Changes To Farming

[Roland]

On 1/24/2022 at 5:20 PM, bloodmoth13 said:

Farming solves that, but currently farming is only profitable with LotL investment, which removes any access to reliable crops.

Some players seem to think that its fine as is. Some argue that its good that food isnt reliable and the current system isnt broken, but they all use living off the land 3 

 

If you got the seeds for free then any level of planting and harvesting is profitable without any points spent. Simply planting seeds and harvesting them for fruit that you then place in a container and save for future recipes is better than nothing at all. 

 

Not everyone is using LOTL 3. The huge misconception at the very beginning that many people made simply by reading the patch notes instead of actually playing the game was that farming could not be sustainable until LOTL 3 and that misconception keeps getting reposted and renewed with each additional new thread that each new random person who makes the assumption comes on to voice their outrage. More and more reports from people who actually play the game and test the farming at LOTL 1 and LOTL 2 without prejudice are finding that farming is viable without having to go all in with perk points. You can't do it at LOTL 0 for sure and I know there are some who desire the LOTL 3 ability to reliably create a large farm that is self sustaining without having to invest any points like we had it in A19

 

On 1/24/2022 at 5:20 PM, bloodmoth13 said:

 so i see that as dishonest since they are playing with those rules removed and LotL 3 just reverts everything to a19 standards with more legwork.

 

This happens a lot frankly during development. Often a feature is first added for everyone at a high level. During a later iteration it is then subdivided into low medium and high tiers and people realize that they were playing at the highest intended tier all along. We used to only have one single pickaxe in the game and we could mine with it pretty well. Then "Pickaxe" was broken up into tiers with stone, iron, and steel picks as well as quality tiers for each and players came to see that what they had been using as just the standard (only) pickaxe in the game was actually a pretty high tier level and all of a sudden their ability to mine was nerfed until they could progress up to the level they had originally been used to mining at from the very beginning for free. It is just the nature of development. Old timers feel it keenly while new players have no prior experience to compare.

 

It is understandable that old timers are going to look at LOTL 3 in A20 and feel underwhelmed after playing LOTL 0 for A19. It can be tough to do but it is always advisable to play each alpha with a fresh outlook and "forget" about what the game used to be like. The internal testers have to do that on a daily to weekly basis when testing internal builds because so much can change suddenly.

[theFlu]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

You are really late to the party, we already discussed the effects of those items.

I know I'm late, I've read most of it, it just got funny enough to respond as you're not getting anywhere ...

 

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

And you are also partly wrong (if I understand your statement correctly), since all those items are available to everyone they tend to diminish the relative effect BB has.

 

Umm.. relative effect of BB increases the further down towards zero you get your "base price". If you could get your price reduction to -75% percent without BB, the effect of BB would be ... 100% of the rest, or infinite. A/B != B/A. For buying alone, the 25 isn't the "whole" effect; I think you actually missed that in your talk about the buffs, but I may have skipped something.

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, theFlu said:

I know I'm late, I've read most of it, it just got funny enough to respond as you're not getting anywhere ...

 

 

Umm.. relative effect of BB increases the further down towards zero you get your "base price". If you could get your price reduction to -75% percent without BB, the effect of BB would be ... 100% of the rest, or infinite. A/B != B/A. For buying alone, the 25 isn't the "whole" effect; I think you actually missed that in your talk about the buffs, but I may have skipped something.

 

Ah, you could be right. We have something similar with armor values approaching 100%.

 

A reduction of buy prices by 25% is equivalent to an increase in sell prices by 33%

A reduction of buy prices by 50% is equivalent to an increase in sell prices by 100%

And 75% is equivalent to 200% and so on.

 

[theFlu]

38 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Ah, you could be right.

Yup, it's a curse. I also could not.. The armor value is pretty similar indeed.

 

But, before Niil gets upset about my claims, it's all about perspective. If your BB is worth 25 dukes on a given purchase, it will always be worth exactly 25 dukes on that purchase regardless of the other stuff buffing your barter. Both things are true at once and math is silly..

[Niil945]

6 hours ago, Roland said:

If you got the seeds for free then any level of planting and harvesting is profitable without any points spent. Simply planting seeds and harvesting them for fruit that you then place in a container and save for future recipes is better than nothing at all. 

It's not free. It's time, farming effort that I'll agree is minimal to make the plots. And it takes an inventory slot that is precious early game. For ~3 corn or potatoes or whatever, which the combined yield is worth less than most single cans that can be utilized immediately. To make it into something more requires either finding a recipe or perking into cooking and the other combined ingredients. It only becomes profitable when you can get more out of it than the base value which doesn't happen at 0 LotL.

 

6 hours ago, Roland said:

It is understandable that old timers are going to look at LOTL 3 in A20 and feel underwhelmed after playing LOTL 0 for A19.

Definitely true. Though I try to look at it through the lense of "is this as effective as 0 salvaging, miner 69'er, engineering, etc". I don't think it is, though it's not like everything has to be symmetrical in function.

[Roland]

6 minutes ago, Niil945 said:

It's not free. It's time

 

Meh...maybe if you are playing on 10 minute days but given that quite a few like to play 120 minute days I would say that if it isn't free then it's a couple of

pennies at most.

 

8 minutes ago, Niil945 said:

And it takes an inventory slot that is precious early game.

 

Really not an issue as there are so many ways to mitigate storage. Most people have no problem managing their inventory slots. Those who hate losing anything will make multiple trips anyway or fill up multiple stash crates in order to get it all and seeds won't crimp that strategy. Those who toss stuff aside will decide for themselves if seeds are worth keeping over other stuff. At any rate regardless of what you choose to toss or keep over seeds-- all of it was free stuff you found so the cost is still close to zero.

