PC Farming not very viable even with living off the land 3.

[Scyris]

Well this has been informative and disturbing.  The main complaint from our group of players last night has been the constant hunger and thirst pains, we are all eating like sumo wrestlers getting ready for a match just to keep negative modifiers at bay.  We secured a location and were ready to transport dirt last night just so we could set up a farm to take care of ALL 6 OF US since we had a good start of seeds.  Now I get to tell them that idea is doa and that farming is broken.  There is no way a farm will sustain 6 of us no matter how big we make it, at least not for another month.

I tell ya this is not going to go over well, anybody know the file edit to change seed return until they "fix" this?

In the meantime its back to bear hunting.

Yeah I been noticing the food/water use is thru the roof in general, and I didn't know about this farming change till now and it sounds like it really kills it. even with living off the land maxxed your only getting 1 crop per thing since u need 5 to make a seed. Unless Living off the land also lowers base produce needed to make 1 seed?

 

[theFlu]

It had this atmosphere of "You think you know better than the devs"?

Nah, it's just trRoland, he's a little .. different I made a draft just to entertain myself; and coming up with a "whole solution" is likely more usable as feedback anyway. Pointing out problems is easy, fixing them is worth money..

 

[Darklegend222]

But that's the point, isn't it? If there's no economy in trying to start a farm before you have LotL 3, why even have 3 skill levels for it? Just have one and gate it higher in that case.

If you put one perk into LotL and plant 10 crops, your gonna get 5 crops back in seeds AND then some more depending how much seeds. So that's 5 corn to yourself which can be 50 food (just kill animals bud, you'll get more meat anyway)  OR you can save that corn for chili dogs.

Are you really, and I mean really going to SKIP bacon and eggs (36 food), just to eat Corn on the cob for 10 food which takes rotting flesh and a farm to setup? Let's be realistic here. Your completely ignoring the POIs around town have HUNDREDS of stalks, your not gonna run low anytime soon..

How about you play the game more, adjust your playstyle A BIT considering I doubt you farmed in the first place otherwise as of A19 without all 3 perks in LotL first. It still takes about 2 days for a crop to grow, that's not enough time to start mass production or get a farm going.

Use the new system more, and read ALL of the information provided and see what YOU can do to better utilize the system. You can easily survive off just corn for the first 14 days just using all the crops in towns with ONE perk in LotL. Seriously.

"Fully" sustained farming is end game. I don't get how you haven't realized this or even tried to see it. We can agree to disagree, but you should watch videos that explain it better and you honestly may not fully realize every change undergone especially with quests and farm boxes, plus the enhanced loot in containers.

Edit: you say that in the next towns you visited there was an abundance of corn fields. So what's the issue? You can already create a farm, which will last NEARLY FOREVER until you get LotL 3 and that's not even counting all the seeds you'll loot from doing quests or fast food/grocery POIs. Remember how I said changing your playstyle a bit? Get to harvesting, build that inefficient farm, and eat your food while playing like normal.

 Heres a good link to a video with charts and graphs, it doesn't cover the POIs at all, but hopefully you'll know to utilize them by now and to do actual work instead of complaining about a system you hardly use or want to try and get used to.

You don't put 1 point in Sexual Tyrannosaurus or Iron Gut and expect 100% perfect results, you have to SPEND perk points to get better, just like every other perk in this game. The only thing that I could see changing, is that if a crop drops a seed, it'll replant instead of you manually doing it. Assuming the developers want to take the time to implement such a feature if it's possible.

 

[IgnyteZero]

27 minutes ago, Darklegend222 said:

If you put one perk into LotL and plant 10 crops, your gonna get 5 crops back in seeds AND then some more depending how much seeds. So that's 5 corn to yourself which can be 50 food (just kill animals bud, you'll get more meat anyway)  OR you can save that corn for chili dogs.

