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

[hiemfire]

Just now, Roland said:

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

 

What day is it again? Mugday? @%$# that doesn't exist.. Erm...  ✌️ I know the feeling.  

[Orclover]

2 hours ago, Cosian said:

Man, this has got to change ....

 

Ok just a few hours ago I was dealing with hunger tossing any canned food I could at along with red tea, I had to make a run to a far trader to pick up a motorcycle chasis but was out of food.  I just had red tea and yucca juice.  Along the way RNGeezus gifted me a elk and a pig!  I killed them without problem and chopped them up with a knife, my hunger went so far into red I started losing health. I made a fire pit and cooked up a WHOLE ELK and a WHOLE PIG (without skills mind you) and it, slowly, while drinking anti-hunger red tea.......a pig and a deer.  All of it.  I went red....to orange.  Thats it.  Less than 10 minutes later, it went back to red.  No dysentery involved.

 

I am not a fan of the current hunger system.  If I sat down and ate a whole cooked pig and a whole cooked deer I WOULD DIE!  on the spot I WOULD DIE, from EXPLODING STOMACH!!!!!!!!!!  I would literally burst.  What I would not be........IS HUNGRY!

 

My son took 2 points of iron gut perk, he swears its a placebo that does nothing and wants his points back.

[meganoth]

An obvious improvement is to just half the distance between LotL 1 and 3 for LotL 2, so LotL 2 gives back 5 produce. 

 

The improvement I would definitely do too is to leave returning seeds in their pots. That means still half the plots have to be refilled which is a good compromise between lazy non-farmers and true farmers as defined by Roland 😉

 

11 minutes ago, Orclover said:

 

Ok just a few hours ago I was dealing with hunger tossing any canned food I could at along with red tea, I had to make a run to a far trader to pick up a motorcycle chasis but was out of food.  I just had red tea and yucca juice.  Along the way RNGeezus gifted me a elk and a pig!  I killed them without problem and chopped them up with a knife, my hunger went so far into red I started losing health. I made a fire pit and cooked up a WHOLE ELK and a WHOLE PIG (without skills mind you) and it, slowly, while drinking anti-hunger red tea.......a pig and a deer.  All of it.  I went red....to orange.  Thats it.  Less than 10 minutes later, it went back to red.  No dysentery involved.

 

I am not a fan of the current hunger system.  If I sat down and ate a whole cooked pig and a whole cooked deer I WOULD DIE!  on the spot I WOULD DIE, from EXPLODING STOMACH!!!!!!!!!!  I would literally burst.  What I would not be........IS HUNGRY!

 

My son took 2 points of iron gut perk, he swears its a placebo that does nothing and wants his points back.

 

Maybe those pigs and deer have very little usable meat as they may be infected or deseased. Anyway if you made charred meat you won't get far. You need to be able to cook grilled meat or better cooked meat, and also loot nests for eggs to make bacon&eggs. Then you won't be that hungry after an elk and a pig.

 

Are you running and wearing heavy armor? That sucks food right out of you

[theFlu]

6 minutes ago, Orclover said:

.a pig and a deer.  All of it.  I went red....to orange.  Thats it.

The exact numbers evade me, but the minimum for a larger animal is 20 meat, so you had at least 40 = 8 charred meat. Probably a little more. Each should give 10 food, getting you up by 80 in total. The hunger meter grows by levels, but I think 80 shouldn't be on the yellow before something like level 60.. how high were you?

[Roland]

5 minutes ago, Orclover said:

 

Ok just a few hours ago I was dealing with hunger tossing any canned food I could at along with red tea, I had to make a run to a far trader to pick up a motorcycle chasis but was out of food.  I just had red tea and yucca juice.  Along the way RNGeezus gifted me a elk and a pig!  I killed them without problem and chopped them up with a knife, my hunger went so far into red I started losing health. I made a fire pit and cooked up a WHOLE ELK and a WHOLE PIG (without skills mind you) and it, slowly, while drinking anti-hunger red tea.......a pig and a deer.  All of it.  I went red....to orange.  Thats it.  Less than 10 minutes later, it went back to red.  No dysentery involved.

