Feedback Request 08/01/2014: Farming and Cooking (Test Server)

[MrDDT]

The ratio of guts per innards has been changed so, as Jordi stated 3 rounds down to 1.

On the production servers the guts per innards power ratio is something like:
1 guts / 0.2 innards power, 2 / 0.4-0.6, 3 / 0.8, 4 / 1.0
On test, this becomes:
1 guts / 0.2 - 0.8, 3 / 1.0

Since 1.0 power creatures are nearly extinct, this means every creature will give a maximum of one guts based what's on test currently. Plus, any 1.0 power guts would be much better utilized in bonecrafting than for fertilizer.

What I'm advocating is going back to the old guts / innards ratios, and leaving the fertilizer per guts based on the creature size. The fertilizer per guts should probably scale up from one for hamsters/squirrels to 10 for mutant bears, rather than the 1/3/5 scale that is on test now.

I understand now thanks for clearing that up. My worry about doing it like this, is we will see a lot more bear STR guts vs other types of guts like INT guts (mutant rats). My only suggestion here would be balance it to size of animal like you said, giving small animals 1 to 3 range, and large animals 2 to 5 range. Still makes sense, but not massively overwhelming them on the rarity levels.

As far as adjusting crop maturation times, I could live with either one but for option 2 would increase the maximum yield to 24 or 25 to keep the non-fertilized maximum yield to 20.

And thanks for two really fast fixes. You're the man Mr. Grau.

This would make it much better to simply just plant 2 crops instead of using any fertilizer at all. Yield for fertilized crops needs to be much greater than unfertilized.

I like the current ratio of fertilized vs unfertilized, I think the issue is the small in window players will have for unfertilized crops on which they can harvest. From what my testing shows is they have about 24 real hours to harvest it. Which means if they do not log on at a special time, they will have dead plants.

I think fertilizer from fish and guts should be 1 fish/gut yields 2-8 fertilizer. A yield of 1 is too low IMO, you have to take into account that at the early stages you spill a lot on the ground so it ends up being something like 7 fertilizers used to fertilize one plant. That is 7 fish I could just be making into kabobs and eating straight up. That is a very high initial cost, for no real yield increase.

It wont take 7 to 8 fertilizer to fertilize 1 plant, unless you are talking about only to 100%. It will take closer to 10 to 20 for a low skilled player to keep it fully fertilized to 100% and through its growth cycle depending on how much you do it.
If you are talking 1 fertilized then its only about 1 to 5 per plant.

Having said that, I agree with your statement that it can be pretty high, I think anywhere in the range of 0 to 10 fertilizer from a fish/gut is fine. I believe my ideal would be 1 to 5 fertilizer per fish/gut. 1 being 5 skill, 0 in stats, using a 5QL knife. 5 being 100 skill, 100 stats, using 100QL knife.
I hope that clears that up for exact numbers =P

[thurgond]

Emilie, DDT, I don't think foraging should be nerfed. Players shouldn't be forced to hunt/fish/farm/cook to survive. I consider foraged berries/currants to be a handful, not a single berry. As it stands, you need to eat non-cooked berries or raw vegies 11 times to go from dead (10%) to yellow (76%).

You do not get enough out of fishing now, so I would support a future change to get fish filets (2 to 8) and guts from fish.

I think harvesting at 75% is about right. Each application of fertilizer increases growth by 7-8% so, thanks to the effects of cumulative interest, a plant fully fertilized at planting will mature to "Ready to Harvest" with 18-20 days left to grow.

[MrDDT]

Emilie, DDT, I don't think foraging should be nerfed. Players shouldn't be forced to hunt/fish/farm/cook to survive. I consider foraged berries/currants to be a handful, not a single berry. As it stands, you need to eat non-cooked berries or raw vegies 11 times to go from dead (10%) to yellow (76%).

You do not get enough out of fishing now, so I would support a future change to get fish filets (2 to 8) and guts from fish.

Currently I can get 300 foraged items in 5 mins of foraging. This would last me, 10 hours of game play worth of food. Compared to Farming.
5 mins of farming yields about 400 crops. Which is about 12 hours of game play worth of food. Not counting the mats it takes to yield that much also.

Farming is ONLY used for seeds/cooking items. Foraging has added use of faster picking up grass, higher QL grass, branches, twigs etc.
The current rate of foraged items is way way way to high, it should be cut down massively, it should NOT be an ideal as primary source of food system in the game.

[mmogaddict]

Currently I can get 300 foraged items in 5 mins of foraging. This would last me, 10 hours of game play worth of food. Compared to Farming.
5 mins of farming yields about 400 crops. Which is about 12 hours of game play worth of food. Not counting the mats it takes to yield that much also.

Farming is ONLY used for seeds/cooking items. Foraging has added use of faster picking up grass, higher QL grass, branches, twigs etc.
The current rate of foraged items is way way way to high, it should be cut down massively, it should NOT be an ideal as primary source of food system in the game.

At the same time, farming is also going to be a lot more predicable in regards to what sort of outcome you are going to get.

Of those 300 foraged items, how many are going to give a precise bonus that you might be chasing.

