Make plants seasonal.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

Some forumites (including me) expressed a little bit of dyssatisfaction with how easy it is to grow food in winter.
I would also say, the fact a lot of new  kind of removes the need to learn different recipes, because you can just grow stone fruit or kelp all-year round and cook meatballs or even eat it as it is.

There's my detailed suggestions for most of DST's plants.

The crops: I am personally happy with how it works. Some people suggested, out of season crops shouldn't grow at all, which would make sense.

Kelp: in the real world it grows in colder seas. So, make it grow only in Winter and late Autumn and early Spring. Additionally, disable it's growth if it's planted next to a Desert.

Cacti: It should survive winter, but new cacti shouldn't be able to grow in winter. Additionally, make rain spoil grown cacti. Succulents are sensitive to overwatering afterall.

Bananas: In the real world, it is year-round plant. But most banana species don't grow in cold climates, so make it grow everywhere in late Spring, Summer and early Autumn, and let it grow in Deserts year round. Wild bananas need to be pollinated and are pollinated by bats, which sounds like very interesting mechanic to have, whether the in-game bananas are wild or not (only problem is there are no bats on monkey island). Also, the bushes are highly renewable and are part of many character's fave dish, so make bananas grow twice as slowly.

Berries: Finally something that doesn't grow in winter. Maybe just make it more interesting by requiring pollination by bees everytime you pick them up.

Stone Fruit: Make them ripen in summer only, unless growing on Lunar island. I would maybe go even as far as going from small bud in late winter, to full growth in midsummer, which would mean only 1 harvest per year. (would probably need higher yield in such a case).

Figs: The original trees might grow them even in Spring, but the brought-in figs would ripen only in Summer and Autumn.

Birchnuts: They are perfect as they are, giving 2 in autumn per only stage 3 tree and 1 in spring and summer.

 

What i hope this would accomplish is the following:

• You can learn some interesting trivia about real world
• The seasons would feel more like they matter
• More variety in what you eat and grow, change in playstyle during different seasons and in different biomes

 

I know what I'm suggesting would require introduction of new mechanics, but i believe it would be worth the dev time.
Just some food for thought.

[ADM]

That's quite a lot, and even taken one by one I think all that is needed is to have them all on the same line about winter to have this season being about its own food sources or stocking ahead (anyway it's what's done by player all year round, and it's good with the winter spoilage reduction bonus), except crops as they have a seasonal preferences so winter being there with its crops is good too, out of the season is already quite a waste planting them but the difference from basic pickable is that the playability around crops being so much more flexible than a wait and pick is so much better as it gives what you've done for it.

And this is the major difference between basic food pickables and crops, one is straight forwardly boring and the other has a whole design with multiple crafts and QoL around it but the whole crops work around similar basic with only a variety of tunings for how they'll perform. If something has to be done for all bushes and such, I would like something of this kind, make them work as intended (and I'd even invite a slower grow speed), but work for them if you want to make them better at yielding and growing and I would sure enjoy those plants more.

But the keywords here was that this need to be around a similar basic more than having each plants being efficient / inefficient with an unique condition exploited only once like location based or rain based just for a base grow requirement, that is way too much.
So that's my opinion on it which barely changed in years, there's room for a whole themed update worth of improvements for plants to make foraging its own job but that has to be done smartly more than roughly.

[Horsheen]

Reminder that real world logic does not apply to the constant

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

51 minutes ago, ADM said:

That's quite a lot, and even taken one by one I think all that is needed is to have them all on the same line about winter to have this season being about its own food sources or stocking ahead (anyway it's what's done by player all year round, and it's good with the winter spoilage reduction bonus), except crops as they have a seasonal preferences so winter being there with its crops is good too, out of the season is already quite a waste planting them but the difference from basic pickable is that the playability around crops being so much more flexible than a wait and pick is so much better as it gives what you've done for it.

That's basically what I've done here (more or less). I agree not growing most things in winter is the main point. That's what I suggested with figs, cacti, bananas and stone fruit. I just added additional mechanics to make it a bit more interesting. Cacti gets overwatering and bananas could get batilisk pollination requirement.

Wouldn't make sense for kelp, since it grows in colder climates.

Quote

And this is the major difference between basic food pickables and crops, one is straight forwardly boring and the other has a whole design with multiple crafts and QoL around it but the whole crops work around similar basic with only a variety of tunings for how they'll perform. If something has to be done for all bushes and such, I would like something of this kind, make them work as intended (and I'd even invite a slower grow speed), but work for them if you want to make them better at yielding and growing and I would sure enjoy those plants more.

100% agree. Would be nice to for example

• need to prune bushes
• pollinate them by bats and bees
• have a variety in fertilizers - different fertilizer types could have different effects on different bushes

Something along the RWYS lines would be just the thing.

