Farming is just too op, also foraging is lol.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

I hate to be the one to say this but farming and foraging trivializes the game. You just get too much food, and too many seeds are returned. I end up with more food than I can store and thousands of seeds in less than a month, and due to the ease of farming, you can increasingly expand your farm area.

Berries really give way too much hunger return and poison berries aren't really dangerous even with weak stomach unless you gorge on a lot of them.

The worse part about it is you don't have to do anything once you plant your seeds unless its winter and it doesn't rain much anymore but, the game will basically take care of your farm for you and you never have to do anything to it but harvest and replant.

The return for the work is very high.

I've never watered my crops once and I could start a freaking grocery delivery service right now.

Stick a generator on your house, and pull a few industrial coolers/freezers or neighbors fridges and you have food to last you basically forever. You never need to leave your base ever again.


Idealy you would want to store as much food as possible for the winters, chips/non perishable foods like can (eating your cultivation and saving the other foods that will last the winter) using preservation methods like making jerky, making peanut butter from peanuts (peanut butter never goes bad, fun fact! It might smell and taste horrible but it never loses its nutrition if you can stomach eating it!) pickling veggies in vinegar with spices, and pickling fruits in honey. (Bee keeping should be a thing)


The question is how do you balance it? My answer is the above, preservation needs to be more of a mainstay thing, which means fixing jars,glass bottles, lids and making jars and cans reusable for the player to be able to use, (yes I'm already aware of mods that do this)

For foraging poison berries/mushrooms should be more dangerous, and the respawn for foraging should be a bit higher.

Discuss.


[Edit] because people only read the OP then default to the same argument about calories, here is a summery of my explanations why its irrelevant to point that out.

farming, foraging ,trapping and fishing, work in tandem with one another. All of which are lol-Ez mode and provide too much for the amount of effort the player must do.

Farming - Nothing, the game does everything for you.

Trapping- Almost nothing you just need to understand how it works, where to place traps, and what bait to use. Materials to make traps are easy to obtain

Fishing, Essentially nothing, learn how to make a fishing pole, you will get plenty of fishing bait from foraging, and you will get some from tilling furrows and some in compost bins if you throw all your massive berries hauls into them.

Foraging - Essentially nothing. Just know how to learn which berries are poisonous.

These are all low risk and high reward.

Pointing calories out is irrelevant when you can use your massive farm yields to bait several traps in an area close to your base and check them daily, and you can fish as well.

Fishing/trapping provides the protein and calorie rich foods neccessary to keep you from losing too much weight, everyone only focuses on "farming" calorie diets, like its the only options players have, till they realize the other 3 skills are also pretty op.

All of these skills essentially snowball off of each other.

[Binnie]

It's almost like farming works... :)

Try it in real like and you will be surprised with how much you can grow with just some rain barrels. Honestly, if you find the game is too easy that's what the different builds and mods are for... Turn on resurrection zombies, or runners, or up food rot?

There are so many ways to make the game harder yourself... I don't think the core gameplay needs to be changed.

[Gilga ™ |Yonaguni|]

PZ the new farming game, its just not balanced yet

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Binnie:

It's almost like farming works... :)

Try it in real like and you will be surprised with how much you can grow with just some rain barrels. Honestly, if you find the game is too easy that's what the different builds and mods are for... Turn on resurrection zombies, or runners, or up food rot?

There are so many ways to make the game harder yourself... I don't think the core gameplay needs to be changed.

Buddy Ive worked on a farm irl and I can tell you its not as easy as you think. When you deal with blight, insects and critters that will eat your crops (none of which are in the game except the diseases, which are negligible)

For watering masses of crops we use irrigation trenches, and have to run that water from our supply tap, sometimes adding stuff too it to fertilize or strengthen the crops. That's how you ideally want to keep crops watered.

As much as it rains in game, your crops would get over watered and die. I'm sorry but what you're saying just isn't true.

I'm saying for the amount of work the player has to put into farming (Essentially nothing) , you get too much return out of it.

Ressurection zombies? You mean respawns? I'm already playing in Apoc mode so respawns are already a thing. Zombies have always been on run for me.

I'm not asking for "Harder" per say, but some better balance to something that currently feels Imba and broken.


Ideally what I am advocating is that the players should never have to provide 0 work to get more food than they know what to do with to the point most of it is returned to the compost bins.

What you should have happening is players should be taking that abundance of food and storing/preserving it for the winter, while eating the foods you grew, and saving the foods that do not spoil, to last you the winter months, subsiding off fishing, and hunting (trapping) then.

If you've ever played "Dont Stave" you'll know what I mean.

[Jesus Christ]

Sandbox

[Khorne Flakes]

As with the answer with much of the game's current balance: NPCs.

When NPCs are introduced, supplies across the map will be harder to come by, and no doubt within months scavenging food will be a near impossibility(unless you have respawning supplies on).
So when farming becomes the primary source of food for all the surviving groups, not only is the player going to have to feed their group of survivors, but also fend/pay off rival groups who're looking for food. Even if you manage to still get a big stockpile of veggies, they'll be quite useful in trading with other groups that aren't out just to take what's yours.

I really like your solutions with preservation and potentially dangerous foraging though! Also keep in mind that Build 42(the next major update) is going to be including animals. So foraging is going to be riskier in the future.

[Hamster's Rage]

Haven't tried playing with farming yet , but I have seen options to increase / decrease farm/forage yield , growing time ect ect..

If the farming/foraging yield is too much , try setting it to very poor and see if it fits your play style.

Game is still being worked on , they might change it like they did with fire

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Khorne Flakes:

As with the answer with much of the game's current balance: NPCs.