 

I am not a fan of the current hunger system.  If I sat down and ate a whole cooked pig and a whole cooked deer I WOULD DIE!  on the spot I WOULD DIE, from EXPLODING STOMACH!!!!!!!!!!  I would literally burst.  What I would not be........IS HUNGRY!

 

My son took 2 points of iron gut perk, he swears its a placebo that does nothing and wants his points back.

 

It wasn't a whole Elk and Pig. Without skills you wasted most of the meat and charred the rest to smithereens. As for iron gut, it offends me to take that perk as long as they have breath holding attached to it while water and player movement in the water is in the state it is. I hope someday that holding your breath for a long time is actually useful...

 

TFP seems to go back and forth every other alpha on how heavy-handed they are with hunger. Every time in the past when people complained about maintaining fullness they relaxed things and made it easier (yeah yeah I know...its not challenging its just tedious). I wonder what will happen this time. Will they start feeling the pressure to ease up on food consumption again or stick to their guns?

 

My guess is they will moderate things again like they have every time in the past.

[meganoth]

5 minutes ago, theFlu said:

The exact numbers evade me, but the minimum for a larger animal is 20 meat, so you had at least 40 = 8 charred meat. Probably a little more. Each should give 10 food, getting you up by 80 in total. The hunger meter grows by levels, but I think 80 shouldn't be on the yellow before something like level 60.. how high were you?

 

Oops, just checked and even charred meat doesn't look so bad anymore with 10 food value. Wasn't it 5 once?

 

[theFlu]

1 minute ago, meganoth said:

Wasn't it 5 once?

Once, maybe, but not as long as I remember. (couple patches at least)

[hiemfire]

3 minutes ago, meganoth said:

 

Oops, just checked and even charred meat doesn't look so bad anymore with 10 food value. Wasn't it 5 once?

 

A18 I think.

[BFT2020]

All the low value foods were buffed.  Now cat food has better food value.

[Lasher]

Just posted a topic all about this kind of thing in general.

Surely what we need is OPTIONS to control all of this. That way everyone gets to play the game the way they want

to and everyone's happy.

More happy customers = more props for TFP = more 7 Days.

Just makes sense.

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, iBane said:

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.   

 

This is assuming worst case that you lose every seed every time you harvest, which is not going to happen all the time.

 

And sometimes right now is 50%.  So on average you will be getting half your plants back as seeds (when aggregated over time: sometimes you will get 2 back out of 10, sometimes 8 out of 10; but over time it comes out to 50%).

 

Even if you are the unluckiest person in the world, the system will eventually catch up:

• Perk 3 - 6 per harvest (5 to make seeds)
  • 10 plants - 1st harvest 60 veggies, no seeds, turn all to seeds - 12 seeds
  • 12 plants - 1st harvest 72 veggies, no seeds, turn all to seeds - 14 seeds, 2 in the bank
  • 14 plants - 1st harvest 84 veggies, no seeds, turn all into seeds - 17 seeds, 1 in the bank
  • 17 plants - 1st harvest 102 veggies, no seeds.....

If you don't increase the number of plants each planting (say once you reach 10 plants), you will still gain 10 veggies each harvest....

 

Throw in the fact that seeds drop more during looting and you will be fine.  The thing is (especially if you are playing MP), your group needs to bring those seeds back if they are out looting and you are serious about making a farm, they can't just toss them out to get the 'good' stuff.  And the farmer of the group?  They now have to actually invest perk points into LotL to be viable (instead of A19 where you can eventually get a self sustaining farm with zero investment in the perks).

 

You can see where I am going with this.

[iBane]

18 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

 

This is assuming worst case that you lose every seed every time you harvest, which is not going to happen all the time.

 

And sometimes right now is 50%.  So on average you will be getting half your plants back as seeds (when aggregated over time: sometimes you will get 2 back out of 10, sometimes 8 out of 10; but over time it comes out to 50%).

