PC Alpha 20 Dev Diary
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Roland
Moderator
Beelzebubs Ghost said:
I submit that those who find planting seeds annoying and tedious are not really into farming in the first place. Returning the action of planting to people who enjoy the farming aspect of the game is definitely a step forward. Personally, I'm unhappy about any game actions that are changed to be automated. It is really too bad that the world terrain does not support the hoeing action any longer. That was a loss. I think that farming should be designed to be fun for the people who find it fun. It shouldn't be marginalized as an automated feature just to satisfy those who are annoyed by it and find it tedious. I hoed AND replanted seeds for thousands of hours of gameplay before it was changed to auto-replant and crafted planter boxes and when it changed I wasn't giddy for my release from the bondage of farming. Planting really is no more tedious than harvesting and actually more interesting if you are trying to organize and group plants together. Should harvesting be automated as well for those of you who are crying "TEDIOUS!"?
The chance of not getting viable seeds fits with the setting. This isn't farming in civilized times under the best of conditions. This is farming in the wake of nuclear bombs affecting the soil so it makes sense that plants are going to struggle and some won't produce a seed that germinates. There are more seeds in loot than there used to be so even if the worst happens and you lose your farm, you can get it back after some looting and scavenging.
As for fears of losing those precious few Super Corn seeds that are super rare to be found, Super Corn is not a necessity. It is not something that any unperked farmer wannabe should be able to be guaranteed to have thrive for them. If you want to farm Super Corn then you should learn how to farm better so that you'll be assured of a productive farm.
Beelzebubs Ghost said:
By removing the automation they are making farming more appealing to the people who actually care about farming. Replanting by hand is no more or less tedious than any other action in the game and the fact that you find it tedious is evidence that you are actually the type of person for whom farming means nothing. So in reality, the game is currently (once again) more tailored to those who actually care about farming as a feature in the game. So I agree with you that the people who care less about farming should be the ones who have to mod it.
Joel has mentioned a number of times that this game isn't a farming game and that he, himself, doesn't play it to farm. I never expected for farming to recover any of its old depth for its own sake. Even if he didn't change it for the reason of making farming more immersive and more action oriented instead of just an automated food dispenser, I'm glad it happened and we recovered a bit of what has been lost over the years. Too bad it is "instead of" food spoilage- but I'll take wins when they come and I'm glad farming with more active participation is back.
Now....what about water and fertilizer....?
BFT2020
Well-known member
Don't forget about pesticides and weeding, then there is pollination. Least not forget crop rotation. Some of those plots should be fairly barren of food after the same crop is grown over and over again
Roland
Moderator
Now we're talking some righteous tedium!Don't forget about pesticides and weeding, then there is pollination. Least not forget crop rotation. Some of those plots should be fairly barren of food after the same crop is grown over and over again
Beelzebubs Ghost
New member
And I submit you are wrong. I am at least one exception to your absurd rule
I do care about farming. I do farm. I do not see anything necessarily wrong with A19's setup.
I do go out and dig dirt, collect wood, harvest rotten flesh, and nitrate needed to create a farm including the incorporation into a base, and; as I have previously stated, spend weeks looting and searching for seeds sometimes.
I put the work in to get the food out the other side. @hiemfire and @Khalagar have said this and I absolutely second it - nerf the crop gains, not the vanishing seeds. That is a cheap way of fixing one partially non existent issue, and avoiding spoilage as a mechanic.
I find the contradiction you came out with rather amusing. This isn't a farming game but Joel has somehow found the time to instigate a convoluted and annoying system of 'realistic' farming? Lol? What's the point of perks and skills if we can't reap the benefits (if you pardon the pun). What about other investment categories such as those of Sexy Rex, Miner 69'er, and Lother Lode, aftrr which we end up with obscene resource stores. Isn't THAT OP?
Wood, stone, and dirt aren't easy to accumulate early game. Once you perk into it you have enough to build 6 block thick fortresses, isn't that ALSO OP?
Thats rhetorical. I don't think it is, because people have spent precious skill points to spec into something that should negate this travesty of a system.
I would like to call out to all people who genuinely do farm, no trolls who just wan't to upset people and data for the sake of being arses, but those who really care about farming, who think this change (above modding) is either an interesting, or fun mechanic. And go into depth with the positives and negatives ofthe change, what the goal is implementing it, and to what end this is achieved.
And if possible for you, or they, to show us posts of people posting genuine complaints about farming being so OP that something has to be done, and not offhand and passive comments that farmimg is OP in the context of something larger.
I'm not saying they don't exist, just that I would like to see them. And I don't appreciate being implied in a No True Scotsman type of fallacious depiction as being 'not a real farmer or someone who doesn't care about farming.'
One final note, I think Joel is capable of speaking for himself, and I do believe I addressed him with the question. I would rather wait for him to answer it, who knows, he may change his mind
Thanks.
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Odetta
Tester
Beelzebubs Ghost
New member
Thats the tedium after speccing into the farming skills and going to lengths to create your farm, Joel.
By all means nerf the crops to hell, but please for the love of Odins Scrotum, banish the replant mechanic, or at very, very, very least, the disappearing seeds.
Even the latter I would be eternally grateful for, and would take replanting any day over having the chance to lose seeds...
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BFT2020
Well-known member
In at least 9 out of 10 playthroughs, I create a farm.
