How does one actually start?

[StellarSkys]

I just keep ending up in death loops after 5ish days. I get a small house built up, get a couple basic crafting tables built, and just completely run out of food and stones. The only real armor I can build is a bucket hat and grass shoes. I tried building a stone pick to get the copper nodes, and it was worse at mining than the starting axe.

I try to leave my time and I just get almost killed by an eyeball or goblin archer, if I’m not killed by them or a 2nd encounter.

So I have no food, no resources I need to build up farther, no idea what I’m doing wrong.

I try to fight and I miss every attack, I can’t seemingly train my hit rate, I can’t keep myself and this pet im forced to get fed, I just hit a wall every time.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

i do think you are forgetting that i'm running out food, while also feeding my compaion something you are likely ignoring since i'm learning doing this doesn't impact the game. (why is it even a mechanic then? a mechanic you are told to do even?)

Does it tell you to feed your companion? I don't remember seeing that. But it's a mechanic because later on, when you aren't trying to avoid starving to death, you want you and your companions to eat because it's the best source of attribute experience.

but aside from that, i was trying to save my crim to make a bucket which i then slowly learned i can't even make yet cause i need buckets to make a bucket which is... annoying.

What? You need Logs, Resin, and Bones to make a Bucket helmet. Crim has nothing to do with it, nor do other buckets. You just need to chop a couple trees and gather a couple bones.

and weed stew seems useless as food. i've eaten 5 back to back and not even gotten back to neutral. so it would require insane amounts to keep a player fed. not to mention limit your crafting options.

Grass (other than Pasture) is near-useless and is gained from doing more useful things like gathering flowers for money, removing unwanted plants from your land, or digging up grass so you can till the ground. Weed Stew is a very poor recipe, yes, but it's still an option to ensure you don't starve. With the normal Nutrition consumption (no related traits) you need to eat about 4 of them each time you sleep.

and does hitting the training dummy do anything outside of drop your stamina so you can sleep? theres 0 feedback from the game thats its helpful in any way.

Yes. You gain experience with your weapons and related skills exactly the same way you do as when you're fighting enemies. And there is feedback for this, you can see how far you are advanced towards any given skill in the Skills menu in the character sheet. You can click on those to put a tracker on them that is displayed above the quest tracker.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by Tenoshii:

It is also particularly helpful to use bandages for yourself (and your pet - just need to put it in their inventory) to aid in the total amount of damage you can take over time before you die or have to retreat.

Also, another thing that should be mentioned in this thread: take advantage of those Potions of Blindness the tutorial gives you. It tells you that you can use them to help in fights, and they are amazing for that. Grab it from your inventory with middle mouse button (don't drink it by using right mouse button), then right click an enemy to throw it at them. Thrown potions ALWAYS hit and apply their effects, unless the target is immune, so you can use those Blindness potions to blind a major threat and take the opportunity to kill it or run away.
Don't waste them on the hanged Boar though. Just let your starting companion and Loytel beat it up for you. You often won't even need to add them to your party, they'll just run across it.

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

i do think you are forgetting that i'm running out food, while also feeding my compaion something you are likely ignoring since i'm learning doing this doesn't impact the game. (why is it even a mechanic then? a mechanic you are told to do even?)

Does it tell you to feed your companion? I don't remember seeing that. But it's a mechanic because later on, when you aren't trying to avoid starving to death, you want you and your companions to eat because it's the best source of attribute experience.

but aside from that, i was trying to save my crim to make a bucket which i then slowly learned i can't even make yet cause i need buckets to make a bucket which is... annoying.

What? You need Logs, Resin, and Bones to make a Bucket helmet. Crim has nothing to do with it, nor do other buckets. You just need to chop a couple trees and gather a couple bones.

and weed stew seems useless as food. i've eaten 5 back to back and not even gotten back to neutral. so it would require insane amounts to keep a player fed. not to mention limit your crafting options.

Grass (other than Pasture) is near-useless and is gained from doing more useful things like gathering flowers for money, removing unwanted plants from your land, or digging up grass so you can till the ground. Weed Stew is a very poor recipe, yes, but it's still an option to ensure you don't starve. With the normal Nutrition consumption (no related traits) you need to eat about 4 of them each time you sleep.

and does hitting the training dummy do anything outside of drop your stamina so you can sleep? theres 0 feedback from the game thats its helpful in any way.

