Why is stamina balance so bad in this game?

[BecketsGD]

I am early game and this game seems to demand an insanely high amount of stamina per task and offers ZERO real boosts with food options. Even worse, I have to buy a food before I even know what it does. I have wasted so much money buying food thats boost health when its stamina I wanted. Hovering over items doesn't tell me anything unless I do it from my inventory. Either I am missing something, or the food to stamina ration is extremely bad. How does one deal with this early in the game? Yes I have googled, watched gameplays etc, and NO those aren't helpful when actually playing the game

[Kiryn]

Originally posted by GloriasDaughter:

ITs odd to play a game that basically tells you to sleep your way through it just so you can do the bare minimum during the day so as to manage stamina costs.

Hmm. I don't really remember feeling that way in the early game. (started playing a few months ago). It certainly didn't feel as limited as Portia.
I'm trying to remember what all I did each day in early game, I think it was either scavenge stuff around the land, or do a ruins dive for ore & relics. That would use up the stamina & the day, so then it would be time to refill my machines & go to sleep. Never really felt like that big of a problem. And then once I had 400-500 stam, and it certainly wasn't a problem anymore.

(and now I'm in the late game, and going to sleep with half my stamina remaining, because I don't need to harvest much and the things I'm doing take more time than stam.)

[jdhlsc169]

Originally posted by GloriasDaughter:

Originally posted by Yhtill:

You only need to sleep from Midnight to 7AM but as it has been pointed out some people have complained about it before. I never had much issue after the first week or so, once I had a small amount of $$. Sorry you aren't enjoying the game @ OP.

thank you. I am past the first week, but figuring things out has been a task. This is just another thing I have to figure out :) I enjoy the game, just struggling a lot with this specific aspect of the game.

I played 40 hours and it didn't get much better. Whereas in Portia, I can almost immediately reduce the Stamina consumption on the axe/pickaxe to 50% from the first 4 level ups, find apple/royal honey to consume, plant an apple tree, craft a drying rack and dry apple slices. It doesn't take long to get to that point in Portia whereas I was near the end of summer in Sandrock and finally gave up, hoping they would fix it. Apparently they have not, which is why I will mod Stamina for the first time ever.

[jdhlsc169]

Originally posted by JIBA:

Every single farming simulator or whatever game in this genre has a slow start in terms of stamina in early. Hell, you can look at Stardew Valley. Expecting to clear out your whole farm day 1 would be stupid.

In the same sense expecting to clear every object/junk in a single day outside of Sandrock would be stupid aswell. So what are you trying to do in a single day OP? Trying to clear the mines floor 1-11 in a single day while mining every single copper node you see?

Now I do agree with few of your points, there aren't many stamina recovering options in the game. Even I had some trouble early game even after investing all my knowledge points into stamina but surely it wasn't that bad.

SDV has easy regen items. Fish, foraging, seaweed from fishing, field snacks from tree drops available almost immediately, Salmonberry season on day 15 in Spring, crops. There is no comparison regen wise. Regen allows you to do the things you want to do in a day whether that is mining, fishing, clearing trees or planting and watering crops. The regen in Sandrock is non-existent unless you want to spend money every day and I don't particularly find that fun, because even then, you can only do a few things and you are back to nothing.

[JVC]

Originally posted by Bmm113:

personally, I just use as much stamina as possible at the beginning, and your character will level up in different areas as you do quests and such. the stamina consumption does get much better, it's just that the builder isn't used to desert life yet at the beginning lol. I suggest getting sandberries and jerky made for the mines and such, or you can get stamina potions from fang.

This is an accurate description. You're not supposed to be able to do much mining each day in the early game since you're also supposed to do stuff that doesn't involve being a builder maniac. You're also expected to socialise with the townspeople and learn their stories. You're also supposed to spend time exploring the map and your surroundings.

In the early game I prioritize: ok I have today's commission - at this time I can only get one per day - then what to do to complete this task takes overall priority. Often I'd spend the stamina on simply mining in Rocky's scrapyard. Money is tight in the early game and you want to get the most out of either the free weekly pass he gives you or from the first weekly passes you buy since those cut into your funds. So for the first weeks I'd make sure that I could complete today's commission, I'd go and salvage scrap in Rocky's yard and/or mine some in the mine as needed. But most often it was salvaging scrap in the yard. Feed it to the recyclers you've made, collect the items they produce to begin building up an economy. When there's spare time set your furnaces, cutters etc to begin building items so you can stock up and complete the next commissions faster. Then spend the rest of the day exploring the town or surroundings, talking to characters etc. Experimenting a bit with what gifts they'd like that are cheap. Trying to build up some npc relations.

You level up very quickly and that's needed to be able to progress in the story and in scaling up your workshop to becoming a decent economy. The restraints are there to force you to prioritize, to get you to set a goal for the day and achieve it and to get into the habit of thinking that way so you eventually can run a bigger operation.

