We take over whatever looks good, we used to do the junkyard with the big trash bins, and I'd use those for my farm plots, right now we're on top one of the electrical type poi's but we've build it up, so we've got like 3 levels for room.
PC Changes To Farming
- Thread starter Moldy Bread
- Start date
We take over whatever looks good, we used to do the junkyard with the big trash bins, and I'd use those for my farm plots, right now we're on top one of the electrical type poi's but we've build it up, so we've got like 3 levels for room.
PoppaSmirk
New member
So I played awhile tonight, and listed everything from the harvest I pulled in. This is why I think that at LoTL3 (FARMER), the chance of getting a seed should be better than the odds from a coin flip. 8 pumpkins planted: 2 seeds returned, total produce harvested 52 pumpkin, after recrafting, yield is just 22 pumpkins. 8 corn planted: 5 seeds returned, total produce harvested 54 ears of corn. after recrafting yield is 39 ears of corn. 11 potato planted: 4 seeds returned, total produce harvested is 71, after recrafting, yield is 36 potatoes. 6 blueberries planted: 2 seeds returned, total produce harvested 41 blueberries. After recrafting, yield is 21 blueberries. 6 mushrooms planted: 3 spores returned, total produce harvested 38 mushrooms. After recrafting, yield is just 23 mushrooms. 4 aloe vera planted: 1 seed returned, total produce harvested 26 aloe leaves; after recrafting final yield is just 11 aloe vera leaves. 2 supercorn planted (isn't supercorn supposed to be genetically more hardy than normal corn anyway?): 1 seed returned, total harvest of 11 ears of supercorn. after recrafting the final yield is 6 ears of supercorn.
Now, I am not saying that I didn't get a lot of benefit from that harvest; but overall it still feels not quite right, to study, try out techniques and be at the HIGHEST possible level of Farming (via investing skill points); and still have the same chance to get a seed back, as when you first stamped a seed into the ground with your thumb at LoTL1.
Many of the other skills progress in advancement with an additional 10% boost when you level up those skills. I really feel that LoTL3 would benefit from having the chance to have a seed returned, placed as a 60% chance, not the 50% chance that is currently in place. I don't feel the idea is overpowering, but would simply place the "FARMER" in a very valid position of knowing more, so they reap a better harvest, and also able to bring in those harvests with better than a probability of "halfsies" on if a seed is retained.
The new farming system is more challenging in the time investment it takes to get a usable point of actually having enough food to consume regularly; but its definitely workable, but still the harvesting still doesn't leave a satisfying "feeling". I hope this suggestion might help to bring more satisfaction to players.
Now, I am not saying that I didn't get a lot of benefit from that harvest; but overall it still feels not quite right, to study, try out techniques and be at the HIGHEST possible level of Farming (via investing skill points); and still have the same chance to get a seed back, as when you first stamped a seed into the ground with your thumb at LoTL1.
Many of the other skills progress in advancement with an additional 10% boost when you level up those skills. I really feel that LoTL3 would benefit from having the chance to have a seed returned, placed as a 60% chance, not the 50% chance that is currently in place. I don't feel the idea is overpowering, but would simply place the "FARMER" in a very valid position of knowing more, so they reap a better harvest, and also able to bring in those harvests with better than a probability of "halfsies" on if a seed is retained.
The new farming system is more challenging in the time investment it takes to get a usable point of actually having enough food to consume regularly; but its definitely workable, but still the harvesting still doesn't leave a satisfying "feeling". I hope this suggestion might help to bring more satisfaction to players.
POCKET951
New member
In alpha 19:
8 pumpkin seeds would yield 24 pumpkins (you got 22)
8 corn seeds: 24 (you got 39)
11 potatoe seeds: 33 (you got 36)
6 blue berry seeds: 18( you got 21)
6 mush spores:18( you got 23)
4 Aloe Vera seeds: 12( you got 11)
2 super corn seeds: 6 (you got 6)
sometimes you feel like you got unlucky and had low yield, but even with your bad luck of the draw you still pulled out way ahead in yield compared to alpha 19. I can understand how it can feel bad, but you got way more than in previous iterations. sure it is more work, but you now have a clean garden you can replant how ever you like
Farming in A20 has alot more strategy and planning involved. you could rotate crops to maximize potential yield.
even if you go 40/60 on most of your harvest you are still generally doing better than A19
Boidster
New member
Since harvesting a plant is an independent trial, it would not matter if you had 10 plots of 10 different types of plants or 10 plots of a single type of plant. The expected return is mathematically identical. It certainly looks more impressive to harvest an entire field of a single crop, but there is no statistical difference in potential yield.