Yes. You gain experience with your weapons and related skills exactly the same way you do as when you're fighting enemies. And there is feedback for this, you can see how far you are advanced towards any given skill in the Skills menu in the character sheet. You can click on those to put a tracker on them that is displayed above the quest tracker.

it does yeah, theres even an entire quest dedicated to it.

i meant an actual bucket not a helmet. which needs clay which you can make from crim.

and yeah making the exp the decimal point is just ugh. even more so when it takes several training to even go up .01 cause you can practice hitting it, check the stat nothing went up.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

it does yeah, theres even an entire quest dedicated to it.

It doesn't. Food is only one part of the shared chest thing, and it also never says that you need to feed them, only that they'll take food from it.
It's certainly not clear that you don't need to actively feed them, but it doesn't tell you to feed them either.

I will say this though: as soon as you talk to Ashland to advance that quest after setting it as a shared container, go back and change it to private. That chest is huge and you want to limit what's in shared containers since you're more important than your followers.

i meant an actual bucket not a helmet. which needs clay which you can make from crim.

Okay, but why? What do you need that bucket for?
And you don't need crim to make it. You can use bone powder, cheap potions, or booze to make the clay. Crim powder is for throwing into the shipping chest for loads of money, because it's basically LSD.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

and for some reason melee weapons aren't showing stats for me.

Also, you've said this a few times, so my question is, are you unable to see stats on melee weapons that you actually possess, or are you referring to your inability to see the stats of a melee weapon in the crafting menu? Because you can't see the stats of a melee weapon in the crafting menu, on account of the fact that it makes a random weapon and so you wouldn't know what the stats are beforehand.
It randomly chooses between creating a Short Sword, a Long Sword, a Spear, a Club, a Staff, or a Hand Axe. It's definitely bs that it's a random weapon, but they're still all going to be better than going with no weapon, on account of Two Handed stance vastly improving your accuracy when you hold a single weapon and nothing else.

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

it does yeah, theres even an entire quest dedicated to it.

It doesn't. Food is only one part of the shared chest thing, and it also never says that you need to feed them, only that they'll take food from it.
It's certainly not clear that you don't need to actively feed them, but it doesn't tell you to feed them either.

I will say this though: as soon as you talk to Ashland to advance that quest after setting it as a shared container, go back and change it to private. That chest is huge and you want to limit what's in shared containers since you're more important than your followers.

i meant an actual bucket not a helmet. which needs clay which you can make from crim.

Okay, but why? What do you need that bucket for?
And you don't need crim to make it. You can use bone powder, cheap potions, or booze to make the clay. Crim powder is for throwing into the shipping chest for loads of money, because it's basically LSD.

i mean the first line after getting them "please take care of them" one of the 3 quests that pop up after getting them, how to do shared chests so people can grab food from it.

i was seeing lots of recipes that needed water, and i figure water is a good thing to have. also i've never seen an actual merchant, and when i was testing recipes i didn't have enough bone to see if bone dust was even a thing, i did have crim though. i don't know every recipe i only know what i've seen.

as for the melee weapons showing stats, both crafted and yet to be crafted. like my iron axe doesn't show any, rods don't show any. trident does but that has a throwing stat to it.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

i mean the first line after getting them "please take care of them" one of the 3 quests that pop up after getting them, how to do shared chests so people can grab food from it.

It doesn't say that it's SO THAT they can grab food from it, it says that they CAN. Technically it doesn't tell you that you need to feed them.
It isn't obvious that it doesn't say that, though. So whatever.

i was seeing lots of recipes that needed water, and i figure water is a good thing to have.

Okay, that makes sense.
Buckets other than the helmet are totally useless props.

also i've never seen an actual merchant, and when i was testing recipes i didn't have enough bone to see if bone dust was even a thing, i did have crim though. i don't know every recipe i only know what i've seen.

