Alpha 20 Dev Diary

[Blake_]

16 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

I think alot of people would be happy with A20 farming as is if the supercorn seed recipe was made to 4 supercorn so you wouldn't get shafted if you missed the 50%, everything else is abundant and easy to get going. 

 

Or because supercorn is incredibly rare and only found in a tier 3 poi. Make it a bit more common to come by so getting shafted isn't a big problem

 

I'm aware you can get supercorn seeds in farmers bundles. But how often do you get these? I'd they always gave minimum of 2 of whatever seed,supercorn included it would be fine. You'd have 3 attempts to get it going on LOTL 1

I like the 4 supercorns per seed idea. The more seed yield is a no from me though, for the reasons I stated before.

 

Bones, lots of bones and murky water everywhere. Supercorn is little more than a very nice mid/late game commodity.

 

 

[Aldranon]

6 minutes ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

 

It seems like a legitimate proposal but would have to be dome well. Sort of brings us back to refrigeration and functional refrigerarors/ shop freezers etc which would add immersion, keep us searching for food, and aim for electricity.

 

Although it would beg the preservation question regarding tinned goods.

 

Seems a lot better than aiming a gattling nerf gun at everything amd turning melting the barrels 😬

 

Players could preserve food in jars.

I understand what TFP are trying to do:  Keep food a challenge. 

[Khalagar]

I feel like farming talk is played out, it's probably already been tweaked since we know they have been taking feed back into consideration and literally every streamer I've seen has been negative on the change, as well as nearly every person on the forums etc.  Even if it stays, we'll have to just test it and see or not use farming and shrug and get a mod to revert

[Beelzebubs Ghost]

9 minutes ago, Khalagar said:

I feel like farming talk is played out, it's probably already been tweaked since we know they have been taking feed back into consideration and literally every streamer I've seen has been negative on the change, as well as nearly every person on the forums etc.  Even if it stays, we'll have to just test it and see or not use farming and shrug and get a mod to revert

 

Yaps.

 

We will all have it later so lets catch up after having a chance to test it. Take it easy everyone 😴

[Blake_]

They might be releasing it soon. Like 12 hours from now . Putting aside the WIP dismemberment... it's quite polished for an Experimental.

[icehot]

The only real issue I've noticed so far watching youtube and the streams is the weird AI pathing, but that might already be fixed (or perhaps it's intentional but it looks bugged to me).

[Neminsis]

I think the tedium concern of having to replant comes from prior experience of having horrible hitboxes on plants and picking up seedlings by mistake. With an added bit of lag that was an obnoxious loop to get caught in.  It's not just an added click, it's opening your inventory, scanning through it, and dragging the seed back to the toolbar and then targeting that sometimes elusive hitbox. Even with the improved hitboxes this is a bunch of added steps when a lot of people have trouble finding particular items in their inventories.

I understand the reasoning behind the design change that it makes seeds more valuable, and farming itself, because of the recipes that now require super corn, but it's not really going to affect anyone's ability to stockpile massive amounts of food since merely doubling the number of farm plots nets you the same output regardless of whether you lose half your seeds, or half your harvest, or if your food spoils. 

Except in the edge case where there is no Bob's boars on the map, and/or you become dependent on RNG to either provide a quest to reset, or get the all important super corn in a seed pack as a reward, the only net effects are that it makes that first point into Living off the Land mandatory to start farming, and the extra steps of replanting inevitable. 

Now, I'm not privy to the actual metrics, but from my experience most people already either skip farming, or do as little as possible, and/or skip using super corn, and/or skip producing any of Grandpa's recipes themselves as well as the higher tier foods. This change isn't going to affect me much at all since I habitually toss a point into Living off the Land before I make the first farm plot, make way more farm plots than I absolutely need, and will max out every perk anyway, but it's also not going to make farming more popular with the average player who is more focused on increasing their dps than anything else. 

What it will do though, and I think this is the actual point, is that it'll force more hunting, which in turn will force more exploration, specifically into the winter biome, more points spent into Iron Gut, Well Insulated, and Fortitude in general, and increase the value of golden rod tea in order to eat the now plentiful sham sandwiches without consequence. 

Oh, and add all those extra steps for those that actually like farming...

[Marinxar]

I think the farming changes is bit too much.

