Proposed Farming buff (up for discussion)

[shadowDigga]

Main idea:

Farm crops are worse than bush crops (the ones that come from their corresponding plant, such as berry and stone fruit bushes). The latter ones only have to be planted once to keep producing fruit and only require periodic refertilization. They only need to be dug with shovel to be moved somewhere else. Farm crops require farm plots to grow and have to be replanted after every harvest and additional structure to get seeds (birdcage), making them absolutely inferior to bush crops in every way despite being harder to get. I hereby propose a buff to make farm plots actually worth making.

Primary goals:

1. Farms don’t have to be replanted after every harvest.
2. Birdcage is not necessary to keep farms going (but is nice to have to quickly multiply amount of seeds).
3. Farms no longer lose crop seed because of withering.

Solution:
Once seed is planted, it stays in the farm plot after harvest. As soon as you harvest the crop, it begins growing again. If regular seed was planted, it instantly rolls the chance of being specific crop and produces same crop after every harvest. Planting regular seeds and digging them afterwards is the way of getting specific seeds without having to wait until it grows.

Withering:
Farm crops turn into withered state in 3 cases:
1. Summer heat.
2. Farm runs of uses (has to be fertilized)
3. Lack of natural light.

Withered plant can only be removed with the use of shovel. Doing that yields 1 grass and 1 crop seed.

Birdcage:
Birdcage can be used to multiply amount of seeds by 2. Giving a bird farm crop always yield 2 crop seeds (now is 1 + 50% for another one) to make sure crop seeds amount is predictable. Chance of additional regular seed remains the same.

Bonus tool (Hoe).
Hoe is a tool that can be used to plant specific crop seeds directly into the ground after using Hoe on the ground first. Those include: carrots, potatoes, garlics and onions. (Carrots can already be found growing in the wild, but can’t be planted by players, leaving to wonder what mysterious forces planted them in the first place). They take longer to grow compared to basic and improved farms, and once picked are gone forever. They, however, require smaller spacing compared to farm plots and can be used to turn excessive amount of crop seeds into crops for later use without permanently occupying farm plots. Wormwood plants those crops without the use of Hoe. Unlike the other crops that he plants, those don’t spoil until picked. Also, they don't wither once grown up.

What do you think?

[L. Ringmaster]

In my opinion farms are already an incredibly powerful tool and aren't really in need of a buff. 

Your changes wouldn't just make survival easy... it would make it absolutely trivial. 
Increasing seed return and making it so plants don't need to be replanted is absurd.

 

The only suggestion that I think may be warranted is a way of having a higher percent chance of seed drops. I think 2x return would likely be too high though.
I think there should be a new type of bird which is both difficult to find and catch which has an increased loot pool for seeds of the same type. Right now the loot pool has two options regarding how many seeds of the same type are returned:

{1 seed, 2 seeds} -> 150% average seed return 

I think having a rare bird with one of the following two same seed pools would be a great addition:

{1 seed, 2 seeds, 2 seeds} -> 166% average seed return
or
{1 seed, 2 seeds, 2 seeds, 2 seeds} -> 175% average seed return

[Owlrust]

I actually find farming very enjoyable personally, as it feels like I'm not cheesing for food. "Superior", and "Inferior" are things I've heard plenty times before, mainly in things that are considered "meta" for a game, unfortunately it is usually just opinion-based. One (by that logic) could argue that berry farms are worthless in general when compared to Bunnyman farms that are much more superior in making meatballs, the most useful recipe in the game, especially when you consider that disease is too annoying of a mechanic to be worthwhile. The problem with "balance" suggestions is that it will A) Never please everyone, B) Never stop at a few things, and C) Will constantly fluctuate to the point you can't rely on anything. This isn't a competitive game tbh, "good" or "bad" is a very subjective matter depending on whom you ask (see above ^) when you consider you cannot win this game. As much as I wish it weren't true, no one cares how long you survived, how big your base is, your achievements, or how big your inventory is except for yourself. All that matters is that you enjoy playing the game, either by yourself or with the ones you care about, as those kinds of memories can be worth diamonds. I digress however, I would love to see more added onto the game instead. As for the farms, I'd like to see an item you add to farms to double the crops you harvest (2 instead of 1) permanently.  

