PC Changes To Farming

[DiegoLBC1]

Hello everyone!!! 

Heres my opinion 

1: I dont like the replanting method, it is very irritating. Also I think we should have a machine what automatically collect the crops, but of course it is a top tier machine for late game.
2: Why farms grow too fast?

3: Why farms dont need water?
4: Why we can have good farms in the desert, wasteland and snow?
5: Why we dont need fertilizers?

In a short answer I could say "it's still in Alpha". But that would be too generic. Based on that, I believe (but I'm not sure) that they will be able to modify the system before the game goes gold. 

I agree with your points, and would like you to add them in the future:

1- Agree, we had hoe before. A harvesting machine would be welcome

2- They could actually increase the growth time of the plants. Maybe different times for each type, for example, corn takes longer than pumpkin

3- It's another nice addition, for obvious reasons.

4- A good point, although I'm not sure if they could implement it, and how to implement it. Maybe need a greenhouse to plant in the desert, or something. Being a climate-controlled greenhouse, it would be suitable for any biome. They could change the harvest "profits" according to the biome, perhaps implement harvest loss due to hostile weather, in short, there are many possibilities.

5- I believe that the agricultural plot is made "already fertilized". One option would be to reduce the health of the plot with each harvest, so you need to "fix" it using some material (similar to wood/concrete blocks). as "fertilizer", and uses it to repair the agricultural plot.

Again I say, the game is not finished yet, so I'm not using the "Alpha version" argument just to justify, but with the hope that they will be able to implement these changes before officially releasing the final game.

 

[meganoth]

So by all means, point out what exactly you think I've written that was a strawman. I'm happy to try to resolve the problem and as I have done in this thread I own my mistakes and admit when I'm wrong or when I mischaracterize something stated. A misunderstanding isn't a strawman though, nor is mild hyperbole.

Very well, I'll try one more time.

AFAIK straw man arguments do not assume intend by the way, so a misunderstanding is perfectly viable as the basis for a following straw man argumentation. 

One thing that happened is that I made a limited claim where you then assumed there were no limits. The 66% number is and always was just meant to mean the limited bonus for the case that someone sold and bought items with full BB, it was meant as the basis of a more accurate estimation of the bonus an INT player would get fully perked. I never said it was a general bonus an average player would see.

Also that I disagreed with your 25% and said the bonus was more like 50% was me correcting a number I thought did not give the whole picture (more about that below), it did not automatically mean that INT was underpowered at 25% or overpowered at 50%. I got the impression that INT is OP mainly from playing myself and from other posters on the forum or friends who valued INT as good or better as STR, at least for experienced players.  

So what exactly did I claim:

I made the initial claim that the full BB bonus is approximately 50% for an average player. This is actually not true (as I found out when we discussed it) as it needs Daring Adventurer as well.

So the correct statement after I did some more accurate estimations I made, would be now that the full INT trade perks bonus would be approximately but definitely less than 50% for an average player. (And yes, I know that daring only gives 20% at full perk, but it also gives two rewards to sell which makes the total bonus more than 20%).

Now you are correct that we could call the bonus of say 45% a buy/sell bonus of 22.5% and the game does exactly that with the expection of one pie. BUT a buy/sell bonus is uncommon in the real world where most trade is one-way, we always buy stuff and get a rebate of 3% for example, or some item costs 40% less in a sale.

But even more importantly, other bonuses in the game are one way as well, the bonus on mining is say 5% on what you get out of the earth, you don't put stuff back into the earth with a 5% bonus. The bonus on farming is one-way, the bonus of perks on weapon damage or range is one way, ALL other perk advantages (if I haven't overlooked something) are one-way, all resource-getting bonuses especially are all one-way. The only percentage in the game beside BB that is really both ways is the difficulty setting which applies the bonus to both zombie and inversely to player damage.

And this is why I made the point of translating the bonus BB gives so that the number is comparable to other bonuses in the game. And sure, a mining percentage bonus still can't be trivially compared to a buy percentage bonus, but it is a better foundation for comparison.

This is no spin, no desperate attempt at getting higher numbers, this is my honest opinion, that this is the right way to view it in comparison to other perks.

You were triggered over me using the word 'crusade' when the substance was correct and you've said it yourself. Let me frame the point another way. Do you think BB is overpowered? If you answer no then I misunderstood your point.

My current answer would be "I don't know". I think the trader generally is too central, important and OP in the game, but as I already acknowledged it is perfectly possible that the trade bonuses INT gives is overkill for utilizing the OP trader. And I myself always put my first point into DA, but seldom one in BB (but I tend to not play the "trader mini game", i.e. I usually don't put much effort in getting best prices and amass lots of money since I prefer to find useful stuff while scrouncing instead of buying).

