The new update really hurts the early game

[Kefka]

I always start a new game with each major update, so I'm very familiar with the first 60~ days of play, and I've played this since it came to steam.

I'm not sure the devs tested this update on a new game... there are multiple big problems that persist and even ruin early-mid game progression and fun.

1. Barley takes 8 days to grow, and only EVER produces 2 barley when harvested. A new player has nothing to serve for 8 days unless they buy it. Not only is this very confusing, but actually playing 8 full days (as I did) and having nothing to do is bad design. Seasons are too long and crops take too long to grow, pick 1 or the other, not both, and only getting 2 products per seed makes margins even tighter than they already were, and feels really bad in a new game.

2. Many store prices are absolutely terrible. Barely seeds cost 5.80 silver, and usable barley costs 10 silver for just one piece!!! Do the math for porridge.... a new player will buy barley for porridge and actually lose money from it.

3. Removing the farming tech tree and removing availability of seeds from the store. Not only can players not see what the possibilities are, but they can't learn where something comes from because they can only see 10~ seeds at a time in the store. Where does Rye or apples come from, and what are they used for? a new player won't know until those seeds randomly appear in the store, if they happen to look at the right time.

4. Farming and watering plants. It feels bad, and tedious. I understand we're trying to improve it and flesh it out, but its just really janky and incredibly tedious, especially when we need to farm hundreds of items per season to make sure we have enough of them to last the rest of the year.

This is one of my favorite games on steam, I've played it a lot and helped new players learn it and report bugs. This hurts me to say but.... this update feels like a regression to the initial steam version of travellers rest. Making the profit margins so tight, and the farming production so bad, while removing the main benefit from the farming skill tree, really makes everything feel worse. I sold gruel and water for 7 days straight after running out of the initial materials the game gives you, it feels really bad.

But since Traveller's Rest is still in early access, we can change this back and improve it still, right?

Edit: Still can't farm herbs or hops. Both are farmed IRL and in medieval times, it doesn't make sense to not farm herbs here, we literally do it all the time

Edit 2: Did the math for porridge and bread, both made of barley. Rice porridge makes a very small profit not even worth writing out.
Barley bread on the other hand, is very good. you input 50~ silver for 2 barley and 3 kitchen yeast, and output over 300 silver for all the bread. Adjusting for the input cost, you net 245.6 silver in pure profit. Leave bread as it is, and either reduce the cost of barley or increase the profit from porridge so its not just losing you money.

[The Bullet]

Hey Kefka! Thanks for your feedback.

Next week we'll release some updates that will fix some issues and balance prices and crops growing times.


Regarding porridge and barley seeds, I don't see how you'll lose money. Let me do the math:

Buying barley:
2x Barley = 20.30 silver
You get 20 units of porridge that will be sold for 43.40 silver
Profit: 23,10 silver

If you buy barley seeds:
1x Barley Seed = 5,80 (You get two barley units)
20 units of Porridge = 43.40 Silver
Profit: 37.60 silver

Let me know if I'm missing something please.



About the tediousness you feel about planting and watering.
We believe that watering is quite fast, much faster than most farming games. You only water once every three days and you water 3 squares at a time, which in the future will be more when we add watering can upgrades.


I don't like to make comparisons, but in this case I am going to make them.

This is the current watering speed:
https://www.youtube.com/live/274u3yv8d4E?si=jcMBBwo-tUCgN9t8&t=5223

Let's compare it to the Sun Haven watering system for example, which has to be done daily and the watering can needs to be refilled after 10 uses:
https://www.youtube.com/live/DjdECNWKaRU?si=Lb9rfr8KfDdNsd1E&t=2827

Travellers Rest requires 12 times less time to water the same squares, since it is watered every 3 days, 3 squares are watered at once and it doesn't require refilling.

Also in this last update we have improved a lot the digging/tilling/planting tool with the new UI where the soil grid appear and tiles can be selected with the cursor. Now it is much faster than before.


Anyway, we listen the feedback of all players, next patches will make this system faster by reducing the growing time of the crops and speeding up some work animations. We'll also take a look at the early game and improve it.

[Endora]

+1
I created a new taverner since the last update and yeah, the profit is barely the minimum. Still can't build a barn for there is no money for that. It's possible to work by making the few vegan dishes that exists and buying the little meat that Holly sells at Mondays and Thursdays, but with so low profit there is no way to build a coop in a long time period, much less a barn. Not to mention that it will be at least a year to plant some of the seeds that I couldn't plant at the spring and summer for lack of money.