Are you really, and I mean really going to SKIP bacon and eggs (36 food), just to eat Corn on the cob for 10 food which takes rotting flesh and a farm to setup? Let's be realistic here. Your completely ignoring the POIs around town have HUNDREDS of stalks, your not gonna run low anytime soon..

How about you play the game more, adjust your playstyle A BIT considering I doubt you farmed in the first place otherwise as of A19 without all 3 perks in LotL first. It still takes about 2 days for a crop to grow, that's not enough time to start mass production or get a farm going.

Use the new system more, and read ALL of the information provided and see what YOU can do to better utilize the system. You can easily survive off just corn for the first 14 days just using all the crops in towns with ONE perk in LotL. Seriously.

"Fully" sustained farming is end game. I don't get how you haven't realized this or even tried to see it. We can agree to disagree, but you should watch videos that explain it better and you honestly may not fully realize every change undergone especially with quests and farm boxes, plus the enhanced loot in containers.

Edit: you say that in the next towns you visited there was an abundance of corn fields. So what's the issue? You can already create a farm, which will last NEARLY FOREVER until you get LotL 3 and that's not even counting all the seeds you'll loot from doing quests or fast food/grocery POIs. Remember how I said changing your playstyle a bit? Get to harvesting, build that inefficient farm, and eat your food while playing like normal.

Ok, that's quite a rude post full of demeaning assumptions and attitude. I'm gonna ignore the toxic parts this time and answer you by explaining things I've already posted before.

First I've played since A9 which I already mentioned. I've farmed a lot. I have 2k hours played for this game. So that's that. This is not my first rodeo. Yes I've farmed in A19 and that was too easy comparatively, getting too much of an output too fast.

Secondly I'm not arguing about playstyles. And that's a moot point anyway, as through all alphas we've all readjusted our playstyles to accomodate for balance changes, imbalances, bugs and direct gameplay changes. Telling me to do that is unnecessary.

What I, and others, are saying is not that it's broken or necessarily too hard (well some might maybe, I don't know), it's the futility of doing it before you hit LotL 3. All your arguments are invalid because, as I've pointed out before, the game is not a farming simulator and don't intend to be. There are other endeavours, such as taking part of all the other content in the game. Exploring, killing Z's, gathering resources, building bases and defences. Focusing in exploring and getting 10 seeds of every important play type. As anything below LotL 3 gives an average negative output on anything less than 5 seeds, farming isn't viable at all in the early game if you're just playing maybe 1-3 players co-op. There just isn't the time to focus on it or bother with it, especially since meat is so much faster to get in large numbers without bothering about RNG of POIs.

Now YOU may have a playstyle where this doesn't bother you. That's ok. Maybe you play with many others, have just a 7 day loot respawn or somesuch. I don't know. But in such a case it's easier to dedicate people on specific tasks and you'll quickly loot and gather more resources. Maybe you get those 10 seeds in a couple of days that way. But that's the point, it scales badly.

I don't care to reinforce all other arguments once more. But I hope this clarifies my stance, as you seem a bit confused with where I'm coming from.  It's not about making it easier, it's about making all skill points matter, and to make it scale better towards player numbers and toward other related skills. That's what's been argued about. Noones said that each skill point must mean super rewards, as you are implying I'm arguing about. I never did. I just want it to matter at all.

Also considering TFP according to Roland is already looking into balancing it better, why defend it?

Oh, and the vid told me nothing I didn't know already. JFYI.

 

 

[Rince]

Wish that they could had balancing farming in other way, but retaining the no need to replant the seed every harvest.

Maybe higher cost for the farming plots? Higher times until harvest? Need to build some irrigation?

