Originally posted by Achivai:

His problem is that the game is poorly balanced, not that it is unrealistic. I happen to agree. Being able to craft pickaxes more cheaply would allow you to carry several, which would reduce the travel time to bases because the pickaxe broke, and thus reduce the grind. The grind is the number one issue with the game at the moment to me.

I don't know, I find the game still balanced before the iron age, 10 bronze isn't that much. If we're talking about crafting every single thing using bronze then maybe I could see it being less balanced, but even then it didn't take me that long, and you don't really need to craft every single thing bronze offers in the first place, I never even made bronze armor and stuck with troll armor.