The comparision with stamina for swinging the pickhammer and axe isn't a good one. No matter the level of your pickhammer or axe, swinging it takes 3 stamina. But each time you swap your tool with a similar one from a higher technology level (stone -> iron -> etc) the effect you get from swinging it increases. So you're incentivized to get rid of your early gear pretty quickly to get more bang for the buck. And you're incentivized to follow the story in the game since that'll also force you to upgrade your workshop to higher levels of tech. I always keep Qi busy unlocking stuff for me.

[TaylerBootz]

I'm not reading this ridiculous thread, but to the OP, The stamina is about the same as Portia. You do what you can. Get a drying rack early (meat and fish are easy to come by) and upgrade your house/land to increase stamina limit and place all your stamina boosting furniture. All of these games have you start out with crap stamina. At least you can run everywhere in Sandrock. In Portia you had a separate stamina for running (kind of like the dodge stamina in this game). They also have stamina boosting items in the ruins, though those seem ridiculously overpriced.

[Livia]

Originally posted by GloriasDaughter:

I find that eating does so little for stamina that its not worth it. I will try to spend the next 6 days in game fishing and drying food, but to be honest, I would be amazed if I didin't have to eat 12 fish just to make it mean something. I have two drying racks and already bought some salt so i will go fishing

You're supposed to use your time to do other things, like engage with the townsfolk. You can also use your time to gather trash around the town as this costs no stamina and will give you supplies. Gather manure for no stamina, dust the graves, destroy tumbleweeds - there is plenty to keep you busy. If you want to, buy the deal of the day from Owen twice a day for a simple, cheap boost.

Early game is early game. It's really not that different from Portia.

Make sure you are upgrading all your items to "rare" status for more stamina points. Hazardous Ruins are your friend for top quality gear! You will soon have plenty of stamina. Days where I have to do anything besides gather, I have to really work to use up all mine.

[Valrath]

I know the feeling of wanting do so many things in a day in Sandrock. i even take afternoon sleep since i spent stamina too quickly and no more way to recover it in same day.

I suggest set time speed to 1.0, dont make it lower so you'll want to sleep to recover stamina as it is already evening / late, setting it lower will make you wanna do a lot more in a day.

Take your time in Sandrock.

[SimuLord]

The stamina system's balanced quite well, it's just a bit tricky to get one's head around early on.

Progression isn't based around making things cost less stamina per action, nor is it really about adding boosts to max SP (although that latter became a lot easier with the 1.0 release; befriending animals, children, and Mi'an will give you a huge SP pool in bonuses.)

It's about getting more powerful equipment and refining the equipment you get so that it takes fewer actions to complete a task (scrapping a game object or breaking a rock or chopping a tree or even slaying an enemy.) The game rewards efficiency.

[TyresTyco]

The only issue I have with stamina is the food being so incredibly useless. Every single kind of food is intended to create 1000 of it which seems like a waste if you could just use the stamina to gather the stuff you actually need.

15 second buffs are useless. Getting like 3% hp and such are useless. Everything but dried sandacuda is not worth the hassle.

It baffles my mind that they didnt buff all the food. Small numbers and the grind attached to it isn't fun. Same can be said about all the miniscule upgrades you get. All these 1 more mining power... 10 more def.. 10 more hp... thats incredibly unfun balanced. Not that there are huge combat issues or such. Just saying that getting rewarded by very small numbers or upgrades for a baffling amount of grind is just.. not that fun.

[BecketsGD]

Originally posted by TyresTyco:

The only issue I have with stamina is the food being so incredibly useless. Every single kind of food is intended to create 1000 of it which seems like a waste if you could just use the stamina to gather the stuff you actually need.

15 second buffs are useless. Getting like 3% hp and such are useless. Everything but dried sandacuda is not worth the hassle.

It baffles my mind that they didnt buff all the food. Small numbers and the grind attached to it isn't fun. Same can be said about all the miniscule upgrades you get. All these 1 more mining power... 10 more def.. 10 more hp... thats incredibly unfun balanced. Not that there are huge combat issues or such. Just saying that getting rewarded by very small numbers or upgrades for a baffling amount of grind is just.. not that fun.

THIS is what my problem is. The food is useless. This is my entire problem with the game's stamina. I get that early game stamina is always a grindfest in games, BUT, eventually it gets better. The food in this game makes nothing better. It just doesn't do much. Why make a kitchen or get a stove when the food doesn't help you? Is it just for gifting NPCs? I dont plan on grinding food ingredients just to give it away and not benefit from it. At some point, the game should feel good to play. How does stamina get better when food doesn't lift it?