 

[Darklegend222]

What I, and others, are saying is not that it's broken or necessarily too hard (well some might maybe, I don't know), it's the futility of doing it before you hit LotL 3. All your arguments are invalid because, as I've pointed out before, the game is not a farming simulator and don't intend to be. There are other endeavours, such as taking part of all the other content in the game. Exploring, killing Z's, gathering resources, building bases and defences. Focusing in exploring and getting 10 seeds of every important play type. As anything below LotL 3 gives an average negative output on anything less than 5 seeds, farming isn't viable at all in the early game if you're just playing maybe 1-3 players co-op. There just isn't the time to focus on it or bother with it, especially since meat is so much faster to get in large numbers without bothering about RNG of POIs.

I don't care to reinforce all other arguments once more. But I hope this clarifies my stance, as you seem a bit confused with where I'm coming from.  It's not about making it easier, it's about making all skill points matter, and to make it scale better towards player numbers and toward other related skills. That's what's been argued about. Noones said that each skill point must mean super rewards

Also considering TFP according to Roland is already looking into balancing it better, why defend it?

I love how you stated this isn't a farming simulator, as you continue to explain how much you want farming to be better "implemented". All the skill points do matter, in fact. They matter so much to the point that it you don't get tier 1 and 2 of LotL, you won't get 3 which unlocks fully sustainable farming.

You don't want to bother with POI randomness you say? Then play Navezgane where you can get to Carl's corn fields and be fed! Might as well go to bob's boars too for that sweet Grace meat and stop playing on an RWG world then complaining about it being "random". In Navezgane you'll know where everything is, and that'll be problem solved!

That's an artificial limitation your putting on yourself of avoiding POIs in RWG that have the crops you need. Did you watch the dev streams or do you know how the cities procedural generate? I can explain if needed. I'm not trying to be arrogant, I'm trying to give you information that I'm not sure you know.

As for defending it, it's because we just got a new system and your main argument has been that we can't get a fully viable farm at the start of the game. It wasn't possible in A19 unless in Navezgane or godly luck of a Carl's corn being nearby.

Again, your throwing out the POI point I've made entirely away and disregarded it by your POI randomness statement. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm trying to get you to understand that you HAVE that option, but you need to go through the effort of doing it and then account for EVERYTHING to see where farming stands.

This isn't a one sided thing, we're all learning here and as the community who gives the devs our opinions, we need to account for everything around the mechanics we want to see changed, and be able to go out of our ways to adapt further than we already have. Then it'll be second nature, just like the hoe farming got removed.

If it's not still not the way you like it, I'm sure making a simple modlet that changes the 50% to a value you prefer much more will be better. Especially since we can probably take code from A19.6 of the replant system and implement it here through modlets.

 

[IgnyteZero]

I love how you stated this isn't a farming simulator, as you continue to explain how much you want farming to be better "implemented". All the skill points do matter, in fact. They matter so much to the point that it you don't get tier 1 and 2 of LotL, you won't get 3 which unlocks fully sustainable farming.

You don't want to bother with POI randomness you say? Then play Navezgane where you can get to Carl's corn fields and be fed! Might as well go to bob's boars too for that sweet Grace meat and stop playing on an RWG world then complaining about it being "random". In Navezgane you'll know where everything is, and that'll be problem solved!

That's an artificial limitation your putting on yourself of avoiding POIs in RWG that have the crops you need. Did you watch the dev streams or do you know how the cities procedural generate? I can explain if needed. I'm not trying to be arrogant, I'm trying to give you information that I'm not sure you know.

As for defending it, it's because we just got a new system and your main argument has been that we can't get a fully viable farm at the start of the game. It wasn't possible in A19 unless in Navezgane or godly luck of a Carl's corn being nearby.

Again, your throwing out the POI point I've made entirely away and disregarded it by your POI randomness statement. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm trying to get you to understand that you HAVE that option, but you need to go through the effort of doing it and then account for EVERYTHING to see where farming stands.

This isn't a one sided thing, we're all learning here and as the community who gives the devs our opinions, we need to account for everything around the mechanics we want to see changed, and be able to go out of our ways to adapt further than we already have. Then it'll be second nature, just like the hoe farming got removed.