 

If someone stood over you and forced you into a Sophie's Choice between a large beef ration vs a pile of 2-3 corn seeds then you might need to do some comparative value and opportunity cost analysis but nobody will do that. In every conceivable case I can think of you could always take both.

 

15 minutes ago, Niil945 said:

To make it into something more requires either finding a recipe or perking into cooking and the other combined ingredients. It only becomes profitable when you can get more out of it than the base value which doesn't happen at 0 LotL.

 

I don't agree with that. That invalidates all "saving for a future rainy day" just because you want to turn a blind eye to potential value in favor of current value. It is true that if after weeks of playing  you had a crate full of fruit you couldn't craft into meals then all that saving and all those seeds amounted to zero value. But if you find a recipe that utilizes them (again a free find) then all of a sudden the potential value of all that fruit converts into actual value and you have quite a bit of real ingredients that can be converted into real meals that you wouldn't have if you hadn't invested those seeds into harvests and kept and saved the fruit.

 

It's a gamble but recipes are pretty common and so it is a pretty safe gamble and with nothing investing in LOTL you can potentially come into quite a bit of benefit in the game. Nobody must do it but it is an option to ignore LOTL and just plant and harvest whatever comes your way and see if it ends up being a waste of time or a nice little benefit when the time comes. With a crate full of different crops it may mean that you decide it is worth investing some points into Master Chef of your own choice in order to use all the potential value sitting in your crate.

 

Now realistically, I would probably put one point into LOTL minimum every single time I play solo just to have the extra harvest and the ability to get an actual farm going.

[Niil945]

1 hour ago, theFlu said:

Yup, it's a curse. I also could not.. The armor value is pretty similar indeed.

 

But, before Niil gets upset about my claims, it's all about perspective. If your BB is worth 25 dukes on a given purchase, it will always be worth exactly 25 dukes on that purchase regardless of the other stuff buffing your barter. Both things are true at once and math is silly..

There's nothing wrong with talking about effective values. One can't simply use the largest possible number one could get under limited circumstances to describe the general effectiveness of the perk though which is what I took issue with. And the way we were speaking about it was the relative impact of the trader as a whole which matters too because dukes aren't always getting both ends of the spectrum.

[Niil945]

42 minutes ago, Roland said:

Meh...maybe if you are playing on 10 minute days but given that quite a few like to play 120 minute days I would say that if it isn't free then it's a couple of

pennies at most.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. It's 2 game days or 3 for shrooms. Granted I don't do a lot of farming so that's what I thought the values were. That's what I was referring to. Disregard any changed settings as that's optional alterations people make akin to using various mods that change things. Base balance shouldn't factor those things in.

 

45 minutes ago, Roland said:

Really not an issue as there are so many ways to mitigate storage.

Don't handwave away the point. If you play where you drop storage and keep everything then the inventory value of anything isn't relevant. If you nomad or play light it's going to matter.

 

47 minutes ago, Roland said:

In every conceivable case I can think of you could always take both.

I've made that choice many times, and it's not a choice between 1 can of beef and 3 seeds, it's between 1 can of beef and 1 seed. 2-3 seeds is where I think it starts becoming an interesting choice for someone with 0 LotL and if that actually happened I'd be fine with the state of farming (at least the return side of the discussion). Most of the raw crops are like 2 food value. So 2-3 seeds equals an minimum of 8 food with an average of 12. 15 food now versus 12 food average and the potential to make it into something more is a meaningful choice if you don't need the food now.

 

53 minutes ago, Roland said:

But if you find a recipe that utilizes them (again a free find) then all of a sudden the potential value of all that fruit converts into actual value and you have quite a bit of real ingredients that can be converted into real meals that you wouldn't have if you hadn't invested those seeds into harvests and kept and saved the fruit.

First nothing is 'free'. It all takes time to acquire, farm, and utilize. And at weeks into the game a handful of 35-50 point meals that also require other stuff isn't a benefit with the amount of food we need and the rate at which food kits appear, let alone all the other sources of food it competes against as a source. There's a finite amount of food one needs and holding onto the yield of a couple seeds in the hope that it can amount to a days worth of food later is a tad silly. If we had a way to try to get specific recipes that would be different, but we don't. There's no way to 'work' towards any specific recipe aside from perking into the chef line. Though that's similar to most other skills unperked so I don't have an issue with that angle of it at all. But don't hyperbolize it to be more than what it is.

 

[BFT2020]

20 minutes ago, Niil945 said:

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. It's 2 game days or 3 for shrooms. Granted I don't do a lot of farming so that's what I thought the values were. That's what I was referring to. Disregard any changed settings as that's optional alterations people make akin to using various mods that change things. Base balance shouldn't factor those things in.

Roland's point was that it didn't take much time to plant a crop.  What you are talking about is the time for the plant to grow which you didn't define in your response that it cost time and was not free.

 

Time to plant is cost.  Time to harvest is cost.  Time waiting for the plant to grow is not a cost to the player as you don't have to do anything (unless you just sit down next to the plant and wait until it can be harvest - then it is a cost, but a silly one at that).  So the cost of planting a seed is not 2 game days, it is the time to plant and the time to harvest as those are the only two activities that requires action by the survivor.

 

You do have an upfront cost of crafting the farm plot, but no upkeep costs after that.

 

Quote

Don't handwave away the point. If you play where you drop storage and keep everything then the inventory value of anything isn't relevant. If you nomad or play light it's going to matter.