 

Even if you are the unluckiest person in the world, the system will eventually catch up:

• Perk 3 - 6 per harvest (5 to make seeds)
  • 10 plants - 1st harvest 60 veggies, no seeds, turn all to seeds - 12 seeds
  • 12 plants - 1st harvest 72 veggies, no seeds, turn all to seeds - 14 seeds, 2 in the bank
  • 14 plants - 1st harvest 84 veggies, no seeds, turn all into seeds - 17 seeds, 1 in the bank
  • 17 plants - 1st harvest 102 veggies, no seeds.....

If you don't increase the number of plants each planting (say once you reach 10 plants), you will still gain 10 veggies each harvest....

 

Throw in the fact that seeds drop more during looting and you will be fine.  The thing is (especially if you are playing MP), your group needs to bring those seeds back if they are out looting and you are serious about making a farm, they can't just toss them out to get the 'good' stuff.  And the farmer of the group?  They now have to actually invest perk points into LotL to be viable (instead of A19 where you can eventually get a self sustaining farm with zero investment in the perks).

 

You can see where I am going with this.

Yes, as I said, this current iteration sucks, as clearly demonstrated by what you've written out above....

 

This is particularly true when recipes need multiple of each ingredient, not just one.  

[Vaeliorin]

11 hours ago, meganoth said:

Yes, super corn without bobs boar IS impossible, I couldn't find it in loot.xml in A20, and I don't remember it ever dropping in loot in A19. So if you don't have Bobs Boars on the map you don't get super corn anyway. And if you get it, you can loot it once and everytime you get it as a quest. It may take a while but if you really want it there is a way.

Actually, for my reward for completing tier 3 of quests, I got a Farm Bundle 03 (or Seed Bundle or whatever it's called) and got 3 plots and 3 seeds out of it, one of which was super corn.  Now obviously I'd never harvest that seed before having LotL 3, which to me seems like not great design.  Admittedly, I did later find Bob's Boars (haven't raided it yet) but getting to run it repeatedly due to quests seems fairly unlikely, as I don't think I've been sent to the same POI twice for a quest yet and I'm midway through tier 4 and live in a medium sized town (not skyscrapers or anything, but a relatively built up town center.)

 

I guess my real issue is that if you find few of a seed/vegetable (in my case mushrooms and pumpkins) without at least LotL 3, RNG can screw you if you only have a single seed (or even 2) to start with.

[meganoth]

48 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

Actually, for my reward for completing tier 3 of quests, I got a Farm Bundle 03 (or Seed Bundle or whatever it's called) and got 3 plots and 3 seeds out of it, one of which was super corn.  Now obviously I'd never harvest that seed before having LotL 3, which to me seems like not great design.  Admittedly, I did later find Bob's Boars (haven't raided it yet) but getting to run it repeatedly due to quests seems fairly unlikely, as I don't think I've been sent to the same POI twice for a quest yet and I'm midway through tier 4 and live in a medium sized town (not skyscrapers or anything, but a relatively built up town center.)

 

I got a POI twice already, but generally the POI selection is much better this time.

 

48 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said:

 

I guess my real issue is that if you find few of a seed/vegetable (in my case mushrooms and pumpkins) without at least LotL 3, RNG can screw you if you only have a single seed (or even 2) to start with.

 

If you already decided to eventually get LotL3, then keeping a single seed is the safe route. If you don't intend to then you might as well gamble on getting more than measly 4 or 8 supercorn

 

[Guvner]

Farming is working out fine for me with LotL 3.
 

No issues, my farm is growing quickly, I can always replant  all harvested plus enough crops left over for new seeds.

[Sydious]

Farming is going the same way crafting did in this game, pointless.

[Darklegend222]

On 12/7/2021 at 10:11 PM, WayneFrancis said:

Farming is a net loss at least until you get living off the land 3

That's the point, we're robust farmers growing crops from FLESH. FLESH I say!

 

Food, seeds, and crops require perks to get better and better at. Corn on the cob and corn bread give 10 food, same with cooked potatoes. There's no reason to be starting an "early game" farm, save it all for end-game foods like meat stew, vegetable stew, and chili dogs, the great foods. Have you explored the outer rims of towns? There are literally hundreds of corn stalks and the odd berries/potato farms you can take from.