Imagine you plant and harvest once per day (we're speeding up the growing time for this example) on 10 farm plots.
A) Day 1 is 10x corn, Day 2 is 10x potatoes, Day 3 is 10x aloe, etc.
B) Each day you plant 1 crop in each plot: 1 corn, 1 potato, 1 aloe, etc. so all 10 plots are filled with a different crop
Which method produces better potential yield after 10 days? Neither.
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POCKET951
New member
theoretically not, but if you do more of one thing at once your margin for error is much larger. it is also far easier to rotate imo instead of doing 3 of x 4 of y and 3 of Z because you need to know how many of each seed to make and blah blah blah. idk, it feels alot more laborious to grow alot of things at once
it jsut feels simpler and easier to execute and requires less overall brainpower/effort even though the endgoal is the same.
theFlu
Well-known member
Less thinking involved, sure, but it requires multiple times the effort to get to the eating part.
As in, if you want to eat the produce of 5x potato plants per cycle, and you cycle corn, spuds, coffee and aloe (4 types), you need to have 20 potato plants before you can supply that 5 per. If you had them running side-by-side 5 each, you could just eat the 15x5 extra produce required by the larger cycle.
POCKET951
New member
I am super lategame in my current playthrough. waiting to get to eating part isn't a concern for me because I am drowning in food. for me its about making farming as easy as possible.
theFlu
Well-known member
So first off I feel sympathy for the QA and Spreadsheet magicians at Fun Pimps. Given how customizable the game is outside of mods, getting back consistent data to make decisions for the "average" player must be difficult and frustrating. I sort of wish we could tag our posts with our settings and/or popular mods so that the devs could gets some context to our feedback. I've listed my 'context' in the spoiler for those that care
And now my 2p. because 2c just sounds cheap these days...
I don't like the changes. I understand Madmole's reasoning behind them (from Roland's posted link to his reply), but like all things related to game design... it's more about psychology then it's about math, but math still plays a big role in it.
Farming was too easy. I'll throw support behind this opinion, but I feel why it was too easy is less on the farming and more on the whole sustenance system and balancing of the progression curve of making a farm. In the before times, the big barrier was acquiring seeds (either from RNG loot/trader or LoL 2) and making of farm plots (mostly just getting the resources to make them). But once you got a small farm running it required minimal investment to keep running. The relevant skill didn't really act as a gate to progression but more as a limiter to exponential growth for it. In the end, a player would always end up with an abundance of food... it would just take time.
In the current system, the barrier is still seed acquisition but it's more about just winning a RNG slot machine, especially if a player has invested into LoL. Now, RNG despite it vocal notoriety, is a really popular mechanic... but it's only popular if people think that they game the system making it about skill and less RNG. The old system allowed for gaming of the system, but the new one just adds one additional loot container (the crop) and no real way to game it. Additionally, it hasn't really made it harder to get a farm up since farm plots crafting hasn't changed and base food output was increased. It just means that you either skill into LoL to have the loot containers at the farm, or you spend time exploring or visiting traders for the seeds. And after LoL 3, essentially we are back at the same progression curve.
And speaking of Living off the Land... the levels are way unbalanced. The first level does 3 things... it adds in a chance to return a seed (the visibly most powerful aspect of the skill), unlocks flower seed crafting (cotton, red and yellow seeds), and increases the base output to 4 (unsure on that but if accurate the actual most powerful part of the skill). Overall, it's not that powerful of skill. Flower crafting is mostly a convenience since cotton, and all the flowers are naturally abundant and their consumable use is very minimal. Additionally it's not cost effective to craft the seeds since it's a -1 net loss, making that aspect pointless. The second level is where it gains some traction adding in the rest of seed crafting, and the RNG to make seed crafting not a net loss. It's the seed crafting of the non-naturally spawning (POIs don't count) items that matter, but since it's still an RNG chance for a profit it's debatable whether it's actually worth it. And finally the last level grants a positive return on seed crafting, or if a player never seed crafts a massive boost to food production. So first level allows for RNG replanting, the 2nd 20% increase to food production, and the 3rd a reliable food source. I've seen common advice is now not to seed craft or really make a farm until LoL 3 which is a massive point investment, meaning the early levels aren't really worth much.
