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

[Xsyon]

On one of my accounts ( a free to play one ), I was at 0 food and 0 water dying, left tribe, died from lack of food/water respawned at founders isle, and now can't die from lack of food and water.

I'm testing some changes so that very new players (with less than one bar of experience gained) don't suffer the starvation or dying of thirst effects. This is in progress and I will post after preliminary tests are done.

[MrDDT]

I planted 2 plants a few days ago on test server, and fertilized/watered one, and only watered the other. Kept pest and weeds off both.
Both are dead. This morning (few hours ago) they said 2 days left. I log on just a min ago, and they are both dead. Not sure why they would be dead.

Food items that I fished/cooked didn't even decay during this time, so no idea why they just died.

[wastelandstoic]

The consumption time for raw foods and cooked foods are the same (with exception for some combinations of cooked foods going higher). This should be adjusted by at least half to three quarters so that raw foods take less time to consume as they provide less nourishment/ no buffs.

[Xsyon]

I planted 2 plants a few days ago on test server, and fertilized/watered one, and only watered the other. Kept pest and weeds off both.

Both are dead. This morning (few hours ago) they said 2 days left. I log on just a min ago, and they are both dead. Not sure why they would be dead.

How many hours exactly elapsed while you were offline? The 'days left' should be the number of game days left before the plant is dead (regardless of care). Plants should be harvest-able well before the maximum age. Caring for the plants increases the amount of the potential harvest before the plant reaches maximum age and dies. Ideally plants should be harvested when there is 1 game day left.

2 game days left could mean slightly over 1 game day left, so slightly over 2 hours, 40 minutes left. If you're certain that you were away for less than this amount of time, I can set up tests to speed up farming and double check that this is all correct.

[MrDDT]

Oh, I thought the game days left were until harvest. So yeah, for sure they died from the time running out haha. I was waiting for those days to count down to harvest them.

How large is the harvest window? Hard to test this so late because it takes days to see what you planted.

[thurgond]

Glad to know what the days left means, although I was beginning to suspect it was days to death and not harvest.

For me the majority, maybe 7 in 10 still show Growing and not Ready to Harvest with 1 or 2 days left. This is after full fertilizer and regular tending. The water bar hasn't dropped below 80-90% so I haven't been watering after the initial watering. Is this the problem, or is there just a low percentage chance that crops will be harvestable?

Kebobs are stacking now. Thanks.

[Xsyon]

The Test Server is open again with the following changes:

1) Amount of fertilizer created from guts reduced by roughly ½.

2) Crop yield reduced. Crops now yield from 2 to 20 crops depending on skill, stats and most important the maturity level of the plant.

3) New players (with less than one bar of experience) are not affected by starvation or dying of thirst. The tooltip on these buffs should display that death in this case is inactive.

4) Plants display their current maturity level as a %, after the 'days left' text. This is in addition to the maturity bar with is the lower right bar on each plant.

5) Containers that were not reducing decay (reported by Bejaymac) corrected.

6) Plant growth is sped up 24 times (updates per game hour now instead of per game day). Each 'day left' currently is a game hour left. Crops should last for roughly 3-4 hours. This is for testing only!

Notes:

1) Regarding crop growth: Crops can be harvested at 75% maturity. Crops reach maturity faster based on water, fertilizer and tending levels. Yield increases with maturity. The goal is to get crops to 100% maturity before the 'days left' run out. If you are at 1 day left and maturity has not reached 100%, it's still time to harvest, you just won't obtain the maximum yield.

This was tested extensively in earlier rounds, but if there seems to be a problem reaching 100% maturity, please let me know. With the sped up crop growth times, this will be easier to check, however, you will need to check your plant levels more often to may sure water, fertilizer and tending levels are optimal.

2) Regarding crops being removed (reported by Bejaymac): I checked these on the Test Server and the plants are still there. I believe you are zoomed out and can't see the plants as they disappear from view when zoomed out. I will be adjusting the scale of some of the plants so that this shouldn't happen.

3) Regarding consumption of raw foods: Since hunger fills over time while you eat, if I reduce the amount of time it takes to eat raw food, the calories per second gained will increase which will bring raw food closer to the level of cooked food. I don't want this change. The goal here is to encourage players to either cook at least simple dishes or trade for food if they aren't interested in cooking. The raw food is supplemental and shouldn't be the primary food source.

4) Regarding 'too many flavor' messages: This depends on the combination of flavors. There are 5 basic (sweet, sour, salty, bitter and savory) and 3 supplementary flavors (astringent, cool, pungent). If you get any flavor messages, you are combining too many flavors overall and your resulting bonuses are reduced. I have changed the messages to hopefully be more clear. Flavor combinations take into account all ingredients equally.

5) Regarding increasing hunger and thirst after death revival. The current levels (10%) are intended as a death penalty. If your death was from hunger or thirst, it's a slight increase to allow you a bit of time to eat and drink without having life drain set in right away.

Since I've removed this for new players, I think more experienced players should be prepared to cope with the penalty. If I increase the levels, death will provide a hunger and thirst bonus to players who don't eat or drink.

[MrDDT]

Thanks for the update, all of it sounds good. Going to jump on and test some of the farming/cooking/decay on containers.

[MrDDT]

90QL fish, 90QL guts.
Farming skill = 55
Farming stats = 98 int, 95 str
Fish gives 1 fertilizer.
Gut gives 2 fertilizer.

Pretty sure this should be higher.
Not sure what 1/2 was, according to my numbers, it should be 4 at 50ish skill alone, not counting the stats. (Should be 9 for 100 skill, 100 stats)

Fertilizer has no stats on it other than QL. Normally items have found/crafted/hunted by etc.


Extracting seed uses foraging skill. Gives me the correct amount of seeds.
Extracting all seeds, uses no skills, and gives me 1 seed per plant. Pretty sure this is a bug.

You said you were going to balance foraging for crops. Currently you get a LOT of stuff foraging, so much it's like 3 to 6 items for 1 foraging item, and I've yet to fail. 94 skill.

[Bejaymac]

2) Regarding crops being removed (reported by Bejaymac): I checked these on the Test Server and the plants are still there. I believe you are zoomed out and can't see the plants as they disappear from view when zoomed out. I will be adjusting the scale of some of the plants so that this shouldn't happen.

I'll log on in a minute and see if things have changed, but when I made that report I wasn't zoomed out, there were only a couple of the dead plants visible, atm it's really hard to tell as this might just be yet another of the weird graphics glitches I've been getting recently.

Nope, I'm standing on an empty farm, and every time I try to replant where dead plants used to be all I get is "Crops are already growing here", only parts of my farm I can now plant in are in the areas where I destroyed the dead plants.

Edit 2
when I logged on I had the same problem this time, all of my plants were dead and most of them missing, now I'm trying to remember what it was that's missing, sunflowers were still there as were spinach, but rice grass and cattail were all missing.