 

If you are playing nomad, then you wouldn't be planting crops because you are not staying around long enough to benefit from them, no matter how many you find.  If you are playing light, then seeds are still important if you want to create a farm to harvest food.  If you are playing light, you only grab what you need, leaving everything else behind.  You don't walk around with a bunch of old weapons to sell to the trader, you keep replacing your gear when you come across better gear or keep that mod you been looking for.  But at the same time, you need to start gathering items (like seeds for example) to improve your survivability.  You can choose to ignore the seeds as you loot to carry other stuff, but that is a choice you made.

 

That doesn't make what Roland say as handwaving away the point.  He simply pointed out that there were several ways to avoid that issue of inventory management.  However if you are dead set on playing a specific playstyle (like nomad or light) then that is the choice you made and now your inventory slot is worth more so you have to decide whether to use that spot for instant gratification or save it for longer term returns.

 

Even if you are concern about the early inventory spot, there are simple ways you can still save that seed for later.  Put it in a mailbox outside the location and when you have space the next time you travel past that location, you can grab that seed.  If I was in this situation (looting a location and finding more items than I could bring back), I would simply make two or more trips.

[Niil945]

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

Roland's point was that it didn't take much time to plant a crop.  What you are talking about is the time for the plant to grow which you didn't define in your response that it cost time and was not free.

I mean, I get that the time to plant isn't significant, which is why it was explicitly spelled out. But when looking at the statements I made and my comment about it taking time, are you going to look at the two values of time I could have been talking about, the mere seconds to plant, or the 2 game days that you wait for the return, when we're talking about the return on the crop, and go with the one that's completely inconsequential and then not talk about the vastly larger value? Seems pretty straitforward what I was talking about particularly in light of the context of the discussion, but if clarification is necessary there you have it.

 

And I don't really have any desire to engage in a debate where you tell me what can and can't be factored into the value of a seed. If I have to wait to get a return on something, how long that return takes to yield something matters to me. If it doesn't matter to you I simply don't care. I'm not speaking about your opinions, I'm speaking about mine.

 

1 hour ago, BFT2020 said:

If you are playing light, then seeds are still important if you want to create a farm to harvest food.

My last playthrough I did nomad til I found a trader in close proximity to where I wanted to setup in the wastelends. Then I played light and focused quests. Once I got the T5 completion reward I relocated to the wasteland near the trader there. This statement is simply not true. I didn't cook anything aside from a handful of bacon and eggs that wasn't necessary and only because I found the recipe in my latest playthrough, it was just a nighttime activity. There are so many other methods of getting food and the payoff for planting a seed or two doesn't even come close to comparing. 

 

If one is intending to go into LotL holding onto seeds has value. Even if going into LotL is just 1 point. If not intending to go into LotL, then I don't see it as valuable. And there's no hypothetical upon which you can convince me it is. Almost anything else in that spot is going to be more valuable in my view. My problem is never having extra slots when I finish running POI's, it's having to decide what I really need at a given moment to bring back because I don't have the slots to physically carry everything. A seed sits on the very bottom of the list for me. If it was more than one seed of the same type that would be different, but that's not the case. And I don't even see the return worth even taking the time to move a seed to an adjacent POI that I'm not doing quests for for a later pickup. They're simply worth that little to me in this system when looting one seed.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Niil945 (see edit history)

[Roland]

3 hours ago, Niil945 said:

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. It's 2 game days or 3 for shrooms.

 

Waiting for plants to grow is not time you have spent on those seeds because you are not forced to do nothing but wait. By your own admission you're doing 7-9 quests while those shrooms are growing. What exactly was the time cost to you for those shrooms growing? Zippo--- because you were spending that time playing in other value adding ways and the shrooms grew without you having to spend bupkiss. So.....free.

 

In addition, unless you are playing with all the difficulty sliders set to the highest, nobody is exactly behind the gun timewise in trying to stay ahead of the difficulty curve. I mean look at you Mister Three-Quests-A-Day. How is the world progression curve ever going to be able to keep up with you? So it doesn't matter in the least how long it takes for things to happen. There is no deadline that you are trying to get everything done by or you lose it and saying there is a time constraint to keep up with the difficulty curve of the game is laughable on anything less than the most difficult settings-- and if you chose those settings then you want such challenges anyway.

 

My point is that the seeds you find are free and can be converted for extremely miniscule time cost to you into valuable crops. Granted, most of the value is potential value, but in a game with no end other than your decision to end it and no spoilage of anything you store, that potential value will turn into actual value at some point. Hence even with LOTL 0 players gain value from planting seeds even if they can't build up a self sustaining farm.

 

4 hours ago, Niil945 said:

Don't handwave away the point.

 

You overuse this phrase and it seems like it has become your way to ignore opposing viewpoints without addressing them. I don't think I was handwaving. I think I was refuting your claim that seeds take up a precious inventory slots and so the opportunity cost of that slot being plugged by a dumb seed when it could hold a precious beef ration makes it not worthwhile to collect seeds when you are at LOTL 0. It isn't just a handwave and a wink to say that there really are no tough inventory slot decisions in the game. It is simplicity itself to work around the inventory size. People either do it with stash boxes without mods or they mod humungous packs that remove the entire issue entirely. For inventory management to actually be something so concerning that you really couldn't keep everything you really wanted, we would have to start out without a backpack and only a few slots to represent our belt a pocket or two. Then slowly progress to having all the slots we have now. I actually played once where I filled every slot of my pack with plant fibers and opened a usuable slot every time I leveled up. Now THAT required tough choices in leaving stuff behind-- but even in that case if I cared enough I just made multiple trips to make sure I got everything. Now that does take time but again-- what deadline are we rushing towards anyway? The game goes on forever.

