Originally posted by Dimyell:

My only two gripes with this game are dropping everything on death and how reliant on food we are. For food i wish it was just like most survival games where you need to eat to stay alive and for buffs, not for 90 percent of my hp. This, as far as ii know, isn't something i can change, however surely there's a way to turn off loot drops? Dying in the cold mountains or miles into a dangerous biome is the most stressful thing to ever happen to me in a game. This game is too grindy to have such a slate wipe in place for my liking.

Death is indeed very punishing, but is it really?

First you're supposed to use portals to make traveling easier/faster so hopefully when you die you're only a portal hop and a short stroll away from your body.

Second it so happens that maxed out gear from biome N is roughly equivalent to starting gear of biome N+1. If you die with your current top gear you should still have a very decent spare at home that you can use to retrieve your stuff.

Yes the game requires quite some grind to craft stuff, don't just throw it out once you move to the next level.

As for your real question: mod or devcommands are the current option. Soon maybe difficulty settings.