Improve Farming

[Trenix]

Needs to be done before this feature can work.

• Remove basic and improved farms.
• Rebalance food to make crops more appealing as a food source.
• Crops will be seasonal and will only grow at the right season.
• Birds will drop seeds for crops that are in season.

The Process

1. Use your pitchfork to dig up where you want your crops to grow.
2. While holding a bucket of poop, right click on the empty tile you just dug up.
3. Drag and drop a crop onto of the farm plot you want it to grow on, you can only grow up to a single crop per fertilized tile.
4. Each time a crop is harvested on a fertilized tile, fertilizer is diminished on the tile. Once it is used up, you will no longer be able to plant anymore crops on it until you replenish it with more bucket of poop.

The Risk

• Crops can rarely get diseased and it can spread to other crops around it.
• Crows may rarely fly down and eat your crops. A scarecrow will significantly reduce the chance of this happening.
• Crops which aren't fenced or walled, may attract rabbits which will come and eat them. Build a wall or fence with a gate to prevent this from happening.

The Purpose

• Adds difficulty by adding more planning and continuous challenges.
• Makes the pitchfork, scarecrow, fence and walls more useful.
• Adds replayability by giving you continuous challenges for farming.

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Trenix said:

Adds replay ability 

How?

3 hours ago, Trenix said:

• Add your fertilizer to the empty tile you just dug up.
• Drag and drop the crops you want to grow, you can grow up to 4 in one tile.
• Each time a crop grows, fertilizer is diminished on the tile. When it's used it, you will no longer be able to plant anymore crops on it and will be required to put down another fertilizer tile.

Still seems to me like a bucket of poop is the better option to do being carriable and have a similar effect with your farm plot idea  

Also this means that I would constantly have to go on hunt for seeds and poop where I could just use a farm because that doesn't go away unless destroyed or hammered in which case I get resources back to incase I need to move

3 hours ago, Trenix said:

• Crows can fly down and eat your crops, therefore build a scarecrow to scare them away.
• Crops which aren't fenced will attract rabbits which will come and eat them, therefore build a fence with a gate around your crops.

The Purpose

• Adds more difficulty.

Kind of just seems tedious of staying watch for a quarter or half a day
and what if I didn't get a pumpkin early on why farm if it will just be eaten by a crow

Also most you fences to herd animals or monsters
I don't know about the canaries electric darts though might still be a slight pain its better then waiting for lighting or geting up close with a goat just for some miluk.

[Trenix]

13 minutes ago, Donke60 said:

How?

Your farm will get diseased, your farm will be eaten by rabbits, and your farm will be attacked by crows. You'll also have to build a farm, by manually getting the land ready and setting up a fence. It adds to the game, rather than just simply crafting a farm and throwing a crop in it and waiting for it to grow.

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Still seems to me like a bucket of poop is the better option to do being carriable and have a similar effect with your farm plot idea  

Not sure what you mean, like using a bucket of poop instead of a fertilizer tile? Yeah maybe you're right, no need to add another item if it can add more use for another one.

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Also this means that I would constantly have to go on hunt for seeds and poop where I could just use a farm because that doesn't go away unless destroyed or hammered in which case I get resources back to incase I need to move

For my suggestion to work, farms would have to be removed. The purpose of this suggestion is improving farming, not keeping the same old one which lacks depth throughout.

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Kind of just seems tedious of staying watch for a quarter or half a day
and what if I didn't get a pumpkin early on why farm if it will just be eaten by a crow

You're not going to have to watch your crops. It's not like rabbits and crows will spawn every second and eat all your crops. This should be rare events to make your farming more random and difficult.

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Trenix said:

For my suggestion to work, farms would have to be removed. The purpose of this suggestion is improving farming, not keeping the same old one which lacks depth throughout.

