Do you understand the system i suggest? It would likely mean less food overall for many players since it comes at a cost, resources would be limited in a healthy way where players can invest more into food if they want it or not by choosing fertilizer over gunpowder or duct tape (or whatever other use rotten meat has)
No, it wouldn't be "healthy". Satisfying hunger is just another aspect of survival, and as such it should also be part of your quest. You need to invest points in skills or read recipes to be able to do something, the workbench for example, and even with all the points in LotL you still need to learn some recipes (like making seeds). Some foods you need to learn by reading recipes or unlock by investing points in a specific skill. Unlike eggs, which you can only find in nests Likewise agriculture. It is not mandatory and you can very well survive without it. You argue that you don't want to invest in LotL to have a "sustainable farm", and I argue that it is not necessary to spend useful resources in other areas and have more work to have an agriculture without investing in LotL, as it would be much more painful due to time divided between hunting, loot, missions. By logic, farming is not mandatory, it is much easier to invest in LotL as my game evolves and achieve my stability, in the same way that I evolve my strength, my intellect, my health.
What are your actual arguments against my idea? you just seem to be making snide comments with no real substance and it just makes it seem like you have no actual idea on what im talking about.
"no need" food does need to be infinite as demand is infinite.
"just put points into living off the land" i dont want that to be mandatory to have a replenishable food source, the system should work fine without it and i think the design of it currently is either too rewarding with full investment or too punishing without investment. I want to cap how productive it is while making it so that without it its still worth farming.
I need the meat to make my food, so I go hunting. The supply of live animals is higher than zombie animals, so to get rotten meat I would have to take raw meat and turn it into rotten meat.
A lot of effort for nothing, even putting at risk the (little) supply of meat, as you said yourself, just to make agricultural plots and "fertilizers", to maintain a farm that is not mandatory.
Everything in the game has its "reward" and its "punishment". If you die you get a penalty, if you get infected you can go a long time without finding antibiotics, but the lack of viable farming without investing in LotL is not a punishment, as I mentioned before, because you can survive without it, isn't mandatory, and many other things will be locked behind skill points or recipes, like better Weapons/Tools you need to invest in skills, and some you still need to read the recipe before you can do.
"I want to cap how productive it is while making it so that without it its still worth farming.",
Well, you can, just choose if you want to invest 1, 2, 3 or no points. Without any points you just plant the seed and reap the product. With all points you can plant, reap with some profit + chances of extra seeds. It is a scalable limiter.
"yeah infinite food but no pain no gain"
See, i just dont think solving an entire problem with 3 perk points is good design, i think that the rewards should be locked behind gameplay not just the menu. All other gathering perks make gathering better but not mandatory.
Meat is guaranteed from animals, you dont lose meat when harvesting chickens.
You don't lose meat when harvesting chickens, but you harvest a lot more when you invest in "The Huntersman". And with the meat collected you don't make another chicken, you have to hunt again, and again, and again. Likewise, you don't lose when you harvest agriculture, but you gain much more when you invest in LotL. If it is to be compared, we can then leave agriculture like the chicken, never return seeds to do other agriculture, and force everyone to plunder more and more to find new seeds. A little irrational, no? Yes, because there is no way to compare agriculture with animals in this case.
Food is not guaranteed with animals, as you always have to hunt, struggling with bad weapons at first, and harvesting little meat. So you improve your weapons, you improve your meat collection, and then you feel less and less need to hunt, as you start to collect more and more meat as you evolve until you find a "stability" (and stability is not a guarantee, as you will still need hunt sometimes to get more meat)
But to get there you need to invest in skills and / or learn recipes, whether to improve the collection of better meats, or manufacture weapons among other things, it needs a lot more investment. Anyway: "No pain, no gain."
"Oh yeah, farming is a lot of work, so I want to do more work, spending other resources that I use to make better weapons, hunt better, just survive better, because I don't want to keep planting every seed and invest points in LoTL"
Yes. Being able to invest resources i would otherwise use to advance my state in the game on food because i dont want to go hungry is exactly what i want. Currently the only gameplay surrounding farming is whether you invested in LotL, i think that is bad design and having a way to make farming profitable by putting in some effort is a good compromise. Its not free, so why not?
It's no use having abundant and infinite agriculture, guaranteed food, if you also need to invest in weapons, strength, health, specific skills for certain weapons. I don't want to share resources with agriculture, because you can live very well without a farm.
See: just like other points in the game, agriculture is there, you can plant a seed and get some return, and you will receive much more if you invest more too. Without investment in LotL farming will be like hunting meat: you will always need to loot to find seeds/end product, or buy the seeds/end product from the Trader.
This is called SURVIVAL, and hunger is just another aspect of survival.
Anyway, you won't starve to death without farming. You can hunt, you don't have to follow a single path, you have choices.
"they take time and some challenge to obtain (not free)"
"
???????????
Why not an extra challenge to have a viable agriculture? You invest in strength, health, intellect to be able to manufacture things and survive, suffer less damage. But NOTHING will fall from the sky if you just sit at home. Except the Air Drops, but you still need to go to them."
Im not sure what you are trying to say here?
Yeah, farming also takes time and challenge to get. By investing in Huntersman you get a lot more meat, but you still need to keep hunting, apart from other investments I've mentioned above (weapons, health, intellect, strength).
Your challenge in agriculture also exists, as you need to go out, loot, find many items to do many things, including seeds. Agriculture is not free either, because even with investment in LotL you can go bankrupt if you don't know how to manage your stock. For example ammo: even if you can manufacture and have "abundance" in the loot, your ammo can run out if you don't know how to use it, if you spend it unnecessarily
In the same way you can use all crops just to make food and run out of resources to convert into seeds, and the chances of return are also not guaranteed, you can plant 10 plots and only receive 4 seeds after harvest, so you will need to convert products in seeds to replace the 6 that were missing. In the next harvest you can receive 7 seeds, or even 3 seeds. Probability does not mean guarantee. BTW: I'd rather "waste time" replanting the seeds than wander around aeh looting the Pois and return home without sucess.
Anyway, nothing will fall from the sky if you don't move. You need to loot, hunt, fight, heal your wounds/infections, satisfy your hunger.
And check it out: you said that meat is not so easy to get, but according to the image posted earlier, your statement seems wrong. Oh yes, there was effort, it was necessary to hunt or harvest meat from the bodies/carcasses scattered across the map. So, honestly, I don't see any difference regarding the initial difficulty in agriculture. On A19 it was very "easy", while currently on the A20 I consider it much more balanced.