But I don't think with what you've written that you can honestly say that. Though it's possible. Maybe you assumed I was unaware of how percentages work and wanted to educate me when I know how it works and took that explanation along with other commentary you made about your view of the OP INT trader build to mean more than you intended. I still think that's an insulting/condescending way to view the matter, but it's one scenario that kind of fits the sequence of events that includes a misunderstanding of intent. I'm open to others. Do you think traders are OP?

Yes. Too central and OP. For various reasons.

If you answer no then I can point you at a statement you made where you explicitly said that. I'm not sure exactly what you think I straw manned you over. Vague statements alluding to one and playing coy while verbally sparring isn't productive conversation, so if you want to actually have that as you indicated that starts with you actually acting like you want to have a productive dialogue and not just pumping out passive aggressive snark.

This tangent started when I talked about me using an INT build and leaning into the perks and trader as a playstyle. You said something, and I'm going to paraphrase throughout so if you take umbrage to anything by all means point it out and we can talk about it, about the OP INT trader combo. You brought up BB, which to be frank I was surprised about because I don't think it's a big deal at all. I see DA as the vastly better option. Especially early game since the vendor price of low tier/quality loot is very low. Getting an extra 50 dukes doesn't make or break anything and I can't fathom how someone could possibly consider it OP at that level of the game. That dialogue devolved into the minutia of the benefits of BB where you kept trying to talk up the bonus. It's possible that I misunderstood your point, but we've been going in circles around it. You insisted on using bigger numbers to describe the power of the perk when the base language used in the game as a 25% bonus on either end of a sale describes it fine and means exactly the same thing. And then we danced around that over and over again. I asked this before and you never responded so I'll ask again. If 25% bonus to buying and selling is mathematically accurate, why do you feel the need to describe it by using bigger numbers and using limited circumstances?

I think I answered this above, hopefully.

And initially being concise and ensuring that the impact was acknowledged and understood might have been a valid answer, even if it is a demeaning way to look at people, but it certainly wasn't after I made it clear I understood the point you were making. Do you do the same thing for every other perk that gives a % increase. When someone says, "motherlode gives an 100% increased resources" do you start intentionally complicating it by saying "oh well with miner 69'er it's 'effective value is x%!'" I doubt it. But you're going through all the trouble here to frame it that way with BB. What kept this conversation going was your insistence to put spin on the numbers.

This is exactly what I was talking about above. Passive aggressive snark that's not productive. Just like your commentary about me not reading or understanding what you wrote. I read what you wrote. I didn't agree with the view you presented.

And you repeatedly insinuated lots of motivations to why I say this or that. Is insinuation/innuendo still passive aggressive or already aggressive? It's a bad discussion style at the least.

That's distinctly different from not understanding it. If you failed to communicate your point that's not on me. I can only see the words you write. I can't mind read into your intentions or unspoken points. Regurgitating the same thing at me using different phrasing isn't going to add context that you're choosing not to add. Sorta like your implication that I strawmanned you but you didn't say what you think I strawmanned. When communication fails, because language is messy and tone is hard to read sometimes or people simply don't think about things the same way you have options that aren't being salty and throwing side insults. You could try to explain your point a different way entirely. You could just walk away from the conversation. There are a lot of options that won't come off as you being sore or perceived as being condescending. You can't blame your choice about how you react on other people.

 

[Boidster]

And with the meat collected you don't make another chicken

Well...maybe YOU don't.

 

[Niil945]

This is no spin, no desperate attempt at getting higher numbers, this is my honest opinion, that this is the right way to view it in comparison to other perks.

Okay, so all of this back and forth was predicated on the desire for me to write about the skill using the bigger number because you feel it's the 'right' way to speak about the bonus of the skill, even though the game describes it that way and it's mathematically accurate to simply say 25% bonus to buying and selling and it doesn't require any exposition on when and how it's worth more than 25%?

First, and I'm not trying to be intentionally mean here. No, I won't speak about it that way. I use terms the game uses and it's a hell of a lot less wordy when talking about it. The fact that it's %'s on two different things that sometimes interact means that the 'effective' value is sometimes going to be higher by nature. It doesn't need to be explicitly defined and can actually be erroneous if you give it a value as it fluctuates. The closer to end game you are the more opportunity one has to sell junk and buy things resulting in more of someone's dukes coming from the combined bonus particularly as the tier and quality increases and the sale values get higher and higher, but at the same time the less 'need' someone has to buy things from the trader. It becomes more convenience and less of a survival factor exactly like solar is. If the only source of dukes was buying and selling that would change the situation for me but it's not, and that phrasing could easily be misconstrued to make it seem like BB is far more powerful than it actually is. It also doesn't make sense to speak about a bonus in terms of 'up to x% effectiveness' on a tooltip. Particularly when people want to know exactly what they're spending points on and there's already a way to explain it that's simple and encapsulates all the situations where that 'up to' would matter exactly the way the game details it. So no, I won't use phrasing that's imprecise and potently misleading.