You're not going to see a merchant if you never go out into the world and visit a settlement of some kind. Which you'd probably benefit greatly from doing, going to the Tinker's Camp northwest of Meadow, which has a blacksmith that usually has some decent, affordable equipment.

as for the melee weapons showing stats, both crafted and yet to be crafted. like my iron axe doesn't show any, rods don't show any. trident does but that has a throwing stat to it.

The Iron Woodcutter's Axe isn't a weapon. It says "not suitable for combat" right in the description.
Rods aren't a weapon, they're a tool that can be used to cast a spell.
I'm not sure what you mean by the Trident having a throwing stat. Do you mean it says something like "It improves your throwing"? If so, that means that it increases your Throwing skill while you have it equipped.

Also, since I'm not sure of what you know about this, you don't equip melee weapons by putting them on your hotbar, you equip them by putting them in the hand slots on the right of the screen when you have the inventory open.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

ecause they in all my games have created a big wild fire that ends up destorying it and sometimes blocks next to it, that destorys the bon fire?

When you cook a recipe, if you don't have a high enough Cooking skill to meet the stated requirement of the dish, you have a chance of a failure, which results in a failed dish that is bad in nutrition and causes a lot of negative attribute growth. You can also critically fail, which will cause a fire if you're using a fire to cook.
To prevent this, you need the Cooking skill. If you aren't a Farmer, then you don't start with it, so you need to go learn it. To the south of you is Willow, which has a skill trainer in it that will teach you the first level of Cooking for 5 platinum coins (4 if you're the Yerles race). Platinum coins are primarily gained by completing quests, which give 1-2 platinum. You'll find those in settlements, and residents of your home will post requests sometimes as well.

Also, you can put out those fire pillars by throwing a potion at them (like those Potions of Confusion you get in the tutorial), and you can also just grab the bonfire out of the fire before it's destroyed and put it somewhere else.

Honestly, the real actual problem I see is that you really should just take no oath instead of opting for permadeath. If you explore around you'll find solutions to many of your problems, that you just aren't aware of because you keep dying in permadeath mode.

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

i mean the first line after getting them "please take care of them" one of the 3 quests that pop up after getting them, how to do shared chests so people can grab food from it.

It doesn't say that it's SO THAT they can grab food from it, it says that they CAN. Technically it doesn't tell you that you need to feed them.
It isn't obvious that it doesn't say that, though. So whatever.

i was seeing lots of recipes that needed water, and i figure water is a good thing to have.

Okay, that makes sense.
Buckets other than the helmet are totally useless props.

also i've never seen an actual merchant, and when i was testing recipes i didn't have enough bone to see if bone dust was even a thing, i did have crim though. i don't know every recipe i only know what i've seen.

You're not going to see a merchant if you never go out into the world and visit a settlement of some kind. Which you'd probably benefit greatly from doing, going to the Tinker's Camp northwest of Meadow, which has a blacksmith that usually has some decent, affordable equipment.

as for the melee weapons showing stats, both crafted and yet to be crafted. like my iron axe doesn't show any, rods don't show any. trident does but that has a throwing stat to it.

The Iron Woodcutter's Axe isn't a weapon. It says "not suitable for combat" right in the description.
Rods aren't a weapon, they're a tool that can be used to cast a spell.
I'm not sure what you mean by the Trident having a throwing stat. Do you mean it says something like "It improves your throwing"? If so, that means that it increases your Throwing skill while you have it equipped.

Also, since I'm not sure of what you know about this, you don't equip melee weapons by putting them on your hotbar, you equip them by putting them in the hand slots on the right of the screen when you have the inventory open.

yes but its teaching me these things back to back. why teach me about feeding animals from shared chests right after i get an animal if its not for that animal? why not wait until i get my first livestock if it means that. its designed in a way thats quite connected.

i mean it had tags like can draw and store water which sounds useful when several recipies says needs pot of water, and thats the only item other than using potions i can find to do it. (but it needs pots of water that isnt potions so still not sure how to make it without finding my own or buying a bucket.

yeah i managed to go a few days and finally get armor this time without dying, but i still don't trust myself getting hit by a random ambush on my way to some city. those beach tiles i hit up were dangerous enough to disway that.

i'll have to double check what the trident said, also i didn't know you had to manually equip melee weapons, thats... weird. but oh well.