If it's not still not the way you like it, I'm sure making a simple modlet that changes the 50% to a value you prefer much more will be better. Especially since we can probably take code from A19.6 of the replant system and implement it here through modlets.

You still don't get it. It's not about ME. It's about better general balance for EVERYONE and all playstyles.

And yes, it's not about a one sided thing. That's what I've been saying since the start. Of course all aspects need to be considered. This includes my arguments, that you consistently try to silence instead of considering the implications of.

But I'm done discussing this matter. I've said all that can be said on it at least twice now.

 

[dragonmaster0283]

So many people keep assuming the worse rolls like you never get a seed back any time.  Its 50/50.  LotL 3 ON AVERAGE gives MORE food back in A20 then it did in A19 since the average is 3.5 yield in A20 vs 3 yield in A19.  And with LotL 3, you will never run a negative even in the worse situations due to getting 6 back which is always 1 seed with an extra.

LotL 1 is pratcially NO point investment to get pretty much infinite sustainability as well since you would have to basically have RNGesus hate you in order to run a negative and its average is close to what A19 was.

1 point is all you need if you plan on farming early game to make it worthwhile and profitable.  It didn't make sense and was far to easy in A19 where you could get a farm going and have an infinite food source without even investing any points in relevant perks and make investing in said perks an actual waste since they wern't needed.

Between the seed drops being far more common in A20, the 0 point person can just plant what they find to supplement their food sources that come in other sources of how they decided to build their character. 

 

[Aldranon]

I find that getting the first level on animal tracker is perfect in getting plenty of food.

Just ride your bike in the wilderness until you see a nest. (Its easy to see on a bike just look down at about a 45% angle.

Hop off the bike and squat, then hit "e" on the nest.

Retrieve what's in the nest and go kill the animal if you found something.

You can make a lot of bacon and eggs with a lot of grilled meat with very few perk points (2 to be exact!)

 

[meganoth]

What I, and others, are saying is not that it's broken or necessarily too hard (well some might maybe, I don't know), it's the futility of doing it before you hit LotL 3. All your arguments are invalid because, as I've pointed out before, the game is not a farming simulator and don't intend to be. There are other endeavours, such as taking part of all the other content in the game. Exploring, killing Z's, gathering resources, building bases and defences. Focusing in exploring and getting 10 seeds of every important play type. As anything below LotL 3 gives an average negative output on anything less than 5 seeds, farming isn't viable at all in the early game if you're just playing maybe 1-3 players co-op. There just isn't the time to focus on it or bother with it, especially since meat is so much faster to get in large numbers without bothering about RNG of POIs.
 

That highlighted sentence is factually provable wrong. Sorry. On average even a single seed has a positive return of 1.5 produce with LotL 1.

The only detriment of having only one seed (if you never get another) is that there is a 50% chance that you can't realize the average because the seed is gone after the first season. BUT we all should know by now that more seeds are always available (with super corn being a special case) and it is only time that you potentially lose.

 

[IgnyteZero]

That highlighted sentence is factually provable wrong. Sorry. On average even a single seed has a positive return of 1.5 produce with LotL 1.

The only detriment of having only one seed (if you never get another) is that there is a 50% chance that you can't realize the average because the seed is gone after the first season. BUT we all should know by now that more seeds are always available (with super corn being a special case) and it is only time that you potentially lose.

OK, just to get this straight then.

How can one seed ever have a positive return of 1.5 seeds?

You put one seed in the ground, there's 50% chance of a loss. You get 4 produce back on Lotl 1. You need 5 produce to make a new seed. It can impossibly be a return of 1.5, as you are now lacking the seed you need to replant. This is fact. This is actual gameplay. Not theory.

To get the average of 1.5 you need to probably calculate a much higher number of seeds, and then assume that average for 1 seed only. But ONE actual seed, compared to your theoretical seed, will never and cannot produce 1.5 seed on average.

