think that could be said of both sides of the argument in this thread. Not everyone is going to place the same value on the same things, but the thing is most suggested changes are things that change the game for everyone, and not simply a toggle in the settings that someone can enable if they want to play that way. Extremely niche things are typically better suited for mods, especially if the niche thing is easily overridden by existing game mechanics(like the knife that every player will have). In that case, the player can have what they want, without changing the game for everyone else or otherwise chewing up development time and resources that could have been spent on better things.

Incidentally, I searched the database to see if there was any existing mod that allows players to harvest grass by hand, and couldn't find anything. I think if players really wanted this feature, there'd be at least one mod for it.

[PineReseen]

I've decided to make my own interpretation of the grass idea into a mod: https://mods.vintagestory.at/thegrassiestgrass

Having RNG decide whether or not you get grass will probably dissuade people from only using your hands on grass, especially since with a knife you get even more of it, but it will still allow for quick firepits.

[The Lerf]

But hwhow does this make the game better?

 

Approaching this from the completely wrong angle, this suggestion could also be, "Let us create firewood without tools" with the same means to get to the same ends. I'm sure we can guess why the suggestion isn't that; because we're relying on VS' mechanics being close enough to real life, and a pre-existing condition known as 'we have played other block game'.

When it comes to suggestion forums, one thing I feel isn't usually considered in the idea process when trying to 'fill a gap' is intentionality. A lack of a feature can be as much of the game design as the presence of a feature. If a new player discovers that they can't punch a tree or grass to get their resources a la Minecraft, that is the most tutorializing moment you can make. And what the necessity of needing to make a knife first does for a new player, is to create distance from it's inspiration. The importance of tools, the knapping system, they prime you to stop thinking like you would in other block games. That may be what the devs want.

This isn't about 'but we can do it in real life just as easily' or 'putting train tracks in the sandbox'. It's a vidya gaem. I can't combine bread and meat to make sandwich, rocks only come in one easily throwable size, and i got 35000 cubic meters of garbage in my pocket. It's just the rules of the game.

On 4/27/2026 at 5:35 PM, DeanF said:

I tried to gather grass by hand on my first game, and a lot of other naive players will.  Several "first time" players in videos that I have since watched also tried to do it.  So let them.

The game did let you, and asked you to understand that you aren't playing that game. I don't know why it's a big deal.

 

All this just to say that I don't hate the idea of getting grass with hands, but I don't see the point and think it's unnecessary.