 

So, you put a lot of work and time in building plots and gathering seeds and creating a farm. The reward being, you have a lot of food. That seems like a system working as intended. Making  it ultimately unrewarding to go through the effort of making a farm, is just forcing everyone to play a different way. It is not making things more challenging, but taking fun out of the game . 

[Blake_]

1 hour ago, icehot said:

The only real issue I've noticed so far watching youtube and the streams is the weird AI pathing, but that might already be fixed (or perhaps it's intentional but it looks bugged to me).

Oh, dear. It's just @faatal's AI bitting the dust against the unfathomable amount of new shapes. I'm afraid that 1 block pathing and >1 block pathing isn't the only thing that entities need.

 

They need better pathing "around" thin blocks, better pathing awareness/disengagement from focusing on a block in order to better detect a player that just moved to their behinds and of course their raycasts need to target thin blocks better. All the thin blocks. That's a good amount of work.

 

Right now, and as Todd Howard would say: It just works.

[Doomofman]

I've seen some worrying performance drops in the cities from the streams/videos I've watched over the weekend. I know there's a trade off in performance for the complexity/density of the new city/town layout but I'm concerned that trade off has gone a little too far

[Weazelsun]

Seeing all that talk about the farm "nerf". It got me thinking of another controversial thought regarding RNG, why not have plants also have a 50/50 chance of being it being dead? Like how in-game corn has two models the alive green version and the dead brown version. That way instead you'll know how many plants you'll have to replant/ seeds that have been lost.

[Uncle Al]

2 hours ago, Blake_ said:

I like the 4 supercorns per seed idea. The more seed yield is a no from me though, for the reasons I stated before.

 

Bones, lots of bones and murky water everywhere. Supercorn is little more than a very nice mid/late game commodity.

 

 

It's in the patch notes that all 'grandfather's' recipes now require supercorn, so it's still a luxury but now far more impactful than just a route to glue.

[Damolann]

We all know that if they keep farming the way it is, someone will create a mod to revert it.

[spacepiggio]

Release the freakin Kraken already....I disliked as many streams as I could find, don't like spoilers playing in CM for an easy start....Ive played Fan Boy Vanilla from the beginning...Release the Kraken already Moleman...

[bachgaman]

11 hours ago, Ladarian said:

Since when was finding food ever a problem without farming?  Has food survival changed that much with A20?

Idk, because I didn't buy 5000 subscriptions to be able to play this weekend

[POCKET951]

21 minutes ago, bachgaman said:

Idk, because I didn't buy 5000 subscriptions to be able to play this weekend

Sodium, atomic number 11, was first isolated by Bachgaman in 1807. A chemical component of salt, he named it Na in honor of the saltiest region on earth, North America.

Bachgaman, I am a little concerned about your diet, it seems you are eating to much salt.

Edited December 6, 2021 by POCKET951 (see edit history)

[bachgaman]

11 hours ago, Beelzebubs Ghost said:

Looking at it for what it is in A19, a sensible and functional system that doesn't need to be molested, couldn't I just use the exact same reasoning and say:

 

'Those who don't like farming, mod your server or individual game to remove seeds full stop, or just don't farm.'

You could. And people like you did it when I asked why the trader gives out 200 ammo for tier 1 quests

11 hours ago, Khalagar said:

 

People aren't complaining about farming being nerfed to encourage using the perk, people are complaining about the RNG aspect which is not fun and can lead to very unhappy moments, like MisutoM showed in his message on it.  If you take the quest reward for farm items instead of for a gun or bike or something, and get your farm plots and seeds, and have 1 point in living off the land, you can still lose all your seeds after your first harvest with bad RNG, in which case as the player, you are going to ne unhappy that you didn't just take the bicycle or gun

 

If they want to nerf farming, they can just make it take longer to grow a plant and let living off the land increase growth speed. That way there's no RNG to punish you for daring to try to farm before you have the perk line completely maxed out. The current implementation is basically "Don't touch farming without max perk" because you can lose your entire seed stock

 

 

Also, the current method takes way longer and requires a ton more player intervention, which is not fun. It's not a fun use of time to screw around with trying to open menus and craft seeds and drag and drop to hot bars and rearrange things etc just to replant your crops, compared to the current system where you *don't* have to do that and can instead use your time to do something actually enjoyable

Fine. Then why isn't anyone complaining about the trader's RNG? You can get the crucible in the first week if the RNG puts it in a secret cache. You can buy the AK-47 on the second day if the RNG puts it in the assortment. The awards are also RNG. Loot in chests - RNG. Your position in the random world is an RNG. The quests that the merchant gives you - RNG. Loot from zombies - RNG. Resource location - RNG. Buried Treasure - RNG. Let's delete it all? Or maybe few people who do not want the difficulties in a survival game will start using the creative mode? You don't care how to have "pleasure", so why bother others.