 

Not to mention that loot from shamway crates has a very good chance of giving veggies and seeds, your highly encouraged to loot seeds and to become a master farmer if that's what you want. I've ALWAYS put 3 perks in LotL,  it's stupid not to if you want to grow a sustaining farm, especially in a group. The only tedious things is that crops don't replant, so I think the developers should work on implementing a feature that if a crop gives a seed, it will instead replant itself to save 50% of the hassle.

 

Your not going to be eating chili dogs, blueberry pies or the likes sustainably on any 7 days save before the first horde, your gonna be chowing down on what vending machines and traders offer. The animals you kill for bacon and eggs is the next best thing! I believe this is being thrown massively out of proportion. I used to have a chest full of blueberry pies and vegetable stew because of the MASS amounts of plants we had. It would take 2 hours in game at 90 minute days to harvest it all, and we only needed about 20 of each plant for 4 people.

 

I think this is a good mechanic because not only does it require me to have the same specs as before, we also get MORE than what A19.6 offered and that's absolutely amazing! Plus it makes sense since we are literally growing crops from.. FLESH! It's not the best resource in the world, this isn't fertilized soil with that ultra-grow 4000 and we can only hope to be master farmers.

 

 

[IgnyteZero]

1 hour ago, Darklegend222 said:

That's the point, we're robust farmers growing crops from FLESH. FLESH I say!

 

Food, seeds, and crops require perks to get better and better at. Corn on the cob and corn bread give 10 food, same with cooked potatoes. There's no reason to be starting an "early game" farm, save it all for end-game foods like meat stew, vegetable stew, and chili dogs, the great foods. Have you explored the outer rims of towns? There are literally hundreds of corn stalks and the odd berries/potato farms you can take from.

 

But that's the point, isn't it? If there's no economy in trying to start a farm before you have LotL 3, why even have 3 skill levels for it? Just have one and gate it higher in that case.

No, you should be able to start a farm early on, even if you don't produce much. I still think the easiest answer lies in adjusting the seed loss percentage slightly somehow, with say LotL 2 at least having a 60-70% chance to keep seeds and maybe just gate LotL3 a bit higher. Or add a random chance to sometimes get an extra seed back also, such as 20% with LotL 1, 40% with Lotl 2 and 3. Something like that. (These numbers are not calculated, they're just to demonstrate my line of thinking).

Also, because of RNG not all starting towns have those fields. In our game there was NO potato or corn field at all in our starting town. Once we got to the nearby towns however there was an abundance of corn fields.

 

12 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.

While that exercise might amuse you on a personal level, I fail to see the point. Of course we can come up with any new system or way to balance it better, the only limit is imagination there. But seconding guess what TFP is thinking on the matter? That's just weird. But you have one suggestion above. Hope it entertains you.

Happy to hear they are adressing the issue and aim to rebalance it though.

 

2 hours ago, Sydious said:

Farming is going the same way crafting did in this game, pointless.

 

Lets hope not.

[Roland]

41 minutes ago, IgnyteZero said:

While that exercise might amuse you on a personal level, I fail to see the point. Of course we can come up with any new system or way to balance it better, the only limit is imagination there. But seconding guess what TFP is thinking on the matter? That's just weird. But you have one suggestion above. Hope it entertains you.

If the pattern holds in your posting style, you like to write douchebagish stuff like this first and then apologize afterward <shrug>

Sharing ideas and opinions about how people would like features to be like is a pretty frequent exercise around here and if people thought second guessing what the devs planned was weird we wouldn’t read the oft posted excited boast of “I’ve been saying the devs should do that for the past three alphas!” whenever the devs do something that someone second guessed. 
 

I suppose trying to guess what adjustment might be in store could be seen as pointless, though, so we probably should just get back to the super productive complaining….
 