Second, a strawman is when someone changes the argument another makes with the intent of refuting that altered argument. I'm not doing so. I think you can easily acknowledge that I've been debating excessively with you over the actual content of the argument you're making. I'm saying I don't believe your claim regarding your intent/motivation for arguing about the topic in the first place. That's not me putting words in your mouth, that's me putting words in mine so to speak. And while it's not a binary thing the precision/accuracy argument makes no sense to me. Your methodology of describing it is not more precise or more accurate than the way the game already describes the perk and it's far more concise to boot. But it's natural that you don't like that I don't believe your claim. Unfortunately your response to my question about whether BB is OP doesn't shake my assessment, it strengthens it. Had you said no I would have had to reconsider even if I thought your desire to have everyone speak about it in the personal 'right' way was weird.

And you repeatedly insinuated lots of motivations to why I say this or that. Is insinuation/innuendo still passive aggressive or already aggressive? It's a bad discussion style at the least.

Maybe my phrasing could be better, but when I talk about things like motivation it's me conveying my opinion not a factual presentation or an insinuation at all. As above where I straight up said that I don't believe you. I'm pretty blunt. People don't need to infer anything from me. Whether it's a discussion style you like isn't really relevant to me, though it does make sense. We're very different personalities, I'm very direct and explicit, I say exactly what I mean. It's a matter of logic not emotion to me. You're not as direct and are often on the other side of the fence as to debate style. I can point to a dozen places in the last post where you implied things or places where you could have clarified but you left things vague. It's far more common for people to be like you than like me so I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with it. But saying it's 'bad discussion style' is just an emotional appeal that doesn't mean anything to me. I don't feel the value in limiting my voice so that other people feel better when I have things to say that I know they won't like. That doesn't mean those things are intentionally mean or hurtful, just I don't sugar coat things or powder people's backsides so they don't have a negative emotional reaction to what I'm saying. But I do appreciate your arguments are often substantive even if we don't agree. Even the snarkier elements of your posts aren't really that snarky. I see it as a positive outcome when people can have a discourse and walk away disagreeing but with an understanding of perspective of the other side.

I don't even see anything wrong with the view that the trader is too much of an influence on the survival aspect whether I agree or not. I can certainly see how players who want it to be more of a pure survival experience see the trader as easing gameplay challenges. That's merely a matter of preference and it's one that players can lean into or away from based upon how they choose to play.

 

[meganoth]

Okay, so all of this back and forth was predicated on the desire for me to write about the skill using the bigger number because you feel it's the 'right' way to speak about the bonus of the skill, even though the game describes it that way and it's mathematically accurate to simply say 25% bonus to buying and selling and it doesn't require any exposition on when and how it's worth more than 25%?

"1/2 + 1/2" and "0.5 + 0.5" are both mathematically accurate ways of saying the same thing, but sometimes one way has advantages over the other. In this case I was of the opinion that transforming the buy/sell bonus into the more common buy bonus all the other bonuses adhered to was an advantage.

First, and I'm not trying to be intentionally mean here. No, I won't speak about it that way. I use terms the game uses and it's a hell of a lot less wordy when talking about it. The fact that it's %'s on two different things that sometimes interact means that the 'effective' value is sometimes going to be higher by nature. It doesn't need to be explicitly defined and can actually be erroneous if you give it a value as it fluctuates. The closer to end game you are the more opportunity one has to sell junk and buy things resulting in more of someone's dukes coming from the combined bonus particularly as the tier and quality increases and the sale values get higher and higher, but at the same time the less 'need' someone has to buy things from the trader. It becomes more convenience and less of a survival factor exactly like solar is. If the only source of dukes was buying and selling that would change the situation for me but it's not, and that phrasing could easily be misconstrued to make it seem like BB is far more powerful than it actually is. It also doesn't make sense to speak about a bonus in terms of 'up to x% effectiveness' on a tooltip. Particularly when people want to know exactly what they're spending points on and there's already a way to explain it that's simple and encapsulates all the situations where that 'up to' would matter exactly the way the game details it. So no, I won't use phrasing that's imprecise and potently misleading.

If we were writing a "Howto play 7D2D" then yes, going into details that much and converting numbers would be the wrong way and confusing to readers. But where is the danger of misinterpreting things when we were just discussing it and both knew what the numbers mean? 

Second, a strawman is when someone changes the argument another makes with the intent of refuting that altered argument. I'm not doing so.

At least in the wikipedia definition (for what its worth) of "straw man argument" I don't read anything about intent. But straw man is often used as an accusation of intentionally and unfair debating. Let me say again I didn't mean that you were doing it intentionally and I'll take it back.