In my old save it's not much better too. I had tons of previous stock and yet still have to pass more than half Summer without any onion dishes because I had to plant the new crops and onion only gives 2 for seed, wich means that it didn't was enough. I also killed all the cows because got tired of them got stucked on the barn's door, now I need to use only the few cow's milk that are at the Holly's store to make the butter.

P.S.: I sugest to create soy and rice milk and butter, that will greatly help.

[redwoodsilva5]

Chiming in to say, that i also thing early game content could use a little balancing. For me the problem i'm having is with the crop growth times. Some things just feel like they take forever for very little return. Getting enough produce to support both cooking and brewing is tough. I've been following the game for a while and have played previously, so i knew i needed a big farm area, but a new player might find this confusing. I also miss being able to grow hops. I feel like i'm having to buy hops every couple days. I feel like saving money is more difficult, though this could be my own problem.

But in regards to the watering and digging/tilling system, i love it. I play a lot of other cozy/farming games. being able to water three squares right off the bat is great. plus i don't to water every day or fill up the darn watering can? awesome! And the implementation of the grid system for digging and tilling feels lifesaving. i struggled so much before it to hit the right spot.

[Aileen]

You can muster gruel out of thin air in the early game, so you don't NEED to have done any crops grown in your first couple weeks. And 70-some copper for plain water isn't the most shabby either.

As for comparing to Stardew and Sun Haven -- Stardew Valley allows you to put down sprinkles which 100% eliminates the need for hand watering, and Sun Haven gives you the rain spell which can water dozens of crops *per cast*, and later on you can cast it many times in a row. And these are games that are focused on farming *specifically*.

I think what is missing in Traveler's Rest is the ability to improve your watering speed and ability over time. Watering can upgrades, as devs have mentioned, should hopefully help.

[brian_va]

Maybe consider a sprinkler system, something that buzz has to build. copper feels underutilized compared to iron, so maybe adding pipes as a construction item for sprinklers could work.

[Mephistopheles]

Originally posted by The Bullet:

Hey Kefka! Thanks for your feedback.
About the tediousness you feel about planting and watering.
We believe that watering is quite fast, much faster than most farming games. You only water once every three days and you water 3 squares at a time, which in the future will be more when we add watering can upgrades.


I don't like to make comparisons, but in this case I am going to make them.

This is the current watering speed:
https://www.youtube.com/live/274u3yv8d4E?si=jcMBBwo-tUCgN9t8&t=5223

Let's compare it to the Sun Haven watering system for example, which has to be done daily and the watering can needs to be refilled after 10 uses:
https://www.youtube.com/live/DjdECNWKaRU?si=Lb9rfr8KfDdNsd1E&t=2827

Travellers Rest requires 12 times less time to water the same squares, since it is watered every 3 days, 3 squares are watered at once and it doesn't require refilling.

Also in this last update we have improved a lot the digging/tilling/planting tool with the new UI where the soil grid appear and tiles can be selected with the cursor. Now it is much faster than before.


Anyway, we listen the feedback of all players, next patches will make this system faster by reducing the growing time of the crops and speeding up some work animations. We'll also take a look at the early game and improve it.

A game about running a tavern is making comparisons to other games about watering crops, games that are specifically farming games, and not games about running a tavern.
As someone else said SDV has sprinkler systems and upgrades to the sprinklers and SunHaven has a rain cast for watering multiple crops at once.
I got the game for running a tavern, not spending half my day watering my giant field I made before this update. Plus feeding and dealing with the animals.
Yes I know you can hire NPC's to run the tavern but that's kind of defeating the purpose of the game at this point. Maybe can add even more NPC's to run farm tasks so I can go back to actually running a tavern instead of playing a game that turned into a farming game.

[Lambc62000]

I haven't been playing this long, but I quite like it. Be your own boss type game.
I only open when I'm ready to profit and when you unlock orders, they are good for chunks of XP to get the running speed buff... a must.