 

So that is my opinion of course but I think it is valid. Maybe YOUR stance that inventory management is tough and critical and seeds won't have enough value at LOTL 0 to ever earn a slot is the handwaving after all...

 

4 hours ago, Niil945 said:

I've made that choice many times, and it's not a choice between 1 can of beef and 3 seeds, it's between 1 can of beef and 1 seed. 2-3 seeds is where I think it starts becoming an interesting choice for someone with 0 LotL and if that actually happened I'd be fine with the state of farming

 

The problem here goes back to what @Boidster pointed out about your choice of world exploration. You pretty much have blinders on to any POIs in the area that aren't quest destinations. Have you ever driven through a city simply to uncover it completely from the fog of war on your map and scout out interesting places that might have the things you are looking for? If all you are doing is quests and even in those POIs rushing to finish the objective, hit the treasure room, and fly back to the trader then it is no wonder that you are only getting 1 seed in your backpack. It's your game though and if exploring POIs in the environment outside of the quest system feels too inefficient then you've got to make that choice for yourself. I guess I would just ask (again) what the deadline is you are trying to be efficient to beat? If you did 2 quests and explored 2 other POIs without a quest objective instead of doing 4 quests, how are you going to "get behind" in a game you can keep playing forever and whose difficulty curve is based upon your own level? Does it really matter if you hit day 20 at Level 15 instead of Level 25? <shrug>

 

But regardless of any of that, I still really doubt that the choice was ever between 1 seed and 1 can of beef. I can't believe that out of all those slots there wasn't something else you could have dropped or set aside. I mean if you were full and it was all more valuable than a can of beef then that POI is worth two trips to get everything.

 

4 hours ago, Niil945 said:

First nothing is 'free'. It all takes time to acquire, farm, and utilize.

 

yeah, I disagree with your handwaving here. It is pretty free if not completely free when you find something and didn't pay for it. If you find while on a quest then you basically got paid to find that seed and anything else in there while completing the mission. As I already pointed out, the game doesn't end. It extends forever and we are more than capable of keeping up with the difficulty curve so the "cost of time" is pretty meaningless. 

 

Now if you had 50 days to escape before the second wave of bombs were going to obliterate everything and there was no escaping that then I agree that time becomes important and you as the player would need to make serious choices. But as the game stands right now, playing efficiently is just for bragging rights and personal fulfillment for people who care about that in video games.

 

4 hours ago, Niil945 said:

There's a finite amount of food one needs and holding onto the yield of a couple seeds in the hope that it can amount to a days worth of food later is a tad silly. If we had a way to try to get specific recipes that would be different, but we don't. There's no way to 'work' towards any specific recipe aside from perking into the chef line.

 

Its not silly to store food up to use later-- especially since you are almost guaranteed given enough time to be able to use those ingredients because meal recipes are pretty common. I mean that is the main crux of the argument that quite a few people make that it is unwise to spend any points in cooking since you'll end up with a nice variety of recipes anyway. As you say, there are plenty of other ways to get food and that is exactly what you should choose to focus on if you stick to LOTL 0. The seeds you find and plant will take no time to plant and harvest and you don't have to watch them grow while twiddling your thumbs and they won't rot while sitting in your crates against the future day when they might come in handy. There is nothing ever silly about storing something that costs you zero to keep that might be worth something someday particulary when the odds are so much in your favor. But disagree and don't do it. That's perfectly fine. I just think other players will still find some value in seeds and planting with LOTL 0 as long as their expectations are what I've describe for that level of investment.

 

[Niil945]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Waiting for plants to grow is not time you have spent on those seeds because you are not forced to do nothing but wait.

Whether or not I'm actively tending to something doesn't obviate the point. If someone offers you 1 million dollars if you wait 50 years or 100 bucks now, which are you going to choose? Which one is more appealing? Which one has more value? What is the cost of making one choice over the other? It's an intentionally silly hypothetical that demonstrates my point. Time matters, whether one has to do anything while they wait or not. Pretending it doesn't is what is laughable. It's not something that changes whether we're talking about game mechanics or real life. The rest of that commentary is just snark and dismissal.

 

2 hours ago, Roland said:

I guess I would just ask (again) what the deadline is you are trying to be efficient to beat?

More deflectionary tangential arguments. I not particularly concerned with you trying to justify LotL balance by being judgmental about the way I choose to engage in entertainment. What does any of that have to do with LotL in respect to other skills? You're trying to turn this discussion away from LotL and to me personally. That's a rather fallacious way to debate. I can't find a shred of substantive discussion in that section of your post.

 

2 hours ago, Roland said:

Its not silly to store food up to use later-

That's not what I said. Taking a snippet, reducing it to that, and then ignoring context of the rest of what I said isn't actually addressing my position in any way. It does demonstrate why some people think there are condescending, attacking mods on the forums. I'll be here if you want to actually address my argument.

 

 

[bloodmoth13]

17 hours ago, Roland said:

 

If you got the seeds for free then any level of planting and harvesting is profitable without any points spent. Simply planting seeds and harvesting them for fruit that you then place in a container and save for future recipes is better than nothing at all. 

