Is Klei cutting corners?

[Szczuku]

Let's cut to the chase, shall we?

Ever since Turn of Tides every new plant that grows food is able to grow during winter. Either Klei is cutting corners with that part of the code or that is an intentional decision, in which case, that is a dumb decision as 1- it doesn't make sense for tropical plants to grow durring winter and 2- stocking up on food before the season hits was part of the challange and fun.

Less effort put into character quotes. As far as I've seen, in the newest update characters have the same quote for Banana Bush/Monkeytail when it's fully grown, harvested, dug up and withered. 4 states of the plant, 1 quote for them all

These things I haven't checked yet but I assume that characters also have the same quotes for Crustenshine both regular and in inventory as well as same quotes for new trees/moneky houses regular and burned

Just throwing some of the things I've observed out there

[ArubaroBeefalo]

i would love that certain plant being uneable to grow in winter but not for the "chellenge" (if someone is able to reach the monkey island is able to survive winter lmao) but for the immersion, feels weird

[-Nick-]

Make some unique plants that can like only grow in spring or soemthing. It would be a nice way to make diverse food sources.

[Notecja]

I am also for some "seasonal" plants for atmosphere and diversity. Some plants needs their fruits frozen to become edible/tasty. But most never bear any fruit in winter. 

[fimmatek]

I was a bit disappointed too, when I saw that the banana bush had the same quotes for different states. Character quotes were one main reason why I liked and sticked to DST, they made a great atmosphere. While they are not essential, they give a lot to the game. The more the better!

I also agree about the fruits growing during winter, especially with AruBaoBeefalo's post, it feels a bit weird, breaks the barren, desolate feeling winter has.

[Mike23Ua]

4 minutes ago, fimmatek said:

I was a bit disappointed too, when I saw that the banana bush had the same quotes for different states. Character quotes were one main reason why I liked and sticked to DST, they made a great atmosphere. While they are not essential, they give a lot to the game. The more the better!

Yes but keep in mind Klei puts themselves on a tight crunch schedule to pump out monthly content updates, it’s possible they will circle back around later & add to/polish up loose ends.

[Szczuku]

14 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Yes but keep in mind Klei puts themselves on a tight crunch schedule to pump out monthly content updates, it’s possible they will circle back around later & add to/polish up loose ends.

It's been almost 3 years since Stone Fruit Bushes (which grow during winter) have been introduced, so if Klei does plan to circle back, that circle must have one hell of a radius

[ADM]

Totally agreed, it's normal certain additions to the game flora scrap some rules, introduce few others, yet keep consistency where it's needed but on the recent run of updates that part of the game design is cheaply leaped over and that's sad knowing how easy those things would be to maintain and enrich only a little to make big improvements as for diversity. I think reserving a bit more time to these details would be much more appreciated by the community. But once it's out, I unfortunately know damn well it's only the matter of a coin-flip to have such things revisited / fixed.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

12 minutes ago, Szczuku said:

It's been almost 3 years since Stone Fruit Bushes (which grow during winter) have been introduced, so if Klei does plan to circle back, that circle must have one hell of a radius

precisely that one makes a little of sense cuz being made of rock but tropical ones like figs ans bananas shouldn't grow in winter

[Mysterious box]

I feel like this is more so a case of accessibility mixed with anti frustration when viewed in combination with the curse mechanic for the bananas at least.

[Catteflyterpill]

This seems kind of like a bait title. Same quotes for the plant growth stages definitely seems like an oversight. But to ask if Klei is cutting corners because plants grow all year round seems a like melodramatic no? It probably is for people who have to deal with getting cursed in the winter. (Not that I necessarily agree with that design choice.)

[dois raios]

2 hours ago, Notecja said:

I am also for some "seasonal" plants for atmosphere and diversity. Some plants needs their fruits frozen to become edible/tasty. But most never bear any fruit in winter. 

when you bring a plant from a place to another (this include dimensions) the plants will mostly die or became a pest, this is why the plants reproduce (create bananas) even in winter, it is literally a pest in the constant.

[ALCRD]

2 hours ago, Nickolai said:

Make some unique plants that can like only grow in spring or soemthing. It would be a nice way to make diverse food sources.