Quote

But the keywords here was that this need to be around a similar basic more than having each plants being efficient / inefficient with an unique condition exploited only once like location based or rain based just for a base grow requirement, that is way too much.
So that's my opinion on it which barely changed in years, there's room for a whole themed update worth of improvements for plants to make foraging its own job but that has to be done smartly more than roughly.

Thank you so much for your opinion and contribution.

16 minutes ago, Horsheen said:

Reminder that real world logic does not apply to the constant

But don't you think, bananas pollinated by batilisks would be interesting? Anyways, more of any mechanics of any type would be awin for me. Even if cacti needed to be overwatered and bananas grow only during winter.

[Horsheen]

1 minute ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

But don't you think, bananas pollinated by batilisks would be interesting? Anyways, more of any mechanics of any type would be awin for me. Even if cacti needed to be overwatered and bananas grown only during winter.

Adding more tedium to food sources makes players less likely to use those food sources. Do I think it's interesting? No I don't, it's just needless change.

[Gashzer]

Crops take quite a while to grow if you arn't caring for them properly... you might starve if you depend on them 100%.

Stone fruit bushes and kelp are rewards for exploring the ocean, there is abit of risk to get them compared to berry bushes (what if you sink your boat?).

Cacti hurt you to pick... thats a downside in itself.

Banana bushes are even harder to obtain than stone bushes... monkeys are not to be casually messed with.

While yes if you are good at the game this is all a non-issue... but the game isn't meant to be played just by good experienced players.

I feel like these are balanced enough, got to think about noob-wurt players that would get hit hard by these supposed nerfs. Even with the current all year growth, if playing on a pub an someone takes cactus, that can leave wurt players without food if they are newly spawned or havnt set up farming yet.

Need to think about wurt players!

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

5 minutes ago, Horsheen said:

Adding more tedium to food sources makes players less likely to use those food sources.

RWYS would disagree. You can pair more tedium with more yeild.

4 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

Crops take quite a while to grow if you arn't caring for them properly... you might starve if you depend on them 100%.

Stone fruit bushes and kelp are rewards for exploring the ocean, there is abit of risk to get them compared to berry bushes (what if you sink your boat?).

Cacti hurt you to pick... thats a downside in itself.

Banana bushes are even harder to obtain than stone bushes... monkeys are not to be casually messed with.

But it is a multiplayer game, 1 player can get stone fruit bushes, kelp stalks during the first few days they are on the server. And others can then just reap the rewards. Banana bushes aren't that hard to get, but I agree, they take a lot longer to find usually.

 

[Gashzer]

4 minutes ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

But it is a multiplayer game, 1 player can get stone fruit bushes, kelp stalks during the first few days they are on the server. And others can then just reap the rewards. Banana bushes aren't that hard to get, but I agree, they take a lot longer to find usually.

You are assuming everyone is working together to help each other and not just theirselves. In theory yes, everyone should help each other, in practice alot of people will happily make meatballs with all your veg an let wurt players starve lol

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

5 minutes ago, Gashzer said:

While yes if you are good at the game this is all a non-issue... but the game isn't meant to be played just by good experienced players.

I feel like these are balanced enough, got to think about noob-wurt players that would get hard by these supposed nerfs. Even with the current all year growth, if playing on a pub an someone takes cactus, that can leave wurt players without food if they are newly spawned or havnt set up farming yet.

Need to think about wurt players!

I don't strictly need to make it harder, but just add a need to work for it and plan it out, rather than just simply click & harvest. I don't believe managing hunger is an "issue" for almost anyone except for complete beginners. My suggestions are not about hunger management, but making the world and seasons more colorful.

[Notecja]

Not sure if I want to keep anything near bats (they are just so annoying), but probably could be done something between or different. I agree to make more plants seasonal or better/worse working in certain biomes.

4 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Berries: Finally something that doesn't grow in winter. Maybe just make it more interesting by requiring pollination by bees everytime you pick them up.

They still spawn gobblers, so actually they kinda require some setup (or fast player reaction, but still might happen almost off-screen). Why everybody forgot that?

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

3 minutes ago, Notecja said:

They still spawn gobblers, so actually they kinda require some setup (or fast player reaction, but still might happen almost off-screen). Why everybody forgot that?

Oh true, I forgot about that, because i pick them during dusk or night. I made a hobit out of that.

[maxwell_winters]

We should also remove moleworms from guacamole because the real guacamole doesn't include any moles.THIS IS UNREALISTIC. 

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

2 minutes ago, maxwell_winters said:

We should also remove moleworms from guacamole because the real guacamole doesn't include any moles.THIS IS UNREALISTIC. 

another one who missed the point? shall i quote myself?