 

 

[IgnyteZero]

7 minutes ago, Roland said:

If the pattern holds in your posting style, you like to write douchebagish stuff like this first and then apologize afterward <shrug>

Well, I found your post douchebag-ish hence that reply. It had this atmosphere of "You think you know better than the devs"? Maybe that wasn't your intention then, but that is how you came off to me with that post. And that's why I went defensive.

And my point was that second guessing indeed is pointless. Giving feedback ("complaints") or suggestions is another thing entirely though.

But we're going OT, so I'm leaving it at that. You don't need to like me, but I'm here to give honest feedback on my gaming experiences with 7dtd.

[Scyris]

On 12/8/2021 at 10:14 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.

 

Yeah I been noticing the food/water use is thru the roof in general, and I didn't know about this farming change till now and it sounds like it really kills it. even with living off the land maxxed your only getting 1 crop per thing since u need 5 to make a seed. Unless Living off the land also lowers base produce needed to make 1 seed?

[theFlu]

44 minutes ago, IgnyteZero said:

It had this atmosphere of "You think you know better than the devs"?

Nah, it's just trRoland, he's a little .. different I made a draft just to entertain myself; and coming up with a "whole solution" is likely more usable as feedback anyway. Pointing out problems is easy, fixing them is worth money..

[Darklegend222]

2 hours ago, IgnyteZero said:

But that's the point, isn't it? If there's no economy in trying to start a farm before you have LotL 3, why even have 3 skill levels for it? Just have one and gate it higher in that case.

If you put one perk into LotL and plant 10 crops, your gonna get 5 crops back in seeds AND then some more depending how much seeds. So that's 5 corn to yourself which can be 50 food (just kill animals bud, you'll get more meat anyway)  OR you can save that corn for chili dogs.

 

Are you really, and I mean really going to SKIP bacon and eggs (36 food), just to eat Corn on the cob for 10 food which takes rotting flesh and a farm to setup? Let's be realistic here. Your completely ignoring the POIs around town have HUNDREDS of stalks, your not gonna run low anytime soon..

 

How about you play the game more, adjust your playstyle A BIT considering I doubt you farmed in the first place otherwise as of A19 without all 3 perks in LotL first. It still takes about 2 days for a crop to grow, that's not enough time to start mass production or get a farm going.

 

Use the new system more, and read ALL of the information provided and see what YOU can do to better utilize the system. You can easily survive off just corn for the first 14 days just using all the crops in towns with ONE perk in LotL. Seriously.

 

"Fully" sustained farming is end game. I don't get how you haven't realized this or even tried to see it. We can agree to disagree, but you should watch videos that explain it better and you honestly may not fully realize every change undergone especially with quests and farm boxes, plus the enhanced loot in containers.

 

Edit: you say that in the next towns you visited there was an abundance of corn fields. So what's the issue? You can already create a farm, which will last NEARLY FOREVER until you get LotL 3 and that's not even counting all the seeds you'll loot from doing quests or fast food/grocery POIs. Remember how I said changing your playstyle a bit? Get to harvesting, build that inefficient farm, and eat your food while playing like normal.

 

 Heres a good link to a video with charts and graphs, it doesn't cover the POIs at all, but hopefully you'll know to utilize them by now and to do actual work instead of complaining about a system you hardly use or want to try and get used to.

 

You don't put 1 point in Sexual Tyrannosaurus or Iron Gut and expect 100% perfect results, you have to SPEND perk points to get better, just like every other perk in this game. The only thing that I could see changing, is that if a crop drops a seed, it'll replant instead of you manually doing it. Assuming the developers want to take the time to implement such a feature if it's possible.

[IgnyteZero]

27 minutes ago, Darklegend222 said:

If you put one perk into LotL and plant 10 crops, your gonna get 5 crops back in seeds AND then some more depending how much seeds. So that's 5 corn to yourself which can be 50 food (just kill animals bud, you'll get more meat anyway)  OR you can save that corn for chili dogs.

 

Are you really, and I mean really going to SKIP bacon and eggs (36 food), just to eat Corn on the cob for 10 food which takes rotting flesh and a farm to setup? Let's be realistic here. Your completely ignoring the POIs around town have HUNDREDS of stalks, your not gonna run low anytime soon..

