Donkey no longer gives me bodies, and I feel like the game has lost its point.

[C-zom]

So my current situation of juggling thirteen different things has become to bend my enjoyment towards its breaking point. I needed to pay cash for carrot seeds, wait an eternity, give them to the donkey. Then I see he needs oil, too. I just rebuilt my church but I don't have any faith, science, or blue points. So I'm makimg like 18b a week on failed sermons. I'm not getting corpses, so I can't sell the certs. I still don't even have the meat stamp. I'm chasing upgrades to my homestead, but they're all just to craft items that require so much time/energy to find, and the quests never stop chaining with little to zero reward.

Honestly it feels like this game is behind a grindwall, and I'm starting to wonder WHAT the game is. It certainly isn't upkeeping the friggin graveyard when the donkey stops. It certainly isn't base building, alchemy, farming, combat or exploration. So what is the main enjoyment here? How do I make money? How do I sustain myself? Why is there EVEN a graveyard when the virtual only source of bodies is a donkey that went on strike, is costing me money, and there are no ways to kill people for their bodies? Have more than one arrive a day? Bring them back from the dead? Harvest their organs to sell on the black market? I can't do ANY of this.

Vent over. This four hours has gone from 9/10 to 4/10 real fast to me. Can someone help guide me, or am I correct and screwed?

[eternalmindgame]

This part has quite vexed me as well. In Alpha the donkey never went on strike so this came as a surprise. I would suggest taking one thing at a time. There really is no time limit to do any of the quests. For the first while I focused on crafting (chopping, mining, building). Then used that to fix my graveyard (you can remove all the bad crosses anr replace them with newley crafted ones, take the old ones and turn them into firewood). Then upgrade inside of the church to at least a lvl 10 to always pass a sermon. Then focus on getting a compost heap. This gives you peat which you can use on your crops to get more crops and seeds. Then focus on the donkey. I also took the merchant up on his offer of 5 silver. Hope this helps a bit. And remember to just focus on one thing at a time and not to get overwhelmed by all of the tasks. Oh and watch a few YouTubes to get a feeling for the game.

[C-zom]

Originally posted by eternalmindgame:

This part has quite vexed me as well. In Alpha the donkey never went on strike so this came as a surprise. I would suggest taking one thing at a time. There really is no time limit to do any of the quests. For the first while I focused on crafting (chopping, mining, building). Then used that to fix my graveyard (you can remove all the bad crosses anr replace them with newley crafted ones, take the old ones and turn them into firewood). Then upgrade inside of the church to at least a lvl 10 to always pass a sermon. Then focus on getting a compost heap. This gives you peat which you can use on your crops to get more crops and seeds. Then focus on the donkey. I also took the merchant up on his offer of 5 silver. Hope this helps a bit. And remember to just focus on one thing at a time and not to get overwhelmed by all of the tasks. Oh and watch a few YouTubes to get a feeling for the game.

1: I have my church, why should I focus on the graveyard while the donkey is on strike? I won't get any new bodies. Does upgrading the skull-wreath points make something good happen to me?

2: How do I upgrade the inside of the church? I need blue points to do anything downstairs, and I bought the workbench for the church and it just makes paper. I need skin to make paper. I need friggin bodies, donkey.

3: Aye, peat and farming is something I'm spending 80% of my resources on right now. It'll be the virtual only way I can see making money... once I find out who I sell the food to. :/

4: Right now my highest tech is the anvil, I have everything else unlocked that doesn't require blue points. At this exact moment donkey is on strike, I have a starter church, about three crops of carrots going and zero money in my pockets because I don't have bodies to cert. I have all my tools upgraded to the next tier above starter. What, at this moment, would you do in my shoes to bring in stability and enjoy it again?

[dman_dustin]

I agree the donkey being on strike is pretty bullcrap in my opinion.

But that's kind of what happens when you unlock the church.

Right now, my garden isn't working and none of my vegetables are growing even though many weeks go by.

I don't even get why the Donkey even suddenly becomes an enemy, requiring carrots after every drop off, or why the garden function doesn't work properly. I just don't get why the purpose of slowing down the economy. I'm currently surviving only because of sermons.