Nuh uh my Wurt needs her nanners all year round

[Mysterious box]

33 minutes ago, ALCRD said:

Nuh uh my Wurt needs her nanners all year round

Speaking of this I do love that Wurt finally has a good reason to use the crockpot now  that being said now I'm wondering it farming is worth it for her anymore.

[ALCRD]

3 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I'm wondering it farming is worth it for her anymore.

Worth it for potatoes and dragon fruits alone imo. For heals and hunger.

[Mysterious box]

Just now, ALCRD said:

Worth it for potatoes and dragon fruits alone imo. For heals and hunger.

I feel like fruit medley, stone fruit, and kelp fill those catageories.

[ALCRD]

6 minutes ago, Mysterious box said:

I feel like fruit medley, stone fruit, and kelp fill those catageories.

Dragon pie lasts for 15 days as opposed to 6 of fruit meddley. Heals and fills much more too and needs only 1 fruit and some misc filler including just twigs.

Also its not possible to make Fruit Meddley with just bananas anymore.

Potatoes are like fruit meddley in terms of heals and freshness but require only 1 vegetable and no crokpot just campfire.

So I'd still use these for heals.

[Fuffles]

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

*snip*

Seems like more than just the art style is being washed out, the uncompromising and survival part is also slowly dissolving

[ArubaroBeefalo]

31 minutes ago, Fuffles said:

Seems like more than just the art style is being washed out, the uncompromising and survival part is also slowly dissolving

can you explain how getting bannas and figs after sailing, which cost a bunch of resources and might be dangerous, dissolves the surviving part? if someone is playing for longer enough to experience sea content but feels like winter is a challenge i have bad news for that person

[Nettalie]

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Ever since Turn of Tides every new plant that grows food is able to grow during winter. Either Klei is cutting corners with that part of the code or that is an intentional decision, in which case, that is a dumb decision as 1- it doesn't make sense for tropical plants to grow durring winter and 2- stocking up on food before the season hits was part of the challange and fun.

Well no, if anything it'd be more effort to remove certain sections of code that make growth in Winter impossible when copying over code from something like a berrybush. And at that point that's a design decision, likely to make for some sort of progression. I may not agree with putting it on every new plant, especially the banana bushes because its weird, but it is definitely not cutting corners by any means. Especially when considering that a few plants ever since ds have also been growing in winter, it's nothing new.
It could totally just be an oversight as well though which can happen because you simply forget.

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Less effort put into character quotes. As far as I've seen, in the newest update characters have the same quote for Banana Bush/Monkeytail when it's fully grown, harvested, dug up and withered. 4 states of the plant, 1 quote for them all

This one's even weirder and has been a thing for several years, not JUST since return of them. A LOT of different entities in the world don't have unique quotes depending on their state. You can look at dozens upon dozens of quotes in DS' dlc and find a lot of plants and other objects that only have a single quote. I'd definitely prefer if they had entirely unique quotes for all different states they can be in [or at the very very least for when a plant is dug, which for some reason there is technically a second line in the speech files, they just both have the same or an almost identical quote in it for some odd reason] and it can definitely be disappointing when everything is the same quote for sure, however I also understand just as much to not have 5 to 6 lines per newly added plant, per playable character simply to keep the load low on the writers. 
Now granted that also does have its limits, I definitely think quotes for things like stumps and things that are on fire should ideally be a thing, and in that case there could definitely have been another tree's burnt quotes for example being carried over, but something like creatures in your inventory vs on the ground has not had any unique quotes since shipwrecked even and I don't think that's a huge deal.
All in all though I can't help but feel that there being less quotes for things like trees for example are more oversights than a fully intentional decision.

[Mike23Ua]

16 minutes ago, Fuffles said:

Seems like more than just the art style is being washed out, the uncompromising and survival part is also slowly dissolving

I’m going to have to heavily disagree with this, Varglets do not make hound waves easier.. A pirate vessel full of Monkeys that will steal your stuff- including stuff in chests nearby in the shore.. and if you choose to attack those monkeys you have your inventory slots fill up with cursed trinkets until eventually you become Monkey.. is very much uncompromising & survival.