 

Not everyone is using LOTL 3. The huge misconception at the very beginning that many people made simply by reading the patch notes instead of actually playing the game was that farming could not be sustainable until LOTL 3 and that misconception keeps getting reposted and renewed with each additional new thread that each new random person who makes the assumption comes on to voice their outrage. More and more reports from people who actually play the game and test the farming at LOTL 1 and LOTL 2 without prejudice are finding that farming is viable without having to go all in with perk points. You can't do it at LOTL 0 for sure and I know there are some who desire the LOTL 3 ability to reliably create a large farm that is self sustaining without having to invest any points like we had it in A19

 

 

This happens a lot frankly during development. Often a feature is first added for everyone at a high level. During a later iteration it is then subdivided into low medium and high tiers and people realize that they were playing at the highest intended tier all along. We used to only have one single pickaxe in the game and we could mine with it pretty well. Then "Pickaxe" was broken up into tiers with stone, iron, and steel picks as well as quality tiers for each and players came to see that what they had been using as just the standard (only) pickaxe in the game was actually a pretty high tier level and all of a sudden their ability to mine was nerfed until they could progress up to the level they had originally been used to mining at from the very beginning for free. It is just the nature of development. Old timers feel it keenly while new players have no prior experience to compare.

 

It is understandable that old timers are going to look at LOTL 3 in A20 and feel underwhelmed after playing LOTL 0 for A19. It can be tough to do but it is always advisable to play each alpha with a fresh outlook and "forget" about what the game used to be like. The internal testers have to do that on a daily to weekly basis when testing internal builds because so much can change suddenly.

I have to keep saying this but i dont want living off the land 3 to be baseline, i have never asked for that and i dont want to keep repeating that. Free food for no cost removes a huge piece of the survival puzzle, im happier with reduced resources but im not happy with the way it has been implemented where turning plants to seeds can potentially lose you crops. I just think that its bad design and i have stated my thoughts on that elsewhere but it feels clunky.

 

Going through the effort of crafting a plot and planting a single seed for 2 crops is a bit of a waste of time, its plenty of effort for little gain and isnt really ever going to be solving any hunger issues, I cant imagine being excited to loot a corn seed without LotL investment where it gives me 10 food in 2 days. If anything i would just save them till i want to invest in LotL, they are pretty worthless without that. 

 

I know farms will generally be viable with LotL2 but they can potentially not be. I dont think that is the right way to make food unreliable, i have brought up fertilizer as a solution that puts gameplay and effort behind harvesting food instead of just luck, the unreliability comes from harvesting rotten meat which has an element of luck but most of the effort is put behind harvesting or keeping looted rotten meat you find (and bones)

 

Lastly I DONT LIKE LOTL3 IN ITS CURRENT STATE as it reverts things to free infinite food with zero investment other than a little time. You can scale your food supply up infinitely and are only limited by the number of plots you can craft and time. That to me isnt a good food end game, that just removes the survival aspect entirely. My idea for fertilizer isnt just to make things more reliable early game but to make things harder end game and also give more value to bones nitrate and rotten meat which can become too abundant.

 

Basically i want the floor raised and the ceiling bottlenecked with food scarcity influenced somewhat by player input rather than just luck. I get too many replies mistaking my intention for just wanting LotL baseline because im lazy and just want free infinite food when that couldnt be further from the truth. Id actually like looted food to be scarcer with more emphasis on player created and cultivated foods, i dont think players should be allowed to survive without ever crafting or farming food, it should be a baseline part of survival, building a safe dwelling and creating and maintaining a sustainable food source. 

 

TFP already have the pieces there they just need to rearrange them into a way that favors long term upkeep over free infinite food

[Roland]

9 hours ago, Niil945 said:

It's an intentionally silly hypothetical that demonstrates my point.

 

We can both agree that your hypothetical was silly. In fact it is so silly that it in no way demonstrates your point. In fact, it actually demonstrates my points. (which you decided you wanted to avoid at all costs so you called them tangential and judgemental despite the fact that they were not)

 

In real life there ARE deadlines with death being the final deadline-- so time absolutely matters-- especially 50 years given the average lifespan of a human being. We can lose our jobs if we don't make deadlines or even get an entire forum riled up if we miss a target date... In life, time has a lot of value because you usually have to choose one way to spend your time or another.

 

In the game there are no deadlines. Death is not permanent and the timespans we are talking about are measured in hours of real time. Therefore, time really has no bearing or value in the way you are trying to say it does and the way time does in life. There definitely are times in the game we have to choose to spend our time between two activities but plants growing is not one of those. There really is a difference between activities that resolve themselves without your need to actively tend them and activities that can only be resolved with your active participation when it comes to valuing the time those activities take to resolve. You can deny it just for the sake of arguing but it is so self-evident a truth that I feel confident everyone else reading this convo are going to side with me.

 

9 hours ago, Niil945 said:

More deflectionary tangential arguments. I not particularly concerned with you trying to justify LotL balance by being judgmental about the way I choose to engage in entertainment.

 

I call bull@%$# on this. My arguments were core to the idea of placing a value on time and opportunity costs. They were also compelling which is why you are the one who has decided to completely ignore them and instead label it as judgemental so you have an excuse to not answer. I'll lay it out succinctly one more time and I promise I don't care how you play the game.

 

With no deadlines that spell failure, there are no real time constraints in the game and no designed reasons to play efficiently and worry about time. The desire to play efficiently is purely a personal preference since the game goes on forever with no end and the player can effortlessly keep up with the difficulty curve of the game even without playing efficiently since the worlds difficulty curve is mostly based off of the player's levels. This is key and not tangential to an argument about the value of time. I am not saying it is bad to play efficiently, I am explaining that without a deadline that equals losing to race against, efficiency as a strategy for winning is nonexistent except in the personal objectives of the player-- just like playing Dead is Dead. There is nothing in the game that supports the playstyle of Dead is Dead other than a player's choice to self-enforce and do it for their own pleasure.