Everything else is fine (with me trying to deal with some glitches),

[Malhagor]

The farmer's wife sells seed for relatively cheap abd sure you make some fertiliser... You will get some profit

[Duellos]

Hello,

Exactly same here.

Donkey want to be paid, I don't know how to make wheel oil and don't have money anymore.
All ressources I need to continue (increase church for example) are very expansive.

[dman_dustin]

Originally posted by Tidus:

Hello,

Exactly same here.

Donkey want to be paid, I don't know how to make wheel oil and don't have money anymore.
All ressources I need to continue (increase church for example) are very expansive.

Get Seed Oil from Dig, the hippie guy who wants honey pots and sells hemp (he's the guy that's near that strange turned over "pot" like structure on the way to the lighthouse). Seed Oil works the same (at least for now anyway).

[MechaNick]

Here is some info on how to get over that hump;

The donations per sermon are determined by your graveyard quality. So prettier graveyard = more money.

For your crafting stations, you really want to be as thrifty as possible when making stuff. Buying ingots from the blacksmith and making your own nails/metal parts saves you a lot in the long run. Especially after you upgrade to the Iron Anvil. Crafting yourself better tools saves a huge amount of energy.

But... firewood is a huge energy sink, right? You need coal to fix that. The devs moved the mining point to North of the Swamp (which is West of the Church). If you go North from the Church, you can cut away the rockslide to enter the Forest. Head West and you'll find the node against the hill.

Doing all that will let you start churning out iron ingots to make more work stations and build up your church / research area. Earning you more Faith to craft better Sermons, ect...

If anything, Donkey going on strike is a blessing for me. Since I get a break from corpses to build up my work stations. If you want to get him back on track and you're missing the oil. It's probably Hemp Oil from the crazy guy who lives in a pot on the way to the lighthouse.

[Nasabot]

I also like it that the donkey now costs resources, because now you can control how many and when you get corpses.
The only thing you might critisize is that the strike comes too early, it also got me by surprise.
Espacially when you dont get skull/hide in the beginning, it might severly gimp you. However, you cant turn bat wings into paper.

[BOYCOTT]

the game is a grindwall, it's how this genre works, i like the pace honestly, you just have to plan your time a little.

[dman_dustin]

Originally posted by Too-DAMN-Much:

the game is a grindwall, it's how this genre works, i like the pace honestly, you just have to plan your time a little.

I never felt a chokehold in Stardew Valley for example.

[ElectroRanger]

Huh.. So i can just determine after the church if I want the donkey to bring corpses...

I ain't complaining, was going to lay off the church until I needed blue points anyways XD

[BOYCOTT]

Originally posted by dman_dustin:

I never felt a chokehold in Stardew Valley for example.

so you could jump straight to endgame content immediately? weird.

[ElectroRanger]

Originally posted by dman_dustin:

Originally posted by Too-DAMN-Much:

the game is a grindwall, it's how this genre works, i like the pace honestly, you just have to plan your time a little.

I never felt a chokehold in Stardew Valley for example.

That being said design wise stardew was kind of done better.

Days are relatively long enough to accomplish just enough for what youd likely want to for the day, most basic features are available from the get go rather than going through basically a padding of time etc.

But hey so far I personally still enjoy it. 4 hours in and I can't wait to set up my farm to better standards, get some metalworks and eventually find a decent setup for my workspace near the house :)

[BOYCOTT]

Originally posted by AlloyForce:

Huh.. So i can just determine after the church if I want the donkey to bring corpses...

I ain't complaining, was going to lay off the church until I needed blue points anyways XD

add the candles, more pews and your church can easily be your main money source, it pays off a lot in the long term.

edit: once it's got candles you'll have a maintenance cost if you want to do a good sermon, but i think it was less than 4 silver to re-up mine and i was making i think 8 at least per sermon.

[ElectroRanger]

Originally posted by Too-DAMN-Much:

Originally posted by dman_dustin:

I never felt a chokehold in Stardew Valley for example.

so you could jump straight to endgame content immediately? weird.

He meant it didn't feel like the game blocked most options out from you on the first few days, with exception for few things as youre pretty much dropped in straight and basically get all the work options on first week, whilst here it seems its closed behind some trivial quests and others basically require some grind