Thanks for the answers.
I'm a bit disappointed by not being able to build up stamina, but the rest of the game looks great. Even with some discussions claiming it's too easy, and others claiming too hard :P

Warning about the skills though.
You do lose 5% of your levels when you die, you do get a buff after you die for a bit so that you don't lose more trying to recover your items.
As you level stuff up further this does get more punishing. Maybe only losing 1-2 levels in the beginning but losing like 3-5 at the higher skill levels while also requiring more xp to level can be frustrating at times if you're specifically trying to level them up.
It may be better to ignore skills and just play how you want.

If you're gonna take it from some negative nancy that get's the first post off then you are easily manipulated. Just go play the game and try it out, ignore the weird haters that like to whine about stamina and dying. Boo freaking hoo.

There's been a lot of complaints about the new stamina mechanic, but if you didn't play before you won't know. I've played both versions and got used to the new system.
About stamina not stacking up as you progress, it can seem frustrating. But the game offers a lot of cheap food that'll give you enough stamina to do stuff like wood farming or exploring.
For fighting, you'll need more advanced cooking but the ingredients will get more abundant as you progress
And as was said earlier, your skill progression will reduce stamina usage for most actions

One warning about death, though. Dying is not an issue in this game, but dying several times in a short period can actually "ruin" your progression in skills, mainly in those you don't practice often (but should you neglect any skill?). If you like, to die is like loosing the skill progression from one game session (or a handul active days in game), at low level, so it's really nothing to worry about, except if you are bound to achieve anything in a limited time frame.

It's often better to wait for daytime, or even disconnect to reset timers, before trying and recovering your corpse(s), even if this means loosing the death bonus. If it's too hard, and would cost too many deaths, then just consider doing something else for a time. Tombstones don't despawn, after all. Feel free to take profit from being at a very low skill level, and experiment about corpse runs and making errors in the way.

Also, a useful death is a death that contributes to increase your gaming experience (how to not die often), so try to reflect on the circumstances, and pay attention to "details", next time. It's really a "get good" state of mind, but while keeping positive and cheerful. And don't despise you too much after dying miserably off a silly overlook.

Originally posted by Riger82:

Thanks for the answers.
I'm a bit disappointed by not being able to build up stamina, but the rest of the game looks great. Even with some discussions claiming it's too easy, and others claiming too hard :P

You 'build up stamina' in the sense that most skills cost less stamina to use as you level them (so your stamina goes further), and as you progress you unlock better food and more reliable means of sustaining food, so you have higher buffs with greater regularity.

All in all, so long as you're doing everything right, your stamina usage is going to effectively improve as you progress.

Totally based on food. But as you progress, the food number stats grow too, of course.

Originally posted by Estyn:

Totally based on food. But as you progress, the food number stats grow too, of course.

Aww. That's a bit disappointing, honestly.
I saw how skills leveled up, so I thought maybe spending stamina and taking damage might level those as well :(

In one of the videos I saw, I watched them get a level up for jumping. Does increasing the level of a skill that uses stamina decrease the stamina usage?

Originally posted by Riger82:

In one of the videos I saw, I watched them get a level up for jumping. Does increasing the level of a skill that uses stamina decrease the stamina usage?

Yes for most, in the case of jumping though I believe it just increases jump height
Some other exceptions are Blocking, Bows, and Woodcutting.
Most skills reduce stamina usage by 33% at max level when doing the thing, some reduce it further as well as making the thing stronger/better.