As I've said before, you need more than 5 seeds to start to get a positive output.

That is factual. You are still calculating macro scenarios for micro environments.

You can argue about that how much you want. It doesn't change the fact that we usually start with just one or two seeds for a certain plant type. And tha math for those particular seeds is all that matters at hand. Not how many seeds I might theoretically have had in a theoretical scenario.

 

[theFlu]

But ONE actual seed, compared to your theoretical seed, will never and cannot produce 1.5 seed on average.

You're using the word "average", but it isn't what you mean. One seed will, on average, produce exactly 1.5.

One seed in game will produce "either 4 or 4 plus seed" upon harvest. This isn't an average. This is the full set of results.

What you're trying to say is that one can fail easily with just a couple seeds.

 

[Roland]

Well, I found your post douchebag-ish hence that reply. It had this atmosphere of "You think you know better than the devs"? Maybe that wasn't your intention then, but that is how you came off to me with that post. And that's why I went defensive.

And my point was that second guessing indeed is pointless. Giving feedback ("complaints") or suggestions is another thing entirely though.

But we're going OT, so I'm leaving it at that. You don't need to like me, but I'm here to give honest feedback on my gaming experiences with 7dtd.

Pattern breaker…

and what makes you think I don’t like you?  I don’t even know you and I never let first impressions be my guide. 

 

[meganoth]

OK, just to get this straight then.

How can one seed ever have a positive return of 1.5 seeds?

You may have missed my quick edit. Although you reply to the edited version where I say the return is 1.5 produce !! Sorry, if I have caused confusion here.

Here is the simple math how the average is calculated: You have one seed that gives you two possible results with 50% probability:

A) 4 produce

B) 4 produce plus a seed which is the equivalent of 5 produce (its production cost)

So the average is (4 * 0.5) + ((4+5) * 0.5) = 6.5 produce

For the **average** it makes no difference whether you look at 1 seed or at 5 or 10 and then divide by 5 or 10.

You put one seed in the ground, there's 50% chance of a loss. You get 4 produce back on Lotl 1. You need 5 produce to make a new seed. It can impossibly be a return of 1.5, as you are now lacking the seed you need to replant. This is fact. This is actual gameplay. Not theory.

To get the average of 1.5 you need to probably calculate a much higher number of seeds, and then assume that average for 1 seed only. But ONE actual seed, compared to your theoretical seed, will never and cannot produce 1.5 seed on average.

As I've said before, you need more than 5 seeds to start to get a positive output.

That is factual. You are still calculating macro scenarios for micro environments.

You can argue about that how much you want. It doesn't change the fact that we usually start with just one or two seeds for a certain plant type. And tha math for those particular seeds is all that matters at hand. Not how many seeds I might theoretically have had in a theoretical scenario.

 

[Morloc]

TFP seems to go back and forth every other alpha on how heavy-handed they are with hunger. Every time in the past when people complained about maintaining fullness they relaxed things and made it easier (yeah yeah I know...its not challenging its just tedious). I wonder what will happen this time.

I've heard they're adopting the Project Zomboid model. 

Nutrition enabled. 

Hydrocraft installed.

-Arch Necromancer Morloc

 

[Roland]

But that's the point, isn't it? If there's no economy in trying to start a farm before you have LotL 3, why even have 3 skill levels for it? Just have one and gate it higher in that case.

Progression. Your problem is that the only thing you are interested in is what T3 grants: Self-sustainable farming at a scale that produces stockpiles of crops in order to be able to craft stockpiles of stews. It has to be that kind of farming or nothing and if a perk can't deliver that kind of farming then it shouldn't exist.

There is basically two kinds of farming in this game. 