[Misvas]

The update is good, but profits have dropped significantly. And is it just me, or has the number of visitors to the tavern greatly decreased? I'm level 15. Before the update there were 6 large tables, 3 medium and 3 small. And they were always practically full. Now there are 6 large tables left, almost a third of which are always empty.
I think that profits fell significantly precisely because of a significant decrease in the number of visitors.
Create a cave entrance just behind the tavern where you can collect mushrooms or grow them there. Because running around looking for mushrooms all over the map is not the most exciting task. Or add a mount or a sleigh pulled by dogs, for example, to speed up movement.

[The Bullet]

Originally posted by Mephistopheles:

A game about running a tavern is making comparisons to other games about watering crops, games that are specifically farming games, and not games about running a tavern.

That is why farming requires much less work in Travellers Rest.

Originally posted by Mephistopheles:

As someone else said SDV has sprinkler systems and upgrades to the sprinklers and SunHaven has a rain cast for watering multiple crops at once.

The game is in Early Access, it isn't finished. It is highly probable that we will add systems like the ones you are talking about in the future.

Originally posted by Mephistopheles:

I got the game for running a tavern, not spending half my day watering my giant field I made before this update. Plus feeding and dealing with the animals.

And do you really need a giant field? What reputation level do you have? How many fruits and vegetables do you have in stock? I mean, you can make a giant field if you want, but it will obviously require more maintenance than a smaller field.

[The Bullet]

Originally posted by Misvas:

The update is good, but profits have dropped significantly. And is it just me, or has the number of visitors to the tavern greatly decreased? I'm level 15. Before the update there were 6 large tables, 3 medium and 3 small. And they were always practically full. Now there are 6 large tables left, almost a third of which are always empty.
I think that profits fell significantly precisely because of a significant decrease in the number of visitors.
Create a cave entrance just behind the tavern where you can collect mushrooms or grow them there. Because running around looking for mushrooms all over the map is not the most exciting task. Or add a mount or a sleigh pulled by dogs, for example, to speed up movement.

You're right, by increasing the maximum reputation level we reduced the maximum capacity of the tavern in intermediate levels. This is certainly the reason why you earn less money. We will revise it this week. Thanks for the feedback!

[Atryeu]

Originally posted by The Bullet:

Originally posted by Mephistopheles:

I got the game for running a tavern, not spending half my day watering my giant field I made before this update. Plus feeding and dealing with the animals.

And do you really need a giant field? What reputation level do you have? How many fruits and vegetables do you have in stock? I mean, you can make a giant field if you want, but it will obviously require more maintenance than a smaller field.

I felt I had to massively expand my field after the update due to crops only giving about 2 items per harvest and with so many crops added I needed the room to plant enough of each crop to make sure I had a supply of them through the coming seasons when they would not be available again, especially since some of the crops take half or more of the entire season to grow. Because of the plants wilting every 3 days and needing the water you lose that 1 day of growing on the water day. I tried watering every 2 days but it made no difference, they wilted the 3rd day still causing me to lose a day of their growing anyway. Some also were growing slower or faster than others of the exact same crop while being watered the exact same times causing further delays. Certain ones like the grains or now the sugar cane you need so much of because you can no longer buy those items on a daily basis from the store as needed though so if you don't plant enough while they are available then what are you supposed to do for now when you require those ingredients for something and the store doesn't want to let you buy them?

Originally posted by The Bullet:

Originally posted by Mephistopheles:

A game about running a tavern is making comparisons to other games about watering crops, games that are specifically farming games, and not games about running a tavern.

That is why farming requires much less work in Travellers Rest.

Because I had to increase my fields however to make sure I was getting enough of some of these crops to carry me through until they would be available again it takes a lot longer than it seems. Going from Winter into the start of Spring for example I had to expand enough to make sure I could grow enough of the crops that took 10 days or so to grow while still having room for faster growing crops. My first planting for Spring took me 3 in game days because I had to expand and still take care of the animals that are constantly sick now and have time to run around the map trying to harvest what I can because it also takes several days to regrow and the sooner those are harvested the more you get out of each season obviously. After the initial planting it still was taking nearly a full day trying to fight with watering everything each day I had to water. I can't see if certain plots get watered very easily once certain taller plants start growing and I can't get grid to highlight in the correct areas a lot of the time either, using both controller or mouse & keyboard (I've found mouse & keyboard far easier to use for farming than controller since the update though). After all that work the crops give so little yield in the end and certain recipes require so many of each crop that it still won't carry me through the crop's off seasons fully.