[BecketsGD]

OK, so I kept playing and it takes getting some nodes on the tree AND upgrading gear, but the stamina does get more manageable, if not expensive. The food is still useless though. Basically have to buy the blue bottles of heat(whatever) to replenish it

[Kai]

Buy heatstroke medicine from dungeons, they are quite cheap early on too since it's only merely 150~200 gold for a 100 stamina recovery item and 710 for 100%.
You don't need to rely on them all the time, plus if you sleep in bed properly each night, you should be able to regen 20% hp/sp every 2 seconds in a bed by napping.

Once you level up more and put more furniture into your leveled workshop, your stamina and stats increases enough to the point where it's manageable.

And this is from the multiplayer portion of the game too.

Remember that operating machines require WATER and Fuel, and 10 machines taking 30 minutes to make items will be 300 minutes worth of time taken from your water the moment you 'start' it.

But 25 water is fairly cheap, it's about 250+ gold to stockpile every day, if you do commissions and level up a lot, your commissions will start paying out a ton more.

Also create a lot of dew collectors, 10 is enough to enable you to have several hours worth if you let them fill up over 24 ingame hours and they are cheap to produce.

Since you can create personal storage containers easily, you can try to organize it so you store all your machines and deploy them to what you need.

[Kai]

I think stamina from food should be buffed in a unique manner, using a hunger system:

Your maximum stamina drops temporarily if you do not eat often, making heatstroke medicines and napping in bed moot if you don't eat.

Eating food should 'recover' max stamina (or basically your stamina becomes 'damaged' the longer you go without food) and increases your natural stamina regen rate for a period of time (so using beds and items that heals stamina happens at a greater magnitude).

This makes eating at the saloon kind of a daily routine before starting your day, not simply to heal stamina, but to 'reinforce' it (maybe it can increase your maximum stamina if you eat better dishes?).

Perhaps they can add in a entire line of 'food related' knowledge tree system that extends from the original 'cooking' section, with more stamina management efficiency from being fully fed, and your energy cost when doing action is reduced (up to 50% maybe?) if you invested points in that.

For instance a 'gourmet' or 'gastronomy' focused build has you investing points into multiplying the effects of food, doubling or even tripling the raw stats of the benefits.

Or new food created from meat that is a improvement on the 'jerky', with 'energy/protein bars' variants.

Right now stamina at early game to mid game heals around 15~30 stamina per use on average, which is a bit on the low side for mid game, and better food items are kinda rare by late game unless you invest a ton of resources into that.

[BecketsGD]

Originally posted by Kai:

I think stamina from food should be buffed in a unique manner, using a hunger system:

Your maximum stamina drops temporarily if you do not eat often, making heatstroke medicines and napping in bed moot if you don't eat.

Eating food should 'recover' max stamina (or basically your stamina becomes 'damaged' the longer you go without food) and increases your natural stamina regen rate for a period of time (so using beds and items that heals stamina happens at a greater magnitude).

This makes eating at the saloon kind of a daily routine before starting your day, not simply to heal stamina, but to 'reinforce' it (maybe it can increase your maximum stamina if you eat better dishes?).

I likE that idea actually. the food syustem just isn't worth it for me so I RARELY eat it. I just save it for potential quests. Growing it is the same. it serves no purpose so I dont really do it unless its quest related. I grow a bit of everything and hoard it till I need to top up something after a quest. I currently just have 125 wheat doing nothing in my storage container lol. I am happy it takes more for me to lose stamina, it just isn't good when its time to replace it. I do buy heatstroke meds when i go into the breach and top up health stuff if i need to. I have only done first upgrades on machines and water I often buy or use from rewards. I am always full there.

[Kai]

Idea: For every ingame 'minute' reduce max stamina by 0.1 SP if you didn't eat yet. A hunger debuff. This timer only ticks down when you are moving and doing actions, not if you are standing still.

They can basically code it to check if a player is standing still and not doing actions, to 'not' apply the debuff. If a player is not doing this, then another check can be if they've eaten food recently. Else, apply it. It can be a hidden state called 'afk/idle'.

If you eat any food, add a buff that heals said 'hunger' by 2 max SP every ingame 'minute' for a set duration (300?), to negate the loss. A 'satiated' buff.

When you have the satiated buff, all stamina/health/stat based food (NOT MEDICINE) will see a marginal increase in effectiveness by +25% / +50% / +100%, based on your skill points invested, and will also replenish the timer that keeps you from going hungry back to 300 (etc) ingame minutes (5 hours ingame).

So that jerky that heals 16 stamina, becomes 20 / 24 / 32 stamina.

A bonus buff will be applied if your max stamina is reached and you are 'satiated', reducing the stamina drain from doing any stamina related action by 20% or 30% maybe, or maybe you can apply that to a skill you can unlock.

Also, food that regenerates stamina would work wondrously with these skills, since it's stackable and can be consumed while you are 'working' to regen while you spend stamina.