But farming is only part of the real issue. It's ultimately about balancing the food/sustenance system. Early game, a player burns through food because they're doing stamina intensive tasks, inefficient at stamina use, and don't have abundance of stored food to deal with high burst of stamina burning. Acquiring food can be difficult since it's either RNG looting of food, annoying hunting of rabbits and chickens, or potentially deadly hunting of bears, wolves, cougars, and boars (are deers still in the game? I forget). Goldenrod Tea is now worthless since a player no longer need a cooking pot to make boiled water, and nothing else really gives a player dysentery. But Red Tea is more useful since it's reduces the overall cost of all that early stamina consumption. And early food recipes never feel worth it (ie. why bother crafting those inefficient recipes when they can buy/loot canned food). Bacon and Eggs remain the best early game food, and with the farming changes probably the mid-game since it's a simple dish (2 ingredients, one that easily found everywhere - eggs, and the other meat is relatively common but easy to get by midgame). But the second level of cooking... practically worthless since they balanced around the old abundant farm goods. Which means a player just waits until to Cooking 3 for the superior canned recipes to make reliable mid to end game sustenance.
Now the above is mostly multiplayer/single player independent, but with multiplayer games due to skill set specialization among a group, food need actually drops because the player gains better stamina efficiency from skills, vehicles remove the stamina cost of traveling, and takes less damage as casual combat becomes easier (ranged weapons, armor, skills, etc.). So this compounds as food sources become more abundant and better quality, resulting in players with massive amounts of food. The above is also mostly within the standard 50min days (despite my recent experience with the 90min days). Day length matters sinceplant growth is based on days, but longer days mean more stamina usage between those days. Edit: I was sure it was based on days, but it's good to see that it's based on real world time since that makes it's easier to balance the numbers. Although, vending machines and traders do reset via the days, and if a player is relying on those for their food then day length still matters for the sustenance balancing. Thank you for the clarification, @Boidster. Oh and trader/vending machine resets are also day based. I guess in the end, I'm looking for a smooth progression for a single player experience that offers challenge but not grind or RNG frustration.
I'll post in a bit with a few suggestions, since I didn't want this to be too long.
Long time player for the 'average' description of long. First impression of this update, since I've stop playing games solo. Group game of 3 players, 90min days, and 64 zeds per player on Bloodmoons, the rest default. Our group specialize into skill sets, and I'm the farmer and cook. Level 3 LoL and Cook by Day 8 with a stable farm.
And now my 2p. because 2c just sounds cheap these days...
I don't like the changes. I understand Madmole's reasoning behind them (from Roland's posted link to his reply), but like all things related to game design... it's more about psychology then it's about math, but math still plays a big role in it.
Farming was too easy. I'll throw support behind this opinion, but I feel why it was too easy is less on the farming and more on the whole sustenance system and balancing of the progression curve of making a farm. In the before times, the big barrier was acquiring seeds (either from RNG loot/trader or LoL 2) and making of farm plots (mostly just getting the resources to make them). But once you got a small farm running it required minimal investment to keep running. The relevant skill didn't really act as a gate to progression but more as a limiter to exponential growth for it. In the end, a player would always end up with an abundance of food... it would just take time.
In the current system, the barrier is still seed acquisition but it's more about just winning a RNG slot machine, especially if a player has invested into LoL. Now, RNG despite it vocal notoriety, is a really popular mechanic... but it's only popular if people think that they game the system making it about skill and less RNG. The old system allowed for gaming of the system, but the new one just adds one additional loot container (the crop) and no real way to game it. Additionally, it hasn't really made it harder to get a farm up since farm plots crafting hasn't changed and base food output was increased. It just means that you either skill into LoL to have the loot containers at the farm, or you spend time exploring or visiting traders for the seeds. And after LoL 3, essentially we are back at the same progression curve.