[Pop Guy]

the crops are too productive, I often play without building them because otherwise they satisfy my every need for food and health without really any effort.

[Ezaroth]

Not needing to replant is nice but it'd be too broken since you can just throw poops at it for instant growth.

[Electroely]

I think the main issue with farm plots is the cost. I personally think rather than making it worth the cost, the cost should be decreased to make them more reasonable to build in larger numbers.

But also, the introduction of Wurt alongside Warly brings a whole new issue...

How can farms be balanced to be not too good for Wurt while still reasonable for Warly?

Warly relies on several different kinds of (rare) crops for some of his dishes, Onions, for example, let him make Moqueca, Bone Bouillon, Grim Gallete and Salsa Fresca. Peppers let him make Pepper Poppers, Hot Dragon Chili Salad and Chili Flakes. Dragonfruit is also needed for Hot Dragon Chili Salad and it's also useful for Dragonpie. You need Garlic for his Garlic Powder, potatoes for some extra variety, you get the point. Warly needs different crops for different purposes, which is especially problematic for him when he needs more than 1 of those crops (see: seasoning, Hot Dragon Chili Salad). Some of the common crops can be quite useless for him. Carrots, for example, are only useful as filler. There's lots of other sources of filler in the game (especially stone fruit: you can stockpile it over time and mine some whenever needed). Pomegranates and Durians are barely useful for anything. I do enjoy stockpiling them in bundles alongside Watermelons for future Glow Berry Mousse, but they don't really help much when it comes to actual food. Most characters won't really need touch farms as there are much better food sources of food, but Warly is required to use them to make use of some of his perks, which is an issue when they can be so difficult or inconvenient to use.

Wurt, on the other hand, makes great use of farms, even in their current state. Partly due to her extra hunger perk, and partly due to the King of the Merms. The King of the Merms gives her a ton of seeds (I often find myself with too many of them to plant). With just 6 improved farms, I found myself doing pretty well in terms of food. The extra hunger perk gives some of the good crops lots of extra value, mainly Pumpkins and Durians. She can make use of every single crop though, and that's part of what makes them so good for her. You need to hunt spiders for silk, and you're bound to get monster meat in the process. Why not use that monster meat for eggs, and then use those eggs for filler? You can make a Fistful of Jam out of a pomegranate, or ratatouille out of a carrot. It's a pleasant experience being able to rely solely on farms for food.

Personally, I don't think the actual productivity of a single farm should be affected. Instead, other factors should be changed:
- Decrease the (grass) cost of farms. It's ridiculous that even a basic farm needs 8 grass to be built. For a whole stack of cut grass, you can make 5 basic farms or 4 improved farms. You would need 3-4 stacks of cut grass for a reasonable amount of farms for Warly.
- Increase the chance of a 2nd seed of a specific crop from a birdcage. It's practically wasteful to use the bird cage for crops as Wurt, since you'll end up with lots of seeds and nothing to use them on. Warly, however, could really use a better work to profit ratio when trying to get specific crops. Whether be it from a new, harder to obtain and higher maintenance bird or just for all birds in general, I think such a change would be very helpful.

this last one's more of just a really cool idea, but I think it'd be really helpful even if it's the only one implemented:
- Implement the dig up crops mechanic. I think it would be great if you could sacrifice tool durability to harvest crops with a different animation and get seeds back in the process. That way, as long as you can afford the gold & twigs cost of shovels (or maybe pitchforks?), you can keep farming the specific crops you want. Wurt, again, might not find much use in this because of how much she already gets from all crops, and how many seeds she gets from the King of the Merms. It'd also make withered crops not as much of a pain, since those usually mean permanent loss of your crops. It's really annoying, especially when you consider that other types of plants don't suffer nearly as much from withering.

[Theukon-dos]

I don't think that a total overhaul of the farming system is nessesary. As it stands, I think there are only 3 big issues with farming.

1. Farms are overly-tedius to craft. As has been said, they take way to much grass. reducing the cost down to 4-5 per farm would make them much more practical to craft.