I think you can easily acknowledge that I've been debating excessively with you over the actual content of the argument you're making. I'm saying I don't believe your claim regarding your intent/motivation for arguing about the topic in the first place. That's not me putting words in your mouth, that's me putting words in mine so to speak. And while it's not a binary thing the precision/accuracy argument makes no sense to me. Your methodology of describing it is not more precise or more accurate than the way the game already describes the perk and it's far more concise to boot. But it's natural that you don't like that I don't believe your claim. Unfortunately your response to my question about whether BB is OP doesn't shake my assessment, it strengthens it. Had you said no I would have had to reconsider even if I thought your desire to have everyone speak about it in the personal 'right' way was weird.

Maybe my phrasing could be better, but when I talk about things like motivation it's me conveying my opinion not a factual presentation or an insinuation at all. As above where I straight up said that I don't believe you. I'm pretty blunt. People don't need to infer anything from me. Whether it's a discussion style you like isn't really relevant to me, though it does make sense. We're very different personalities, I'm very direct and explicit, I say exactly what I mean. It's a matter of logic not emotion to me. You're not as direct and are often on the other side of the fence as to debate style. I can point to a dozen places in the last post where you implied things or places where you could have clarified but you left things vague. It's far more common for people to be like you than like me so I'm not trying to say there's anything wrong with it. But saying it's 'bad discussion style' is just an emotional appeal that doesn't mean anything to me. I don't feel the value in limiting my voice so that other people feel better when I have things to say that I know they won't like. That doesn't mean those things are intentionally mean or hurtful, just I don't sugar coat things or powder people's backsides so they don't have a negative emotional reaction to what I'm saying. But I do appreciate your arguments are often substantive even if we don't agree. Even the snarkier elements of your posts aren't really that snarky. I see it as a positive outcome when people can have a discourse and walk away disagreeing but with an understanding of perspective of the other side.

I don't even see anything wrong with the view that the trader is too much of an influence on the survival aspect whether I agree or not. I can certainly see how players who want it to be more of a pure survival experience see the trader as easing gameplay challenges. That's merely a matter of preference and it's one that players can lean into or away from based upon how they choose to play.

"I don't believe you" is not an insinuation, as well as "I disagree". Perfectly harmless. Notice both sentences are about what you think.

But "And trying to cherry pick such an example just demonstrates how far you have to and are willing to reach to 'win' an argument." is a direct attack and interpreting motivations into statements I made. Notice how you claim to know what I thought.

And that is not logical as you can not predict from a statement whether it was made with intent to deceive, or from error of judgement, or using wrong facts, and there is even the possibility that it is you who might be wrong. This was not a logical deduction from facts of the topic at hand.

Now I'm not perfect as well, I sometimes use imprecise language in argument, especially in a language not my own. It might lead to misunderstandings like ours.

 

[Niil945]

In this case I was of the opinion that transforming the buy/sell bonus into the more common buy bonus all the other bonuses adhered to was an advantage.

What advantage? It's not more precise because the value varies. To be accurate you have to give 3 different numbers and estimate how much each part makes up the whole and it's going to vary over gameplay based on the player and how quickly they invest in the perk. Because of that it's a far less concise way to describe the effect and there no explicit average that can be pointed at that really captures a holistic view of the perk throughout gameplay. We'd need vastly more data than we can get a number to point at with any confidence and it still wouldn't be accurate for a specific playthrough or specific point in time. It can be referenced in a manner that gives a ballpark average but, again, that comes with a lot of required caveats to be intellectually honest when talking about it. The only advantage I see is shaping perception about the perk because it can sometimes be a bigger number if one narrowly applies it over the original method, and doing so isn't very useful or meaningful.

But where is the danger of misinterpreting things when we were just discussing it and both knew what the numbers mean? 

If we both knew what the numbers mean then when I said that it wasn't a 50% bonus, that it was 25% buying and selling, you could have just said, "Yes, you're right, that's not an accurate value, I'm describing what the value can peak at because sometimes it compounds, when it does it's x, but it doesn't always because not all dukes come from selling and that it's difficult to ascertain an exact value. I think it happens about half the time for me but I have no real way to confirm that at all." But instead you went to great lengths to push the numbers you were providing instead of just acknowledging that we understood it the same way regardless. Initially I was just pointing out that saying 50% or 66% is not accurate. And it's true that it's not. 

At least in the wikipedia definition (for what its worth) of "straw man argument" I don't read anything about intent.

an intentionally misrepresented proposition that is set up because it is easier to defeat than an opponent's real argument.

Just because it doesn't say the word intent doesn't mean it's not speaking about it. That's just google. I'm sure wikipedia mentioned something very similar. 

But straw man is often used as an accusation of intentionally and unfair debating.