Type 1: You plant every seed you obtain and always use the harvest to make food. Sometimes you'll have many crops growing and sometimes fewer but it is simply dependent upon the seeds you have on hand. In this way you will sometimes have food on hand from your garden and sometimes your food will need to come from other sources. In this type of farming it is best to use all your crops for food and not craft seeds. The size of your farm will fluctuate due to random factors like how many seeds you get back after harvest and what you find out in the world. Living off the Land T1 enhances this kind of farming because you get more crops for your efforts. T2 doesn't really do much and then T3 enhances it again and opens up the second type of farming if you want to do that.

Type 2: You plant every seed you obtain and use the harvest to craft seeds to at least replenish all the crops from the previous harvest or grow the farm to be bigger and produce more for the next harvest. Your goal is to never fluctuate in farm size but to always maintain its size or grow it larger. You only keep the surplus fruit after crafting the needed seeds for your farm and at some point your farm will reach a scale at which you can always maintain its size and have plenty of crops to build a large stockpile of food. Living of the Land T1 and T2 help with this type of farming but don't guarantee it's success and growth of the farm will be slow or even nonexistent at times. Only T3 all but guarantees the output you need to more easily get to a large scale farm that regenerates itself and produces a large stockpile of food.

In A19 we could easily do Type 2 farming from the beginning. Never losing a plant once you had it guaranteed that your farm would always replenish itself even without any perks. The perks simply made growing the size of the farm to the desired scale a faster process. In A20, players who do not perk or only perk into the first tier will need to do Type 1 farming. The second type of farming will be beyond their reach or at least very difficult and require great luck and a lot more seasons of crops to achieve.

Madmole has stated clearly that people need to switch their thinking to the first type of farming if they are unwilling to spend the points to get to T3 LOTL. He is opposed to people being able to just easily (unperked even) get to the scale of farming that results in huge stockpiles of food. If you pay the price to be a full farmer then you you can do that and if you don't then its just best to have enough plots to grow the seeds you find and get back from a harvest and keep all the fruit for consumption. If you do that you can survive. That is basic level farming that everyone can do.

But what about teams playing together? A little haphazard garden subject to the whims of RNG can't possibly keep five people fed! That is correct if teams continue to assign one person to be their farmer. Farming is now more necessarily a team effort. All five members should be looking for seeds and planting them when they return to base. If the farm gets big then everyone should help replanting so one person isn't feeling that it is to tedious.

The meta has changed on farming and while some people may not like the change, it is an intentional change and not an oversight. Madmole repeatedly has told people to just plant the seeds they get and use the fruit that results until/if they take T3 LOTL. The large scale farms of pre A20 are still possible--they just aren't free anymore.

People who don't fight against this change will have fun starting out with type 1 farming and then taking a perk and notice that they are doing better at type 1 farming and then taking a perk and now they can make plots more cheaply and then taking a perk and now they can do large scale sulf-sustainable farming. That progression is fun for certain people but not all. I know that there are those who find that kind of journey boring/tedious and would just like to begin with the maximum power from the very start.

 

[meganoth]

I created a small simulation program. If you have a python Interpreter on your PC you can use it yourself, but below I show the result of running it.

It simulates 100 people with LotL 1 each having exactly 1 seed that they try to grow into as big a farm as possible and doing that for 10 seasons. I want to emphasize, this is the case if you find exactly one seed and never again another one.

The result:

Spoiler

61  People have  0  Seeds.
1  People have  1  Seeds.
1  People have  2  Seeds.
3  People have  3  Seeds.
2  People have  4  Seeds.
2  People have  5  Seeds.
1  People have  7  Seeds.
6  People have  8  Seeds.
1  People have  11  Seeds.
5  People have  12  Seeds.
1  People have  13  Seeds.
2  People have  14  Seeds.
2  People have  15  Seeds.
1  People have  17  Seeds.
1  People have  18  Seeds.
1  People have  19  Seeds.
1  People have  21  Seeds.
2  People have  22  Seeds.
2  People have  25  Seeds.
1  People have  27  Seeds.
1  People have  31  Seeds.
1  People have  38  Seeds.
1  People have  41  Seeds.
 

