Farming not very viable even with living off the land 3.

[Roland]

So here is an interesting exercise for all of you. I know that TFP plans to modify the  T1, T2, and T3 LOTL perks in an upcoming update. I'm not going to tell you their plan because it could change and then you'd all be mad at me. But if you could sit in the actual director's seat instead of your armchair, how would you redesign the three tiers to keep things a struggle, simulate some unviability of seeds in a post apocalyptic setting, but also make the perks worth the points spent and fun? I'd like to see who comes closest to the eventual TFP change.

[theFlu]

26 minutes ago, Roland said:

 2d6 results in a frequency chart that looks like a bell curve because there are 6 ways to roll a 7, 5 ways to roll a 6 and an 8, 4 ways to roll 5 and an 9 and so on.

10d2 is just 10 trials of 1d2 which we would expect a result of 1 50% of the time or 2 50% of the time.

 

Might be my poor reading, but this sounds like you're arguing that 2d6 is somehow significantly different from 10d2?

With 1d2, the results are 50/50 for 1 and 2, but for 2d2, the odds for 2, 3, 4 are .25, .50, .25, starting to display similar bell curve.

[AtomicUs5000]

I think it's a pretty decent system.

 

They could take it a step further to maybe give someone a real incentive to level up more in farming, useful in MP scenarios where players take on specific roles. They could make a food item for advanced recipes where the food is the seed... maybe sunflower or sesame, I don't know.

[Cosian]

On 12/8/2021 at 9:14 AM, Orclover said:

Well this has been informative and disturbing.  The main complaint from our group of players last night has been the constant hunger and thirst pains, we are all eating like sumo wrestlers getting ready for a match just to keep negative modifiers at bay.  We secured a location and were ready to transport dirt last night just so we could set up a farm to take care of ALL 6 OF US since we had a good start of seeds.  Now I get to tell them that idea is doa and that farming is broken.  There is no way a farm will sustain 6 of us no matter how big we make it, at least not for another month.

 

I tell ya this is not going to go over well, anybody know the file edit to change seed return until they "fix" this?

 

In the meantime its back to bear hunting.

Man, this has got to change ....

[hiemfire]

2 minutes ago, theFlu said:

 

Might be my poor reading, but this sounds like you're arguing that 2d6 is somehow significantly different from 10d2?

With 1d2, the results are 50/50 for 1 and 2, but for 2d2, the odds for 2, 3, 4 are .25, .50, .25, starting to display similar bell curve.

I think @Roland was talking about a tallied single roll of 2d6 (min possible result being 2, max result 12, multiple combinations to achieve his example results) vs 10 consecutive 1d2 rolls where each 1d2 roll is independent from the others.

[Roland]

12 minutes ago, theFlu said:

 

Might be my poor reading, but this sounds like you're arguing that 2d6 is somehow significantly different from 10d2?

With 1d2, the results are 50/50 for 1 and 2, but for 2d2, the odds for 2, 3, 4 are .25, .50, .25, starting to display similar bell curve.

 

So it depends I guess on what why you are rolling dice. The DnD example was 2d6 vs 1d12 which is going to be bell curve vs brick on frequency of the number of times the numbers 1-12 will be rolled.

 

Mega compared 50% chance of either getting a seed back or not to a 1d2 which is fine but if all we looking at is a binary result then 10d2 is simply 10 trials of either a 1 or a 2.

 

10d2 will result in a bell frequency if you are looking at the sums of those rolls for the numbers 10 through 20 but what relevance does that have to our situation with the seeds? As DM if you wanted to work out all the percentages for each result from 10 to 20 on 10d2 you could do that and it would have bell curve distributions for those percentages and then you could use those for the various difficulties of the tasks you want your players to roll successes for. 

 

But in this case it is 50% and 1d2 (Basically a coin toss) is the example that was given for either getting a seed back or not. 10d2 in this case is simply 10 trials. We aren't adding any results together for a range of possible other values.

 

There is still a bell curve but it is simply the part of the population that hits the 50% after all their trials compared to the population that vary from that.

[theFlu]

6 minutes ago, Roland said:

what relevance does that have to our situation with the seeds?

The amount of seeds we get from a single harvest?

 

EDIT: repeat -verbose

For seeds, the d2 is considered {0,1} seeds recovered.

For 10 plots, you get sum of 10 d2:s seeds back, ie, 10d2 .. that will be a bell curve with a high point at around 5. The odds for 0 seeds is 1:2^10, or about 1 in a thousand. Harvests.