I have no problems with farming in games but this really took away from the other aspects of the game that I was loving. I had fun running the tavern and creating the recipes that I could customize more myself. That ability to customize the recipes was toned down too much and I can no longer make the foods that I used to even eat in real life fairly often. Between the amount of farming required, dealing with sick animals every single day and the overwhelming amount of recipes I can't customize anymore I've found myself drawn to other games over playing this since that last update :(

[The Bullet]

Originally posted by Atryeu:

Originally posted by The Bullet:

And do you really need a giant field? What reputation level do you have? How many fruits and vegetables do you have in stock? I mean, you can make a giant field if you want, but it will obviously require more maintenance than a smaller field.

I felt I had to massively expand my field after the update due to crops only giving about 2 items per harvest and with so many crops added I needed the room to plant enough of each crop to make sure I had a supply of them through the coming seasons when they would not be available again, especially since some of the crops take half or more of the entire season to grow. Because of the plants wilting every 3 days and needing the water you lose that 1 day of growing on the water day. I tried watering every 2 days but it made no difference, they wilted the 3rd day still causing me to lose a day of their growing anyway. Some also were growing slower or faster than others of the exact same crop while being watered the exact same times causing further delays. Certain ones like the grains or now the sugar cane you need so much of because you can no longer buy those items on a daily basis from the store as needed though so if you don't plant enough while they are available then what are you supposed to do for now when you require those ingredients for something and the store doesn't want to let you buy them?

Originally posted by The Bullet:

That is why farming requires much less work in Travellers Rest.

Because I had to increase my fields however to make sure I was getting enough of some of these crops to carry me through until they would be available again it takes a lot longer than it seems. Going from Winter into the start of Spring for example I had to expand enough to make sure I could grow enough of the crops that took 10 days or so to grow while still having room for faster growing crops. My first planting for Spring took me 3 in game days because I had to expand and still take care of the animals that are constantly sick now and have time to run around the map trying to harvest what I can because it also takes several days to regrow and the sooner those are harvested the more you get out of each season obviously. After the initial planting it still was taking nearly a full day trying to fight with watering everything each day I had to water. I can't see if certain plots get watered very easily once certain taller plants start growing and I can't get grid to highlight in the correct areas a lot of the time either, using both controller or mouse & keyboard (I've found mouse & keyboard far easier to use for farming than controller since the update though). After all that work the crops give so little yield in the end and certain recipes require so many of each crop that it still won't carry me through the crop's off seasons fully.

I have no problems with farming in games but this really took away from the other aspects of the game that I was loving. I had fun running the tavern and creating the recipes that I could customize more myself. That ability to customize the recipes was toned down too much and I can no longer make the foods that I used to even eat in real life fairly often. Between the amount of farming required, dealing with sick animals every single day and the overwhelming amount of recipes I can't customize anymore I've found myself drawn to other games over playing this since that last update :(

Noted. Thanks for your feedback, in the next patches we'll try to fix some issues you mention.

[Mephistopheles]

Originally posted by The Bullet:

[

Originally posted by Mephistopheles:

I got the game for running a tavern, not spending half my day watering my giant field I made before this update. Plus feeding and dealing with the animals.

And do you really need a giant field? What reputation level do you have? How many fruits and vegetables do you have in stock? I mean, you can make a giant field if you want, but it will obviously require more maintenance than a smaller field.

This first part is about my new SP save:
Yes? To gather up on ingredients since the last couple of updates. Plus since the crops can't be grown at all times now need to stock up on some for recipes. A lot of the recipes changed and some need more things to make. Can't really just put whatever in a recipe now since most recipes require specific things now.
Like instead of buying wheat, barley, etc, I grow it to make flour which makes dough which takes a lot of dough to make bread and a lot of bread to make burgers. Now needing more stuff to make things I've been going through things faster. The burgers is just an example I know I don't have to make it.
Since the last couple of updates I go through A LOT more ingredients/food just to make recipes and drinks now. I've not even messed with making cheese yet since I need milk for all sorts of things and I'm too poor right now to build a barn and need to grind for the materials.

Ran low on a lot of stuff for making drinks too. Which doing what I can to stock up on drinks since they all now require to be aged, so kind of need to keep trying to stock up on drinks, to age and sell them now.

Kind of like the mushrooms, you can only gather so many at a time from the cave and when I did that I literally used them in all the 2 recipes I have making either 2 or 3 dishes. Which is my fault, if I had known I would need to grind for mushrooms and couldn't grow them then I wouldn't have wasted the points in getting those recipes yet.
The mushrooms thing is on the co-op world not my SP world.