 

3 hours ago, Trenix said:

You're not going to have to watch your crops. It's not like rabbits and crows will spawn every second and eat all your crops. This should be rare events to make your farming more random and difficult.

 but ifs its a rare occurence then it doesn't matter I'd just go for bushes and hunts and bee boxes considering meat based foods provide the most return. I'd completely skip farming if a random mob just takes my stuff or not care since i'd have another plot or three more crops left

However if it becomes to common I would have to wait in my camp for RNG to give me a pumpkin to make a scarecrow as well as a fence so starting it rather resource

3 hours ago, Trenix said:

Your farm will get diseased, your farm will be eaten by rabbits, and your farm will be attacked by crows. You'll also have to build a farm, by manually getting the land ready and setting up a fence. It adds to the game, rather than just simply crafting a farm and throwing a crop in it and waiting for it to grow.

All that does is make it take longer then normal it doesn't add to the game it just adds more work for a less reward system especially for the start also the scarecrow as of now spawns birds doesn't keep them away. but you would want to change that. My point is this doesn't add to the game or make farming interesting or optimal quite the opposite as this would make me just plant bushes and fish. 

Your system right now just adds more work for less reward and makes a tedious thing even worse in some occosions if I wanted to make farming deeper and add to the game I would add:

Growth seasons for all the different crops so you have a better chance of getting crops in certain seasons
nutrient depletion this would render soil unusable if the same type of plant is planted again and again
Seed picking  similar to the bird thing we have now expect you wouldn't need the bird to chose what crops you wanted to grow
 

[Diaboliko]

I'd agree with @Donke60, making farming harder while other systems(like hunting or roaming) are way more rewarding, this one doesn't worth implementing.

[gabblox]

I feel like farms could use some love but this seems like too large of an overhaul. One of the best things they could do (in my mind) to make farming feel worth it is simply increase the probability of getting multiple seeds from feeding a plant to a bird. Alternatively I think meatballs and bacon and eggs should be nerfed so that you can't just survive on filler and monster meat.

[Sinister_Fang]

4 hours ago, Donke60 said:

Growth seasons for all the different crops so you have a better chance of getting crops in certain seasons
nutrient depletion this would render soil unusable if the same type of plant is planted again and again
Seed picking  similar to the bird thing we have now expect you wouldn't need the bird to chose what crops you wanted to grow

If Klei doesn't do this, then someone else really should make a mod out of this. It's a brilliant idea and would make farms more then just a source of dragon fruit.

[Czeraphine]

I feel like this would make farms a bit more obsolete than they already are. Don't get me wrong, a lot of people make farms. But, a lot of people also refuse to do so since they can be costly, slow, and inefficient. Some people would move from the farms to the alternative methods and the ones that stayed would have a tougher time since the proposed farms cannot be fast-grown by poop. OR, requires a bucket of poop to re-fertilize which is, in itself, non-renewable.

[Trenix]

9 hours ago, Donke60 said:

but ifs its a rare occurence then it doesn't matter I'd just go for bushes and hunts and bee boxes considering meat based foods provide the most return. I'd completely skip farming if a random mob just takes my stuff or not care since i'd have another plot or three more crops left

However if it becomes to common I would have to wait in my camp for RNG to give me a pumpkin to make a scarecrow as well as a fence so starting it rather resource

I agree, food in this game is poorly balanced and needs to be reevaluated. I added that to "Needs to be done before this feature can work" area. With or without my suggested feature, meat still dominates. Instead of using fruits and vegetables as fillers to craft different foods depending on your needs, we're for the most part making jerky, dragon fruit, honey ham, meatballs, and meaty stew. Very rarely do I see people make something else, unless it's just for fun or to just prove you've done it. Why? Because they're the most efficient foods to make while lacking difficulty. There are many recipes which are overall useless to make when compared to others.

So I agree with you, but I kinda blame the food system. The game needs to sort out recipes into categories by sanity, health, and hunger and then put them in tiers. Any recipe which offers all three should provide a very small amount into each area. The amount of all three that we get on some foods is a bit ridiculous in my honest opinion. Anyway, that's a different story.

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All that does is make it take longer then normal it doesn't add to the game it just adds more work for a less reward system especially for the start also the scarecrow as of now spawns birds doesn't keep them away. but you would want to change that. My point is this doesn't add to the game or make farming interesting or optimal quite the opposite as this would make me just plant bushes and fish.

