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

[Emilie]

Seems fine mechanically, but it is a rather boring way to live. Between the time it takes to gather food and prepare before you can get on with your current non-food project you kind of get the feeling that you are 'wasting your time' a little.

Will need to see how we go after a couple of weeks on live to make a judgment if the 'work'/'play' balance is correct.

It certainly acts as a disincentive for casual solo players to continue/start. Hardcore players will see it more as an annoyance. I would be less inclined to recommend the game to friends/guildmates unless I thought they were a more hardcorish player.

There is another option, you could trade for food. In most games I have played, there have been crafts I have not enjoyed, and then I will buy the thing I need from someone who does/NPC. I am not sure why in this game there is such resistance in the community to trade for things. I will be cooking and farming a lot, and you are very welcome to buy your food from me, I can do a special price for returning customers and even deliver it to you for a small fee. :P I could set up a meals on wheels service and go round the lake regularly!

Working, though I think 'extract all' would be better if it worked like batch processing of crafting, that is to say that each green bar 'extract' should just be 1 extraction and all 'extract all' does is automate each extraction attempt. So a stack of 10 cones for example would automate 10 extractions on the stack each extraction being 1 rather than 1 extraction being all 10 cones.

This is a really good suggestion, but not urgent IMO. If it would push back release of the patch I'd rather wait til future update.

[Bejaymac]

14) Homestead are set to have 0 commissaries (as mentioned earlier).

Had to set the use of the tent in my homestead to none to stop it working as a commissary, this means that any tribe that loses members and drops down a level will keep all of it's commissaries, you might need to add a check in there to force tribes to remove one (or more) of their commissaries if that happens.

[Tupux]

The amount of fertilizer I got from guts with 5 Farming,4 Int, 115 Strength, 64 Charm was 2. With 74 Farming, 105 Int, 83 Strength and 97 Charm I got 7 fertilizer from guts coming from the same stack. All stats are the buffed numbers.

I did not keep numbers on foraging but just tried to get a feel for it. At high level foraging I got more than enough plants to live from if needed while getting a decent amount of other plants, including some rares and very rares, for cooking. The number of crop-plants was very low making farming worthwile.

I feel that like this Farming and Cooking will both be valuable skills, where Foraging will probably mostly be a skill for more dedicated players with the amounts of plants per pull like it is now. Which I think is a good thing as it might create more trading.

I agree with mmogaddict that extracting should not extract a whole stack in 1 action.

[thurgond]

A larger harvest window would be good, but with plants wilting this window can be down to one game day right before the fertilizer runs out. I think you should be able to harvest wilted plants, otherwise no fertilizer will mean no harvest, not a reduced harvest.

After years of "take five steps and harvest/forage" the new harvesting distance will take a lot of getting used to. I do not see the need for this. I can still fill my pack up with plants that I mostly don't need, just like I can fill my pack up with useless scavenged items. It just takes a few minutes longer with the longer distance, less if I sprint between foraging.

Crop plants are truly rare now. I foraged for an hour and found crop plants only 3 times, 1 rhubarb, 2 rhubarb, and 3 onion. I like this as it makes farming necessary to get enough vegetables to cook with them. Didn't fail once at 100 skill.

My alt with foraging in the upper 20's, found 1 rhubarb in an hour. With the changes, failures went down from 55% to 46%, but foraging went up 2 points while testing. Berries and other edibles were found about a quarter of the time. Thus taking a minute to make 8 forage attempts would find on average 4-6 edible plants. Even at ftp levels, it will not take long for someone to find enough to eat.

I'm not sure your ranges are right on guts and fertilizer. I got 2 guts from an old canis armidillis innards (probably low power) and 7 fertilizer each from the guts.

I had two carrots that took many attempts to harvest. Over two game hours, I went from 80.9 to 81.4 farming skill trying to pull up these wascally carrots, but eventually got the harvest.

[MrDDT]

Pretty sure wilted plants have nothing to do with fertilizer, but water. If you do not rewater the plant it will become wilted at about 10% water left.

[thurgond]

Pretty sure wilted plants have nothing to do with fertilizer, but water. If you do not rewater the plant it will become wilted at about 10% water left.

Plants wilt when the fertilizer runs out or when unfertilized plants reach 75% maturity, even if they have just been watered. No amount of water will bring the plant back, only fertilizer.

[Xsyon]

The Test Server is restarting with the following changes:

1) Fix for plants wilting unfertilized at 75% maturity. At this point they should stop growing but not wilt (unless they are also not watered or tended).

2) I posted in error regarding the fertilizer amounts as I forgot the charm bonus. I adjusted the code for this and the amounts should range from 2-6 (including the charm bonus).

[MrDDT]

Plants wilt when the fertilizer runs out or when unfertilized plants reach 75% maturity, even if they have just been watered. No amount of water will bring the plant back, only fertilizer.

Great bug catch, glad it was fixed quickly.

Xsyon any idea when this might go live assuming no other issues?

[thurgond]

1) Fix for plants wilting unfertilized at 75% maturity. At this point they should stop growing but not wilt (unless they are also not watered or tended).

Quick fix, but not quite. When unfertilized plant reaches 75% it can be harvested, but the next day it wilts.

[Xsyon]

I think my last Test Server patch failed to update fully, hence the problem still with unfertilized plants still wilting.

I've updated the Test Server again and we tested crops since late last night. They seem to be working correctly now and can be tested again by players.

Thanks!