I love the game and it has come pretty far since I bought it several years ago and only started playing again recently. Ignoring all the bupkis surrounding a seemingly large number of armchair cybersecurity experts, the progression as far as tools are concerned is basically perfection. No complaints. However, I have some issues with how agriculture is handled in the game because while it does incentivize you to find other sources of sustenance (malefactor, blackguard, and hunter all address this in their own unique ways), it doesn't really make sense that I cannot build my own farm until I have a metal tool (copper saw). I understand that having the ability to place water is very powerful in a block game just like it is in Minecraft, but... I also do not understand why I can not make some form of ceramic equivalent because I religiously watch Primitive Technology on YouTube and this is exactly what he does.
I'm not a big stickler for realism, but I do like it in survival games because it makes the experience more immersive, but you don't need metal tools to make something that can carry water in real life. I know that it is probably like that for either balance reasons or a holdover from Vintage Story's early days as a Minecraft mod, though. Not gonna complain too hard about it because it is just about the only issue I have with the game, which is actually very good since it allows me to give the team some highly specific suggestions to smooth out the progression curve in all aspects of the game.
With that being said, there are mods that do address these issues. Fishingplus makes the baiting your hook far less tedious. CrucibleInForge gives me one more option when it comes to smelting alloys with a sufficient enough drawback to consider it balanced. Primitive Survival solves the issue with early game irrigation completely, but fishing does need some work because it seems to be very strong in that particular mod, but is about on par with hunting because 3 deep pits and spears trivialize it entirely as it would in any block game.
That leads me to the other thing I actually like about this game; the ease of which you can actually install mods and share them with others since they are installed upon joining a server. My best friend used to always be the one to curate our modpacks on CurseForge, but this game makes it entirely unnecessary.
Tyron and the team are doing a great job and I'll not be easily convinced otherwise.
It is kinda crazy that lots of people who seem to not understand very much about cybersecurity have twisted the actual definition of the word malware into whatever convenient bogeyman they believe is worthy of this level of vitriol. Imagine if schlep was hated by the Roblox community for tricking pdf's into exposing themselves with help from the actual police lmao.