[hiemfire]

7 minutes ago, Roland said:

So here is an interesting exercise for all of you. I know that TFP plans to modify the  T1, T2, and T3 LOTL perks in an upcoming update. I'm not going to tell you their plan because it could change and then you'd all be mad at me. But if you could sit in the actual director's seat instead of your armchair, how would you redesign the three tiers to keep things a struggle, simulate some unviability of seeds in a post apocalyptic setting, but also make the perks worth the points spent and fun? I'd like to see who comes closest to the eventual TFP change.

With investment into the perks I'd like to see T1 replace the backslide possibility with a higher than 50% chance (maybe 60%-2/3rds chance of not getting a seed but up the crop to 5 or reduce the price of crafting a seed to 4 crop with perk) of not being able to expand production from what you're growing in place without looting. T2 increase the possibility of expansion by only focusing on production a little (so reduce the chance of not getting a seed from harvest by a little but keep it above 50%). T3 is fine as is for me.

[meganoth]

4 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

So it depends I guess on what why you are rolling dice. The DnD example was 2d6 vs 1d12 which is going to be bell curve vs brick on frequency of the number of times the numbers 1-12 will be rolled.

 

Mega compared 50% chance of either getting a seed back or not to a 1d2 which is fine but if all we looking at is a binary result then 10d2 is simply 10 trials of either a 1 or a 2.

 

10d2 will result in a bell frequency if you are looking at the sums of those rolls for the numbers 10 through 20 but what relevance does that have to our situation with the seeds? As DM if you wanted to work out all the percentages for each result from 10 to 20 on 10d2 you could do that and it would have bell curve distributions for those percentages and then use those for the various difficulties of the tasks you want your players to roll successes for. 

 

But in this case it is 50% and 1d2 (Basically a coin toss) is the example that was given for either getting a seed back or not. 10d2 in this case is simply 10 trials. We aren't adding any results together for a range of possible other values.

 

There is a bell curve but it is simply the population that hits the 50% after all their trials compared to the population that vary from that.

 

The relevance of 10d2 is if you substract 10 from the sum or 1 from each individual die roll to get the number of returned seeds. And you sum it just like you sum up the two dice in 2d6. And so the sum is a number between 0 and 10. You could instead simply roll 1d10 to determine how many seeds are returned but then you would have an even distribution. With 10d2-10 though you get 5 much more often than 0 or 10.

 

 

 

[Roland]

8 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

I think @Roland was talking about a tallied single roll of 2d6 (min possible result being 2, max result 12, multiple combinations to achieve his example results) vs 10 consecutive 1d2 rolls where each 1d2 roll is independent from the others.

 

Yes, exactly. 1d2 is actually not the best example because it has numbers on the faces that can be summed together and we are not summing anything together for seed retention. A coin flip is better and 10 flips of the coin is simply going to be 10 trials of either yes I got a seed back from that plant or no I did not. Now if we all kept track of the results of each season of harvest for say 20 plots and recorded those, we would see that most people would come right in around 50% with some uncommon deviations and even rarer deviations from those results. That is the only bell curve there is in this situation. Flipping the coin 1000 times will never form a bell in its pure results.

10 minutes ago, theFlu said:

The amount of seeds we get from a single harvest?

 

Okay, I didn't think about it in terms of harvest amounts. I was looking at success vs failure and the distribution of those rolls. If you are adding up the seeds then that does make sense for seed count probabilities. And Mega already mentioned subtracting 1 so that your die roll counts as 0 or 1 instead of 1 or 2 so that is a pretty good model.

 

I'm picking up what you're putting down now.

[theFlu]

49 minutes ago, Roland said:

how would you redesign the three tiers to keep things a struggle, simulate some unviability of seeds in a post apocalyptic setting, but also make the perks worth the points spent and fun? I'd like to see who comes closest to the eventual TFP change.

Well, it's TFP - should we try to design a good system, or try to guess what they'll come up with..? (mostly kidding, but I tend to be surprised quite often, sometimes bad, but way more often good.. )

 

The design problem seems to be in the exponential growth of farms; whatever one does, there will be a spot after which you'll be set for life. Somehow I doubt we're going to find a great solution around that; the only way might be to remove crafting seeds entirely. Not exactly immersive, but that way your farm growth could be controlled via drops and vendors.

 

OR, add a rate-limiting factor somewhere else: maybe require an expensive "sprouting system" as a middle step between harvest and replant - not exactly realistic either, but now there's a self-sustaining cycle. How to make a sapling farm actually expensive? Might need a new workstation with a specific expensive requirement, like a growth light.