We should get more reward for it. Also I never said for all birds to destroy crops, just crows. I never said I wanted to change that.
 

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Your system right now just adds more work for less reward and makes a tedious thing even worse in some occosions if I wanted to make farming deeper and add to the game I would add:

Growth seasons for all the different crops so you have a better chance of getting crops in certain seasons
nutrient depletion this would render soil unusable if the same type of plant is planted again and again
Seed picking  similar to the bird thing we have now expect you wouldn't need the bird to chose what crops you wanted to grow

I agree with those ideas, though like you said, they will increase difficulty with low reward. So we can all agree that food needs to be rebalanced.

[Donke60]

4 hours ago, Trenix said:

So we can all agree that food needs to be rebalanced.

I feel like the solution is in Warly's character design but i'm not sure how it would work spread to the food system because that opens a whole new area of balencing and questions 

[Sarsapiri]

12 hours ago, Trenix said:

Needs to be done before this feature can work.

• Remove basic and improved farms. They are a balanced enough concept.
• Rebalance food to make crops more appealing as a source of food. Crops are good enough. Their main purpose is for dragonpie, which regens 75 hunger, needing only 1 dragonfruit and 3 twigs in a crock pot.
• Crops will be seasonal and will only grow at the right season. Rarity/difficulty to obtain =/= balance
• Birds will drop seeds for crops that are in season. ^

The Process

1. Use your pitchfork to dig up where you want your crops to grow. Overpowered. Regardless of restrictions, you could within a week build a mega farm and never need food. And all you would need for winter is an icebox. (flingo for summer)
2. While holding a bucket of poop, right click on the empty tile you just dug up. 
3. Drag and drop the crops onto of the farm plot you want to grow, you can grow up to four crops on one fertilized tile. Overpowered.
4. Each time a crop is harvested on a fertilized tile, fertilizer is diminished on the tile. Once it is used up, you will no longer be able to plant anymore crops on it until you replenish it with more bucket of poop. Surprisingly, manure and boneshards are extremely easy to get, dead players and beefalo/koalafants give it out for free.

The Risk

• Crops can rarely get diseased and it can spread to other crops around it. No, this will ruin end-game mega-bases.
• Crows may rarely fly down and eat your crops. A scarecrow will signficantly reduce the chance of this happening. 
• Crops which aren't fenced, may attract rabbits which will come and eat them. Build a fence with a gate to prevent this from happening. Do regular walls work? Why does it need a fence?

The Purpose

• Adds difficulty. Not really needed, crops are good as is. Also, this makes crops easier to get.
• Makes the pitchfork, scarecrow, and a fence more useful. Pitchfork is used for placing decorative tiles, scarecrow is for electric darts, and the fence is a cheaper and decorative wall. Don't see why these need any more use.
• Adds replayability. How?

Comments made.

I've seen some line ups in farming system from a farming game on steam called "Stardew Valley" might not be true, but you prob played it a bit too much. Don't hunt me down if i'm wrong tho.

[Donke60]

3 hours ago, Chaos2 said:

Comments made.

I've seen some line ups in farming system from a farming game on steam called "Stardew Valley" might not be true, but you prob played it a bit too much. Don't hunt me down if i'm wrong tho.

yeah I like the system pretty much as is as well but making the game feel better or harder form farming is what he wants so it can't hurt to brainstorm besides thats why mods exist.

[Tosh]

The one suggestion I'd agree with is making crops seasonal, but in a different way. I think it could be a cool feature to alter the percentage chance of what crop grows depending on the time of year. For example, Autumn could be mainly pumpkins, while watermelons could become more be more common during Summer/late Spring. Making dragonfruit only obtainable during Summer (keeping the chance 5%) would add something to do in Summer while making the farming system less dragonfruit-centric. However, I believe that more crops could be given additional functionality (such as pumpkins having scarecrows, Jack O'Lanterns and pumpkin cookies) to give more incentives to farm.