On my new SP save I'm at reputation 5 just about to hit 6 and starting over new by myself was a horrible idea. I did notice I'm making a lot less money at the early stages compared to how it used to be so that's kind of made it a big more rough for starting over.
So yes being in a lower level SP world I would have to make huge fields so I can stock up on stuff so then when the seasons change I can stock up on the stuff for that season too. Like person above said need to grow and plant enough to carry you through seasons while trying to also grow everything else needed.

So I need to make food and drinks to make money so I can continuously afford to to plant, build, and expand my tavern.
So I need to grind so I can keep myself in stock to make money so I can afford things and be able to build all the stuff I need to make equipment and/or make my tavern and kitchen bigger.
The way the new system and recipes are you actually go through a lot to keep the taps and barrels full and tavern chest full of food so you make actually money instead of running off and selling just water and gruel.
Especially since you need money to build the barn and coop also fully upgrade them and money to keep buying animals for milk, eggs, and meat.
Also adding needing to keep grinding to make more barrels for aging to keep my drinks in stock since some stuff I do let fully age to sell it for more while other stuff I take out early to sell and run out of within a couple of days.

As for stock, I know it isn't much, around 50 of each fruit and vegetables, which fruits used for cooking and for making drinks so trying to stock up on those.
Meat is barely non existent due to not being able to afford a barn or coop yet much less the very few amount of meat I can buy every so often from the farm shop down south I go through it pretty quick especially if I make the food on the bulletin board so I can help with my XP which I can't always do.

And then needing to grind for stones, ores, and wood, all for building purposes. Which then you have to make into other things so you can actually build and upgrade. Also firewood and coal so you can fuel everything to make stuff for buildings, keep the fire in the tavern going, and for cooking. Which a lot of the 'machines' sometimes take a lot of coal or wood to fuel. Which the option to buy coal being taken out the game kind of sucks since I tend to run out a lot playing on my own.


Right now there seems to be a bug where animals keep getting constantly sick, so we had a sheep who was sick 5 days in a row and the medicine to cure it is kind of pricey since we bought a lot, and it's just cheaper to kill it... Kill it and replace it and another animal takes its place by getting sick, kill that one and replace it and it's also replaced by another animal getting sick... On co-op we can afford it but on SP it gets pricey so almost not even worth getting animals right now.



This part is about co-op:
Now on our co-op world (we've had since Fall 2022), we are reputation 25 so we did a lot to get where we are now. Even then we still have to keep stock of a lot of stuff since we have a tavern where we don't even have the max amount of seats and we run through food and drink constantly so even on co-op having to constantly grind to keep in stock. We had over stocked ourselves on purpose earlier this year so I could just worry about making food, drink, while I had enough time to actually run the tavern because that was the fun part of the game.
My co-op partner is busy work on buildings, expanding, and crops.


I'm honestly not trying to be rude here, but the game has turned into a massive grind fest especially for beginners who start with nothing. Like I can see a lot of the updates being better for late game players since it can give them more to do but for new players it's rough. And I'm saying this as someone who originally played SP late 2022 to early 2023 and it was more relaxing to play where as now you need to grind to get places.
Farming is fine but executed poorly due to everything else you need to do in game. I get you guys made it "faster" than most farming games, but there really does need to be something implemented to help out with farming more and it's nice to know you guys might add something to help.

I completely understand that this is an EA game and things are subject to change, that's not really the issue. It's just buying a game about running a tavern and it turning into a huge grind fest where now you NEED npc's to run your stuff for you so you can go gather and grind to get stuff done.

[brian_va]

Originally posted by The Bullet:

And do you really need a giant field?

you kinda do, given the seasonal variability of many of them and the randomness that many are available to order and the limited quantities they can be ordered in. it seems by looking at the roadmap that there will be a market of sorts where you will probably (?) be able to get stuff year round, but as it stands now, you will need to grow a years worth of veggies if they only grow in 1 season.

[Rallianto]

I really want to play this game, but it got too grindy a couple of updates ago. Checking up on the game, I see it still gets worse with each update, and the devs questions the gamers "Do you really need a giant field" like they never played the game themselves.
The amount of chores and grind is getting bigger, and the reward is getting smaller.