Farms not needed at all

[501105]

You can also make bee boxes and pig houses brake a little with every harvest/pig respawn and give some visual signs of structure, and if you don't repair them on time you will lose that structure. That way you must manage your harvest and if you don't you will be left with pile of rubble and will have to build new ones. That with longer respawn and production time, pig grudges persist could be fun.

I can see that working for bees, but I hate the idea of pighouses possibly breaking completely, meaning that the supply of pigs is finite. If you can always repair a structure even if it is broken, than I can see it working, since you are never denied a resource permanently that way.

[_Q_]

I can see that working for bees, but I hate the idea of pighouses possibly breaking completely, meaning that the supply of pigs is finite. If you can always repair a structure even if it is broken, than I can see it working, since you are never denied a resource permanently that way.

But there should be possibility of recourse running out. It's infinite as long as you keep an eye on them, but make a mistake and you have one pig house less.

[501105]

But there should be possibility of recourse running out. It's infinite as long as you keep an eye on them, but make a mistake and you have one pig house less.

I can see the challenge in that, but I feel that there should always be an escape clause to not be denied too many resources at one given time.

[promero14]

I get the distinct impression that honey production is going to be slowed down a bit in the next update.

- - - Updated - - -

The bees need to be a bit less busy!

DON'T TOUCH MY BEES, THEY ARE FINE

Thank you

[ImStarving]

It seems like people who are taking advantage of how easy the system is now are in turn causing the developers to make the game harder for everyone else. While I normally would not take issue with this I feel that in the rush to balance some things need to be considered before action is taken.

In all of my runs through the game I have never made more than one bee box out of my numerous bases. Perhaps, instead of taking so many punitive measures, a system could be put in place with more focus on preventing too many bee boxes from being made, instead of slowing down production, creating random bee fights and lowering values, etc? It seems like this may get close to overkill with all of the suggestions being made in this thread.

Have you given thought to the people who only use one bee box? Please remember to look at the issue from all angles. I am fine with changes, but changes need to be balanced from all points of view.

Edited February 19, 2013 by ImStarving

[_Q_]

Not harder but more balanced. I only use 2 bee boxes, I can live with one, the outcome would be the same, honey ham everywhere.

[ImStarving]

My concern is that it seems like the logic is going:

Everyone seems to be doing this, so do that to prevent everyone from doing this.

How about instead:

Some people are doing that while others do that, so perhaps do this and that to adjust that.

Do you get my logic here?

[_Q_]

My concern is that it seems like the logic is going:

Everyone seems to be doing this, so do that to prevent everyone from doing this.

How about instead:

Some people are doing that while others do that, so perhaps do this and that to adjust that.

Do you get my logic here?

Of course we get it, its not only about honey, also pigs and beefalos.

End outcome should be that you will use all food sources present in the game instead of just 2, and maybe you will be close to starving sometimes.

[Palpetinus]

And what did we learn today? Balancing a game is hard.

[Avarice]

Sure is, and more so if you listen to people who want the game to turn into "Come play with me on an adventure, the cute game for girls, ages 6 and up, rated E for everyone." Tag lines like uncompromising wilderness survival, and the screen that says "How long will you survive?" when you start a new game, that's just silly code for don't worry you will never die relax and have fun.

[Avelarius]

Hey guys, do not forget you do not need meat to make honey ham.You can make it with one monster meat and two morsels besides one honey of course.So for the first part you can also use spiders, tentacles and hounds and for the second part you can use bunnies, birds and frogs (not sure about fish).The ability to make honey ham, nuggets and kabobs from monster meat makes me remember a scene from Dragonheart where the villagers try to eat the dragon. They go after him yelling meat, meat, meat. That's how I feel about hounds =)

[Palpetinus]

Tag lines like uncompromising wilderness survival, and the screen that says "How long will you survive?" when you start a new game, that's just silly code for don't worry you will never die relax and have fun.

How long will you survive. That's (or should be) fancytalk for "You will go down, female dog!"

[_Q_]

But please lets stay on food balancing topic. And just ignore posts like that:

DON'T TOUCH MY BEES, THEY ARE FINE

Bring some constructive feedback here, posting line with don't touch my stuff is not very helpful.

[Big_H]

In the short term, here's what I am thinking:

Bee boxes are too easy to make, and consolidate in a small area. Making them them recharge a bit slower, and take more comb to create will slow production. Inter-hive fights will enforce some spacing. Bee combat should be buffed a little in general.

Honey does too much. Reduce it's healing power (there is meat for that). In general, I think healing is too hard to come by, and too tied to food. Perhaps we need less healing in general, but more player health? I need to think on that.