 

Now, as to the comments about your playstyle of only clearing POIs if they are part of a quest, I wasn't coming down in judegement-- just suggesting along with others that it might be the reason why you are not finding more seeds. But I get it. You didn't ask for play tips and you don't want play tips from the likes of us. When my brother and mother and myself each share quests with each other and go do them boom boom boom we often get three or more done in a day so I'm not judging you for spamming quests. My only point on that was that you were using the growth time of the plants to simultaneously get very valuable and lucrative activities done so there was no actual time lost.

 

9 hours ago, Niil945 said:

That's not what I said. Taking a snippet, reducing it to that, and then ignoring context of the rest of what I said isn't actually addressing my position in any way. It does demonstrate why some people think there are condescending, attacking mods on the forums. I'll be here if you want to actually address my argument.

 

Okay, lets take the whole thing:

17 hours ago, Niil945 said:

First nothing is 'free'. It all takes time to acquire, farm, and utilize. And at weeks into the game a handful of 35-50 point meals that also require other stuff isn't a benefit with the amount of food we need and the rate at which food kits appear, let alone all the other sources of food it competes against as a source. There's a finite amount of food one needs and holding onto the yield of a couple seeds in the hope that it can amount to a days worth of food later is a tad silly. If we had a way to try to get specific recipes that would be different, but we don't. There's no way to 'work' towards any specific recipe aside from perking into the chef line. Though that's similar to most other skills unperked so I don't have an issue with that angle of it at all. But don't hyperbolize it to be more than what it is.

 

It is free. You found it without having to pay anyone anything. If you were doing a quest at the time then you were even being paid for going through that building. You were paid for the objective and anything you find at the same time is yours as a bonus--- for free. If you can't grok this concept then imagine the paycheck you receive for working and then imagine finding that sum of money hidden under a rock out in the forest. I bet that found money would feel like.... free money. If that is too tangential to our conversation then imagine going to the store and paying for a packet of seeds and then imagine a neighbor who finished her gardening walks over and hands you all her extra seeds. Free.

 

We both already agree that the planting and harvesting and even the crafting of the farm plots is extremely negligible in cost and that just leaves the time for growing which I clearly explained is no real cost to you since you are free to simultaneously do other things. You have lost zero time waiting for the plants to grow. You have not changed my mind on this point by calling it handwaving like that is some sort of legit debate strategy...

 

As to whether weeks of those stored up corn and potatoes are going to be worth anything to a player who has food from other sources, that will be situational but almost always a positive result. If you get a food drop with a kit that gives you 10 meat stews on top of all the canned goods you've found  then you might regret ever planting those seeds and storing the corn and the potatoes or you might cook a few more meat stews to add to your stack of ten and be glad you had the mats to do that. Everyone is different. Speaking for myself, I would be glad to have them. I would see that fruit as supplementing my overall food strategy. Honestly, I can't imagine anyone regretting they had a crate with harvested crops in it. 

 

I disagree that it is silly to keep those found seeds in a crate for however long and then to plant them and harvest them and keep the fruit for however long even if it did only result in enough food to make one meal that gets you through one day. I think even at LOTL 0 you would (over weeks you said) gather more than that measley amount of seeds and there is absolutely no downside to keeping it in a crate in your base-- at least not the way the game is designed presently. Even though I make plenty of money to support my family's needs I still get a thrill when I find a forgotten $10 in a pocket of a pair of pants I haven't worn in a long time. I don't think, "How silly, what do I need this $10 for? I make so much more than that and all my financial needs are already being met. I sure wish I hadn't kept this or found it"

 

As for not being able to work towards specific recipes other than spending skillpoints that is true but spending skillpoints IS a way to work towards specific recipes and we DO have all the time without any deadline to earn those points and spend them. In addition, recipes drop commonly and it really doesn't take long to get (again for free) a recipe that can utilize some of whatever you stored.

 

Now, I have addressed your arguments but you haven't addressed mine. Calling my arguments names and acting like I'm judging your playstyle don't count. I've been here for years and will be here for years whenever you're ready to actually address what I've said. I would particularly like to hear why you think that the fact that this game has no deadlines, gives you infinite time to acheive everything, and keeps pace with the speed of the player are just tangential to an argument about the value of time.

Edited January 29, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[DaChibii]

I think some are missing the issue here... it's not that initial farming was "free"... I mean base building, mining, looting, etc. are all "free". The issue was that farming required little skill and grew so fast that it made the hunger system redundant. Obviously, since the change Living off the Land has become more essential for those that want to tackle the hunger aspect through farming, but as others have pointed out it's not required.

But I feel like the biggest complaint with the change is that farming is now 'annoying' to do since it requires more attention for little player satisfaction. I don't think that the devs want to make farming a core gameplay loop, which is fine... but if the loop ends up in death spiral with players then essentially they investing dev time into something that isn't going to give a good return. Yes, the values look good on paper and if you run simulations, but almost every game dev will tell you that all those end up being less impactful after the systems go live. Players don't behave the way that is standardized in simulations, and perceptions often mean more the "numerical" balance.

 

Personally, I feel the issue with whole farming, stamina, and hunger issue is less with farming and more with the actual hunger system. Right now, it's far too challenging in the early game (it's easier to just to die before level 6 to reset your hunger than it's to secure food), and end game hunger and stamina usage because non-existent. It's just easier to balance the food numbers than figure out good progression curve between food, hunger cost, and stamina cost. And make it meaningful for both single player and multiplayer games (excluding mods and settings other than default). I suggested an alternative to the current farming system so that it felt like a meaningful and minimalist fun activity. It doesn't actually fix the issue with the whole hunger/stamina progression.