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

ecause they in all my games have created a big wild fire that ends up destorying it and sometimes blocks next to it, that destorys the bon fire?

When you cook a recipe, if you don't have a high enough Cooking skill to meet the stated requirement of the dish, you have a chance of a failure, which results in a failed dish that is bad in nutrition and causes a lot of negative attribute growth. You can also critically fail, which will cause a fire if you're using a fire to cook.
To prevent this, you need the Cooking skill. If you aren't a Farmer, then you don't start with it, so you need to go learn it. To the south of you is Willow, which has a skill trainer in it that will teach you the first level of Cooking for 5 platinum coins (4 if you're the Yerles race). Platinum coins are primarily gained by completing quests, which give 1-2 platinum. You'll find those in settlements, and residents of your home will post requests sometimes as well.

Honestly, the real actual problem I see is that you really should just take no oath instead of opting for permadeath. If you explore around you'll find solutions to many of your problems, that you just aren't aware of because you keep dying in permadeath mode.

yeah i figured. just someone was saying they've never needed to make another one, so i was just saying why i needed to.

also wow 5 plat is insane. i have one.

and i mean some of the saves i've done aren't with perma death. and it makes no change because i enter starve chains until this most recent one where i died and had some bamboo shoots leftover.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

i mean it had tags like can draw and store water which sounds useful when several recipies says needs pot of water, and thats the only item other than using potions i can find to do it. (but it needs pots of water that isnt potions so still not sure how to make it without finding my own or buying a bucket.

The source of the confusion here is that that's not a bucket, that's the Bottomless Pot.
Yes, it is useful, its purpose is to pick up water tiles and put them down somewhere else (including taking water from some other tile entirely and putting it in your base).
Pots of Water are a relatively rare item. You'll eventually find some. There's only one guaranteed way to get them, and that's on the opposite side of the map, but regardless it's not relevant to early survival.

yeah i managed to go a few days and finally get armor this time without dying, but i still don't trust myself getting hit by a random ambush on my way to some city. those beach tiles i hit up were dangerous enough to disway that.

Stay near the roads and the danger level is lower, and if you're on a road then a friendly Guard may be there to help you with the ambush. And most of the time you can just run away without any real trouble, especially if you use a Potion of Blindness or Confusion on something highly dangerous.

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

also wow 5 plat is insane. i have one.

You'll pretty likely find multiple quests you can complete without much issue when you go to a town, and will quickly build up 5. As I said, you get 1-2 per quest completion.

and i mean some of the saves i've done aren't with perma death. and it makes no change because i enter starve chains until this most recent one where i died and had some bamboo shoots leftover.

If all else fails, remember: you always have food if you have a woodcutter's axe and a shovel. If there's nothing traditionally considered edible (there's almost always is on any wilderness tile) you can dig up the grass and make stew out of it.

[StellarSkys]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

i mean it had tags like can draw and store water which sounds useful when several recipies says needs pot of water, and thats the only item other than using potions i can find to do it. (but it needs pots of water that isnt potions so still not sure how to make it without finding my own or buying a bucket.

The source of the confusion here is that that's not a bucket, that's the Bottomless Pot.
Yes, it is useful, its purpose is to pick up water tiles and put them down somewhere else (including taking water from some other tile entirely and putting it in your base).
Pots of Water are a relatively rare item. You'll eventually find some. There's only one guaranteed way to get them, and that's on the opposite side of the map, but regardless it's not relevant to early survival.

yeah i managed to go a few days and finally get armor this time without dying, but i still don't trust myself getting hit by a random ambush on my way to some city. those beach tiles i hit up were dangerous enough to disway that.

Stay near the roads and the danger level is lower, and if you're on a road then a friendly Guard may be there to help you with the ambush. And most of the time you can just run away without any real trouble, especially if you use a Potion of Blindness or Confusion on something highly dangerous.

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

also wow 5 plat is insane. i have one.

