Aklone

Like Bruno mentioned, I think an elegant solution for any issues like this would be for them to be opt in mechanics. You can do the bare minimum to have the same efficiency as current vanilla, but if you decide to engage with more advanced tool handle crafting, butchery, etc, you get rewarded for it. Those that don't want to bother will have their experiences largely untouched, while those who want to get into the nitty gritty can be rewarded for it. Much like how in DST it actually takes no effort to grow crops from seeds, to get enough seeds to maintain/propagate isn't much more effort, but to grow giant crops you have to account for every factor.

Yeah, I feel like we should have a clay age option for moving water. Maybe a clay pot that breaks down after a few uses. Though that's if they want to keep the water mechanics similar to MC. But I would also be open to a more immersive/hardcore shakeup like the water transport mod. Maybe I should have clarified that I'm not exactly a new player. I can reach iron age pretty comfortably and consistently in the first year (obviously not an impressive flex lol, just to clarify that I'm not confused about basic concepts). My main gripe is that what you do early on is very barebones, in my opinion. And that I dislike how much focus the last few updates have been giving to adding later game content, when I feel there's a lot of missing holes with more fundamental features. And needing to add mods like primitive survival to then bridge those gaps. I get this, and mob grinders are definitely something I dislike as well. I'm just saying, maybe the surface drifters should despawn immediately if there's no loot to harvest. I agree and appreciate it's a setting you can modify, but this is another mechanic that I think should be fleshed out more. Here's to hoping the aquatic update happens relatively soon. It feels like every voxel game I know of always has lifeless oceans, which is a shame because I'd love a reason to build an underwater base. Regarding the raft, I was referring to moving water (bucket). It's just one of those things that I feel is odd that we can only access through one specific way. Why can't we boil salt water? Etc. The actual necessity of salt is kind of pointless right now since cooking stews and sealing them in crockpots already last for over a year. Again, I will say I think the updates are focusing a bit too much on endgame content, and I hope we will see a bigger focus on early game changes. Why can't we tap trees for resin, especially considering how much you end up needing for windmills? Why are we still using basic sticks as handles for tools, when crafting the tool head is so immersive and involved? Etc. (I know there are mods for these, but the point is that they should be in the base game in some form) This game has such a great capacity for creativity and immersive survival, I think working towards expanding/polishing the existing mechanics would provide much more value if worked on first, compared to dungeons and lore that, while high quality, loses a lot of impact after the first experience. Take for example a game like Don't Starve Together. Initially, farming was very simple. Grow a seed in a farm plot, get crop. Feed crop to bird to get extra seeds to propagate. Basically, it was a system not worth interacting with. But after the farming update, the process got a lot more involved, and players were rewarded if they mastered the farming mechanics by getting giant versions of crops they grow. This led to enough interactivity that some players could have fun just being 'base moms'. In VS, I would rather we get updates for fundamental parts of the gameplay loop first (crossbreeding plants would be sick), rather than new set pieces.

The early/mid-game right now is kind of a pain in the ass once you get out of the honeymoon beginner phase. The character's default hunger drain is really high, and it's annoying to deal with especially before you can start making meals. You really can't sprint all that much if you want to preserve hunger, and are kind of forced to sleep nights often to pass time for resources to regrow. All renewable forms of food have extremely long ramp up times, needing a lot of gathering (bushes/seeds), and waiting around (animals to breed, bushes/crops to grow) Bears and wolves are both silent most of the time and extremely aggressive, while also giving poor quality food Surface drifters drop nothing most of the time, and honestly it feels like a middle finger when you have to use your time and knife durability to harvest them to check. Temporal storms are boring and easily ignored if you just dirt coffin yourself. Default world-gen is extremely hilly and lacks any water/real reason to build watercraft Some things are just arbitrarily limited, like copper tools for water transportation or having to find salt in caves for food preservation. That being said, I do like the game and get that it's still in development. I just wished I didn't need to tweak a bunch of settings and download a bunch of QOL/immersion mods to make the early game feel fun and substantial