[Ecu]

17 hours ago, Trenix said:

Needs to be done before this feature can work.

• Remove basic and improved farms.
• Rebalance food to make crops more appealing as a source of food.
• Crops will be seasonal and will only grow at the right season.
• Birds will drop seeds for crops that are in season.

The Process

1. Use your pitchfork to dig up where you want your crops to grow.
2. While holding a bucket of poop, right click on the empty tile you just dug up.
3. Drag and drop the crops onto of the farm plot you want to grow, you can grow up to four crops on one fertilized tile.
4. Each time a crop is harvested on a fertilized tile, fertilizer is diminished on the tile. Once it is used up, you will no longer be able to plant anymore crops on it until you replenish it with more bucket of poop.

The Risk

• Crops can rarely get diseased and it can spread to other crops around it.
• Crows may rarely fly down and eat your crops. A scarecrow will signficantly reduce the chance of this happening.
• Crops which aren't fenced, may attract rabbits which will come and eat them. Build a fence with a gate to prevent this from happening.

The Purpose

• Adds difficulty.
• Makes the pitchfork, scarecrow, and a fence more useful.
• Adds replayability.

I can honestly say that I am torn with this suggestion.  On the one hand, it gives existing content more uses and encourages the use of the tile mechanics as gameplay features.  On the other hand, it goes against the current design in a pretty big way and I'm not really sure that is a good thing.

This kind of change seems better aimed at long running endless servers, which isn't really the focus of the game's design.  The game is focused on survival servers primarily (only ones officially supported and the primary servers hosted by others).  On said servers, the game doesn't even generally progress much farther than 100-150 days before a reset (on average) and such a run takes like 14+ hours.  I would estimate that a lot of people do not individually play that long on average.

This would mean that a lot of the crops would not actually even be seen if they were seasonal only.

I feel like there definitely needs to be an overhaul regarding the food system (all of it really), to encourage varied farming.

Personally, I like the idea of crafting farm tiles that can be placed (instead of farms maybe), that when placed, would create 4 plantable mounds, that would work like existing farms.  Seeds would remain as they are now, leading to random crops (to keep some fun randomization), with the bird still being able to give you specific seeds.

I also do kind of like the idea of crops being diseased and/or taken by creatures.  These kind of mechanics would again give existing content more legitimate uses, as well as offer difficulty regarding keeping up specific crops.

All in all, I suppose I enjoy some of the concepts.  Kudos.

[Trenix]

20 hours ago, Chaos2 said:

Comments made.

I've seen some line ups in farming system from a farming game on steam called "Stardew Valley" might not be true, but you prob played it a bit too much. Don't hunt me down if i'm wrong tho.

I've never played Stardew Valley before. Anyway I do agree some of your points, like maybe having 4 crops per tile is a tad too excessive and that walls can be additionally used instead of just fences. I personally dislike the idea that farming is mainly for dragon fruit, that crops aside from dragon fruit should be meaningless, that people should be massing farms endgame with no consequences, and that the food system is already balanced. Also basic and improved farms are just poor design, everyone just goes for the improved farm. I edited my original post to improve these changes.

[Donke60]

5 hours ago, Trenix said:

I've never played Stardew Valley before. Anyway I do agree some of your points, like maybe having 4 crops per tile is a tad too excessive and that walls can be additionally used instead of just fences. I personally dislike the idea that farming is mainly for dragon fruit, that crops aside from dragon fruit should be meaningless, that people should be massing farms endgame with no consequences, and that the food system is already balanced. Also basic and improved farms are just poor design, everyone just goes for the improved farm. I edited my original post to improve these changes.

Just because its the meta doesn't mean you have to use it that way you can go off meta

[Ecu]

9 hours ago, Trenix said:

I've never played Stardew Valley before. Anyway I do agree some of your points, like maybe having 4 crops per tile is a tad too excessive and that walls can be additionally used instead of just fences. I personally dislike the idea that farming is mainly for dragon fruit, that crops aside from dragon fruit should be meaningless, that people should be massing farms endgame with no consequences, and that the food system is already balanced. Also basic and improved farms are just poor design, everyone just goes for the improved farm. I edited my original post to improve these changes.

