Reworking Seed Pack-It

[Valak]

currently, the "Seed Pack-It" item is kind of useless in terms of gameplay - a sort-of expensive requirements, requiring the player to go into the caves to get a couple of broken shells for what seems to be just a backpack with seed-sorting capability.

I'm suggesting on making the item to go for the Gardeneer Hat route- the item will have two variants... as well as a unique third wormwood-craftable variant.

- The first variant will be the same "Seed Pack-It" backpack item, but with a cheaper crafting cost (4 Seeds, 6 Grass, 4 Twigs), and have 15 Backpack slots instead of 14 to accommodate for all the seed types + the normal seed (14 fruit seeds + 1 random seed).

- The second variant will be a premium version of the "Seed Pack-It", let's call it "Elysian Seed Pack-It". The "Elysian Seed Pack-It" can only be crafted at a Celestial Altar (and its variants sans the Orb), and have a steep crafting cost ( requiring 4 Moon Shards, 4 Twigs, 2 Seeds and a Sprouting Stone Fruit). This backpack functions identically to its normal counterpart but with two extra bonuses: Firstly, any seeds (including Birch-nuts) will never degrade and spoil inside the backpack. Secondly, this backpack is unable to be burned unlike the first variant.

- The third and final variant is a character-specific backpack item that can only be crafted on Wormwood's Green Thumb tab. dubbed "Brisky Pack-It" and it costs 3 Living Logs, 4 Seeds, and 4 Grass to craft. It functions similarly to its normal counterpart, but any seeds (including Birch-nuts) will spoil half as fast inside the backpack. In addition, if the backpack is exposed to rain or reach at least 20% wetness level, its spoilage-extending effects will be further boosted up to 1/3rd as fast. If Wormwood is wearing the "Brisky Pack-It" and is currently in Fully-Bloomed mode, the backpack will also receive similar effect of further enhancing its spoilage timer. If the backpack is being worn by a fully-bloomed Wormwood, as well as being in the rain or at least reaching 20% wetness level, any spoilable items inside the backpack will never spoil as long as both requirements are still in effect.

Finally, while any of these situations (Raining, 20% wetness, Blooming) are occurring, the "Brisky Pack-It" will start to growl and writhe around, getting more intense the more of these situations are stacked up. this is purely visual, however and does not affect gameplay.

If these were to be implemented, I'm sure that more people will start to use the Seed-Pack It and its counterparts more often and be more balanced, as well as still giving options for people who wished for something more out of this simple backpack item.

Any feedback from the community are greatly appreciated.

[Just-guy]

I like the idea, but the Elysian Seed Pack-It recipe could not use the stone fruit becasuse it seems unecessary.

Also I feel that the 3 Living Logs for the Brisky Pack-It are a bit expensive and 1 could be enough, and I think the Wetness level is too occasional (it needs to be raining, on Winter there is no wet rain and on Summer happens less, or dropped in the ocean) and the player gets sanity lost from wetness, so instead it could be that the more seeds it hold the spoilage drecreases as seeds are "wet" items.

[AileTheAlien]

So like...what's the deal with the wetness giving a bonus? Food spoilage and item rot is faster when something's wet, so I don't really see how this makes any sense. It also seems pretty gimmicky, since it's only useful when raining, and seems like it's just an overpowered backpack for Wormwood...but it's still only for seeds. The problem with the Seed Pack-It isn't that it's too expensive or too weak, it's that it's too niche. You're giving up a lot of storage space that could be used for other resources, just to have a little less hassle when farming. The reduced spoilage would make it a bit more powerful, since you could leave it on the ground instead of also needing a fridge, but it doesn't really help outside of farming. For contrast, hoes only help with farming, but they're a single normal inventory slot, not the loss of your backpack or armor slot. The other packs you've introduced don't really change this, but also add complexity, and are pretty overpowered to boot.

[Maybe a dog]

41 minutes ago, AileTheAlien said:

The problem with the Seed Pack-It isn't that it's too expensive or too weak, it's that it's too niche. You're giving up a lot of storage space that could be used for other resources, just to have a little less hassle when farming. The reduced spoilage would make it a bit more powerful, since you could leave it on the ground instead of also needing a fridge, but it doesn't really help outside of farming. For contrast, hoes only help with farming, but they're a single normal inventory slot, not the loss of your backpack or armor slot. The other packs you've introduced don't really change this, but also add complexity, and are pretty overpowered to boot.

Quite on the contrary. The problem is that its too weak. If it was at least niche, then it should do its very specific job correctly, yet it doesnt.

I need a place to store seeds. Nice, theres a backpack just for it. But this backpack doesnt prevent them from spoiling, not even slows them down from doing so. Looks like Ill have to craft two or three more fridges just to lengthen their lifetime. So, basically, another (arguably easier to get) structure accomplishes more than Seed Pack-It, and this structure has other uses than the one you intended for it. Thats the problem. Making it a bit more powerful is the best solution here.

