So is this still broken as hell or is growing plants worth while now?
This is based off a few basic things.
originally while growing plants they did not produce any seeds. Yeah no seeds kinda seems weird seeing as your growing a plant and plants have freaking seeds or spores of some kind…
When you grew a plant it grew at a 1 to 1 ratio meaning 100 seeds meant 100 of the plant that you were growing. which wouldn’t be a bad thing if they grew seeds in the first place.
Yes, still a problem. I posed this question (whether self-sustaining farming would ever be a thing) during the latest Q&A, but unfortunately the question didn’t make it. In all fairness it was posted late, but still.
I’m planning to ask it the next time we get a Q&A session, if it hasn’t been answered in the meantime.
For the record, I’m not talking about having farming be an input-less crop generator.
Something like:
Input: 1 seed, 1 compost
Output: 1 seed, small chance for an extra seed, X number of crops (realistically you’d probably get many seeds, but it’s a gameplay balance kinda thing)
That way, you trade time and compost for crops and seed, which is generally what farming is all about.
It’s not like it’s a big deal, I can just go and manually harvest seeds in the world, but then there’s no real point to the farming system at all, is there? I can just as easily just go harvest the crops I need, after all.
Well depends on how you view it. Sure you can just go out and manually harvest the crops you need, but that’s all you’ll be doing during X amount of time. Me n my friends view it as more of a convenience thing, like sure we went gathering and got a bunch of seeds. So now we can just plant them and actually do something we want to do while “passively” gathering crops.
I do agree tho, i wouldn’t mind seeing a more fleshed out farming system, maybe with like aqueducts and such as well.
Yeah fair enough, to me the whole farming thing, you know making compost, planters, etc etc, takes more time than just harvesting what I need, which gets me the crops immediately.
It’s hardly a big deal, I’d just like to hear Funcom’s opinion on the subject, since it’s (to me) an underused mechanic that could be a lot more fun with some small changes, and I’m curious as to what lies behind the decision to have seeds be consumed. Presumably a fear that it gives people nothing (or less, anyway) to go out of their base for, which “ok, I can see that” if so.
Farming or gardening is more an aesthetic thing, with a light use in real resources. As Mike said, you can go get whatever plants you need, possibly spending less time than gathering all resources needed to create plants, meaning putrid meat (which requiere meat to rot) or dung, plus fiber, plus bonemeal (which again requires gathering bone material).
How I see it: I just raze the field with my clever, obtaining Fiber the most, the plant I’m farming medium, and a less seeds. When I gather resources I usually go with a suicidal bearer and my “encumbrance” clothes, so when I return home I’m fully of the needed plant and with a decent amount of seeds. I put the seeds in the farms (feeded with the spoiled meat and animal stool) and when I have consumed the materials, instead of going again to farm I do have a decent amount of plants to work.
I like to use the second level of planter for cosmetic plants as I like it’s look. If you leave a grown plant in it then it shows that forever. Then if I decide I do want to grow something rather than gather it I can just add more seeds+compost…it then shows the growing plants and when I’ve removed them it reverts to show the plant I’ve left in it… multiple purpose and I can change the display by putting in a different seed.
Funcom has already given their position on this. And that is that gardening is not meant to be self sustaining. They want people to go out in the world to harvest stuff. The seeds are just a bonus that you can use.
Where have they done that? I haven’t seen an answer to that question, but I’m not saying it doesn’t exist.
And if you were about to say “in the game” then yeah, duh, but Funcom have shown themselves willing to listen to feedback, and to change mechanics that may not work as well as they could, so in that case that’d be what I would be going for.