It's not about unfair. It's about being logically unsound. Why it's logically unsound depends on the specific fallacy, but in the case of a strawman it's not simply misunderstanding what someone says. It's purposefully changing someone else's position and then arguing against that erroneous position because it's easier to 'win' the debate that way. The method in which the argument is altered varies, reductivism and hyperbolism were used by someone else above that I pointed out, etc. But yes, lots of people throw around claims of fallacies without actually understanding what they mean because they want to use them to 'win' arguments. That's fallacious too  It's something that tends to amuse me a lot.

But "And trying to cherry pick such an example just demonstrates how far you have to and are willing to reach to 'win' an argument." is a direct attack and interpreting motivations into statements I made. Notice how you claim to know what I thought.

I'm directly speaking to what I believe about why you're saying what you're saying. If you presume I'm speaking about it as if I'm stating a fact I can see how you'd perceive it that way but to reach that conclusion you'd have to ignore context from statements before and after it. That context matters. Granted, I may get facts wrong and I'm happy to admit it and be educated on whatever I'm speaking about that's incorrect, but I don't fabricate a 'fact' because it supports my argument and I don't pretend my opinion is a fact. Part of it is the tone I write in too I think. If I see someone giving snark I tend to reciprocate in the way that I write by being sharper. The lines between objective discussion and subjective discussion can get blurred there with strong phrasing. 

Now I'm not perfect as well, I sometimes use imprecise language in argument, especially in a language not my own. It might lead to misunderstandings like ours.

Oh absolutely. English is a very murky language. We could tangent on the failings of the language for quite a while, let alone someone who isn't a primary speaker of the language using it and the common miscommunications that happen. But neither of us are perfect and I certainly don't see your commentary as trollish, even if we don't share the same perspective on things.

 

[theFlu]

That has got to be the longest interpretative dance around A/B != B/A ever. Best part is, you guys are still firmly in the starting grid.

I'll feed in another line of lighter fluid;

The BB description says 25%, but its practical effect is almost always more than that. Why? Cigar and magnum are completely passive, so everyone's base price is going to be 85. Sugar butts are plentiful enough to call the baseline for any actual purchase 75. Adding the BB 25% to that, the real effect is 33% of the price. Just for buying. And there's more to get to increase the effect in Awesome Sauce.

The way it stacks, 25% is a poor description. Accurate, but not fully descriptive.

 

[Roland]

If people (them included) said "I like the new farming system because x, y, z" and reflected on how the changes impact them and their preferred gameplay, cool.

I like the new farming system because

x: It more fully creates a progression arc for farming from very basic simply planting seeds you acquire to grow some ingredients to be saved for filling meals as a small part of the player's strategy of maintaining their hunger to spending 1 point in LOTL which enhances that strategy by getting more crops from harvest and on up to finally LOTL 3 where you are guaranteed to have large farms and farming is the core of your strategy for maintaining hunger. It beats A19 in this regard because there was no progression. You could attain large self sustaining farms with no perk investment so the progression was super flat and uninteresting.

y: It fits better with the rest of the game where you can do an activity at a basic level for modest returns unperked but can do much greater things once perked up. Anyone can plant seeds and bring in a harvest of crops without spending any points and those crops can be used for food without spending any points (provided you find the recipe of course). That is the basic rudimentary level. With perks you can do so much more.

z: I like finding seeds in loot now whereas before it was pretty much a non-issue once I had plants in the ground because those plants were eternally regrowing. Seeds quickly became a complete non-issue. It is still a much more exciting find the first time you get a seed you did not have before but even after you have a farm well developed it is a happy find to get some seeds.

w: The new farming has impacted our team by making it a more co-operative experience. We all help out in ways that we can. Obviously, only the highest perked person is going to harvest but everyone can help plant and there is a lot more communication between us as far as what seeds we need to be on the lookout for and celebrations when someone announces they found a seed we were needing. Nothing near this level of teamwork ever existed for us prior to A20 in any of the past iterations of farming.

v: I like the planting requirement over the regrowth feature. I know that some find it tedious but I like active farming more than auto farming in this game. Everything is just clicks of the mouse when you boil it down and what is fun vs boring will differ for each person but planting seeds doesn't feel any more chore-like than mining ore or upgrading blocks. I like being able to reconfigure the farm plots each time.

I'm glad TFP made this change and I think it is a huge positive step in the right direction. I agree with the philosophy of design in which we can do things at a basic level and have many different avenues available to us for getting food and if we want even better results and guarantees then we can invest points in those areas in order to have that improvement. I believe farming moved in just such a direction whereas before it was too easy and too rewarding for zero investment.

 

[meganoth]

That has got to be the longest interpretative dance around A/B != B/A ever. Best part is, you guys are still firmly in the starting grid.

