Difficulty over grind, please.

Currently in the game, I am busy preparing for a concerted assault on the Swamp. It took some time to finally find Swamp, then even more to find Swamp with a crypt, but I finally found one and I built a small base across a small lagoon from said crypt. My initial thought was to just take a raft across the lagoon but that fell through because leeches. I then put some time into trying to build a causeway across the lagoon, but to no avail. I could just make my way around the shore of the lagoon and into the Swamp that way, but truth is I'm a bit underequipped for the Swamp as of yet.

One of my favorite features of this game is the fact that every new biome is quite challenging at first. It seems as though there is a certain material that will make negotiating the new biome considerably easier to do (easier. Not easy). But the needed material is inside the new biome, and the problem is that said material is usually guarded (sometimes with great enthusiasm. Trolls seem to be unreasonably attached to their own hides) and you need to get some. A task that would invariably be easier if you already possessed said material.

On top of this problem, I have to deal with the fact that my existing equipment still hasn't been fully upgraded. Is this because I lack the requisite materials? No. It is not difficult to amass copper and tin in the game (they certainly are plentiful), even if you decide against mods and exploits and actually schlep ores across vast distances with carts and ships.

No, it's not the materials to upgrade my equipment that are hard to come by. Rather, it is the materials needed to upgrade my crafting stations to enable the necessary equipment upgrades. In order to upgrade my Forge, I'm going to need iron. Which is in that well-guarded crypt right across the lagoon over there. To upgrade my Workbench I'll need obsidian, which I've heard is in the Mountain biome somewhere, but frankly I've never even seen the stuff.

So here I am. I know what I need to do to progress in the game, and I even know where I have to go to get it. And I know that it's going to be difficult. I know it will take planning and preparation and probably even some engineering and a little luck (hopefully not a lot of luck).

Am I bothered by any of this? Not in the least. It's a wonderful challenge, in fact. It's a level of difficulty in the game that is actually fun to overcome. There are a multitude of methods I can employ and I'm looking forward to mulling them over, ultimately deciding on a course of action, then executing said plan and hoping it works.

But let's be honest here. Building carts and/or boats to transport materials across the map is not challenging. It's not difficult. It's just a grind.

If this floats your boat, then by all means have at it. Enjoy yourself. It's a game, after all. The whole point is to enjoy yourself.

But I don't want to do this. I find it to be unnecessary and arbitrary and illogical. But that's just me, and I'm not trying to tell any of you how to play and enjoy the game.

So what do you say we all just play the way we want to play and have a good time?