Farming in 7daystodie

[6boulettes]

Hi all wanted to discuss farming because thinks there could be improvements to be made.

1. It would be interesting to be able to have levels to be able to cultivate in the land, learn to plough and then grow in pots.

2. Needed to keep the ground moist by doing manual watering, and consider developing automatically with the addition of electricity.

3. Improve the way we harvest. I propose the idea that when the seedlings are walled, we press "E" in order to harvest rather than destroy the plan. Also over time, if one does not harvest, recover seeds without the fruits to eat. However, this can unlock new recipes like poridges.

 

Do not hesitate to bring me your opinions to evolve ideas and potentially guide the decisions of developers attentive to the ideas of players.

[Jeraal]

We were once able to till the ground, add fertilizer and press E to harvest. What we have now is the "improvement". Some like it. Some don't(me included).

[6boulettes]

38 minutes ago, Jeraal said:

We were once able to till the ground, add fertilizer and press E to harvest. What we have now is the "improvement". Some like it. Some don't(me included).

I remember, it was a more interesting system than the one we have now. I don't understand this decision, I feel like it's more of a rollback rather than an improvement.
Being myself interested in gardening and botany, I find it a shame that we don't consider this part of the game more, knowing that food is central to the game.

[meganoth]

There were technical reasons for the "improvement" according to the developers. 

 

[Roland]

It wasn’t added as an improvement to what we had. It was added so that farming could continue to exist in some form due to the limitations of the world generation tech. 
 

The tech improved world generation which directly affects exploration in a positive way. Exploration trumps farming as a game feature in the priorities of the developers. They wanted to keep farming, however, and the farm plots were what they went with. 
 

If farming is going to see deeper mechanics it won’t be until after release. The current farming is viewed as good for the base game. 
 

Your ides are great @6boulettes but probably would only happen in a farming update as an expansion to the game after it releases. 

[8_Hussars]

A fair number of players do not appreciate the added A20 busy work of replanting, let alone the rebalancing (nerfing) of the A19 OP farm system.  I highly doubt a more complex farming system would be popular.

[RipClaw]

13 hours ago, 8_Hussars said:

A fair number of players do not appreciate the added A20 busy work of replanting, let alone the rebalancing (nerfing) of the A19 OP farm system.  I highly doubt a more complex farming system would be popular.

It depends on the player.

 

The A19 system was the simplest iteration so far. There was already a version where you had to have water nearby, similar to Minecraft. I started in A15 and there the replanting was normal. We didn't even get the seeds back but part of the harvest had to be crafted into seeds. In addition, fertilizer had to be applied to increase the crop yield.

 

[Orclover]

Ah the farming arguments threads again, how I miss thee.  Farming caused almost as much anger and cursing on our server as losing vehicles to bugs and friendly fire.  Currently you need to either invest points in an otherwise useless farming skill tree or edit the config files in order to make farming self sustainable, something that was seen as hugely unpopular among more than a few players. 

 

Not sure what the currently implemented system was designed to fix, but I was always curious as to how bad the alternative was for the devs.  It must have been pretty bad.

[Syphon583]

10 minutes ago, Orclover said:

Not sure what the currently implemented system was designed to fix

I think the overall feeling was that farming was ridiculously OP as it was implemented in A19. It required very little investment and once a player had a modest amount of plots they no longer had to worry about food. Farming wasn't even an interesting part of the game. It was rinse and repeat and required no thought or strategy by the player.

 

With the new system I actually have to be strategic about what I do with my harvest since I am not guaranteed a seed back. Now, is the new system perfect? Hell no! I actually wished they were a little more creative with how they introduce risk with farming. As opposed to a 50/50 chance of returning a seed, I wish there was a chance (say 15-50% depending on how invested you are in the perk) of a crop failing before it could be harvested. However, crops that survived to a harvestable state always returned a seed. To me, that seems closer to what you'd experience in the real world. The more skilled I get at farming, the more likely my crops are to survive.

 

At the very least, I hope they consider increasing the chance of a returned seed depending on how invested you are into the perk. To my understanding, perks are being rebalanced for A21, but we don't know really what the means yet.

[Orclover]

9 minutes ago, Syphon583 said:

At the very least, I hope they consider increasing the chance of a returned seed depending on how invested you are into the perk. To my understanding, perks are being rebalanced for A21, but we don't know really what the means yet.

 

 

I was always against requiring skill points (that were hard to come by early on) for farming to be sustainable.  But I always wished they would add an outside risk to farming.  Farming isn't just knowing the in and outs of plants/technique.  You also gotta deal with pest.  In post-apocolyptia with super-infected you would think we would be dealing with pigs trying to eat our crops, glowing crows flying in (set up sentries or build in a greenhouse).  Hell it would be awesome for infected zombie vegans who only go after farms showing up and beating on walls to zero in on our corn to wipe it out.  Wearing tie-dye shirts and crocs.  Tier 3 glowie zombie hipsters.

[meganoth]

21 minutes ago, Syphon583 said:

 To my understanding, perks are being rebalanced for A21, but we don't know really what the means yet.

 

We don't know details, but we can pretty well guess which perks will need a boost, all those that provided free schematics in A20.

 

[BFT2020]

19 minutes ago, Orclover said:

I was always against requiring skill points (that were hard to come by early on) for farming to be sustainable.  But I always wished they would add an outside risk to farming.  Farming isn't just knowing the in and outs of plants/technique.  You also gotta deal with pest.  In post-apocolyptia with super-infected you would think we would be dealing with pigs trying to eat our crops, glowing crows flying in (set up sentries or build in a greenhouse).  Hell it would be awesome for infected zombie vegans who only go after farms showing up and beating on walls to zero in on our corn to wipe it out.  Wearing tie-dye shirts and crocs.  Tier 3 glowie zombie hipsters.

 

 

What they did follows the standard risk / reward strategy - Zero or minimum investment in crops means less likely of living off of veggie stews and steak / potatoes.  Investing in the perks improves your chances.  Of course, the 50% chance of losing a seed is also part of the risk or chance of failure.

 

You also don't have to perk a lot into it to make a difference (based on A20 of course).  Just one perk doubles your harvest from both wilds (1 to 2) and planted (2 to 4) crops.

 

It's like when you finish the T1 quests, and you are deciding on getting the bicycle or just waiting to see if you can find the handlebars as you already have the chassis, wheels, and mechanical parts.  Sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are me and don't find the schematic to make them until 15 days later  😆

 

As for adding more, yes that is always possible; but that makes farming an even more complicated part of the game which I don't think they really want.  Heck, Farming Simulator 22 doesn't even have crop rotation.  WTH is with that?  You're a simulator, crop rotation should be a thing  😉

[JCrook1028]

1 hour ago, Orclover said:

Not sure what the currently implemented system was designed to fix, but I was always curious as to how bad the alternative was for the devs.  It must have been pretty bad.

It had something to do with the ground textures or splats. Something along those lines. Anyway, when the new terrain system went in farm plots in the ground were no longer a possibility, at all. So a new system was required.

[RyanX]

Whatever happens, punching plants should always be a thing.