 

Another similar rate limiter could be an actual growth light requirement for the farms - as long as they come with a special something you can't just craft.

[fazi]

Farming should stay hard. It was way to easy to get food, and  you need something for end game. Maybe some tweaks , like the seed rate, but definitely hard , so as to make you unable to live out of farming early game, and make you work late game.

[AtomicUs5000]

For maintaining the struggle while maintaining obtainability of seeds, I would probably do this:
- seeds very rarely found as loot, if at all

- even more fresh food/plants needed to craft seeds

- crops have a window of time when ready to be harvested for food or they dry out and die

- dead crops drop 2 seeds with an additional number depending on Living Off the Land Tier, say +1 per tier.

 

With no points in farming, you can still maintain a farm. but for every plant you have for harvesting, you need another to grow until death for the seeds to replace the harvest plant and to replace the seed plant.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

Well, it's TFP - should we try to design a good system, or try to guess what they'll come up with..? (mostly kidding, but I tend to be surprised quite often, sometimes bad, but way more often good.. )

 

The design problem seems to be in the exponential growth of farms; whatever one does, there will be a spot after which you'll be set for life. Somehow I doubt we're going to find a great solution around that; the only way might be to remove crafting seeds entirely. Not exactly immersive, but that way your farm growth could be controlled via drops and vendors.

 

OR, add a rate-limiting factor somewhere else: maybe require an expensive "sprouting system" as a middle step between harvest and replant - not exactly realistic either, but now there's a self-sustaining cycle. How to make a sapling farm actually expensive? Might need a new workstation with a specific expensive requirement, like a growth light.

 

Another similar rate limiter could be an actual growth light requirement for the farms - as long as they come with a special something you can't just craft.

 well they aren't overhauling farming again. They are just making adjustments to the Living off the Land perk. What adjustments would you make to that perk given the current farming that is unlikely to change?

[BFT2020]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

So here is an interesting exercise for all of you. I know that TFP plans to modify the  T1, T2, and T3 LOTL perks in an upcoming update. I'm not going to tell you their plan because it could change and then you'd all be mad at me. But if you could sit in the actual director's seat instead of your armchair, how would you redesign the three tiers to keep things a struggle, simulate some unviability of seeds in a post apocalyptic setting, but also make the perks worth the points spent and fun? I'd like to see who comes closest to the eventual TFP change.

I would expand it beyond living off the land as the entire food system could use tweaks to keep survivors on there toes whether it is early game or late game.

 

But any change or proposes, you need to establish what the goals are:

 

For example:

• Scalable difficulty - i.e. food struggle should be the same whether it is SP vs MP, early game vs late game
• Perks change the difficulty, but doesn't eliminate it at all
  • Survivors that don't spend any perks in food survivability should have it the toughest - they can survive, but bad luck can tank them
  • Survivors that max out perks for food survivability should have it easiest, but can still end up on the short end of the stick if they really have bad luck
• It can't be do it once and forget about it - you should have to work at it to maintain your food production
• One aspect of the chain can not neglect the other parts (i.e. you can' just go one route and cheese out the system)

That's what I would do (imho).

[BFT2020]

But in the scope that Roland has set:

 

• You got to have a chance to fail - that is what survivability is all about
  • Keep the chance of plots going barren
  • Scale the drop percentage based on LotL
    • Make it horrible if you don't have any perks (maybe 80% - would need to playtest and fine tune the number)
    • Maybe go to 60% for Perk 1, then 5% better for each additional perk level
    • The idea is that you can't just ignore LotL and still be a farmer

 

Somehow, I don't think my idea is going to get much support  😉

 

[Roland]

hahaha.. you guys! I ask for designs of just the perk and you all want to redesign the whole system. You ARE as bad as TFP!   

[iBane]

Farming makes little sense with LOTL 3.  I need five crops to make a seed, I get six when I harvest one and need 5 of the 6 to make another seed.  This means farming is basically worthless with LOTL 3.  Yes, you'll sometimes get a seed, but farming still sucks now with the perk maxed out.  Doesn't make sense.   

[theFlu]

32 minutes ago, Roland said:

What adjustments would you make to that perk given the current farming that is unlikely to change?

 

Ok, I'll toss in a draft. Not really expecting it to match, but trying to restrain the growth factor I complained about:

0 points:
Give 1 harvest per wild plant.
Give 3 harvest per seed from plots.
Return no seeds from plots. Maybe rarely from harvested wild plants.

Lock farm plots behind a recipe.

Design is to get seeds from the wild, drop them in planters in the POIs.