Now if you change the 5th line to read "seed=2" instead of "seed=1" you would simulate 100 people with LotL 1 who found exactly 2 seeds and never another one and tried to grow the farm for 10 seasons:

Spoiler

2  People have  0  Seeds.
3  People have  3  Seeds.
1  People have  4  Seeds.
3  People have  5  Seeds.
4  People have  7  Seeds.
2  People have  8  Seeds.
2  People have  9  Seeds.
5  People have  10  Seeds.
4  People have  11  Seeds.
6  People have  12  Seeds.
4  People have  13  Seeds.
2  People have  14  Seeds.
1  People have  15  Seeds.
2  People have  16  Seeds.
4  People have  17  Seeds.
3  People have  18  Seeds.
2  People have  19  Seeds.
3  People have  21  Seeds.
2  People have  22  Seeds.
3  People have  23  Seeds.
3  People have  25  Seeds.
4  People have  26  Seeds.
1  People have  27  Seeds.
1  People have  29  Seeds.
1  People have  30  Seeds.
3  People have  31  Seeds.
3  People have  33  Seeds.
1  People have  34  Seeds.
2  People have  35  Seeds.
2  People have  37  Seeds.
3  People have  38  Seeds.
1  People have  39  Seeds.
2  People have  41  Seeds.
3  People have  43  Seeds.
2  People have  44  Seeds.
1  People have  45  Seeds.
2  People have  47  Seeds.
1  People have  48  Seeds.
 

Notice that of those 100 people with just two seeds only 2 are left with nothing and 17 with less than 10 seeds.

And here is the program if you want to try it out:

#!/usr/bin/python3

from random import choice

def tenseasons():
    seed=1
    produce=0
    for n in range(10):
        # produce to seed
        while produce>=5:
            seed+= 1
            produce-=5
        for s in range(seed):
            produce+=4
            if choice([0,1])==0:
                seed-=1
        print ("Season ",n+1,":    ", seed," Seeds, ",produce," Produce.")
    return([seed,produce])




stat= [0]*200 
for tries in range(100):
    x=tenseasons()
    print()
    seeds=x[0]+int(x[1]/5)
    stat[seeds]+=1

for n in range(50):
    if stat[n]>0:
        print(stat[n]," People have ",n," Seeds.")

 

[BFT2020]

Progression. Your problem is that the only thing you are interested in is what T3 grants: Self-sustainable farming at a scale that produces stockpiles of crops in order to be able to craft stockpiles of stews. It has to be that kind of farming or nothing and if a perk can't deliver that kind of farming then it shouldn't exist.

To add onto Roland's wordy but excellent post 

I don't pick wild veggies until I get the first perk of LotL.  That way I can get 2 per pick (wild plants only give 1 per pick without any perks, player planted gives 2) and increase my yield.

Perk level 2 is a stepping stone to Level 3, but I also use it to reduce the costs of crafting the plots.  Of all the perk levels, this one is the weakest and might benefit from a rework (I think meganoth suggested a harvest level between perk 1 and perk 3).

 

[meganoth]

In A19 we could easily do Type 2 farming from the beginning. Never losing a plant once you had it guaranteed that your farm would always replenish itself even without any perks. The perks simply made growing the size of the farm to the desired scale a faster process. In A20, players who do not perk or only perk into the first tier will need to do Type 1 farming. The second type of farming will be beyond their reach or at least very difficult and require great luck and a lot more seasons of crops to achieve.

Excellent summary, but I have to disagree with this. While LotL 1 takes more time growing a farm than LotL 3, the reality in the game IS that you regularily find seeds and produce which makes it neither difficult nor lucky to get a big farm. There is a BIG gap between perkless farming and LotL 1.

 

[Morloc]

LotL 2 is important because it opens the way to making seeds for food.

-Arch Necromancer Morloc