I agree with the frustration of farms not really being used for anything other than Dragon Fruit, and agree with the idea that basic/improved farms being a poor design decision.  However, I still don't really feel like your design is a good solution.  Strictly speaking, I don't believe limiting what you can grow to seasons is a good design decision.

Instead, the cooking/crafting systems should be overhauled to better make use of the variety of food items acquirable via farming.  This not only allows said systems to be better balanced themselves, but also better balances farming.  It also keeps the fun luck element to the game that the current system has.

 

[Sarsapiri]

If you want to add reasons to use farms, just add good crockpot recipes that require farmed veggies. The reason why dragonfruit is so popular is sheerly because it's dragonpie recipe. Also, the farmplots are balanced as is, because it makes getting food still a challenge. Your main source of food is supposed to be meat/honey for most of/the entire game. Also: removing mass farm plot usage will just render them useless all together. Most pro players skip farm plots because they don't have access to applied horticulture, one of wickerbottom's books. This is why wickerbottom is considered so highly for her quality. Punishing mega base building in late game is the same as making the player take damage for, say, attacking a hound. It is for the most part, an intended feature. While yes, you can skip doing that all together, it is the most common and often the intended route for the player to take. The only time this comes into conflict is with summer, but the ice flingomatic and scaled tile are items built for that. 

My proposals:

Add crockpot recipes for some farm foods that require that specific item, and are pretty good. (I.e: making a corn and steak food that gives high-quality hunger regen)

leave farming as is, it is balanced for the intention for food obtainment (which is hunting monsters and animals for meat) and making farming too viable of a food option invalidates most of the game. (combat is basically useless if you use farming as a primary source of food if made viable)

Add an alternate mass fertilization item that all characters can use.

 

 

[Ecu]

2 hours ago, Chaos2 said:

If you want to add reasons to use farms, just add good crockpot recipes that require farmed veggies. The reason why dragonfruit is so popular is sheerly because it's dragonpie recipe. Also, the farmplots are balanced as is, because it makes getting food still a challenge. Your main source of food is supposed to be meat/honey for most of/the entire game. Also: removing mass farm plot usage will just render them useless all together. Most pro players skip farm plots because they don't have access to applied horticulture, one of wickerbottom's books. This is why wickerbottom is considered so highly for her quality. Punishing mega base building in late game is the same as making the player take damage for, say, attacking a hound. It is for the most part, an intended feature. While yes, you can skip doing that all together, it is the most common and often the intended route for the player to take. The only time this comes into conflict is with summer, but the ice flingomatic and scaled tile are items built for that. 

My proposals:

Add crockpot recipes for some farm foods that require that specific item, and are pretty good. (I.e: making a corn and steak food that gives high-quality hunger regen)

leave farming as is, it is balanced for the intention for food obtainment (which is hunting monsters and animals for meat) and making farming too viable of a food option invalidates most of the game. (combat is basically useless if you use farming as a primary source of food if made viable)

Add an alternate mass fertilization item that all characters can use.

I agree with you regarding the comment on crockpot recipe changes to make farmed veggies more useful.  Food in general should probably offer a bit more nuance to add solid reasons to cook different things.

Honestly, the main thing I would personally suggest changing regarding farming is just remove basic farms, as they are kind of pointless.  Improved farms are so easy to acquire and are so much better.  I do find the idea of altering the farms to be a tile that spawns say four farming spots for you to plant on (which can again be removed by picking the tile back up).  The cost would need to represent the value of the four farm plots, but I think it being a tile would be rather interesting.

I disagree however, with the idea of essentially giving other players Wickerbottom's ability (even if the alternative method has reduced area).  I feel like her books are her iconic feature and allowing everyone to do it would ruin that aspect.  I do, however, feel like if the farm was turned into a tile, fertilizer should fertilize the whole tile's worth of plots (all 4), rather than just the one.  This would reduce overall fertilize time when using fertilizer to speed growth.