First point, unlock farm plots 'and maybe low level seeds'. (Seeds only if you make crafting them worthwile, maybe "drink seeds" could cost only 2 plants?)
Increase yield of wild plants. Either a chance for seeds (preferably, for gameplay) or number of plants themselves.

Designed to allow making easy-access farms, and give something to do with them.

Second point, unlock most seeds, increase yield to 5 (the cost of a seed, no growth yet)
Maybe lower the cost of farm plots.

Design: doesn't really change much, only makes it a little more lucrative.

Third point, add a chance to drop a seed per harvest. Or increase yield to 6+ to achieve the same.

Design: This now allows for the exponential growth, but at least it requires full farmer investment. The exact number won't really matter, it gets out of hand instantly, might as well let it.

[Justinus]

The only suggestion I would make to the perk in its current state is to add food to seed crafting efficiency. I think it would make logical sense that as you get better at living off the land you are able to more efficiently gather seeds from fruits and vegetables. Im not sure if that would mean LotL 2 cost 4 food/seed and LotL 3 cost 3 food/seed, obviously some numbers testing would be required. But I do think it would address a lot of the concerns over the value of the perk, and reward better for the investment that gets spent on the perk in general

[fragtzack]

The core of the issue with farming balance is that food lasts forever. So you can make giant crops sizes, harvest and then basically forget about obtaining food for a long time.

 

Simply adjusting perks is just a band aid to  the problem with making farming challenging in a survival game.

 

The core of the problem would best be fixed by:

 

1. Food spoilage

2. Wild animals that eat unharvested crops

 

 

 

[Roland]

2 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

Somehow, I don't think my idea is going to get much support  😉

 

Its okay. My idea probably wouldn't either. It is that on bloodmoon, noncanned meals with meat in the recipe as well as raw meat have a 50% chance to turn into rotten flesh. A nice regular food spoilage mechanic that can be planned for and prevents crates of meat and prepared dishes from proliferating.

 

All of a sudden baked potatoes have more value...

[fragtzack]

In a15 there was a giant mod that among other things had bandits AND food spoilage.  Forget the name of the mod, but the mod author was "Mord--something".

 

The food spoilage was wonderful for making farming not so easy. 

 

And yes, exactly as you mentioned when the food spoiled the food turned into rotten food. However, his spoilage affected almost all food, not just meat. There was a variable rate of spoilage decay, based on the good type: Meat and milk would spoil the fastest, etc.

 

His mod was so cool, also had friendly NPC you could hire so you could basically build a little "community" in the wasteland. These player owned friendly NPC would also do things like "auto-farm, auto-mine and auto-cook". Yes, it was that cool of a mod. 

 

Think he got upset that A16 broke all the hard work accomplished and have not seen the mod carried forward.

Ah, I found the a15 mod talking about.. it was called Starvation. 

 

They still have a wiki up, but the mod seems no longer. They had licensed assets(unity) in the mod, so wasn't exactly 100% open source or free license.

 

in the wiki, notice and read the sections on spoilage and settlements. 

 

So yes, Spoilage can be done and IMHO is by far the best way to prevent farming make surviving too easy.

 

TFP could learn a thing or 2  about some of the great things they did in Starvation Mod. 

 

http://starvationmod.wikidot.com

 

 

[hiemfire]

41 minutes ago, Roland said:

hahaha.. you guys! I ask for designs of just the perk and you all want to redesign the whole system. You ARE as bad as TFP!   

I did focus it on the perks, I'll adjust it for clarity then.

 

 

T0, no points invested into LotL: no change.

 

T1 LotL: Replace the backslide possibility with around a 2/3rds chance of not getting a seed, but up the crop harvested per plant to 5 or reduce the price of crafting a seed to 4 crop as part of LotL1.

 

T2 LotL: Increase the possibility of expansion of the farm if only focusing on farming slightly by giving a small bonus to the chance of receiving a seed from a harvest.

 

T3 Lotl: Fine as is for me.

[Roland]

Just now, hiemfire said:

I did focus it on the perks, I'll adjust it for clarity then.

 

 

T0, no points invested into LotL: no change.

 

T1 LotL: Replace the backslide possibility with around a 2/3rds chance of not getting a seed, but up the crop harvested per plant to 5 or reduce the price of crafting a seed to 4 crop.

 

T2 LotL: Increase the possibility of expansion of the farm if only focusing on farming slightly by giving a small bonus to the chance of receiving a seed from a harvest.

 

T3 Lotl: Fine as is for me.

Thanks...I'm having trouble with my focus today, obviously...haha