PC Changes To Farming

Moldy Bread

Moldy Bread

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Is there a reason why there have been changes to farming? When harvesting crops the crop no longer reverts to a seedling, instead you have 50% chance to get a seed. What is the reason for this change? From what I have seen most people hate this change and I agree. At five plants per seed, farming isn't very viable and I don't see why you wouldn't get a seed from a crop. Luckily there is a mod to revert it back to Alpha 19 style but I still don't know why this was changed.

 
Moldy Bread said:
Hi....
I hate this too... I have 2 farm plots with 2 mushrooms and 2 corns from the trader (13Days)
I was happy because eating only grilled meat is #hit  ,but my happiness disappeared when I see I have only 10 corns only for another crafting seeds  😕
With mushrooms it was better but again,1seed and 10 mushrooms,so half is only for another seed,so with this logic I must only hunting otherwise I will die
In 19 version I spend many days with searching for potatoes for Hobo Stew,Meat Stew etc. But here .... I don't want know how many days I spend with stupid grilled meat without plants :D
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I don't like this change. As for the reason, I do recall multiple complains about how easy it is to get food mid/late game with farming. I guess the developers listened.

 
The thing is that is still easy to get even more food mid/late game. But more annoying, because you need to replant every harvest.

I wish they would had tweaked the old system, instead of killing it. I would  had prefer to have higher materials cost for the plot, longer waiting times between harvests. Maybe chances to not getting any crop with no points in LotL. Or maybe needing to have water nearby for the crops to grow.

But the constant replanting, not fun times.

 
Meh. Not sure what metric you're using but I doubt that most people hate the change. 

Just the people you see complaining about it on these forums.

The way it was before the mechanic was so easy that there wasn't even much point in having hunger and thirst in the game at all. Food was too easy after day 10.

I would say that most people are happier with this change than the way it was

Glad you found a mod to change it back for you though

 
Some people like the survival part of the game, some not. I'm slightly on the edge here as I don't at all like to replant all the seeds, but I very much like the random chance to get seeds back.

Reasons for the change according to rumors, conjecture and developer posts:

1) It was too easy to get a farm going in A19 and once you had a farm there was never any danger about it, it was just a constant safe source of endless food.

2) Seed finds in loot or at the trader lost their value completely once you had enough seeds in your farm

3) That you always have to replant all seeds seems to be because you should have a stronger connection to your farm through more work (this reasons was given by the developers directly I think)

If you want to play A20 farming, then here is a hint:

If you do not put any point into Living of the Land then just plant whatever seeds you find and get a small supplemental to your diet from your farm. Don't convert produce to seeds because you will not gain anything that way. 

If you put just one point into LotL then you already make a profit if you convert produce into seeds again. Together with seeds you find or buy your farm will actually grow, but randomly. You might get to a point where potatoes are growing out of your socks but corn being scarce you could murder some innocent zombies just for a corn seed 😉

 
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Rince said:
Instead of having a chance to get seed back, I would like to have chance to not get any crops instead. And not having to replant.

But I don't know if it is feasible technically speaking.
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There must be some way to get the balance they are looking for without all the extra clicking.

 
We finally added the A20 mod that rolls the farming system back to A19 style, leaving crop in the ground with no seed returned when you farm.

Sure its carebare mode for farming but Grinding Plants is not why I play 7D2D.

 
Much as these changes seem stupid, they really haven't affected me much, the food situation is now something I am more aware of, especially early game, but it hasn't been a dramatic change.

I guess I haven't been much into farming since grain alcohol was removed (back then I had huge corn fields, we still had to replant by hand too IIRC)

I mean I always had a little farm going (by little I mean like 4 of each plant) but by midgame it was mostly ignored as boxes were overflowing.

Now for A20 I threw a few plots down and I plant whatever I find. I've got more meat than I know what to do with from hunting self-defense, and that is almost all from bears and wolves. I buy eggs & corn meal when I see them, mostly make bacon&eggs and chilidogs, find a lot of blueberry pie. I do scavenge a lot, most of my time (day or night) is spent questing. I try to only eat the canned food that doesn't have a recipe associated with it.

It's hard to make it a more important aspect without making it too much of a hassle.

Spoilage mechanics sound like a good idea but the games that I've played that have it, it just a hassle.

I don't think making us have to eat more often is a good solution either, I already feel like I am having to eat too often.

It is really just a hard aspect of the game to balance.

 
Rince said:
Instead of having a chance to get seed back, I would like to have chance to not get any crops instead. And not having to replant.

But I don't know if it is feasible technically speaking.
Click to expand...


Not getting crops back does still mean that finding seeds is pointless as soon as you have a farm of appropriate size.