Beefalo drop too many meats (and maybe reproduce too fast) - the expected return on a fighting a herd is too great.

Pig houses are bacon farms. The re-pigging time should be increased, and the pigs probably shouldn't be such pushovers in combat against the player. Maybe pig grudges should persist after death? Ie - if you kill a pig anywhere, all of pig-kind hates you for a day.

I think Beefalo drop an appropriate amount of meat for their size. However I think they're too easy to kill and they do reproduce (way) too fast. Ever since the baby Beefalo change finding meat has been trivial. Once, a Beefalo herd in heat wandered into a nearby pig town... I picked up probably 50 meats (not including the ones the pigs ate) with zero work. It was pretty funny to watch actually.

I like the pig grudge idea. Though I'd actually like to see it expanded so pigs can't be used as such an easy meat farm or as easy cannon fodder for killing other animals. Something like long term grudges which build up - So each pig house is a "family" and each new pig which spawns from that house will be a member of that family and hold the same grudge as their predecessors (so you can't just kill off the pig to reset the grudge). As you use the pigs to kill other animals, or you kill them, the grudge level eventually builds up to where the pig family is hostile to you when they spawn and the only way to deal with it is to leave them alone to let it dissipate, or to destroy their house (which adds a grudge level to all neighboring houses) and build a new one.

Basically I think it's too easy to raise a pig army and have them do my dirty work, or to just slaughter them all for meat. So I agree, there should be some repercussions to "abusing" your civilized pig friends.

As for the bee boxes... maybe flowers shouldn't be replantable? What I end up doing is capturing butterflies and replanting a large field of flowers around my hives so the bees have easy access. Maybe if the bees had to travel further for their flowers that would slow production down enough? Or you could plant flower beds, but it was through a recipe rather than butterflies, so maybe you had to grow/collect seeds (through the bird cage method?) to grow the beds. Or maybe bees just need natural enemies, something which could kill them as they're out in the wild visiting their flowers.

Or maybe instead of putting everything on the bees and hives, put some of the weight on the flowers themselves. Any nerf to honey production could probably be offset by just building more hives. But what if flowers were the determining factor in honey production, so a flower only had so much nectar at one time, which would slowly regenerate. As long as flower planting was limited in some way, the number of hives after a point wouldn't matter because they're all pulling from the same resource pool. That could also add a point to the sanity meter, you can pick flowers for sanity or you can leave them for your bees.

Edit: Re: Meat farms

Maybe you'd rather keep the game more lighthearted, but maybe when you kill a pig or beefalo they leave behind a corpse/bones which attracts Hounds/other bad animals. So sure you can slaughter that pig village for meat, but doing so also attracts predators, or bumps up the hound attack timer, or something to make it more dangerous.

Edited February 19, 2013 by Big_H

[ArcticFox789]

And i kind of find this whole "you have to explore" thing stupid, honestly.Humans stay in one place since 20.000 years ago.

True, but we have explored all corners of the globe, and if we had the technology, I'm sure we'd keep exploring into Space.

[Palpetinus]

True, but we have explored all corners of the globe, and if we had the technology, I'm sure we'd keep exploring into Space.

But that's not because we have food problems.

[_Q_]

Hey guys, do not forget you do not need meat to make honey ham.You can make it with one monster meat and two morsels besides one honey of course.So for the first part you can also use spiders, tentacles and hounds and for the second part you can use bunnies, birds and frogs (not sure about fish).The ability to make honey ham, nuggets and kabobs from monster meat makes me remember a scene from Dragonheart where the villagers try to eat the dragon. They go after him yelling meat, meat, meat. That's how I feel about hounds =)

I use 1 meat, 1 monster meat and 2 honey, so its even more effective cause monster meat is so easy to get. Rabbits got a nerf, for birds you must make boomerang/traps, hunting for birds take some time is not as effective as pig slaughter.

[Silvi]

Frankly I only kill pigmen the day before full moon because it's better that way anyway. *cough* Just in case some of them don't make it in time to their houses.Monster meat is way too good as a filler with 'meaty' qualities.Making a resource finite is never a good idea, because it will leave a bad aftertaste, however introducing maintenance for them (fixing pig houses, bee boxes etc) sounds like a reasonable way to go.As for the amount of meat beefalo drop, it seems appropriate, it's not like you can just run up to one and kill it, so the reward matches the work put into it. It's the meat dropped by pigmen that's cheap... maybe they should just always drop pig skin and not meat? (tallbirds - yes they do drop meat but if you make a mistake during kiting them you can easily end up dead).