 

3 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Anyways, more of any mechanics of any type would be awin for me. Even if cacti needed to be overwatered and bananas grow only during winter.

I don't care if it's realistic or not. I want an RWYS-like update of bush-like food sources, to make them more interesting. Real world mechanics are just an inspiration. Real world mechanics are intuitive, that's why i didn't suggest that plants shouldn't grow in summer, but that they shouldn't grow in winter.

[BezKa]

Pretty sure bananas growing in winter are a bug. Might want to report it again.

[maxwell_winters]

37 minutes ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

I don't care if it's realistic or not. I want an RWYS-like update of bush-like food sources, to make them more interesting

I don't understand how making deserts less viable for basing would make the game more interesting. The same goes for limiting Stone Fruits and Figs. It wouldn't make the game more interesting, It would just mean that no one would bother with planting stone fruits and above average trees. 

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

3 minutes ago, maxwell_winters said:

I don't understand how making deserts less viable for basing would make the game more interesting. The same goes for limiting Stone Fruits and Figs. It wouldn't make the game more interesting, It would just mean that no one would bother with planting stone fruits and above average trees. 

But you would still be able to harvest those stone fruits, but only in summer or on Lunar island. They are incredibly overpowered as of now, limiting them wouldn't take away their viability. Remember, you can harvest a lot during summer and it will not spoil untill you break them...

Above avarage trees aren't usually planted for the figs, but for the protection against wildfires, overheating and lightning plus some wetness reduction. Plus you would still be able to grow them during the warm half of the year and harvest at any time. Figs require a lot of setup, but absolutely no work afterwards.

Deserts are the best place for bases... and they still would be. And when you need sanity food, limiting the cacti source in Spring would make you explore other options. And you could still plant kelp nearby, just not on the desert coast. For example somewhere further on sea, or in the neighbouring biome.

There is very little variability in where people base, and frankly, these suggestions wouldn't change that. Most will still base in oasis.

[Horsheen]

5 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

RWYS would disagree. You can pair more tedium with more yeild.

Yeah good point honestly, didn't think of that

[Frosty_Mentos]

I vouch on the fact that most plantables shouldn't be able to grow in winter and or slower if naturally in other non seasonal seasons.

Food became too easy to obtain, taken away the whole experience of survival when you can just simply island hop and get all the food you need for the rest of your life.

Using farms feels useless when you can just do get banana bushes, cacti, stone fruits and kelps compared to when berry bushes are disabled during winter same as other most forageables.

While I like having food all year around the current meta of food is too damn easy to deal with and I feel like it may have taken away the whole aspect of RWYS out of the picture entirely.

Hunting and farming meat is another source of method but takes preparation and fighting or dealing with birds and krampus if you're Wicker.

After banana shakes were introduced it took away the whole reason to pick cactuses or green shrooms for sanity.

Heck, there's little to no reason to use mushroom planters anymore unless you need spores for lights. You can be Maxwell or Woodie and go out to chop down a blue mushroom forest without any repercussions. 

I feel like we need a forageable overhaul before we get any more new kinds of food plants or sources, like, if not in right season - stone fruit gives unripe stone fruits that mostly give rocks and no chance for seed.

We got Reap What you Sow for a reason and it's going to fall short if all the forageables going to easier than the last to gather.

[Just-guy]

I'm ok with most of these but don't make crops season restricted.

[lowercase skye]

If I'm being perfectly honest, most all of these suggestions are forced nerfs that would do absolutely nothing except make underutilized food sources even more underutilized than they were before for the sake of realism.

Kelp: Kelp is already barely a veggie in the crock pot, takes a hefty chunk of sanity for a measly 9.375 hunger, requires a ton of drying racks to use as an actual food source (not counting meatballs, which you can make with like most any food item ever) for non-Wurts. The only thing I find myself using it for is figatoni. It's not nearly powerful enough to warrant it growing in such specific parts of the year.

Cacti: Cactus already only spawn in specific biomes (one of which, the antlion desert, is always SUPER out of the way and literally cannot contain a wormhole) and take a chunk of health away. It's also unlikely they'll be feeding a whole server of people, I find myself fighting with the local Wickerbottom and Wormwood just to get a few for myself every now and then. The rain thing is just unnecessary, it's realistic and educational but it would not feel good in gameplay.

Bananas: I'm going to be honest this one is just bad, it tacks on a brainstorm-y idea to a food source that is in an entirely fine spot right now, and would feel terrible in gameplay. Banana bushes require you to take out or wall in a whole island of monkeys to obtain more than a few per world, they don't need a nerf just because they're new content.

Berries: This is just unnecessary. Are berries overpowered?