And speaking of Living off the Land... the levels are way unbalanced. The first level does 3 things... it adds in a chance to return a seed (the visibly most powerful aspect of the skill), unlocks flower seed crafting (cotton, red and yellow seeds), and increases the base output to 4 (unsure on that but if accurate the actual most powerful part of the skill). Overall, it's not that powerful of skill. Flower crafting is mostly a convenience since cotton, and all the flowers are naturally abundant and their consumable use is very minimal. Additionally it's not cost effective to craft the seeds since it's a -1 net loss, making that aspect pointless. The second level is where it gains some traction adding in the rest of seed crafting, and the RNG to make seed crafting not a net loss. It's the seed crafting of the non-naturally spawning (POIs don't count) items that matter, but since it's still an RNG chance for a profit it's debatable whether it's actually worth it. And finally the last level grants a positive return on seed crafting, or if a player never seed crafts a massive boost to food production. So first level allows for RNG replanting, the 2nd 20% increase to food production, and the 3rd a reliable food source. I've seen common advice is now not to seed craft or really make a farm until LoL 3 which is a massive point investment, meaning the early levels aren't really worth much.
But farming is only part of the real issue. It's ultimately about balancing the food/sustenance system. Early game, a player burns through food because they're doing stamina intensive tasks, inefficient at stamina use, and don't have abundance of stored food to deal with high burst of stamina burning. Acquiring food can be difficult since it's either RNG looting of food, annoying hunting of rabbits and chickens, or potentially deadly hunting of bears, wolves, cougars, and boars (are deers still in the game? I forget). Goldenrod Tea is now worthless since a player no longer need a cooking pot to make boiled water, and nothing else really gives a player dysentery. But Red Tea is more useful since it's reduces the overall cost of all that early stamina consumption. And early food recipes never feel worth it (ie. why bother crafting those inefficient recipes when they can buy/loot canned food). Bacon and Eggs remain the best early game food, and with the farming changes probably the mid-game since it's a simple dish (2 ingredients, one that easily found everywhere - eggs, and the other meat is relatively common but easy to get by midgame). But the second level of cooking... practically worthless since they balanced around the old abundant farm goods. Which means a player just waits until to Cooking 3 for the superior canned recipes to make reliable mid to end game sustenance.
Now the above is mostly multiplayer/single player independent, but with multiplayer games due to skill set specialization among a group, food need actually drops because the player gains better stamina efficiency from skills, vehicles remove the stamina cost of traveling, and takes less damage as casual combat becomes easier (ranged weapons, armor, skills, etc.). So this compounds as food sources become more abundant and better quality, resulting in players with massive amounts of food. The above is also mostly within the standard 50min days (despite my recent experience with the 90min days). Day length matters since
I'll post in a bit with a few suggestions, since I didn't want this to be too long.
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theFlu
Well-known member
The seeds do drop at 0 LotL already.DaChibii said:
Assuming you're still talking about LotL 1, you're not looking at the whole picture. If you include the chance to harvest a seed (= 5 extra crops, 50% chance makes that effectively 2.5), you have an average of 1.5 crops instead of -1. As in, you can reliably farm at LotL 1 with some basic backup crops for extra seeds when needed.DaChibii said:
Ahhh statisticians... but first numbers!
BFT2020 said:
To be fair, since I haven't looked at the code and I took LoL 1 out of my starting quest points before I had any farms... so I really don't know if it's a base ability or a LoL gated ability... but if it's base ability is only furthers my opinion that LoL is underpowered in the progression curve for the skill. As for the second part... you don't get 5 at 1... you get 4. Which means even at 2 plots... 8 resource + 1 seed which results in 3 food after replanting. But only if your chances are within the normal distribution, and a single call isn't enough to determine a distribution. Meaning there will plenty of play sessions where the first harvest just results in 8 food and no seeds, and after replanting you get 3 food and 1 seed, which results in another coin toss whether or not you'll be able to replant. The 50% only works if you have a massive farm, enough that the calls balance out to a normal distribution. When looking to balance a system you have to remove all sources of RNG, and balance it... and then add RNG back in (under observation) to add in variance without messing up the balance.
The initial seed recipes were also "balanced" under the old system meaning that they knew you would have an abundance of resources to spend on seed crafting.
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ChickenWings
New member
I do miss throwing it at peopleKrougal said:
theFlu
Well-known member
That 5 of mine was the cost of the seed converted "back" to crops. Otherwise I mostly agree; I'd only point out that LotL 1 is the difference between a farm that grows exponentially by itself and the farm that will fail over time, making it arguably the only important point of the skill. The rest just speeds up the process by pushing up the exponent
I don't exactly like the design either, any design with "normally you're fine, there's just a chance of disaster" is ... off putting.
So my suggestions...
