My opinion on crop balancing

[Electroely]

I was really happy to hear there was an overhaul to farming. I've always had the opinion that the old farm plots were really bad, both in usefulness and in game mechanics. This new update solves all the issues I had with the old farms - such as the reliance on the birdcage to get seeds (which forced you to sacrifice on average 2/3 of your harvest if you wanted to refill all your plots) and the ludicrous cost of the farm plots themselves. One issue I still have with crops, however, is with the crops themselves rather than the farming.

To start off, carrots. I think carrots are pretty much the worst crop. Their stats are terrible, best case scenario being 12.5 hunger and 3 health for each one. They have no special crockpot recipes either. 
Since carrots are also a central early-game food source, though, I don't think their stats need changing. I think that would mess with the balance of a lot of other things in the game. I dunno about crockpot recipes, either. But my idea to make carrots more on-par with crops like Potatoes (which give double the hunger and way more health, as well as have several crock pot recipes) is to make carrot plants give more produce than other types of crops. For example, harvesting a well-grown carrot plant would give 2 carrots instead of 1. And smashing a giant carrot would give at least one or two extra carrots. That way, farming carrots could be a good way of farming cooking ingredients for dishes like Beefy Greens, especially with their long spoilage time.

Next crop I have an issue with is Pomegranates. Their stats aren't that good - with 12.5 hunger and 20 health, they don't seem like a particularly bad crop. But those are the same stats that several other crops match or beat. Like tomatoes, for example. They also spoil quickly, have no special crockpot recipes and since they're considered fruits their use in the crockpot is a lot more niche. I think they would be better if they gave more health than other crops, like 30 or 40.

There's a couple of crops I think are actually crippled by their crockpot recipes. I don't know if that's intentional or not. Stuffed Eggplant, for example, has 37.5 hunger, 3 health and 5 sanity. Cooked Eggplants give 25 hunger and 20 health when eaten. Since the crockpot requires 4 items to make a dish, you're very likely to waste hunger making stuffed eggplants, since just a carrot, for example, is worth 12.5 hunger (25+12.5  = 37.5, which is already equal to a stuffed eggplant). Asparagus soup has really low stats, too. 18.7 hunger implies some of the of the asparagus was THROWN AWAY, since it's literally less hunger than the asparagus itself. 20 health isn't great, either, since a lot of crops give 20 health without a crockpot.

I also want to mention crops that are really situational. Peppers, for example, are only particularly useful to Warly. Their stats clearly show that they aren't supposed to be eaten without a crockpot. But their only crockpot recipe, Stuffed Pepper Poppers, isn't really any good. Pierogies give more health, spoil slower, don't reduce sanity, and are practically just as easy to cook, if not easier. I think Pepper Poppers could have a niche as a heat-providing food if didn't suffer from the same chilling mechanics other warming foods suffer from. Chilling immunity is already a feature - Hot Dragon Chili Salad and foods seasoned with Chili Flakes have it. I think it would be good if this immunity was granted to Pepper Poppers as well, so they could be used as warming foods without requiring a chef pouch or insulated pack.

[Choosechee]

Definitely agree with all of these. Maybe peppers could also have a slight heat gain on their own, like ice has a slight cold gain.

[cybers2001]

I'm okay with an inequality of crop value. In the early game, getting all the desired crops is an element of RNG, and carrots are the "common trash" tier you have to wade through. Carrots do have value, though, perhaps moreso now than before, as a component for crafting Bunny Hutches. Additionally, all crops have value now for nutrient-balancing. Carrots can grow in 3 different seasons, and require minimal water, so if you have a primary crop that has excess growth formula and needs compost and manure, carrots might be the choice to balance it out.  

For example, say you want watermelon. Watermelon's nutrient flow is 2, -1, -1. Both pumpkins and carrots can counteract this with their -2, 1, 1, however pumpkins and watermelons have no overlap in desired seasons, while carrots and watermelons overlap during the spring. Therefore, the optimal way to farm watermelons is during the spring while paired with carrots.