In fact my FIRST IMPRESSIONS of the new update having only played for 4 hours and finally finding the Island- I feel like pirate raids should happen anywhere on the ocean not just near their island because there’s just not enough going on while slogging through the sea..

I was however extremely disappointed in the SIZE of Moon Quay Island- I was expecting an island around the same size as Lunar, we got a ton of new craftables & weapons and a super annoying pirate mob with their own house huts but the problem is all of that content is crammed onto an island that isn’t too much bigger than pearls with little room to move around on.

I suppose that now that the enemy monkeys, their huts, the craftables, the new ground/plant types are in the game Klei can always just make the island larger at a later time.. but as it stands right now: Its small & mostly forgettable.

This COULD be due to how it retro fits into existing game worlds and I’ll have a better larger version when I start a new fresh start world- I don’t know yet because I haven’t tested it..

But I’d absolutely love to see the island a bit bigger (I mean at least the size of an average Beefalo Savannah or the Swamp Marsh..) it’s beautiful new content that would make for a pleasant looking new biome.. if only it weren’t so Tiny?

Thats my FIRST Impressions.. tommorow I plan to play around with becoming Wonkey and How easy/hard it is to become/remove the Moon Quay curse.

[Nettalie]

35 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

can you explain how getting bannas and figs after sailing, which cost a bunch of resources and might be dangerous, dissolves the surviving part? if someone is playing for longer enough to experience sea content but feels like winter is a challenge i have bad news for that person

My guess is people think decisions like letting certain plants grow in winter takes away from part of why winter is difficult to begin with. And this is just in the case of winter, I'm certain there's a bunch of other examples where because something works in a context that other items don't work in it can feel like part of the challenge goes away because something is slightly easier.
Either that or people expect the game's challenges to stay the same in a lot of areas such as seasons and when something goes against that design that it can feel like an "easy way out" or like once you get x then y threat is dealt with forever past that point.
That being said I do think it is extremely weird that bananas of all things grow in winter and i still think that's a bug or other sort of oversight, same kinda goes for figs but those also take 20 days to plant for 3 or 4 regrowable fruit so i guess that's okay.

[bagherthegamer]

4 hours ago, Szczuku said:

Less effort put into character quotes. As far as I've seen, in the newest update characters have the same quote for Banana Bush/Monkeytail when it's fully grown, harvested, dug up and withered. 4 states of the plant, 1 quote for them all

Well considering the size of the update and them having to make it in time for the release its not surprising and to be honest, its not the biggest deal in the world. 

I dont have a clue why they started adding new crops that ignore winter but i dont think cutting corners was it. And lets be real, no one was storing vegtabales to "prepare for winter" everyone would just grab ice and kill spiders that have nothing to do with plant or winter for meatballs and they still do. 

So i dont think its that game changing to add winter plants. 

[Mysterious box]

1 hour ago, ALCRD said:

Dragon pie lasts for 15 days as opposed to 6 of fruit meddley. Heals and fills much more too and needs only 1 fruit and some misc filler including just twigs.

Also its not possible to make Fruit Meddley with just bananas anymore.

Potatoes are like fruit meddley in terms of heals and freshness but require only 1 vegetable and no crokpot just campfire.

So I'd still use these for heals.

Didn't know about not being able to make medley with bananas anymore tho if it wasn't the case it would have still been better payout when you considered the difference in effort and include bundling wraps but that's probably why they changed the priorities.(mostly likely not but who knows)

[Hornete]

5 hours ago, Szczuku said:

[snip]

Banana Bushes being able to grow in winter was a bug and was fixed with the release of the update.

The TL:DR for why it happened is because Banana Bushes had two components tied to them both responsible for growth, which also resulted in them growing twice, and being able to bypass withered, unfertilization, and winter(which technically did still 'function' as they disabled one of the components responsible for growth)

Edit 1: Hmm disregard my statements, I'll need some more time to look into this. Banana Bushes having two growth timers was fixed but the function responsible for making plants not grow in winter only affects one of the growth timers, which was the one that was disabled.

Edit 2: Alright, I can confirm withering and fertilization still works and is needed, and the bushes do not have two growth timers any longer. It's just they are still able to grow in winter, I will report this.