[bachgaman]

20 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

Sodium, atomic number 11, was first isolated by Bachgaman in 1807. A chemical component of salt, he named it Na in honor of the saltiest region on earth, North America.

Bachgaman, I am a little concerned about your diet, it seems you are eating to much salt.

What's salty? I really don't know because I haven't played yet. I didn't play because I didn't buy 5000 bots like some other people did. This is true

[Monsieur H]

Hey everyone !

I would like to share a few thoughts about farming and a way to not make it rely on RNG.
Plant growth would have three stages, growing, mature and withered. The mature stage gives fruits but no seed and withered gives seeds but no fruit.
Plant would need 3 days to grow and three more days to wither.
Without LoTL, plants bear three fruit or two seeds.

 

Lvl 1 : +1 fruit
Lvl 2 : +1 seed
Lvl 3 : +1 fruit +bonus chance to fruits seeds in loot
Lvl 4 : +1 seed +bonus chance to find seeds in loot
Lvl 5 : +1 fruit and withered plants are resowed automatically

 

At lvl 0 you would have to let 2/3 of your crop wither to fall back on your feet, 
at lvl 2 1/2, 
at lvl 4 2/5
and at lvl 5 1/3

 

You could ensure that your farm is self sufficient by managing it well and LoLT would make it easier to manage.
I think it would be also easier to tweak to achieve good balance in this form.
About the tedium, you would still have to replant but the extended growing time would alleviate it.

[POCKET951]

3 minutes ago, Monsieur H said:

Hey everyone !

I would like to share a few thoughts about farming and a way to not make it rely on RNG.
Plant growth would have three stages, growing, mature and withered. The mature stage gives fruits but no seed and withered gives seeds but no fruit.
Plant would need 3 days to grow and three more days to wither.
Without LoTL, plants bear three fruit or two seeds.

 

Lvl 1 : +1 fruit
Lvl 2 : +1 seed
Lvl 3 : +1 fruit +bonus chance to fruits seeds in loot
Lvl 4 : +1 seed +bonus chance to find seeds in loot
Lvl 5 : +1 fruit and withered plants are resowed automatically

 

At lvl 0 you would have to let 2/3 of your crop wither to fall back on your feet, 
at lvl 2 1/2, 
at lvl 4 2/5
and at lvl 5 1/3

 

You could ensure that your farm is self sufficient by managing it well and LoLT would make it easier to manage.
I think it would be also easier to tweak to achieve good balance in this form.
About the tedium, you would still have to replant but the extended growing time would alleviate it.

LoTL is 3 points,not 5

[Monsieur H]

2 minutes ago, POCKET951 said:

LoTL is 3 points,not 5

 

Oh yeah sorry... haven't played in a while...

Lvl1 : +2 fruits

lvl 2 :  +2 seeds

lvl 3 : +1 fruit and auto replant then

[bachgaman]

In fact, I always thought that LoTL was a little broken, because just 1 skillpoint invested in it immediately gives x2, that is, + 100% of the harvest. This is very, very strong. I often took it to 1.

[jdzane]

I'll be that person lol - any idea what time today it'll drop?

[FranticDan]

My opinion on farming, you should always get 1 crop per harvest no matter how many points in living off the land, and each level of living off the land unlocks a group of seeds and lowers cost of farm plots. This worked very well in my hardcore vanilla mod. It took time to slowly grow out your farm. Plus I gave snowberries the love they deserved and you could farm them, the assets are already in the game and went unused. Plus I added snowberry juice for that extra touch of love.

[bachgaman]

4 minutes ago, jdzane said:

I'll be that person lol - any idea what time today it'll drop?

I won't be surprised if next Monday