The first one is rather easy to implement and may actually deal a lot with the new player criticism or early game criticisms of the farming change. Change the starting food you get at spawn. Instead of a single jar of boiled water, give some red tea to offset that early sprint to the trader, running down of rabbits/chickens, or harvesting of materials. Instead of a can of chili, give some corn, blueberries/yucca, and some meat. This allows for the player enough space to decide whether to eat, craft into early recipes, or save for later ones if they get lucky on RNG drops. Now the amount will definitely need to be balanced and play-tested so that the early survival experience is still challenging and suspenseful, but not so frustrating that makes you want to quit the session.
The second one will be unpopular I bet, but it will probably provide good metrics. Make a separate branch, and remove seed crafting entirely from the game. Instead make Living off the Land just increase the chance you'll get seeds from planted crops. This makes LoL now a convenience skill on whether you want search for seeds, or try for RNG at a farm. It also means that farms become more disposable since you can replant anywhere at every harvest. Of course that last bit requires some tweaking with farm plots. But for the initial metrics, I would just do the seed crafting removal and seed RNG drop changes.
And finally the more complex suggestion... an amalgamation of the current system and previous one. Something like this...
Oh... I almost forgot another "hot take" suggestion, make non-canned food recipes give a chance of dysentery, so that canned recipes are more attractive than just the stat bonuses, as well for renewable farm food sources now require the farming of goldenrod for the tea (other than pure spring water). I do like that boiled water doesn't require a cooking pot though, and despite it making Goldenrod Tea practically useless. I just think we need use for the tea and a way nerf farm food sources without harming the activity of farming itself.
The first one is rather easy to implement and may actually deal a lot with the new player criticism or early game criticisms of the farming change. Change the starting food you get at spawn. Instead of a single jar of boiled water, give some red tea to offset that early sprint to the trader, running down of rabbits/chickens, or harvesting of materials. Instead of a can of chili, give some corn, blueberries/yucca, and some meat. This allows for the player enough space to decide whether to eat, craft into early recipes, or save for later ones if they get lucky on RNG drops. Now the amount will definitely need to be balanced and play-tested so that the early survival experience is still challenging and suspenseful, but not so frustrating that makes you want to quit the session.
The second one will be unpopular I bet, but it will probably provide good metrics. Make a separate branch, and remove seed crafting entirely from the game. Instead make Living off the Land just increase the chance you'll get seeds from planted crops. This makes LoL now a convenience skill on whether you want search for seeds, or try for RNG at a farm. It also means that farms become more disposable since you can replant anywhere at every harvest. Of course that last bit requires some tweaking with farm plots. But for the initial metrics, I would just do the seed crafting removal and seed RNG drop changes.
And finally the more complex suggestion... an amalgamation of the current system and previous one. Something like this...
- Living off the Land 0 - Plants/Crops drop their associated resource. Can plant seeds/saplings on any 'dirt/clay' diamond. Plants/Crops/Trees do not drop seeds/saplings.
- Living off the Land 1 - Plants/Crops now have a 50% chance to drop a seed/sapling from wild sources. Increased resource drops (wood drops now are tied to LoL instead of Miner69er) from wild sources.
- Living off the Land 2 - Unlocks farm plots. Seeds/Sapling planted on farm plots default to their associated seed/sapling base on harvesting. Another increase to resource drops from wild sources. Trees on farm plots give saplings instead of wood.
- Living off the Land 3 - Unlocks Seed Crafting. Increase to resource drops from all sources.
Oh... I almost forgot another "hot take" suggestion, make non-canned food recipes give a chance of dysentery, so that canned recipes are more attractive than just the stat bonuses, as well for renewable farm food sources now require the farming of goldenrod for the tea (other than pure spring water). I do like that boiled water doesn't require a cooking pot though, and despite it making Goldenrod Tea practically useless. I just think we need use for the tea and a way nerf farm food sources without harming the activity of farming itself.
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theFlu
Well-known member
Not bad overall, plenty of changes in the "main" suggestion though; might be a little beside the goals for pimps.
Quickly about the shorter ones: starting with a care package; doesn't really fit the lore of being robbed naked and tossed to the side of a road, but it wouldn't hurt me - especially if limited only for low difficulty starts. A care bear package if you will.
No crafting seeds? Yeh, probably unpopular. People want their reliable farms, and I can't see getting the balance of seed drops right for anyone, much less everyone.
For the complex one; bringing back farming on topsoil would be nice, I never learned to like the flower pots.
