HELP! Give us your feelings for crop growing duration?

If it is between 1 hour and 20 hours, is there really a difference for most players? Sure it will be useful for people that can play all day, but I don’t know if most of us can. The rest of us will do what it needs to grow, then get it tomorrow, so unless there are considerably longer growing times, it doesn’t really matter for anyone but our power gamers.

Edit: If it requires care during multiple time frames, then even short timers are going to crush normal gamers.

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Really, anything more than than a day is insanity, IMO.

Maybe two days, but that should be one or two uber uber special things that you have to get from a currently unreleased T9.

We need gameplay loop, not gameplay wait.

I know this board is full of the hardcore, but it needs to appeal to casuals and low attention span kids…and adults with lives.

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Set up 4 farms, each 12 hours apart.

Suddenly, you’re harvesting every 12 hours despite using crops that take 2 days to grow.

Set up 8 farms, each 6 hours apart. Now you harvest every 6 hours despite using crops that take 2 days to grow.

You’re missing the big picture here. There’s going to be a limit to how fast you can harvest. Longer times for higher tier plants ensures those who build massive farms are rewarded.

The gameplay loop frequency is going to depend on how many farms you have. Even if every plant took 2 days to grow, you could build a farm that kept you constantly busy.

The last thing they should do is make harvesting for MOST plants short, we’ll end up with small farms, and no longer a dedicated farming build.

@james Start grow times high, that way you can reduce grow times and it’ll be seen as a “buff”. You don’t want to be seen as nerfing. Yes, there should be a few 30-60 minute crops for new players, but the end-game should be massive farms with longer grow times in order to further your MMO Sandbox vision.

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While I get what you are saying, and I’m okay with a few long term crops, I disagree. We are not lacking in endgame content. What we lack is early game loop to get people hooked. We need something to hook casuals and what you just described is far from casual.

People need to start thinking in terms of the player who puts in 2-3 hours, one or two times a week. THOSE are the people we need to hook. The minute they see it takes 12-24 hours for something to grow, we lose them again. 12-24 hour, for most people, is an overnight task. Those should be at the very top of the growth scale. Most crops should be able to grow in a single sitting…which IS’T 12 hours.

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I disagree. This is an mmo. If you only put 6 hours a week into this game then you probably aren’t going to stick with it. Players like this would rather have a single player game or moba they can play whenever.

I’m one of those players. I decided to stop giving them advice on how to make the game more casual or solo friendly since they don’t seem to want to make the game that way.

Of course there should be a set of 1 hour or less crops.

24 minutes is because 1 game-day (day/night cycle) is 24 “real-life” minutes.

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Nevermind I just understood it. My mind 100% misunderstood the statement on the 1st read.

crops tick once per-game day, and this poll is about how many ticks the crop should have in its life-cycle (but asked in the language of real life hours since easier to grasp)

Fascinating.

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I figured there was a logical reason for it. Thanks for that bit of info.

With that info I most definitely feel 2 ‘weeks’ is just fine for higher tier items then. That definitely solidified it for me.

1 real world day (24 hours) = 60 ticks then right?

Also, @lucadeltodecso thanks for taking the time to explain that.

I would say keep the time short on already existing foods (yams, starberries etc), but try to match the yield closely to what one would achieve digging dirt / chopping foliage etc.

I’m fine with long timers (2 days to 2 weeks) on new farming exclusive items. Perhaps introduce a new skill that levels up as you farm more of each item to improve yield, quality of item or time to maturity.

You really shouldn’t tease us with questions like this without further context, it’s very cruel!

Let us assume for a moment that the amount of clicking and preparations to get Y amount of yield is the same between both ways, There is still the added bonus of everything you want to grow in terms of old items being in your very own back yard, no travel time to get to the farms, No Navigation between different farms, and in the case of public farms, No risk of running into someone else who is currently using the public farm, And no risk of your favorite public farm shutting down, That I feel is worth something.

However I strongly believe that farming will take less effort then going out and breaking blocks, It is of course conjecture, as we simply do not have enough Information about the situation to make factual conclusions

…Bombs are already overused and overloaded as is… I hope they can make something more creative.

Apart from the „low attention span kids“ which I will refrain from making statements about, I do not understand how longer wait times would be a problem to casual players and busy players, when I am pretty sure Farming should be quite a passive aspect of the game.

For an example. Let us assume a crop takes 2 weeks to grow and in that two weeks, it just needs to be watered 7 times, That means one would only need to log in once every 2 days and spend a few minutes watering the crops for them to be successful, If anything I feel this is in support of people having busy lives, Assuming what I assume is at least some what correct, but we just do not know enough facts at this time

If farming is indeed a fairly passive thing and the two Non-prestige crops can not die, Then I feel the main reason to have short wait times below 24 hours is mostly for instant gratification, as I see nothing wrong with farming going something along the lines of, You till the soil, Plant seed, water seed, and then the next day you have something to collect if all the other lighting and static water/lava requirements are met in the farm building’s design.

1440 mins in one day,
1440 / 24 = 60
That should be the case.

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After knowing what i know then i stand by having the fastest crops done after 24 minutes and the long crops taking 4 days-
people should plant large scale farms if they’re trying to harvest frequently, several other players have already described how to do so.

i think the game is lacking in more things to do for casual players and planting a farm to where i harvest every day sounds good to me! i can most certainly accommodate that and it would make the rewards worth it.

150+ votes on each so far.

I need to know the results but I’m also a little afraid.

Looking over all these comments, I think there’s more than a little confusion and fear of wilted crops that might be influencing decisions.

Someone said it already, go high and cut back as needed. Add even a minute to a released time and there will be backlash.

Also, maybe this is a ballpark estimation for planning purposes and once more information is given there can be another similar or even identical poll to see if ppl change their minds?

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I am also slightly afraid, I have a feeling that the ones who want things fast and now, are in greater numbers then the people who want a slightly more realistic feel to farming, I would be a little disappointed if most crops took less then 12 hours to grow, I would rather have something to wake up to collecting and do the next day,doing it all in one sitting just doesn’t feel quite like farming in an online environment , But that is just my personal view on how farming should be.

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We are a niche game…and we neèd numbers.

The MMO crowd ain’t coming here. Going after hardcore gamers is a work of futility.

We need to steal the Minecraft and Stardew Valley crowd. And to do that, we need short term, repeatable, casual rewards. We need a sustainable gaming loop.

It’s all about optics and getting people to stay past the ten hour mark. Half the game is already endgame. Mid game and noob game is anemic. If you want casuals to become regulars, you have to hook them. And, right now, there is very little early game that does that unless you are already one of the converted.

That should be farming.

But if a Minecraft or Stardew player, who never has an crop take longer than an hour, sees that half or more of the crops take 12 hours+ to grow, they will quit before they start.

That helps no one.

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Don’t forget to water it.

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Why cant we have both?

Bunch of crops take 24 minutes, bunch that take a day, and a few extra special ones that take 4+ days?

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I think the key to getting people to stay past the ten hour mark, is mostly due to the lack of a good NPE, For a player who can not self learn or is not willing to, or doesn’t have the time to do so, The NPE will still leave the player with many questions, Then there are other basic problems such as the creatures being a bit overpowering to the new player who doesn’t understand how to combat them correctly.

I don’t think instant gratification farming is the solution to getting players to stay past the 10 hour mark, especially if they fail to even find out it exists due to the lack of a good NPE system.

NPE = New Player Experience, and any system designed to help the new player understand the game.

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Just putting this here in case anyone didn’t see it. This is why I’m not afraid of longer times.

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