[Zeklo]

Yeah I've never really understood why crop crockpot recipes seem to have 'recipe blockers'.
Makes sense for something like Monster Meat, but not veggies imo.

[Bird Up]

Crockpot recipes need help, I agree.

I hope people are drawing their conclusions from actually playing normally, not using the console to make every variable perfect.

Having said that, I don't agree old farms were less useful. New farms are better in a couple ways. I would say after the first in-game year, new farm harvests are better proportionate to the work involved than old farms because you'd actually have the right seed combinations to work with at that point. And it's great that crops can grow in winter. But that's probably all the big positives mechanically of new farming.

I'll give you the scenario that plays out in normal games for every seed that is a 2% find, like garlic/onion/pepper/pomegranate/durian/dragonfruit with new farms.

Old farms worked way better early on. If you found 1 pepper from random seed, you could multiply that pepper right then provided you had fertilizer, a bird, and a farm. If you get 1 pepper from random seed in new farm... It means very little. Pepper is a ~2% chance of appearing, meaning you would need to till 100 times and plant 100 seeds to even likely get 2 peppers from random seeds - so it's not terribly likely to happen in normal games early on. So let's say you only get 1 pepper. Even if you perfectly tended the 1 pepper - which we can't assume everyone is going to do - it will give 1 pepper + 2 seed, feed the pepper to a bird and you still only have 3 seeds which isn't enough to make any Giant peppers next time around. You'd have to then grow those 3 pepper to fruition to finally have enough seeds to meet Giant conditions. It would take 3 entire cycles starting with 1 pepper to get 4+ pepper seeds, assuming you tend the farm professionally every day, which again we can't assume everyone will do. Even by the time you do have enough peppers for Giant, it will be winter and they won't become giant if you planted them. It'll be a very long, grindy process to even begin to have a decent farm going.

[Electroely]

1 hour ago, Bird Up said:

I hope people are drawing their conclusions from actually playing normally, not using the console to make every variable perfect.

I waited until I got a chance to play the update before I started participating in this sub-forum, since I really don't like it when people just test stuff from console and give feedback based off of that.

1 hour ago, Bird Up said:

I'll give you the scenario that plays out in normal games for every seed that is a 2% find, like garlic/onion/pepper/pomegranate/durian/dragonfruit with new farms.

Old farms worked way better early on. If you found 1 pepper from random seed, you could multiply that pepper right then provided you had fertilizer, a bird, and a farm. If you get 1 pepper from random seed in new farm... It means very little. Pepper is a ~2% chance of appearing, meaning you would need to till 100 times and plant 100 seeds to even likely get 2 peppers from random seeds - so it's not terribly likely to happen in normal games early on. So let's say you only get 1 pepper. Even if you perfectly tended the 1 pepper - which we can't assume everyone is going to do - it will give 1 pepper + 2 seed, feed the pepper to a bird and you still only have 3 seeds which isn't enough to make any Giant peppers next time around. You'd have to then grow those 3 pepper to fruition to finally have enough seeds to meet Giant conditions. It would take 3 entire cycles starting with 1 pepper to get 4+ pepper seeds, assuming you tend the farm professionally every day, which again we can't assume everyone will do. Even by the time you do have enough peppers for Giant, it will be winter and they won't become giant if you planted them. It'll be a very long, grindy process to even begin to have a decent farm going.

I think this kind of shows how the new system works better. Rare crops like that are better suited as late-game items since they usually have pretty good potential.

Also, the chance isn't as low as you think. During their preferred seasons, crops get a substantial bonus to their chance to spawn from regular seeds. I was just playing on a public server, and we got way more peppers than we wanted just planting the seeds we picked up and taking good care of them (to get 2 seeds per plant currently in-season). A Wendy on the server that joined us late (due to rushing the Ruins) managed to grow a giant pepper all by herself, in the first autumn!