When NPCs are introduced, supplies across the map will be harder to come by, and no doubt within months scavenging food will be a near impossibility(unless you have respawning supplies on).
So when farming becomes the primary source of food for all the surviving groups, not only is the player going to have to feed their group of survivors, but also fend/pay off rival groups who're looking for food. Even if you manage to still get a big stockpile of veggies, they'll be quite useful in trading with other groups that aren't out just to take what's yours.

I really like your solutions with preservation and potentially dangerous foraging though! Also keep in mind that Build 42(the next major update) is going to be including animals. So foraging is going to be riskier in the future.

My main point is that farming is "Too rewarding" for the amount of effort the player has to actually put into it, with is literally "Nothing" right now. The game itself does everything for you with its frequency in rain.

There should be some level of maintenance the player must do in order to keep their crops watered and tended to.

Game is still being worked on , they might change it like they did with fire

And this is me giving feedback for them to consider. I'm not "Complaining" just trying to give my supporting criticism to a game I've played for almost 8 years now, to assist in the future development, its very clear they want to make the games mechanics very realistic in terms of how real life works.

Originally posted by Tamm:

Yes vanilla is ezmode, thats why i play sandbox with very poor very low farming/nature abundance. Even with these settings farming is very rewarding.
5 potatoes/tomatoes per harvest, and one potato is +18

Yea, that's probably what I'll have to do, else I'll just get bored or have no reason to leave my base, there needs to be a high risk, high reward, or need for the player to leave the safety of their base.

While some things you can only play/interact with through mods, and that's unfortunate this is one of the few games I'll actually play with mods since it further adds to the immersion.

You mean -18 hunger? Yea, Potatoes are amazing.

Also, off topic, I like your avatar picture.

[njs]

You aren't taking into account calories.

Berries and crops yield quite a low calorie count. Fishing and foraging are necessary to get the fat/protein you need to maintain your weight. Eating only berries/vegetables is a good way to starve yourself. Literally, if you're looking to lose weight for your character, subsisting on berries to satiate hunger but cut calories is a good strategy.

Farming is low-maintenance, though, I agree. Some more depth to it would be better for the game. But it isn't like you can easily survive off of it.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by njs:

You aren't taking into account calories.

Berries and crops yield quite a low calorie count. Fishing and foraging are necessary to get the fat/protein you need to maintain your weight. Eating only berries/vegetables is a good way to starve yourself. Literally, if you're looking to lose weight for your character, subsisting on berries to satiate hunger but cut calories is a good strategy.

Yes I am. I already know all this. You need to trap/fish to get meats for protein/high calories and cook it together with other veggies to keep your weight from decreasing.

Rabbits/birds/fish combined with any random veggies, rice, or whatever is enough to keep your character from losing weight.

Adding heavy meats will gain you tons of weight, its not like trapping is hard to do either.

You can eat off berries and pure veggies till you start getting too underweight, and fatten yourself back up since you will have an over abundance of vegetables to not only make stews and soups, but also to bait your traps.

Again, what I am stating, is the amount of REWARD you get for doing absolutely NOTHING, is astronomical and my other point is food is just too damn plentiful.

[Brainslug]

While I kind of agree, it never really became a problem for me. As I usually die hunting for a sledgehammer, a third replacement axe or other stupid stuff.

But, yeah, once you gathered what you need and head for the wilderness, you can survive for a very long time.

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by Brainslug:

While I kind of agree, it never really became a problem for me. As I usually die hunting for a sledgehammer, a third replacement axe or other stupid stuff.

But, yeah, once you gathered what you need and head for the wilderness, you can survive for a very long time.

Complacency is what gets you killed in this game, you stop being cautious after a certain while, ignore certain survivor rules and take more reckless actions which leads to most of those "stupid deaths"

I'm not really saying its a problem for me either, just that I find the risk---> Work ---> reward is imba.

The only risk is finding the materials to start farming. Perhaps they need to be much rarer to obtain seed packets, and force the player to loot major shopping districts to obtain any, the risk in that would be a massive pay off and rewards skilled players.

Right now you can find them anywhere, and seed return is very high too.

[jakethegreatwhite]

farming has no long term benefits alone, considering you will always lose weight unless you stuff yourself with cabbages all day just to stay normal, but i do think high level trapping is extremely rewarding if not OP, and a few weeks of trapping can give you enough food and calories to last you a year

[Shady Allie]

Did I or did I not read that farming is getting an overhaul?
I remember somehow in my head that farming will be reworked.
The farming in the game now was adapted from a mod that the developers liked, so they plopped it in the code.

https://theindiestone.com/forums/index.php?/topic/35879-potato-seeds/&do=findComment&comment=312147

[DemonchanSama (Lilyia)]

Originally posted by jakethegreatwhite:

farming has no long term benefits alone, considering you will always lose weight unless you stuff yourself with cabbages all day just to stay normal, but i do think high level trapping is extremely rewarding if not OP, and a few weeks of trapping can give you enough food and calories to last you a year

Since you missed it by probably only skimming the OP

Yes I am. I already know all this. You need to trap/fish to get meats for protein/high calories and cook it together with other veggies to keep your weight from decreasing.

Rabbits/birds/fish combined with any random veggies, rice, or whatever is enough to keep your character from losing weight.

Adding heavy meats will gain you tons of weight, its not like trapping is hard to do either.

You can eat off berries and pure veggies till you start getting too underweight, and fatten yourself back up since you will have an over abundance of vegetables to not only make stews and soups, but also to bait your traps.

Again, what I am stating, is the amount of REWARD you get for doing absolutely NOTHING, is astronomical and my other point is food is just too damn plentiful.

[katsuragi]

Foraging seems like infinite food but in the long run, I don't think you can maintain your weight on berries alone and extreme weight loss is one of the many ways this game kills you.