 

How about you play the game more, adjust your playstyle A BIT considering I doubt you farmed in the first place otherwise as of A19 without all 3 perks in LotL first. It still takes about 2 days for a crop to grow, that's not enough time to start mass production or get a farm going.

 

Use the new system more, and read ALL of the information provided and see what YOU can do to better utilize the system. You can easily survive off just corn for the first 14 days just using all the crops in towns with ONE perk in LotL. Seriously.

 

"Fully" sustained farming is end game. I don't get how you haven't realized this or even tried to see it. We can agree to disagree, but you should watch videos that explain it better and you honestly may not fully realize every change undergone especially with quests and farm boxes, plus the enhanced loot in containers.

 

Edit: you say that in the next towns you visited there was an abundance of corn fields. So what's the issue? You can already create a farm, which will last NEARLY FOREVER until you get LotL 3 and that's not even counting all the seeds you'll loot from doing quests or fast food/grocery POIs. Remember how I said changing your playstyle a bit? Get to harvesting, build that inefficient farm, and eat your food while playing like normal.

 

 Heres a good link to a video with charts and graphs, it doesn't cover the POIs at all, but hopefully you'll know to utilize them by now and to do actual work instead of complaining about a system you hardly use or want to try and get used to.

 

You don't put 1 point in Sexual Tyrannosaurus or Iron Gut and expect 100% perfect results, you have to SPEND perk points to get better, just like every other perk in this game. The only thing that I could see changing, is that if a crop drops a seed, it'll replant instead of you manually doing it. Assuming the developers want to take the time to implement such a feature if it's possible.

Ok, that's quite a rude post full of demeaning assumptions and attitude. I'm gonna ignore the toxic parts this time and answer you by explaining things I've already posted before.

First I've played since A9 which I already mentioned. I've farmed a lot. I have 2k hours played for this game. So that's that. This is not my first rodeo. Yes I've farmed in A19 and that was too easy comparatively, getting too much of an output too fast.

Secondly I'm not arguing about playstyles. And that's a moot point anyway, as through all alphas we've all readjusted our playstyles to accomodate for balance changes, imbalances, bugs and direct gameplay changes. Telling me to do that is unnecessary.

What I, and others, are saying is not that it's broken or necessarily too hard (well some might maybe, I don't know), it's the futility of doing it before you hit LotL 3. All your arguments are invalid because, as I've pointed out before, the game is not a farming simulator and don't intend to be. There are other endeavours, such as taking part of all the other content in the game. Exploring, killing Z's, gathering resources, building bases and defences. Focusing in exploring and getting 10 seeds of every important play type. As anything below LotL 3 gives an average negative output on anything less than 5 seeds, farming isn't viable at all in the early game if you're just playing maybe 1-3 players co-op. There just isn't the time to focus on it or bother with it, especially since meat is so much faster to get in large numbers without bothering about RNG of POIs.

Now YOU may have a playstyle where this doesn't bother you. That's ok. Maybe you play with many others, have just a 7 day loot respawn or somesuch. I don't know. But in such a case it's easier to dedicate people on specific tasks and you'll quickly loot and gather more resources. Maybe you get those 10 seeds in a couple of days that way. But that's the point, it scales badly.

I don't care to reinforce all other arguments once more. But I hope this clarifies my stance, as you seem a bit confused with where I'm coming from.  It's not about making it easier, it's about making all skill points matter, and to make it scale better towards player numbers and toward other related skills. That's what's been argued about. Noones said that each skill point must mean super rewards, as you are implying I'm arguing about. I never did. I just want it to matter at all.

Also considering TFP according to Roland is already looking into balancing it better, why defend it?

Oh, and the vid told me nothing I didn't know already. JFYI.

 

[Rince]

Wish that they could had balancing farming in other way, but retaining the no need to replant the seed every harvest.

Maybe higher cost for the farming plots? Higher times until harvest? Need to build some irrigation?