With the old system, to get peppers we would've had to just keep planting, fertilizing (or waiting) and harvesting in hopes of rolling that low chance. And once we did get it, we would've had to keep feeding it to the bird (for only a 50% chance of getting an extra seed), planting it and harvesting it again. And let's say you did have enough seeds for the crop you wanted, to fill all your farm plots. Because the chance of getting an extra seed is only 50%, you would have to, on average, feed the bird TWO THIRDS of your harvest! I find that completely ridiculous, and it's the main reason I'm really, really glad this farming rework came. With farming entailing more than just "plant and wait", the crops can finally give their seeds back when harvested without it being a huge balance issue.

And again, I think these rare crops are more of a late-game item than something fit for the first autumn. Peppers are mainly good for chili flakes, which are a pretty strong. And with the new system, once you have a good amount of the seeds necessary, you can plant lots of crops for massive profits for the time invested, much MUCH better than the old system (even with Wormwood and Pre-nerf Wickerbottom working together). Similar things can be said for most other rare crops, like dragonfruit making an excellent dish when combined with practically any filler.

 

14 hours ago, cybers2001 said:

I'm okay with an inequality of crop value. In the early game, getting all the desired crops is an element of RNG, and carrots are the "common trash" tier you have to wade through. Carrots do have value, though, perhaps moreso now than before, as a component for crafting Bunny Hutches. Additionally, all crops have value now for nutrient-balancing. Carrots can grow in 3 different seasons, and require minimal water, so if you have a primary crop that has excess growth formula and needs compost and manure, carrots might be the choice to balance it out.  

For example, say you want watermelon. Watermelon's nutrient flow is 2, -1, -1. Both pumpkins and carrots can counteract this with their -2, 1, 1, however pumpkins and watermelons have no overlap in desired seasons, while carrots and watermelons overlap during the spring. Therefore, the optimal way to farm watermelons is during the spring while paired with carrots.

I wanted to emphasize that this post is just about my opinion on the matter (which is why I included that in the title), so I completely understand if others don't share my opinion. If crops are better not treated as equivalent, then that's fine by me.

I thought about growth requirements for these plants before posting, and I was about to not include the carrot part since it seemed really easy to grow until I noticed other crops are also easy to grow, if not easier (due to needing more easily obtainable fertilizer).

As for nutrient balancing, I think it's a cool mechanic but I find myself preferring to manually feed my plants if the crops I have to use to balance the nutrients aren't worthwhile. Eggplants, for example, can pair with corn and carrots for a self-sustaining system, but since Manure isn't hard to come by and eggplants don't need too much I just feed the eggplants myself. Same thing with your watermelon example - They need small amounts of manure and compost so I can just provide that manually whenever they're low and get full plots of giant watermelons (assuming I don't mess up) instead of half melons half carrots.

[cybers2001]

1 minute ago, Electroely said:

As for nutrient balancing, I think it's a cool mechanic but I find myself preferring to manually feed my plants if the crops I have to use to balance the nutrients aren't worthwhile. Eggplants, for example, can pair with corn and carrots for a self-sustaining system, but since Manure isn't hard to come by and eggplants don't need too much I just feed the eggplants myself. Same thing with your watermelon example - They need small amounts of manure and compost so I can just provide that manually whenever they're low and get full plots of giant watermelons (assuming I don't mess up) instead of half melons half carrots.

It's more about time allocation than resource allocation, imo. If you nutrient balance and have a friendly fruit fly, you can pretty much completely ignore your farm to do other things. Even watering can be avoided if it's spring.

[Electroely]

Just now, cybers2001 said:

It's more about time allocation than resource allocation, imo. If you nutrient balance and have a friendly fruit fly, you can pretty much completely ignore your farm to do other things. Even watering can be avoided if it's spring.

That's a good point. I haven't thought of that. I've been focusing almost entirely on taking care of these crops to get ludicrous amounts of profit, since I love seeing big numbers.

[HeatAndRun]

I just wanna stop eating meatballs and pierogies and try something different without the guilt that I'm acting inefficiently.