You'll pretty likely find multiple quests you can complete without much issue when you go to a town, and will quickly build up 5. As I said, you get 1-2 per quest completion.

and i mean some of the saves i've done aren't with perma death. and it makes no change because i enter starve chains until this most recent one where i died and had some bamboo shoots leftover.

If all else fails, remember: you always have food if you have a woodcutter's axe and a shovel. If there's nothing traditionally considered edible (there's almost always is on any wilderness tile) you can dig up the grass and make stew out of it.

ah yeah i just figured the name was the game having fun with it, and it was just your normal pot you can fill with water.

[Exar kun]

Originally posted by gimmethegepgun:

When you cook a recipe, if you don't have a high enough Cooking skill to meet the stated requirement of the dish, you have a chance of a failure, which results in a failed dish that is bad in nutrition and causes a lot of negative attribute growth. You can also critically fail, which will cause a fire if you're using a fire to cook.

...

Learned about cooking failures with a painful lesson with having everything I built right next to it and having it burn down despite thinking I got down the mechanics and new one showed up like this and made me feel stupid but just as in real life that too would be a bad idea.

Regarding to the OP, have you played other games like this? The learning curve is there but I've played Dungeonmans, Tangledeep, Shiren series of games and others (like Quasimorph) and they all riff on each other... Elin in particular is from a dev thats not really changed that much from their previous games like Elona, however they are kinda troll like at times. There will be information overload early on but once you know things get much easier, cooking food only matters later and if you don't even have the cooking stat unlocked its wasted, early cooking makes a item go from like 7 nutrition to 9 at the cost of 2-5 stam and early on thats crippling. As for enemies, those are yeeks you are talking about and they get worse, not sure what the kamikaze yeek will do if I let it get too close but I kill it before finding out.

My latest run that seems to going pretty sweet is where I've decided to play the "secret classes" by unlocking the extra classes and races option at the bottom right; then played as a Demigod race as the executioner class which lets me use mana as a 2nd health bar before dying. Picked the little girl pet and kept doing some small battles until they get to at least 75 affection so I can switch out their gear BUT and its a big but... that will go back to 0 if they die... Not sure what you need for it to be permanent but over 100 I think and so far its not reset. Hardly bothered building up the Meadow, no cooking at all but did like 2-3 quests at Tinker's Camp and snatched the Hammock asap and I won't have to worry about Stam for a long time otherwise you'll have to sleep several times to fully recover in makeshift beds. Only time I died was at a level 5-6 Nefia and I just cleared it (first time you clear it the victory music is SWEET! Worth the pain getting there) a hot dude killed me, since they explode on death, had a feeling that was going to happen but the more you know.

If you can post screenshots or videos of what problems are giving you the most trouble maybe we can narrow things down better but you'll get there, did my number of restarts as well.

[gimmethegepgun]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

trident does but that has a throwing stat to it.

Okay I realized what you saw when you said this. Polearm weapons have "It can attack distant targets", which means that they have a melee range of 2 instead of 1.

Originally posted by Exar kun:

a hot dude killed me, since they explode on death, had a feeling that was going to happen but the more you know.

They don't explode on death, they have a suicide explosion that they use when low health. Destroying them in one hit prevents that. Also, they can't explode if they're Wet, so you can throw a potion at them, or use Cold spells like Ice Arrow, to prevent it long enough to kill them.

[THANKS OBAMA]

Originally posted by StellarSkys:

Originally posted by THANKS OBAMA:

The problem with hermit crabs is they got high as hell pv. They have low DV, so hit them with elemental damage, or two hand a weapon that is at least 2d5 damage and you will obliterate them with ease. They have a damage threshold they are immune to anything below that escapes my memory right now.

I usually use them to train weapon skills and armor/evasion skills when training a new weapon once I have more PV than they can deal to turn their crap on its head.

what elemental damage? the extremely super rare spells i'm scared to use because i have no clue how to get my like seemingly 10 forever uses of a spell?

also what 2h weapon? and only ranged weapons seem to display damage, and not even close to that.

Carry any kind of cane with you for them really. As an alternative I also said just give your pet a weapon with damage over the threshold of its defenses.

You will want to carry canes later on either way to help deal with other annoying enemy types.