After reading through a lot of the testing posts and it does bring up some concerns.
First, I would like to set up that let’s keep the posts he positive. It’s ok to point out problems, but lets try to think of solutions too and also discuss the reasons things are problems. The goal is to make a helpful post to the devs and hopefully make this a better game for all players!
The concerns I have are as follows:
Removing the drops from blocks (like berries and yams) renders a lot of people’s in-game regen farms as inert.
Removing the drops from blocks forces people to use more plots to actually get plants they could previously get just by spending a few minutes elsewhere
Farming has a less then 1:1 ratio of return even on a min-maxed farm
What I suggest instead:
Keep the drops from blocks for regen farming which already has it’s own place and economy attached.
Instead, change farming to be a stable, passive way to get resources regularly. Allow people to be either/or/ or both.
Make a machine that can turn produce into seeds so you will always be able to keep farming.
Instead of lowering the amount of supply in the market, lets raise demand. Venerable gum was a good way to require more of the earthyams. Let’s do more of that.
Counterpoint before someone posts it:
Even if the Devs didn’t intend on regen farming being the way it is, there seems to be a place and a way for people to effectively run their shop in a much quicker format then having to wait 8 hours to get some plant to grow. Having both as options seems the best bet.
What are your thoughts? Let’s have a good discussion about this friends!
Well this is the first pass on the farming yields and ratios, so don’t think this will be the final version. I feel like they might bump up the farming yields after the last few days of feedback.
I have always have being against regenfarms.
Sure they are useful and all,but when i started playing we gathered everything… there was no regen bombs and it was fun also made more friends cause of that.
I do see its a bit like it was with bomb mining cause theres several people invested in this but
If you think about it if there would be no regen farms there would be more trading/ selling /buying.
The difference with this I would say is that there are entire farms set up specifically to successfully protect newer players so they can get the ingredients they need. I don’t think that ever occurred with bomb mining. You’re right they do seem kind of similar though.
I wonder how true this is. It seems like it’s going to require everyone to do farming just to keep their toons fed enough. The issue is that it might have a huge impact by massively reducing the supply of food that is out there. It would boost up trading, selling, and buying, perhaps, but at what cost could be the issue. Would the common person be able to go at their own pace and still buy enough for tools and to eat? (why does this sound like I’m writing an essay about the Great Depression lol).
If they boosted the yields or seed output, then that would help too.
I really really like that idea, because it’s an intersting choice to reduce your yield for seeds.
You can trade efficiency for sustainability so to say. It comes at a cost.
And it voids the problem that with a greater then 1:1 ratio seeds become abundant sooner or later.
I remember having a lava pit in minecraft just to burn excess seeds
Also totally agreed on this - and I know I’ve thrown it out in a few other threads, but I’m going to put it out there again because I think it would really get people invested in farming long-term, reward commitment, and help the economy. This wouldn’t be an easy implement, but in addition to having a machine to turn crops into seeds, make the seeds have a ranking like in Story of Seasons, that can gradually be improved over the generations. In this case, very slowly I’m thinking… long-term haul for dedicated farmers to max out, maybe even years.
So, for example, any seed you find in the wild is a base rank, say 1-Star. If you care for that crop well, good conditions, it has a chance that a seed made from it will rank up a bit. Maybe just a tiny bit. But with each level up over the generations, the seeds become far better - higher output yield, grow faster, and such. Maybe even can grow in more adverse conditions, less chance of withering (though then you wouldn’t rank up of course if you make seeds of them). Perhaps for prestige crops more prestige from higher ranking ones. In this case, lets say you’ve spent 50-100 generations, you’re getting 5-Star seeds now. Output potentially 5X as much, growth time reduced by half. That would be incentive to farm, and the seeds could sell for a fortune perhaps to those willing to put that time into it - and then the rich players could buy them and skip the grind.
I think regen farming is flooding the market with some items we’d like to say need to be within the reach of new players. What is actually happening is that experienced players (I’m guilty as well) are absolutely zooming through these farms to excess all the time for everything, for a ton of these items. We don’t all need this excess; I think it’s safe to taper back regen farming for derivative drops by substituting some actual diverse gameplay mechanics.
You might be right. I can honestly say I’ve never used any regen farming except for gleam at this point. That being said, I’m also worried just about not having enough food on ham if I don’t want to engage in farming too much. Right now, I’m able to get some food by getting the other materials I need (wood and foliage, etc).