Stone Fruit: I already barely see people use these for anything but rocks, and the niche veggie rations for cooking crock pot food on the ocean. Limiting them to a singular harvest per season is just going to make nobody use them, and basically ruin one of the best rewards of the lunar island.

Figs: Figs are already painfully underutilized for how amazing their recipes are, I see no reason to make them limited by season, ESPECIALLY not the ones you have to go out of your way to bring to land.

I get what you're trying to do here, adding variety to what foods you eat at which parts of the year, but this isn't the way to do it. Why, for example, go after something like figs and make them even more inconvenient to grow, when people already barely use them year-round? You've gotta think of it like crops, make the options just as powerful as each other, but make them bear fruit best under different conditions.
Don't nerf figs to only grow in two seasons, make 2-3 grow on the same vine during spring. Don't reduce stone fruit to a single yearly harvest, make them produce more fruit and sprouts than rocks if farmed on the lunar island. Don't make banana bushes need pollination from batilisks of all things, make them love sand and so bear giant bananas (like the Klei devs concepted early on) when on the moon quay or in the desert. And give all of these things even more uses than they do now, items like tree jam, kelp bumpers, and banana shakes, to make each one feel like its own distinct plant that you want to farm both for its food and its products.

The solution to some food sources feeling better than others isn't to make some food sources worse, it's to make them all feel great.

[maxwell_winters]

6 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

But you would still be able to harvest those stone fruits, but only in summer or on Lunar island. They are incredibly overpowered as of now, limiting them wouldn't take away their viability. Remember, you can harvest a lot during summer and it will not spoil untill you break them...

Stone fruits already disintegrate when not picked up and require a lot more fertilization than everything else. And there are usually 20 or 30 of them spawned in the world which aren't that many. Not to mention ripe fruits spoil so fast. If we follow your suggestions, no one would replant them safe for Wickerbottom who would mass produce them on the Lunar. 

6 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

And you could still plant kelp nearby, just not on the desert coast. For example somewhere further on sea, or in the neighbouring biome.

How would that make the system more interesting? It will just add tedium of having to walk more. Besides, the deserts aren't hotter than any other biome in DST. They just look like real-life deserts and that's it.  

12 hours ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

Bananas: In the real world, it is year-round plant. But most banana species don't grow in cold climates, so make it grow everywhere in late Spring, Summer and early Autumn, and let it grow in Deserts year round. Wild bananas need to be pollinated and are pollinated by bats, which sounds like very interesting mechanic to have, whether the in-game bananas are wild or not (only problem is there are no bats on monkey island). Also, the bushes are highly renewable and are part of many character's fave dish, so make bananas grow twice as slowly.

The problem with limiting banana growth in winter is the risk of getting softlocked as Wonkey for the entire season. The curse is already controversial as is. Besides, according to the in-game logic, it makes sense that they grow in winter. They grow in cold caves with no light all year round. Bananas of the Constant are way more resistant than bananas in the real world. 

[Frosty_Mentos]

25 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

Kelp:

It's practically a good way to replace any vegetable and gives a variety of foods you can cook ranging from meatballs, pierogi and anything that needs just a bit of veggie. Not hard to get nor harvest if you know the location and where you wanna plant them.

29 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

Bananas:

The portal is literally vomiting tons of them every so often, stick around for a bit and you'll have a decent amount of bushes to replace all the cactus needs and other healing needs. Perhaps... the fault is at the recipes you can cook with them easily rather than the plant itself. Either way not the hardest crop to maintain.

 

42 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

Stone Fruit:

Totally agreed. While I would rather have more rocks than food from it... I wouldn't ever want it to be a once a season harvest. It would be a devastating nerf when you only wanna harvest it for building structures or walls to turfs.

[Notecja]

13 minutes ago, Frosty_Mentos said:

Totally agreed. While I would rather have more rocks than food from it... I wouldn't ever want it to be a once a season harvest. It would be a devastating nerf when you only wanna harvest it for building structures or walls to turfs.

Maybe it could give more rocks than fruit?

[Frosty_Mentos]

18 minutes ago, Notecja said:

Maybe it could give more rocks than fruit?

Personally... I'd love that o.o

[goatt]

I like those ideas as I have hearted the op.

But, from designing game point of view, I'm not sure how big of impact it would bring.

Because of 2 reasons:

1. Your suggestions don't seems to change late game. The late game is full of "set and forget" low-maintenance farms including farming pigs, bunnies, bosses, certain items, besides plants. And people still see crop farms mechanisms as they are now fundamentally.

2. Adding growth conditions to plants only make players want more different farms, so that they can still always have some easy food ready at all time. This change won't change players' decision making, it only adds more work on creating variety and quantity in foods. They essentially only make each kind of food less effective. I don't see any meaningful change regarding game design except for making the game a little harder.