I'll feed in another line of lighter fluid;

The BB description says 25%, but its practical effect is almost always more than that. Why? Cigar and magnum are completely passive, so everyone's base price is going to be 85. Sugar butts are plentiful enough to call the baseline for any actual purchase 75. Adding the BB 25% to that, the real effect is 33% of the price. Just for buying. And there's more to get to increase the effect in Awesome Sauce.

The way it stacks, 25% is a poor description. Accurate, but not fully descriptive.

You are really late to the party, we already discussed the effects of those items. And you are also partly wrong (if I understand your statement correctly), since all those items are available to everyone they tend to diminish the relative effect BB has.

 

[Roland]

The effort thats been put into defending farming is really bizarre, I've never seen anything like it before.

How do you know if you have all of us on your ignore list...lol

 

[Roland]

Farming solves that, but currently farming is only profitable with LotL investment, which removes any access to reliable crops.

Some players seem to think that its fine as is. Some argue that its good that food isnt reliable and the current system isnt broken, but they all use living off the land 3 

If you got the seeds for free then any level of planting and harvesting is profitable without any points spent. Simply planting seeds and harvesting them for fruit that you then place in a container and save for future recipes is better than nothing at all. 

Not everyone is using LOTL 3. The huge misconception at the very beginning that many people made simply by reading the patch notes instead of actually playing the game was that farming could not be sustainable until LOTL 3 and that misconception keeps getting reposted and renewed with each additional new thread that each new random person who makes the assumption comes on to voice their outrage. More and more reports from people who actually play the game and test the farming at LOTL 1 and LOTL 2 without prejudice are finding that farming is viable without having to go all in with perk points. You can't do it at LOTL 0 for sure and I know there are some who desire the LOTL 3 ability to reliably create a large farm that is self sustaining without having to invest any points like we had it in A19

 so i see that as dishonest since they are playing with those rules removed and LotL 3 just reverts everything to a19 standards with more legwork.

This happens a lot frankly during development. Often a feature is first added for everyone at a high level. During a later iteration it is then subdivided into low medium and high tiers and people realize that they were playing at the highest intended tier all along. We used to only have one single pickaxe in the game and we could mine with it pretty well. Then "Pickaxe" was broken up into tiers with stone, iron, and steel picks as well as quality tiers for each and players came to see that what they had been using as just the standard (only) pickaxe in the game was actually a pretty high tier level and all of a sudden their ability to mine was nerfed until they could progress up to the level they had originally been used to mining at from the very beginning for free. It is just the nature of development. Old timers feel it keenly while new players have no prior experience to compare.

It is understandable that old timers are going to look at LOTL 3 in A20 and feel underwhelmed after playing LOTL 0 for A19. It can be tough to do but it is always advisable to play each alpha with a fresh outlook and "forget" about what the game used to be like. The internal testers have to do that on a daily to weekly basis when testing internal builds because so much can change suddenly.

 

[theFlu]

You are really late to the party, we already discussed the effects of those items.

I know I'm late, I've read most of it, it just got funny enough to respond as you're not getting anywhere ...

And you are also partly wrong (if I understand your statement correctly), since all those items are available to everyone they tend to diminish the relative effect BB has.

Umm.. relative effect of BB increases the further down towards zero you get your "base price". If you could get your price reduction to -75% percent without BB, the effect of BB would be ... 100% of the rest, or infinite. A/B != B/A. For buying alone, the 25 isn't the "whole" effect; I think you actually missed that in your talk about the buffs, but I may have skipped something.

 

[meganoth]

I know I'm late, I've read most of it, it just got funny enough to respond as you're not getting anywhere ...

Umm.. relative effect of BB increases the further down towards zero you get your "base price". If you could get your price reduction to -75% percent without BB, the effect of BB would be ... 100% of the rest, or infinite. A/B != B/A. For buying alone, the 25 isn't the "whole" effect; I think you actually missed that in your talk about the buffs, but I may have skipped something.

Ah, you could be right. We have something similar with armor values approaching 100%.

A reduction of buy prices by 25% is equivalent to an increase in sell prices by 33%

A reduction of buy prices by 50% is equivalent to an increase in sell prices by 100%

And 75% is equivalent to 200% and so on.

 

[theFlu]

Ah, you could be right.

Yup, it's a curse. I also could not.. The armor value is pretty similar indeed.

But, before Niil gets upset about my claims, it's all about perspective. If your BB is worth 25 dukes on a given purchase, it will always be worth exactly 25 dukes on that purchase regardless of the other stuff buffing your barter. Both things are true at once and math is silly..

 

[Niil945]

If you got the seeds for free then any level of planting and harvesting is profitable without any points spent. Simply planting seeds and harvesting them for fruit that you then place in a container and save for future recipes is better than nothing at all. 