My idea is for the harvest is just leaving new seeds in the ground when you get them. This way the reseeding work is effectively halved. But obviously with the current system the half of the seeds you have to craft from produce need to be planted by hand.

 
I find lots of places that have corn and potatoes. They're generally in the more dangerous places to explore such as the desert and the wasteland and the polar biome. I'm not all that worried about making a farm when I get the seed recipe for potatoes and corn and mushrooms. I have living off the land one.

Pumpkins though, I wonder why they're in the game because I'm never going to find enough of those to make a farm. With living off the land one. 

 
Well if someone doesn´t like farming then simply don´t do it.

You can easily get meat and canned food by just playing the game. Until i have a farm up, i simply kill everything i see on my way, stop for farms or houses with pigs and other animals and buy from every vending machine i happen to see, while doing quests/looting. And ofc you find food when looting. I never starved and i have loads of meat.  

Farming is a guaranteed income of good food with low effort. Ofc you need to invest points if you want it to be profitable, that´s just fair tbh. Reseeding literally isn´t an issue. 2 mins if you are slow (for your food needs, ofc longer if you want sell food and need a bigger farm)

I can live from 25 plots, 10 each for corn and potato, 5 for coffee and 10 mushrooms. I could feed 2 more people than just me with that.

Not sure yet if i will get pumpkins later, but as said, they are rare, so i still have time left to deceide that.

 
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Not a fan of the changes personally but i do understand the 'why'

I think there could be a sweet middle ground where it doesnt feel awful to turn 5 corn into 1 seed for 2 corn, that seems like its never a good deal.

Turning corn into a seed should always net more corn than not turning it into seed, you are trading immediate food for future resources, and you shouldnt need 'living off the land' to get that.

living off the land should be a boost but not mandatory. Non fortitude specs should be able to farm without losing resources.

The problem is that food scarcity needs to be a problem, but when you get exponential gains from farming you will quickly reach a point where you have an infinite amount of safe food that doesnt require ever putting yourself in danger.

Bring back fertilizer as a solution

The problem is farming only requires seeds as a resource. If we reworked farming to require fertilizer every time we planted seeds we would still have to farm resources for fertilizer.

Fertilizer could be crafted with some bones, rotten meat, nitrate and plant fibers (compost) and it increases the yield by enough to make seeds viable.

This forces the player to farm and collect resources outside of his base to replenish his food supplies and puts a limiter on how much free food a player can get based on other activities.

Not sure exactly what ratios the new system would have, with this you could have 2 corn per seed no matter what but fertilizer increases the yield by 2 (3/4/5 depending on LotL rank) and seeds replenish naturally after farming, (so it would take 3 harvests to regain your initial investment but only 2 with fertilizer)  or we retain the current chance back for seed and increase fertilizer harvest or reduce cost per seed.

either way i think reintroducing fertilizer as a limiting resource back into farming would benefit the farming resource management system as it was too easy before and now its too unreliable. 

 
Ahhh the good old days, when you hit every toilet you could and hoped to find @%$#.

Maybe the good old days weren't that good after all.

 
After playing the game for several hours, I still have mixed feelings about the whole thing. I hate that I need to level up all 3 levels of living off the land in order to ensure I don't run out of seeds to replant when I first start out a food type. I also still hate the level gating of resources, including food. But farming is the least of my concerns right now, there's so many other things I hate far more... like how useless they made spikes and barbed wire as well as how incredibly spongy the bears are.

 
The way I'm looking at it, is it's the long view, they are, probably, planning more changes down the road that will make more sense, at least I hope so.

I've finally got off my ass, and while I have not really been @%$#ing about it on the forums, I have been whining at my buddies in game, so I've started a spreadsheet to track my plantings and what I get back, I'll post it once I've done a few, 5 or more rounds of planting.

 
would it not be better for the seeds/plants to stay planted, but change the amount harvested to be "upto" your perk level, as in:-

level 1 - 0 to 1 amount of a crop

level 2 - 1 to 2 amount of a crop

level 3 - 1 to 3 amount of a crop

but the seeds stay planted

 
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I dislike that it is totally unintuitive.

In order to not give up on farming and disregard it as broken you now need to know the math of how it works.

 
I kind of like the changes. Not saying they are perfect but I think it is an improvement over A19.

Let's be honest, in A19 farming was way too easy. With a single seed and enough time and patience it was possible to sustain an unlimited ressource of food.

In A20 now you find seeds in loot containers more regularly. Plant seeds as you find them and add some extra food ressources to your supplies. That's it. Nothing more but nothing less. It adds a bit to other food ressources like hunting, looting, trader, vending machines... and all added up keeps your stomach full.

Only if you would still like to sustain an all-season farm and be independent from random seed drops you can invest some skill points and put some deeper thoughts into farming. 

 
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