If you intend to say Seed Pack-It is solely meant for the sake of transporting seeds, then thats even worse. I could empty my backpack and move seeds like that from my fridges to my farm, and I could even hold even more stuff like my gardener hat or a hoe. The result is the same as above.

Forgive me, but I dont quite follow the logic of contrast between hoe and Seed Pack-It. Why would armour matter if you are just farming? Unless you are suddenly being attacked by hounds while farming, which has a huge warning before it happens. And you would never go around the map using Seed Pack-It, whether it got buffed or not. It should always stay at base or wherever your farm is. Whether they take up an inventory slot or an equipment slot seems completely irrelevant.

[Valak]

5 hours ago, AileTheAlien said:

So like...what's the deal with the wetness giving a bonus? Food spoilage and item rot is faster when something's wet, so I don't really see how this makes any sense.

Oh, that's kind of based on a joke that living logs are well... living. So basically, the living portion of the back enjoys the rain, and used that to enhance his preservation abilities.
 

5 hours ago, AileTheAlien said:

It also seems pretty gimmicky, since it's only useful when raining, and seems like it's just an overpowered backpack for Wormwood...but it's still only for seeds.

 

8 hours ago, Just-guy said:

I like the idea, but the Elysian Seed Pack-It recipe could not use the stone fruit because it seems unnecessary.

Also I feel that the 3 Living Logs for the Brisky Pack-It are a bit expensive and 1 could be enough, and I think the Wetness level is too occasional (it needs to be raining, on Winter there is no wet rain and on Summer happens less, or dropped in the ocean) and the player gets sanity lost from wetness, so instead it could be that the more seeds it hold the spoilage decreases as seeds are "wet" items.

For this, you need to look at the Brisky Pack-It's effect at a different angle.
It is not that it is only useful when raining, making it seem like the backpack's can only be used at a specific times (as a negative), but that the effects the backpack gives are essentially a bonus for its main ability, which is making any seeds spoil half as fast (as a positive).

Honestly, the steep cost of 1 sprouting stone fruit for the Elysian Pack-It and 3 Living Logs for Brisky Pack-It seems reasonable for me because as we know, having preservation ability on an item are a very powerful ability. this is why Ice boxes require gears and Salt Boxes require salts, both of them requiring materials than can be hard to get unless you specifically know where to get them, while the Chef Pouch is a Warly-specific craftable item.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i like the seed pack and i dont think is expensive for how confortable is to using it

[AileTheAlien]

On 1/16/2021 at 9:50 PM, Maybe a dog said:

[The Seed Pack-It] should always stay at base or wherever your farm is. Whether they take up an inventory slot or an equipment slot seems completely irrelevant.

The reason I highlight the backpack / armor slot, is that I'm assuming the intention of the Seed Pack-It is to work as an actual backpack. Like, maybe it's meant to solely be used around the small area of your farm, but that seems too gimicky and niche to me, given the other items that already exist in the game. You can use two normal backpacks to get the same amount of slots when harvesting, to hold all your seeds before transporting them to the nearest fridge. If you've got a smaller number of crops, like if you're planting only a few crops at a time to balance their nutrient costs and recoveries with each other, then a single backpack works fine. The marginal benefits don't seem worth it to me, to have an item that just makes transporting seeds a short distance slightly easier, instead of making one or two extra trips. If the pack slowed the spoilage of seeds like the first part of the original proposal here, it would work as a long-term backpack for players who are doing a lot of farming, or to remove the need for fridges near farms.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

22 minutes ago, AileTheAlien said:

The reason I highlight the backpack / armor slot, is that I'm assuming the intention of the Seed Pack-It is to work as an actual backpack. Like, maybe it's meant to solely be used around the small area of your farm, but that seems too gimicky and niche to me, given the other items that already exist in the game. You can use two normal backpacks to get the same amount of slots when harvesting, to hold all your seeds before transporting them to the nearest fridge. If you've got a smaller number of crops, like if you're planting only a few crops at a time to balance their nutrient costs and recoveries with each other, then a single backpack works fine. The marginal benefits don't seem worth it to me, to have an item that just makes transporting seeds a short distance slightly easier, instead of making one or two extra trips. If the pack slowed the spoilage of seeds like the first part of the original proposal here, it would work as a long-term backpack for players who are doing a lot of farming, or to remove the need for fridges near farms.

not only that, with the seed-pack you dont have to worry about checking your inventory for seeds, all seeds will be in the seed-pack

is a qol item not something revolutionary or gamechanging

[AileTheAlien]

3 hours ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

is a qol item not something revolutionary or gamechanging

So if it's just meant to be a nice perk to make farming less hassle, why does it require items which are more common underground, where there's less sun-lit areas for growing crops? I think totally above-ground resources, especially ones which might encourage the player to farm, or at least seem related to farming, would be better. Players will be using logs, grass, flint, seeds, and maybe even gold for in their farming activities, so any of those seem reasonable to me. The original post's 4 seeds, 6 grass, 4 twigs is at least within the general ballpark there.  : )