I am fine with the changes to the farming. I thought it was silly that you just had to plant once and had an endless source of food that all you had to do was go back and harvest again. Once you set it up the first time, you didn't have to do anything else really except punch and move. Unlike my base, where I constantly had to go out to gather resources to either repair, upgrade, or expand. Same thing with hunting. I can't capture an animal and then have an endless source of meat. I always had to go out and hunt down new animals when meat was running low. Farming was just....oh when I get home from doing these tasks this day, I will just swing by my self-sustaining farm and punch up some veggies....
I am also fine with the 50% chance of loosing a seed. By the mid game, I was typically swarming with so much food, I wished there was just an automatic process now for consuming it as there was really no point anymore. The only thing at that point hindering me was finding the canned food to make a lot of the recipes, but that wasn't a hinderance because I had so many T3 dishes just sitting in my storage crate, the only choice I had to make was which one to take to eat.
That's my opinion.
hiemfire
New member
No. Having to replant after every harvest is absolutely fine. Having invested 1-2 points into Living of the Land and ending up with less planted plots after a harvest and crafting up the seeds to replant is the issue I have.
My idea was to instead make sure that a player who has invested those points will still be able to replant with what they got from the plant, even if that plot nets 0 food for that harvest, while still having a good chance of not being able to expand the farm by making the 50% chance to get a seed on harvest even lower. Originally I suggested 25% instead, but that % is really only something you guys can determine.
My idea for clarity:
- Change number of ears/spuds/caps/blossoms/fruit to craft a seed to 4 since Living off the Land 1 increases the ears/spuds/caps/blossoms/fruit gotten from a harvest from 2 to 4.
- Decrease the chance to get a seed from harvest from 50% to x% with x% being lower than 50%
How much food is gotten out of a harvest will still be governed by the rng of getting a seed directly from the harvest. The difference is having the next roll of the die growing in a plot instead of waiting behind another series of die rolls for you to find that 5th ear/spud/cap/fruit or another seed to roll the die on a harvest again. Still need to find the recipes or perk into Living off the Land 2 to be able to craft seeds for the non-tea/non-coffee crops as well leaving that gate intact. Also will still require a full 3 points into Living off the Land to ensure a net positive crop return from every planting.
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Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
Too much knee jerking on farm changes. This sounds like people not giving change a fair shake. One thing everyone seems to agree upon though is food was a non issue in A19. With that said, why not test things out for a good while and see what its like in a full play through or two? I am pretty sure Joel and anyone else who is a decision maker in this would be more open to your feedback if you provided some good pros/cons of the change after doing so versus day # 2 of public experimental release....
vergilsparda
Active member
Khalagar said:
Wish I would have recorded it last night but I managed to hit/glance about 4 enemies in a POI with the pipe baton power attack. Saved my life because it knocked the one closest to me down before it could hit me. In the words of a crappy TikTok audio: the gamer was too stunned to speak
Pipe baton @%$#in' rules
(at least, i'm fairly certain it was 4, they were surrounding me in the front and all of them squirted blood)
Beelzebubs Ghost
New member
Great post. How did you handle the situation?
Did you ditch farming, or find a mod to reduce or even negate seeds?
One thing you brought up could actually be exploited so vanishing seeds can ironically vanish: meat.
Perhaps diminishing the food gains or increasing recipe costs for vegetable recipes would aid in balance, meat after all takes longer to digest and would in principle keep you fuller for longer. With fewer animals for meat sources, that may actually be a viable suggestion. What do you think?
After all the waiting and hype I think this is the most disappointing build ever and after an hour I am done. The terrain gen still sucks. Oh sure the up close details are better but overall the maps still look just like the last version.
Wow! Madmole pulled out the in "real life" argument on someone when nothing else about this game makes any sense IRL, and they work to make it even further removed every new build. Bravo! And lifting beer cans up to your mouth doesn't count as lifting weights.
Wow! Madmole pulled out the in "real life" argument on someone when nothing else about this game makes any sense IRL, and they work to make it even further removed every new build. Bravo! And lifting beer cans up to your mouth doesn't count as lifting weights.
Beelzebubs Ghost
New member
This isn't necessary because we have had it explained to us how it works and we do not like or agree with it.
As I said, ideas may be played with, accepted, or rejected even in principle. Isn't this how games are designed anyway?
Blake_ said:
Not only is it an exploit (as you can restart to reset POI and loot the best loot, it is VERY annoying for those of us who sometimes have so leave our computers in a hurry. I'm a caregiver for an elderly person, so I can play while they are sleeping, but if they get up, I have to exit and go tend to them. If I'm most of the way through a tier 5 clear quest, and all my progress gets reset because I left and reentered the game... Not happy, Bob. I have had this happen more than once.
Beelzebubs Ghost
New member
I like the idea of percentage based randomised crop returns based on how far you've gone into Living Off the Land
That way rng may still mess you up but at a lot lower rate, for example:
LOTL 1: 0 (60%) / 1 (25%)/ 2 (15%) / 3 (0%)
LOTL 2: 0 (45%) / 1 (30%) / 2 (15%) / 3 (5%)
LOTL 3: 0 (15%) / 1 (25%) / 2 (40%) / 3 (20%)
LOTL 4: 0 (5%) / 1 (20%) / 2 (30%) / 3 (45%)
LOTL 5: 0 (0%) / 1 (15%) / 2 (25%) / 3 (60%)
I'm not so good with stuff like this but something like that as a proposal for chance of no. of crops per harvest, per rank of Living Off the Land, without the seed afair of even replanting. Thoughts?
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hiemfire
New member
You're too wedded to not having to deal with the seed after initial planting.Thoughts?
Beelzebubs Ghost
New member
Guilty as charged, ok, random chances as I posted, with a guarantee of at least the seed back and a need to manually replant.
Any better?
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