Foraging may need a slight adjustment, but to say it needs to be cut down massively is a gross exaggeration.

[Bejaymac]

DDT if those amounts are on the test server then you need to remember that everything has been ramped up to make things easier during testing, foraging find rates have been drastically increased, and the places to find stuff has been increased as well, I just found potatoes in a bald patch and strawberries (crop version) halfway up a granite rockface, I very much doubt if I'll find them there once it goes live.

[MrDDT]

DDT if those amounts are on the test server then you need to remember that everything has been ramped up to make things easier during testing, foraging find rates have been drastically increased, and the places to find stuff has been increased as well, I just found potatoes in a bald patch and strawberries (crop version) halfway up a granite rockface, I very much doubt if I'll find them there once it goes live.

Bejaymac, which is why he is asking for the feedback because he has to adjust them for the live server =P

[Xsyon]

Thanks for all the feedback. It helps a lot.

Regarding fertilizer: Plants are updated once per game day. What I could do it that if there is no fertilizer during an update, the plant will not grow beyond 75% (or 80%) during that update. This would be the easiest method of achieving a limit on plant maturity (thus plant yield) without fertilizer.

There are many additional factors to take into account when comparing foraging, fishing and farming. For example:

1) With farming you know what you're getting. With foraging, you have some control over what plant you'll find, but with crop plants being rare, you'll get more seasoning plants than crop plants while foraging. I'll restart the server tonight with the crop plants set as I intended for the final so players can get a feel for their rarity. Current plants set to the same rarity level include Serviceberry, Fern Leaved Lomatium, Mountain Strawberry, Gray's Lovage and Red Sierra Onion.

2) Most of the more common foraged plants will need to be used as seasonings (or secondary ingredients).

3) It's hard for me to know right now how often players will be making simple one ingredient food, just to fill up, versus multiple ingredient food for the fast recovery or buffs.

4) I was planning to make foraged food more regional (like scavenged items - which I also want to revise further) and not simply based on surfaces. I don't have time to do this for this update, but I do want to keep this in mind for the near future.

5) I could also (now or in the future) set up seasoning ingredients to only be seasonings and not secondary ingredients. That's something I considered but I do like the flexibility offered by having all ingredients fit two slot types.

I'll set up some values based on these considerations and the factors mentioned in this thread and will post when the Test Server is up with these revised values.

Thanks again!

[Xsyon]

The Test Server is up with one minor change:

1) Crops are now set to be 'rare' finds through foraging. I'd like to hear opinions if this feels ok, they are too rare or too easy to find.

Thanks!

[mmogaddict]

3) It's hard for me to know right now how often players will be making simple one ingredient food, just to fill up, versus multiple ingredient food for the fast recovery or buffs.

Due to uncapped base/white stats, most people will in practice probably just stick to making mostly one ingredient meals to satisfy hunger.

If you want to promote stat equipment, stat food, totem upkeep buffs and eventually stat magic buff then you should look at capping UNBUFFED stats and have people get their edge from the use of the aforementioned buffs, rather than just grinding skills for stats.

So for example you could set UNBUFFED cap to 120 for stats and people could use food, equipment, totems etc to go beyond 120 (at least while their buffs last).

Obviously the above is way outside the realms of this patch as it would have major ramifications to the game and the playerbase.

Players who have pushed their stats beyond whatever a cap would be set to would need some form of recompense (Perhaps by allowing a one off ability to shift points above the cap to other stats but beyond the 90 redistribution point that is currently in place for a stat redistribution. So for example if somebody had 200 stats A and every other stat at 100, they could redistribute to 120 stat A and raise 4 of their 100 stats to 120).

All the above figures are just placeholders to illustrate and not the actual figures that could be used.

4) I was planning to make foraged food more regional (like scavenged items - which I also want to revise further) and not simply based on surfaces. I don't have time to do this for this update, but I do want to keep this in mind for the near future.

Sounds like a good idea.

How about also vary availability based on in game season. Some plants are more often found during the during the winter, others more often during the summer. For example :

Plant	Spring	Summer	Autumn	Winter
X	Common	Common	Rare	Zero Chance
Y	Rare	Zero Chance	Rare	Common
Z	Common	Zero Chance	Zero Chance	Zero Chance

5) I could also (now or in the future) set up seasoning ingredients to only be seasonings and not secondary ingredients. That's something I considered but I do like the flexibility offered by having all ingredients fit two slot types.

Keep the flexibility. It's a sandbox, the more flexibility in the game and it's systems the better.

[Bejaymac]

I'm finding it just as easy to find plants and crops today as I was yesterday, the "failed to find" are what's rare and my foraging skill is only at 46.

I went out foraging with 30 empty slots in my packs and filled them in under 5 minutes, 5 of the items were crops while 8 of the others were edible raw.

3) It's hard for me to know right now how often players will be making simple one ingredient food, just to fill up, versus multiple ingredient food for the fast recovery or buffs.

For me just being well nourished is enough, so simple fish kebabs will be normal for me, but the min/max'ers will be looking for every worthwhile buff going.