 

I mean here is an unusual top-of-head suggestion. Increase the hunger length so that a player can go days without food, and instead of it killing both max stamina and health have just reduce healing effectiveness, and stamina regen. That makes hydration more important for burst stamina usage, increases the value of healing items, and increase risk from being short to a longer duration, allowing for more risky actions. And then just make infection more common, so that the non-combat survival aspect is about reducing a player's infection. This means that Antibiotics, Herbal AB, and Honey may need to be rebalanced so that it's not just an instant fix and more of a did you remember to take your meds (preventative pre-combat and reactive post-combat).

[Niil945]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

In fact it is so silly that it in no way demonstrates your point.

If you choose not to acknowledge the point that's your choice. It's not a complicated matter. And this is exactly what I meant about handwaving. It's a survival game. How one can argue that time isn't a factor in almost everything is beyond me as early game time pressure is a big deal in any survival game I've ever played including this one. Time is even referenced in the name of the game which makes your position all the more amusing.

 

10 hours ago, Roland said:

I call bull@%$# on this.

Feel free to do so, you're entitled to an opinion. It doesn't change my view on the matter though.

 

10 hours ago, Roland said:

It is free.

Simply repeating your opinion at me when I disagree isn't a discussion. Nor is simply saying it in a more (fake) authoritative way as if you're the arbiter for everyone else what is and isn't true. 

 

10 hours ago, Roland said:

Now, I have addressed your arguments but you haven't addressed mine.

You have not actually addressed my argument. You've gone out of your way to make your argument about me personally and the way I play. Numerous arguments I've made you've simply said, 'nope' and pretend you're the authority on the matter and think that's the end of it when that's actually not addressing the point at all. You've made no attempt to understand my position and instead have spent the entire time trying to 'win' the argument. Which is silly because there isn't any way to win when we're talking about a subjective matter.

 

0 point investment comparison - I've explained I don't see it on an even playing field with other skills at 0 and why. I've said I like A19 better than current, but also acknowledged that I think it would be more balanced with some kind of maintenance. You argued that mining less is somehow comparable to not getting seed returns which completely shut down farming, I didn't agree or even see the comparison and the discussion prettymuch ended. That's not addressing the point at all and is the biggest issue I have with the perk now. 

Time delay between getting a seed and getting the yield - matters to me, you've tried to say it doesn't matter in very longwinded ways. That's not addressing my point at all, that's just handwaving.

Seed quantity - I don't see seeds enough to make it worth it at the current yield, I've explained what value of seeds I would need to see to be worthwhile and why, you've attacked my playstyle as an excuse as to why I don't see seeds often, ignoring that doing trader quests is as a focus for progression is pretty clearly an intended method to play and RWG means that POI's that drop seeds may not even exist on a map currently or may be so far away that a player never runs into them. You've never even engaged my comment about 2-3 seeds at a time point because you were too busy throwing side insults (i.e. 'Mr. 3 POI's a game day!')

Alternatives - I've presented, as have others, numerous examples of things that I think would be better and explained why I think it would be more balanced both on the low and high end and in ways that doesn't make either end overpowered at all. You've not substantively addressed any of them.

Efficiency - You've spent a ton of time/words attacking my playstyle as if that has any bearing on the discussion at all. It was information I volunteered freely in trying to explain why I feel the way I do. This is all fallacious and has zero to do with the arguments I've made. It was tangential exposition in the discussion and you've made it a centerpiece of your argument against my point of view.

 

Some people are going to dislike this change and they have entirely valid reasons for disliking it. You falling all over yourself to bash people who share that view while you 'nope' every argument they make and attack them personally instead of their argument is more than a little childish.

[WickesGuru]

On 12/28/2021 at 9:49 AM, Moldy Bread said:

Is there a reason why there have been changes to farming? When harvesting crops the crop no longer reverts to a seedling, instead you have 50% chance to get a seed. What is the reason for this change? From what I have seen most people hate this change and I agree. At five plants per seed, farming isn't very viable and I don't see why you wouldn't get a seed from a crop. Luckily there is a mod to revert it back to Alpha 19 style but I still don't know why this was changed.

Well the way i see it is the change came about because it's a survival game and the old farming method basically gave you infinite free food without any real work or even using skill points. That kind of wrecks the whole survival thing. I just put the points into living off the land and still have more food than I need. But i can absolutely understand why some people don't like the change of course. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by WickesGuru (see edit history)

[Niil945]

4 hours ago, DaChibii said:

Personally, I feel the issue with whole farming, stamina, and hunger issue is less with farming and more with the actual hunger system. Right now, it's far too challenging in the early game (it's easier to just to die before level 6 to reset your hunger than it's to secure food), and end game hunger and stamina usage because non-existent. It's just easier to balance the food numbers than figure out good progression curve between food, hunger cost, and stamina cost. And make it meaningful for both single player and multiplayer games (excluding mods and settings other than default). I suggested an alternative to the current farming system so that it felt like a meaningful and minimalist fun activity. It doesn't actually fix the issue with the whole hunger/stamina progression.

I think that's a great point that I don't think has been brought up that I never considered, the variance in the SP and MP experience of hunger/thirst. Unfortunately there's no realistic/logical way to scale food usage or hunger and thirst systems to tailor it so the challenge level is at the expected levels throughout the play through based on number of players. At least not without complicating the system a whole lot (i.e. perishable foods). Artificially it could be done by behind the scenes altering of drop rates on things and how often food/drink show up on vending machines and traders. It's definitely an interesting aspect of the discussion.