[Myself49]

Since farms are mostly used to get dragon fruit and dragon pies which are mostly used for beefalo domestication, why not just tie these two parts of the game together? That is, farming and domestication of animals.

Instead of a buildable farm, one could make farm tufts using pitchforks and poop and then do large scale growing of stuff that will be used to feed and domesticate animals.

Will fit megabases too I reckon.

It would add a completely new, fleshed out aspect to the game.

Also consider that the growth of crops would be season based and not day to day based. Turn the land into farm land, take care of it, plant stuff, protect it from diseases and animals, when it is harvest time  get huge food yields that with proper manage should last you all throughout the next season during which you will grow new stuff.

Specific plants get planted at specific seasons and also mature during specific seasons. Just figuring out how the stuff works will add a layer of complexity to the game.

Having to really take care of your farm, get rid of weeds etc. so your animals won't starve in winter will add a layer of complexity too instead of just making farm planting seed and waiting for a day or two and then feeding half of it to a bird so you can do it all over again.

Farming and taking care of animals will be a game within game.

Also bread.

[Ecu]

2 hours ago, Myself49 said:

Since farms are mostly used to get dragon fruit and dragon pies which are mostly used for beefalo domestication, why not just tie these two parts of the game together? That is, farming and domestication of animals.

Instead of a buildable farm, one could make farm tufts using pitchforks and poop and then do large scale growing of stuff that will be used to feed and domesticate animals.

Will fit megabases too I reckon.

It would add a completely new, fleshed out aspect to the game.

Also consider that the growth of crops would be season based and not day to day based. Turn the land into farm land, take care of it, plant stuff, protect it from diseases and animals, when it is harvest time  get huge food yields that with proper manage should last you all throughout the next season during which you will grow new stuff.

Specific plants get planted at specific seasons and also mature during specific seasons. Just figuring out how the stuff works will add a layer of complexity to the game.

Having to really take care of your farm, get rid of weeds etc. so your animals won't starve in winter will add a layer of complexity too instead of just making farm planting seed and waiting for a day or two and then feeding half of it to a bird so you can do it all over again.

Farming and taking care of animals will be a game within game.

Also bread.

I disagree with this idea because not only is there other reasons to farm things (say pumpkins), the game is called Don't Starve and as such it would be good to make use of different farmable foods to help you survive.  The issue is that dragon fruit is pretty much the best option you can get from farming.  If instead, the various crockpot recipes required different farmables, it would give incentive to farm more than just dragon fruit.  This could be done by utilizing stat over time mechanics to allow some recipes to be instant increases, while others are handled over time.

You could add to this some domestication specific recipes/farmables, but I don't agree with the idea of making crops only used for domestication.  I also disagree with seasonal crops as mentioned before.  I prefer the crops working as the do now for the most part.

[Myself49]

7 hours ago, Ecu said:

I disagree with this idea because not only is there other reasons to farm things (say pumpkins), the game is called Don't Starve and as such it would be good to make use of different farmable foods to help you survive.  The issue is that dragon fruit is pretty much the best option you can get from farming.  If instead, the various crockpot recipes required different farmables, it would give incentive to farm more than just dragon fruit.  This could be done by utilizing stat over time mechanics to allow some recipes to be instant increases, while others are handled over time.

You could add to this some domestication specific recipes/farmables, but I don't agree with the idea of making crops only used for domestication.  I also disagree with seasonal crops as mentioned before.  I prefer the crops working as the do now for the most part.

The problem is that hardly anyone uses farms for not starving when meat and honey and other sources of food are so abundant.

The things that are farmable now such as pumpkins could still be farmable, just differently and on a larger scale perhaps. Basically current vegies and fruit could be farmable like before but add a hay kind of food used to make bread and feed the animals or maybe even turn into grass.

And if we tie domestication to farming, it helps you survive and not starve too.

Consider the following: food from farms used to feed animals -> that increases their reproduction rate -> that increases the amount you can butcher -> that increases the amount of meat aka food you have

This would also give a logical reason for even characters like Wigfrid to start and keep farms.