It's not free. It's time, farming effort that I'll agree is minimal to make the plots. And it takes an inventory slot that is precious early game. For ~3 corn or potatoes or whatever, which the combined yield is worth less than most single cans that can be utilized immediately. To make it into something more requires either finding a recipe or perking into cooking and the other combined ingredients. It only becomes profitable when you can get more out of it than the base value which doesn't happen at 0 LotL.

It is understandable that old timers are going to look at LOTL 3 in A20 and feel underwhelmed after playing LOTL 0 for A19.

Definitely true. Though I try to look at it through the lense of "is this as effective as 0 salvaging, miner 69'er, engineering, etc". I don't think it is, though it's not like everything has to be symmetrical in function.

 

[Roland]

It's not free. It's time

Meh...maybe if you are playing on 10 minute days but given that quite a few like to play 120 minute days I would say that if it isn't free then it's a couple of

pennies at most.

And it takes an inventory slot that is precious early game.

Really not an issue as there are so many ways to mitigate storage. Most people have no problem managing their inventory slots. Those who hate losing anything will make multiple trips anyway or fill up multiple stash crates in order to get it all and seeds won't crimp that strategy. Those who toss stuff aside will decide for themselves if seeds are worth keeping over other stuff. At any rate regardless of what you choose to toss or keep over seeds-- all of it was free stuff you found so the cost is still close to zero.

If someone stood over you and forced you into a Sophie's Choice between a large beef ration vs a pile of 2-3 corn seeds then you might need to do some comparative value and opportunity cost analysis but nobody will do that. In every conceivable case I can think of you could always take both.

To make it into something more requires either finding a recipe or perking into cooking and the other combined ingredients. It only becomes profitable when you can get more out of it than the base value which doesn't happen at 0 LotL.

I don't agree with that. That invalidates all "saving for a future rainy day" just because you want to turn a blind eye to potential value in favor of current value. It is true that if after weeks of playing  you had a crate full of fruit you couldn't craft into meals then all that saving and all those seeds amounted to zero value. But if you find a recipe that utilizes them (again a free find) then all of a sudden the potential value of all that fruit converts into actual value and you have quite a bit of real ingredients that can be converted into real meals that you wouldn't have if you hadn't invested those seeds into harvests and kept and saved the fruit.

It's a gamble but recipes are pretty common and so it is a pretty safe gamble and with nothing investing in LOTL you can potentially come into quite a bit of benefit in the game. Nobody must do it but it is an option to ignore LOTL and just plant and harvest whatever comes your way and see if it ends up being a waste of time or a nice little benefit when the time comes. With a crate full of different crops it may mean that you decide it is worth investing some points into Master Chef of your own choice in order to use all the potential value sitting in your crate.

Now realistically, I would probably put one point into LOTL minimum every single time I play solo just to have the extra harvest and the ability to get an actual farm going.

 

[Niil945]

Yup, it's a curse. I also could not.. The armor value is pretty similar indeed.

But, before Niil gets upset about my claims, it's all about perspective. If your BB is worth 25 dukes on a given purchase, it will always be worth exactly 25 dukes on that purchase regardless of the other stuff buffing your barter. Both things are true at once and math is silly..

There's nothing wrong with talking about effective values. One can't simply use the largest possible number one could get under limited circumstances to describe the general effectiveness of the perk though which is what I took issue with. And the way we were speaking about it was the relative impact of the trader as a whole which matters too because dukes aren't always getting both ends of the spectrum.

 

[Niil945]

Meh...maybe if you are playing on 10 minute days but given that quite a few like to play 120 minute days I would say that if it isn't free then it's a couple of

pennies at most.

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. It's 2 game days or 3 for shrooms. Granted I don't do a lot of farming so that's what I thought the values were. That's what I was referring to. Disregard any changed settings as that's optional alterations people make akin to using various mods that change things. Base balance shouldn't factor those things in.

Really not an issue as there are so many ways to mitigate storage.

Don't handwave away the point. If you play where you drop storage and keep everything then the inventory value of anything isn't relevant. If you nomad or play light it's going to matter.

In every conceivable case I can think of you could always take both.

I've made that choice many times, and it's not a choice between 1 can of beef and 3 seeds, it's between 1 can of beef and 1 seed. 2-3 seeds is where I think it starts becoming an interesting choice for someone with 0 LotL and if that actually happened I'd be fine with the state of farming (at least the return side of the discussion). Most of the raw crops are like 2 food value. So 2-3 seeds equals an minimum of 8 food with an average of 12. 15 food now versus 12 food average and the potential to make it into something more is a meaningful choice if you don't need the food now.

But if you find a recipe that utilizes them (again a free find) then all of a sudden the potential value of all that fruit converts into actual value and you have quite a bit of real ingredients that can be converted into real meals that you wouldn't have if you hadn't invested those seeds into harvests and kept and saved the fruit.

