Bridge building seems like a very lacking skill to me. The biggest problem I have with it is the bridge must be crafted at the river itself. Gathering logs and bringing them to the river only to have the creation fail several times, resulting in another logging trip. The other methods of dealing with rivers, freezing the water and teleporting across, have no uncertainty, no additional effort learning a skill, and are common enough to be relied on as your main method of crossing rivers. Even swimming across with a waterproof blanket and iron items unequipped has less of a cost to the player (in my opinion) as spending the time trying gathering logs and bringing them to the river.


My idea for improving bridge building is to be able to create the 'bridge pieces' anywhere. You would create a bridge piece instead of using the hatchet on a log at the river. The bridge piece could either be a 100% chance to make a bridge space when used at a river, or simply be lighter than a log, so that you can carry more of them on a single trip when attempting to build a bridge, giving you fewer log gathering trips.