2. Inconsistant yeilds. Due to the nature of collecting seeds, Your crop yeild could be anywhere from 50% to as low as 0%. This also makes seeds annoying to get, as you have to give the bird half your crops, collect the seeds, see how many more you need, feed the bird more, collect the seeds again, see if you finally have enough, and if not, feed the bird more. just making the bird give a garenteed 2 seeds per fruit would make farms 2-3x as viable IMO, just due to that consistancy.

3. Farm-spesific crops are pretty bad. Most of them only have 1-2 recipes that call for them spesifically, but those end up being pretty generic and inefficent. Stuffed eggplant gives only 50% more food than a cooked eggplant and looses 17 healing, pumpkin cookies are only as effective as eating 1 taffy and 1 honey, and fish tacos are, quite litterally, a straight downgrade from fish sticks. (when not playing as Warly) The only two crops that could be seen as worth it are Dragonfruit, because dragonpie, and Toma root/asparagus, due to vegetable stinger actually being a good sanity food.

 

personally, I think this is the biggest issue with crop plots, because not only are there exclusive foods bad, but much, much better foods can be made easier and without them. Meatballs, and most meat dishes for that matter, are much easier to farm, and Pierogi only requires a generic vegetable, which can be gotten from bunnymen or stonefruit. Even if farming itself was viable, there are just plenty of better options that don't need it.

[Jessie_]

farmplots are a pain in the ass

how would you even enjoy using them at their current state

i'm glad wurt and warly made them more worthwhile, but they're still an asspain to set up and maintain

[maradyne]

At the very least, they could lower the cost of the lower-tier farm plot to make it into something that people actually want to use early game.

Like...the only time I recall them being used was occasionally in DST's early life before rocks were renewable (before caves and meteor fields).
Since then, I've only seen them rarely as a mistake, a first-time player experimenting, or a sanity prototype, all of those usually followed by an immediate hammering for the resources.

With some adjustment, it could be a decent early game alternative to the higher tier farm plot.

[Scrimbles]

I dont really get all the farm hate, but that might be because ive played the game so much that ive got all the base essentials sub 10 days, and I just spend the rest of my time before winter just making farms.

I don't think they should be a good early game source of food, they seem like more of a flexible option for getting specific crock pot foods.

I'm just so used to my gameplay cycle that I dont even consider alternatives.

I don't like the idea of farming being automatic, but if you could influence what crop you get based on fertalizer for example, I think that would be pretty cool.

The bucket o poop is honestly such a joke item for me, making it so that guano increases low tier yields, poop increases mid tier yields, and bucket or compost wrap increases high tier yields would be a pretty great change.

[Yuuko]

idk if I would say bushes are strictly better than farms.  With farms you can target much more powerful crops and you don't have to worry about disease.

I wouldn't mind some of these though.  It can take a while to build up a full crop of a specific plant because you may only get 1 seed for each crop grown.  Even after you get all of your farms growing you need about 2x your actually demand of a crop since you may not get many additional seeds, and really its your crop * chance of additional seeds that becomes your net crop.

Maybe it could be an even higher level of farming.  As it sits right now I never live with just a science machine, or just a basic farm.  I always go straight to alchemy and advanced farm.  Perhaps if there was a level above this for horticulture which was more late game, but self-sustained that could be cool.

[Theukon-dos]

4 hours ago, Ogrecakes said:

I dont really get all the farm hate, but that might be because ive played the game so much that ive got all the base essentials sub 10 days, and I just spend the rest of my time before winter just making farms.

I don't think they should be a good early game source of food, they seem like more of a flexible option for getting specific crock pot foods.

I'm just so used to my gameplay cycle that I dont even consider alternatives.

I don't like the idea of farming being automatic, but if you could influence what crop you get based on fertalizer for example, I think that would be pretty cool.

The bucket o poop is honestly such a joke item for me, making it so that guano increases low tier yields, poop increases mid tier yields, and bucket or compost wrap increases high tier yields would be a pretty great change.

farm hate mostly comes from a combonation of farms being really inefficent and hard to set up in the first place. You really have no reason to set up farms when Berry farms, spider farms, bunny farms, and stonefruit farms are so much easier and much more efficent.