First nothing is 'free'. It all takes time to acquire, farm, and utilize. And at weeks into the game a handful of 35-50 point meals that also require other stuff isn't a benefit with the amount of food we need and the rate at which food kits appear, let alone all the other sources of food it competes against as a source. There's a finite amount of food one needs and holding onto the yield of a couple seeds in the hope that it can amount to a days worth of food later is a tad silly. If we had a way to try to get specific recipes that would be different, but we don't. There's no way to 'work' towards any specific recipe aside from perking into the chef line. Though that's similar to most other skills unperked so I don't have an issue with that angle of it at all. But don't hyperbolize it to be more than what it is.

 

[BFT2020]

I don't understand the point you're trying to make here. It's 2 game days or 3 for shrooms. Granted I don't do a lot of farming so that's what I thought the values were. That's what I was referring to. Disregard any changed settings as that's optional alterations people make akin to using various mods that change things. Base balance shouldn't factor those things in.

Roland's point was that it didn't take much time to plant a crop.  What you are talking about is the time for the plant to grow which you didn't define in your response that it cost time and was not free.

Time to plant is cost.  Time to harvest is cost.  Time waiting for the plant to grow is not a cost to the player as you don't have to do anything (unless you just sit down next to the plant and wait until it can be harvest - then it is a cost, but a silly one at that).  So the cost of planting a seed is not 2 game days, it is the time to plant and the time to harvest as those are the only two activities that requires action by the survivor.

You do have an upfront cost of crafting the farm plot, but no upkeep costs after that.

Don't handwave away the point. If you play where you drop storage and keep everything then the inventory value of anything isn't relevant. If you nomad or play light it's going to matter.

If you are playing nomad, then you wouldn't be planting crops because you are not staying around long enough to benefit from them, no matter how many you find.  If you are playing light, then seeds are still important if you want to create a farm to harvest food.  If you are playing light, you only grab what you need, leaving everything else behind.  You don't walk around with a bunch of old weapons to sell to the trader, you keep replacing your gear when you come across better gear or keep that mod you been looking for.  But at the same time, you need to start gathering items (like seeds for example) to improve your survivability.  You can choose to ignore the seeds as you loot to carry other stuff, but that is a choice you made.

That doesn't make what Roland say as handwaving away the point.  He simply pointed out that there were several ways to avoid that issue of inventory management.  However if you are dead set on playing a specific playstyle (like nomad or light) then that is the choice you made and now your inventory slot is worth more so you have to decide whether to use that spot for instant gratification or save it for longer term returns.

Even if you are concern about the early inventory spot, there are simple ways you can still save that seed for later.  Put it in a mailbox outside the location and when you have space the next time you travel past that location, you can grab that seed.  If I was in this situation (looting a location and finding more items than I could bring back), I would simply make two or more trips.

 

[Niil945]

Roland's point was that it didn't take much time to plant a crop.  What you are talking about is the time for the plant to grow which you didn't define in your response that it cost time and was not free.

I mean, I get that the time to plant isn't significant, which is why it was explicitly spelled out. But when looking at the statements I made and my comment about it taking time, are you going to look at the two values of time I could have been talking about, the mere seconds to plant, or the 2 game days that you wait for the return, when we're talking about the return on the crop, and go with the one that's completely inconsequential and then not talk about the vastly larger value? Seems pretty straitforward what I was talking about particularly in light of the context of the discussion, but if clarification is necessary there you have it.

And I don't really have any desire to engage in a debate where you tell me what can and can't be factored into the value of a seed. If I have to wait to get a return on something, how long that return takes to yield something matters to me. If it doesn't matter to you I simply don't care. I'm not speaking about your opinions, I'm speaking about mine.

If you are playing light, then seeds are still important if you want to create a farm to harvest food.

My last playthrough I did nomad til I found a trader in close proximity to where I wanted to setup in the wastelends. Then I played light and focused quests. Once I got the T5 completion reward I relocated to the wasteland near the trader there. This statement is simply not true. I didn't cook anything aside from a handful of bacon and eggs that wasn't necessary and only because I found the recipe in my latest playthrough, it was just a nighttime activity. There are so many other methods of getting food and the payoff for planting a seed or two doesn't even come close to comparing. 

If one is intending to go into LotL holding onto seeds has value. Even if going into LotL is just 1 point. If not intending to go into LotL, then I don't see it as valuable. And there's no hypothetical upon which you can convince me it is. Almost anything else in that spot is going to be more valuable in my view. My problem is never having extra slots when I finish running POI's, it's having to decide what I really need at a given moment to bring back because I don't have the slots to physically carry everything. A seed sits on the very bottom of the list for me. If it was more than one seed of the same type that would be different, but that's not the case. And I don't even see the return worth even taking the time to move a seed to an adjacent POI that I'm not doing quests for for a later pickup. They're simply worth that little to me in this system when looting one seed.