[L0stLP]

If the problem is hording honey and farm plots, make it so the first 1-2 built work as normally and and any other additionally built slows production speed on all of them. That way the best option is to built less and visit often, maintenance options could be added.While nerfing the speed, seen in the previous updates, in the long run is not a good idea because they will built more to get the same result as before, also because new players will just be frustrated of the inefficiency of self food production.

[Morningstar]

I like the pig tribes. You could identify a tribe by the hat they wear. You could also make coiffed wigs from beard hair to adopt pigs you have spawned with built houses into your tribe.

[ArcticFox789]

But that's not because we have food problems.

Eventually.

[SwiftShadow2]

So, responding to something way back on page 4 - Has it been suggested to make the Beebox a more late-game item? I think the biggest problem is that you can get it nearly immediately if you play as Wickerbottom - Maybe make it a tier 2 item that requires an alchemy machine to make?

[Jack]

First. Related to the title, i like farm, they give you a little extra in the game, it's like harvest moon.Second. Why dont just add a difficulty system? I know it have been suggested beforeI mean, if you nerf everything, image people who just got the gameMy first 10 tries i died at day 7 and i was already mad with it, if the game gets TOO hard, people who are new wont like it, they wont know how to play and how to survive.At the same time, you play, you get better, it gets borring, its already an one life game, it IS hard and you GET mad when you die. It will be nearly impossible to survive.AND the biggest problem seems to be the food. I don't think anyone here but me have already actualy STARVED.WHY honey is so important? WHY cant you just live with berries or harvest farms sometimes? Its like everyone in here dont actualy think its a survival game, its more like a "Need my hunger full 24/7 to keep building my BIGASS base"Food is not a hard thing to get in the game, the title of the topic even say it, WHY do people actualy build farms? If I have infinite berries, rabbits, birds, meat, honey, seeds, eggs, frogs, spiders, even fish.When i gave the game to my sister, she played and said "Haha its not even Don't starve"I love the game for the possibilites, not for how hard it is. You can make a farm, have a dog, kill monsters, fight bosses, hunt animals, fish, explore, build a house, make hats (tf2 moment), travel between worlds... We will even have seasons (kind of [?])PEOPLE WILL PROBALY TRHOW ROCKS AT MEbut i said what i thinksorrybye

[Avarice]

I don't want to die in video games and start over.

Don't play survival games, problem solved. Next time read the product description before purchasing.Try Harvest Moon, Rune Factory, and the Sims. Has all that stuff you mentioned and you won't have to deal with the things you don't like. Which by the way are the things I do like and why I bought the game. Edited February 19, 2013 by Avarice

[_Q_]

First. Related to the title, i like farm, they give you a little extra in the game, it's like harvest moon.Second. Why dont just add a difficulty system? I know it have been suggested beforeI mean, if you nerf everything, image people who just got the gameMy first 10 tries i died at day 7 and i was already mad with it, if the game gets TOO hard, people who are new wont like it, they wont know how to play and how to survive.At the same time, you play, you get better, it gets borring, its already an one life game, it IS hard and you GET mad when you die. It will be nearly impossible to survive.AND the biggest problem seems to be the food. I don't think anyone here but me have already actualy STARVED.WHY honey is so important? WHY cant you just live with berries or harvest farms sometimes? Its like everyone in here dont actualy think its a survival game, its more like a "Need my hunger full 24/7 to keep building my BIGASS base"Food is not a hard thing to get in the game, the title of the topic even say it, WHY do people actualy build farms? If I have infinite berries, rabbits, birds, meat, honey, seeds, eggs, frogs, spiders, even fish.When i gave the game to my sister, she played and said "Haha its not even Don't starve"I love the game for the possibilites, not for how hard it is. You can make a farm, have a dog, kill monsters, fight bosses, hunt animals, fish, explore, build a house, make hats (tf2 moment), travel between worlds... We will even have seasons (kind of [?])PEOPLE WILL PROBALY TRHOW ROCKS AT MEbut i said what i thinksorrybye

How you starved? It seems impossible for me. Just started new game as Wes, 40 carrots and berries in my inventory, already found 2 pig villages and beefalos and bees after 6 days of exploring. Now all I need is alchemy engine, and after that there is nothing but tons of honey ham, and dead pigs. To the dying part, I just died on day 5 earlier today, no rage or problem with that for me, just started next game. I can live on berries and carrots, and my hunger meter will be full, that's the current problem for me:

When i gave the game to my sister, she played and said "Haha its not even Don't starve"

You killed your own post with that.