I wouldn't mix trees with farming, but it could work of course, and they're realistically more related."Unlocks farm plots" - would the POI plots still work? That would make them quite valuable, you could have a permaculture there with a little luck. Once you get a seed recipe, you have instant exponential growth on POI plots (the pimps seem quite adamant of having everything in recipes).
Since you don't define numbers, it's a little hard to judge anything.
Roland was looking for guesses of what the pimps are going to do in the future, I made a draft back then; if you want to compare notes, check:
If the returns from farming were excessive I'm good with reducing the rate of return or changing the perk to something else. What I'm not good with is the massive amount of busy work and replanting that needs to be done. My biggest issue is that this is a game where everyone can do everything, just the perks allow people to do things significantly better. This makes it so that making seeds and trying to farm without being fort spec'd and having living off the land is pointless. Seeds aren't common enough to be worth even making farm plots for those not spec'd into fort and there's no reason to turn 5 potatoes into a seed to plant for long term gains at the cost of a meal or two, which is what I would do if I didn't go fort spec before. And if fort spec'd now it's just frustrating. In the current build I just disregard farming entirely as there are many ways to get stable with food as the game progresses, which means I also ignore cooking too.
You are forgetting that there is a middle way, just spend 1 point into LotL and you have a sustainable farm and converting crops to seeds gives a positive return. Just with more work per average crop return. I don't like the busy work either, but you miss out all the shades of grey between your black-and-white analysis
Yes, seeds are not found in masses, but common enough that a SP player not speccing into LotL might operate maybe 3-5 plots just from found seeds and seeds that gave back a seed again. I wouldn't call that a farm and there is the question if that return is worth hauling back the seeds. But when your only other food is basic meat and cans then yes, that sounds like it might be worth it to get some steak and potato meals inbetween
DaChibii said:
(I shortened your wall-of-text post as I'm only replying to this part).
In my experience with the new game bacon and eggs are quite expensive and I want to have alternatives as fast as possible. Because meat is the really cheap resource here, but eggs need much driving around for very low yield. And bacon and eggs need 2 eggs per meal.
In my current games I usually get a lot of meat just by killing animals, but I always have much less eggs. In numbers: I usually have at least a stack of 100 meat around and I feel lucky if I have 6 eggs. Since all recipes need 5 meat, that stack is really only 20 servings of meat, sure, but 20 to 3 still means that eggs is the scarce resource here. Finding eggs seems to depend on visiting lots of different chunks to find unlooted nests while questing keeps you going into the town you are in which has all the already looted nests.
Now sure, while you have nothing better, bacon&eggs is better than just boiled meat, but as soon as I find various crops and a few food recipes (or someone perks heavily into master chef) then the eggs make it possible to produce pies which represent the middle class of foods and need blueberries and pumpkin which otherwise would have not much use.
Your mileage may vary, play styles do differ. And above account points to a different problem of the current RWG balance, that the wilderness areas have too few POIs to make you venture into the wild, something that I hope gets rectified by TFP eventually
That wasn't a black and white analysis. I'm not talking about possibilities from one end to the other or at one end of the spectrum and the other, I'm talking about my opinion and how I play. What I find worth the investment both in game in resources/time and personally my time and fun. Reframing it and dismissing it is a little silly.
To the latter portion of your post, there's far, far too many things you're glossing over in that hypothetical. You need to find the right amount of specific seeds (multiple random events here that I haven't had happen in any of my playthroughs solo in any alpha let alone this one with increased drop rates), hope those seeds give you back seeds because they yield only 1 crop at 0 LotL (again random) and the meals typically require more than 1 of multiple crops, and the recipe for the exact corresponding meal (another random that's contingent on the previous random seeds acquired) to get what, 50 food once in a blue moon? That's just compounding random events numerous times over. It's far easier, presuming one gets a meal recipe in loot or random trader recipe sales, to target specific POI farms to hunt down components to make a meal. They've added quite a few farms on the edges of most towns in the RWG maps I've played on in A20. Or just go after airdrops. Or do a buried supplies quest as they have a high probability of food (my experience here, not sure on the actual numbers). Or just hit up vending machines and traders with dukes. Or get a tier completion and take a food crate. There are far more productive ways to get food if that's the issue.
That said, I don't think it's a bad thing that people don't have to rely on farming and/or cooking for food. I can say that in the past I used farming with and without points and now, as the skill currently stands, I won't in either case. This is a thread talking about changes to farming and I'm providing my feedback. Nothing more or less.