I’m concerned that having reduced crop yields and not being able to get earthyams or starberries from the usual spots are going to make it that I have to add another thing on the to do list literally to live.
But… I haven’t played the new testing setup, only have seen what others have posted.
Also, it REALLY sucks for all those people that carved out their niche by making different farms.
I agree and feel for these guys, but I’m sure the enterprising individuals will find another thing in a similar vein. On the plus side, we still need farms for things like gleam, ash, clay, mud, dirt, sand and gravel for the actual blocks. I also think the game will aesthetically be better off with less large boxes of enclosed wilderness.
Personally, I have never used a regen farm for yams/berries. When I was an Oortling I didn’t have the faintest idea what a regen farm was. As long as the early game shows you how to grow simple life-sustaining crops in several minutes you will be fine.
If you own a regen farm for these basic materials are you doing it for the noobie or for the footfall? If you really are doing it for the new player, you will adapt to help them in other ways–keep up the good work. If you are doing it for the footfall or another reason, well you’re getting the short end of the progress stick. It’s a shot to the nuts a little bit but frankly if regen farms/block drops for food items are the casualty for the multiple pages of updates that just dropped, I’m on board.
I own one regen farm and I did it for myself. It doesn’t generate much footfall even though it’s well portaled it’s a <50k prestige build.
My major concern with farming is that a lot of people seem to want it to be completely self sustaining with no additional time or effort after some start up other than an endless sow/harvest cycle that allows them to produce an increasing supply of salable goods while also terminating any support for or inter-relation with other activities or professions.
There is no other activity or profession that functions this way and I’m surprised that so many people seem to have expected this from farming to the point that they are angry about it.
they are not nerfing XP but they are massively nerfing the speed in which we get resources my huge concern is the new timegateing on it will just turn people off to makeing food items…why spend the time plots and mats when you have to wait hours for the yams that you need to then wait to turn that into someting else to then wait even more to turn that into the food you wanted.
Take flour for example. You could go find a patch of grass and in an hour farm up enough to make what you want. Now, you have to do the same amount of gathering for seeds then wait for 11 hours to get your mats. That is a more than 11 fold increase in the time needed just to get flour. Each pie takes several of these kind of mats to make.
someting form another thread i just posted i also feel counts here in terms of testing to make sure that farming works
someting like this update is also just next to impossible to properly test with the tools we are given someting that is so heavly time gated i would say is better tested in a QA environment where time can be manipulated has it stands right now for us to say test to see if the optimization is there we got to setup the farms plant everything then wait a few hours come back tweak and redo while in a closed QA world 2 or 3 tests could be done in the time span of 20 or 30 min.
9 out of 10 we are going to miss someting that could be big ouch that will hit live cuz when it takes a min of 3 hours just to run a single test unless you devote a whole day to boundless you are not going to be able to get much done.
To give you a idea we probably get 800c a week on footfall on 90% of the farms we run “Bob’s Farms”. That doesn’t even pay for the oort to run the portals for people to come to the farms. I’d like to say we do this for the community. We give players a safe place to get what they need, when they need it. We give them a place to farm and if they want sell to make coin to buy what they need for something they want to make.
People like to talk about playing together and thats what the block farms are, players making places where others can farm safely. And yet they want what amounts to solo farms that can not be shared in the same way.
I don’t think it should ever be a 1:1 and agree with Ross on why. I do think the balance needs to be correct though. I could go for a more random situation where maybe even 1 time our of 3 or 5 it is 1:1. I don’t want it to be tons of work but want it to be work and sustainable in certain ways while not in others.
I think this is a key issue though in the relationship between the two. Plots are already a premium. By removing “nature” ways to get resources and requiring plot usage we are putting pressure in a new area beyond plots for FF and building.
I think this needs to be looked at in regards to the efficiency and yield you get based on the size of the farm you need especially if we have a radius of influence for catalyst to planted blocks. If I have to build a very big farm to ensure I isolate crops correctly so they don’t influence each other to get optimum yield I start eating up a lot more plots. This I feel is bad at some level on plots and on a larger level because people do like small plots for crops side by side.
Now if I had a block - like stone or copper or something that was an insulation between crops that would help cut down on plot sprawl needed to grow enough crops to match what you could get in natural generation areas.
I really feel @James and @rossstephens should look into crop plotting sprawl requirements versus yield to match natural resource drops that we have in production. We shouldn’t be nerfed in how we get resources and then penalized in plot usage because we need more space with no catalyst influence. It is fine to require work and change but where the risk/reward and benefit/loss happens is very key.
