More features instead of fake difficulty?

[MetalGrip]

First of all, hey there. I made this account simply to write this suggestion even though it's going to get dismissed as bogus.
Due to the past few updates BetterThanWolves has become considerably less enjoyable to me - mainly because of the forced "balancing".
Now, before you attack me, I would like to say that I approve of the change in hunger, movement speed and some others.
However, I do not understand the reasoning behind Hardcore Wood and the change of durability for stone tools. Sawdust and bark is nice and all, but the fact that it takes forever to gather wood until you get a stone axe, and the fact that a stone pickaxe only lasts for 6 gatherings... it does not add any sort of difficulty to the mod - it just makes you waste more time than would otherwise be necessary. Taking more than 10x as much time to get 4 wooden planks in order to make a crafting table... Nope, no difficulty here. Just a waste of time that could be spent on doing something more enjoyable than doing the same thing over and over and over again. Same with stone mining picks. Why should they break after 6 uses? It only gives you back 3 cobblestone. I know this adds some sort of element of "realism", but if you want it to be on that level... punching a tree has yet to produce planks and sawdust in real life.
But the worst part about the recent updates is that it makes BTW less accessible to people who are just starting out. What made and still makes BTW shine in my eyes is that which comes AFTER you get a source of continuous mechanical power. I thought having to grow so much hemp and grind it manually was time-consuming, boring and pointless, but the decreased durability of tools as well as the lesser output of wood makes it take even longer before you even can reach that part!
So, what gives?
Aren't we supposed to focus on the features that make BTW an excellent mod?
I believe that it would be in the interest of everyone to make new ways of working on multiple projects during lower tiers, making it easier to endure all the time you have to wait to get to the good stuff, instead of forcing people to perform mundane tasks over and over before they can even get to the first tier. It was boring enough before Hardcore Wood and Stone, so why make it even more boring?
There should be more things the players can work on while, for example: growing out their hemp farm, give them more things to toy with in the early tiers - allow them more liberty to get started with the mod.
All of the recent additions just seem like a way of forcing the player to spend more time getting started, just to create the illusion that machines like the saw are actually life-saving and oh-so redeeming for all the extra time you invested in getting there. No. The saw was there to cut planks into smaller pieces and make gears easier to make, or was it not? That in itself is awesome, and the mod really starts to kick off once you get the saw; the problem is that the way up to it is nothing but a colossal waste of time that is not fun in the slightest.
I'm not saying give everyone a windmill to start with, but damn, like I have said multiple times before. Spending half an hour just to get access to basic features of vanilla Minecraft (that you could get within a minute or two) is neither difficult nor fun.
If you intend on making it take longer for players to get to Tier 2, why not just make planks a craftable resource out of 4x Bark? Or better yet, make them a 25% chance drop - leave it to the RNG... if that is your definition of difficulty.

tl;dr - Do not "fix" what is not broken.
Taking more time =/= more difficult.
Stone pickaxes could go with at least 10 uses.
Work more on adding new content to the existing content instead of making it take longer to get to the existing content in the first place - that's the main attraction of the mod anyway. Fucking windmills. Axles. Gears. Rope. Not punching trees for 2 hours while trying to get 18 iron ore for a stupid hoe so you can get hemp seeds in the first place.

Also, I am not whining. I can just bypass all that bothers me just by giving myself iron tools via console/creative mode. I am writing this suggestion in consideration of other players.

[ExpHP]

There's a bit of a flaw in your logic.

In BTW, more time = more difficult. The tasks are arduous, but except in the luckiest cases (or when you first start a world, and are guaranteed to have a full day ahead), completing them is not mundane.

Just take a look at your hunger bar and environment, and take note of what happens after an in-game day or two.

[FlowerChild]

Due to the past few updates BetterThanWolves has become considerably less enjoyable to me

Good. Stop playing it and go away then.