And your idea of crockpot recipes can easily be kept along mine. Meat could be the main source of hunger replenishment let's say while vegetables and fruits would have a different role. Healing and buffs for instance.

Making the crops seasonal would also require some planning and resource management which would add a layer of complexity and challenge into the game.

I mean, it is a survival game. If you could just plop down a seed irl and take a dump on it twice to make it grow instantly life would be much easier dontcha think.

With seasonal farming, you either make an effort to produce a crop or live like a nomad, hunt and gather berries or if you fail both you die.

[Ecu]

4 hours ago, Myself49 said:

The problem is that hardly anyone uses farms for not starving when meat and honey and other sources of food are so abundant.

The things that are farmable now such as pumpkins could still be farmable, just differently and on a larger scale perhaps. Basically current vegies and fruit could be farmable like before but add a hay kind of food used to make bread and feed the animals or maybe even turn into grass.

And if we tie domestication to farming, it helps you survive and not starve too.

Consider the following: food from farms used to feed animals -> that increases their reproduction rate -> that increases the amount you can butcher -> that increases the amount of meat aka food you have

This would also give a logical reason for even characters like Wigfrid to start and keep farms.

And your idea of crockpot recipes can easily be kept along mine. Meat could be the main source of hunger replenishment let's say while vegetables and fruits would have a different role. Healing and buffs for instance.

Making the crops seasonal would also require some planning and resource management which would add a layer of complexity and challenge into the game.

I mean, it is a survival game. If you could just plop down a seed irl and take a dump on it twice to make it grow instantly life would be much easier dontcha think.

With seasonal farming, you either make an effort to produce a crop or live like a nomad, hunt and gather berries or if you fail both you die.

If crockpot recipes are changed to utilize farmed goods more and food is overhauled to offer different benefits than just straight replenishing of states, then there would be no need for your idea to keep different crops interesting.

In addition to this, by limiting individual crops to a specific season, you actually reduce the amount of crops that will generally see play during the average playtime of an individual and discourage the use of crops all together.  Domestication already doesn't see use in average runs because it is simply too time consuming for the benefit offered.  Requiring summer to grow a crop, for instance, will cause said crop to rarely be used at all.

[Myself49]

2 hours ago, Ecu said:

If crockpot recipes are changed to utilize farmed goods more and food is overhauled to offer different benefits than just straight replenishing of states, then there would be no need for your idea to keep different crops interesting.

In addition to this, by limiting individual crops to a specific season, you actually reduce the amount of crops that will generally see play during the average playtime of an individual and discourage the use of crops all together.  Domestication already doesn't see use in average runs because it is simply too time consuming for the benefit offered.  Requiring summer to grow a crop, for instance, will cause said crop to rarely be used at all.

Again with your average run thing. Should the game be balanced about one single way of playing that happens to be the most common one and everything based on some stupid average or should the game be made in a way where there are many possible ways of playing it? I think the second one is the better option. Clearly you care more about statistics than actually wanting the gameplay to be always fresh and interesting and the game not getting boring and being an enjoyable experience for as long as possible.

[Ecu]

7 minutes ago, Myself49 said:

Again with your average run thing. Should the game be balanced about one single way of playing that happens to be the most common one and everything based on some stupid average or should the game be made in a way where there are many possible ways of playing it? I think the second one is the better option. Clearly you care more about statistics than actually wanting the gameplay to be always fresh and interesting and the game not getting boring and being an enjoyable experience for as long as possible.

The game should have an intended experience and the balance should be based around said intended experience, yes.  Given that the only official servers are survival, that survival is the default game mode, and that a majority of players play survival mode...it makes perfect sense for the survival experience to be the intended one.  In fact, it would be the only experience that would make sense as intended.

I do want the game to be fresh and interesting, but that can be done within the average play time of 10-20 hours.  Randomizing resources, map layout, set pieces, etc. can all give way to fresh and interesting experiences.  So adding additional content along those lines would be preferential to adding additional content a majority of players will never utilize.