Edited January 30, 2022 by Niil945 (see edit history)

[Roland]

5 hours ago, Niil945 said:

If you choose not to acknowledge the point that's your choice. It's not a complicated matter. And this is exactly what I meant about handwaving. It's a survival game. How one can argue that time isn't a factor in almost everything is beyond me as early game time pressure is a big deal in any survival game I've ever played including this one. Time is even referenced in the name of the game which makes your position all the more amusing.

Well, I give up. If you feel a time crunch in this game I guess you feel a time crunch. Time is in the name, you’re correct about that. You feel pressure because something bad will happen if you don’t manage time and play efficiently enough? Where is this pressure you’re feeling coming from?  I’d like to hear what it is. 
 

5 hours ago, Niil945 said:

Simply repeating your opinion at me when I disagree isn't a discussion.

I didn’t simply repeat it. I followed up with arguments for why it is free. They are still printed if you scroll up a bit and reread them. Or not. I’m guessing not so I guess we are done. If you want to address the points I made as to why the food you gain is free and of benefit even at LOTL 0 I’d be interested to read them. 

 

5 hours ago, Niil945 said:

You've gone out of your way to make your argument about me personally and the way I play.

That is simply not true. I’m sorry you see it that way. I think you are injecting malice into my text that doesn’t exist. I’m a flippant writer. Always have been. I guess that has worked against me with you. Our personalities are at odds perhaps. 
 

I have been referencing your play style but not to attack it. When I referenced you doing lots of quests it was simply to show that you are using the time that plants grow productively to demonstrate that that growth time costs you nothing. You are using the time very effectively. 
 

The other time I referenced your play style was simply an honest observation that POIs that are slated for quests might not be the POIs that have good chances at finding seeds. It was not an attack at all. It was a tip from one player to another. Boidster made the same observation.  If you think it’s a bad tip then don’t follow it but it wasn’t meant as an attack. 
 

The final reference to your play style was simply part of my argument that this game has no actual time constraints. It wasn’t an attack any more than saying that playing dead is dead is a voluntary play style is an attack against that. It’s perfectly fine to play Dead is Dead and it’s perfectly fine to focus on efficiency. I know you disagree and believe that there are time-based reasons to try and play as efficiently as possible. I’d still like to learn what they are because I can’t think of any. 
 

5 hours ago, Niil945 said:

0 point investment comparison - I've explained I don't see it on an even playing field with other skills at 0 and why.

 

I know. You also said it doesn’t bother you that much because you are fine with some asymmetry. Me too. That’s why I didn’t argue that point. 
 

5 hours ago, Niil945 said:

Time delay between getting a seed and getting the yield - matters to me, you've tried to say it doesn't matter in very longwinded ways.

 

I didn’t say it doesn’t matter that there is a delay between finding a seed and using it’s fruit in recipes. I simply stated that the seed you found and the fruit you got from it is free food because you are not forced to babysit the growing process. YOU said that the planting and harvesting and planter crafting were very negligible cost wise but it was the time delay that was the real cost. Our whole discussion has come about because I claimed that seeds you find are free food and you disagreed. I’ve explained why the growth time doesn’t represent a cost and you keep saying I’m wrong but with no explanation as to why growth time makes it so that seeds you find aren’t free. 
 

I agree that seeds represent a delayed benefit compared to finding actual food.  There is no argument from me on that and it does matter—especially if you are low on food right now. Of course….it would matter more if you could actually die from hunger or if other food sources were more scarce or if there was food spoilage. 
 

5 hours ago, Niil945 said:

Some people are going to dislike this change and they have entirely valid reasons for disliking it.

 

Of course. I’ve never said otherwise. My discussion with you has mainly been focused on whether seeds you find are free or not. I haven’t said anything about  whether farming should be liked or disliked by anyone other than me. You did ask the mods to simply outline why we like the new farming and I did exactly that with v, w, x, y, z reasons. Maybe you missed that post?  
 

I can be pretty cheeky at times but I realize that some people don’t respond well to that. I apologize and assure you I will play it straight with you in all future posts. I can keep it all business. 

Edited January 30, 2022 by Roland (see edit history)

[ktr]

On 1/3/2022 at 8:22 PM, meganoth said:

 

Please do, but I'm seeing 4 in my games with LotL1 as well.

 

I started a new SP game. Haven't gotten to where I can farm anything yet.  However, in my multiplayer game, I am at LoTL 2 and have yet to get more than 3 from any seed that I grow. I am about to get LoTL3 so we'll see how that turns out!

[BFT2020]

7 hours ago, ktr said:

I started a new SP game. Haven't gotten to where I can farm anything yet.  However, in my multiplayer game, I am at LoTL 2 and have yet to get more than 3 from any seed that I grow. I am about to get LoTL3 so we'll see how that turns out!

 

Something is wrong with your game then.  LoTL 2 should be giving you between 4-5 plants per harvest.

 

            <passive_effect name="HarvestCount" operation="perc_add" level="1,2,3" value="1,1,2" tags="cropHarvest,wildCropsHarvest"/>
            <passive_effect name="HarvestCount" operation="base_set" level="2,3" value="1,1" tags="bonusCropHarvest"/>

 

Edited January 31, 2022 by BFT2020 (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

@ktr

 

Definitely need to check your game out.  I just did a test world where I did nothing but farming - mod the block growing time to 2 minutes per stage.  Started out with 10 of each - corn, potatoes, blueberries.  Completed two harvests

 

	Harvest 1	Harvest 2
corn	45	45
potatoes	44	46
blueberries	46	45

 

Even after converting plants to seeds to stay at 10 per (I planted a third crop before I stopped), I had 35 corn, 55 potatoes, and 46 blueberries in storage.

[Maharin]

This game needs a HelloFresh delivery bot.