How would you implement farming in this game?

[GROMMI]

I like to hear your ideas. How would you put farming into this game?

[Calruin]

Well, first we have to consider how we could plant the stuff.

We could go with the commonly used "plot sizes" and have small/med/large plots we could craft.

Another way, that takes us from the common plot would be to just have one size. But we can connect them together to make any size we want. Personally I like the idea of being able to controll how big or small or what shape the farm bed would be.

As for seeds, of course those can come from the plants we collect. Could be a low chance to get them to avoid overloading on seeds.

Instead of seeds, we could use the plants themselves instead. In this way we avoid adding anything more to clutter up our inventories.

Then for harvesting, we could go two ways i guess.
1) Once planted, the plant continues to produce over time. The "harvest" shows up in it's inventory and we collect.

If we did it this way, one question would be how fast or slow the plant produces. Then what would be required to change out the plant if you wanted to. Would it be a full removal of the plot/farm bed or just simply removing the plant and replacing it with another. With option one here, i'm more inclined to think a better balance would be to lock the plant in and require a full on removal of the plot and rebuilding. Since we're not required to "replant" and it produces a steady (slow?) supply of what we want.

Also if we went with the seed option instead of using the plant itself... then i would suggest making seeds rare depending on the plant. So higher level plants would be hard to get a seed for. But since it's a "plant and forget" style build, it balances out.

This also could make high level farms worth raiding and fighting over.

2) The old fashioned plant/harvest and have to replant style. Could make it based off of RNG as to how much you get (but you'll always get at least one so you can replant).

If we did it this way, they could add in spells/items and structures that could help improve the chances of getting a large harvest vs a small one. Of course you wouldn't have to worry about removing the plot to replant a different plant. Since that is the case i think adding an RNG factor to it helps balance it out. Of course instead of RNG could go with actually how much you take care of the plant instead... but this really isn't a farming sim and i'd like to avoid having to worry about watering plants in this game.

If we went with seeds instead of using the plant itself. I would actually say the seeds themselves then should be uncommon instead of common or rare. Then instead of always getting at least one, there could be a small chance of total loss. In this way, it balances out the chances of getting a large harvest. Making the seeds uncommon, means it's not too bad when we get a total loss... but annoying when it does happen.

The next thing though would be to figure out if we "need" open air to the sky above the plants or if there would be some sort of... maybe magic stones like a "Sun Stone" that we could put into place if we had a closed off area. Then instead of calling it a "Sun Stone", call it a "Sung Stone" and make it give off light and soft music.

Then do we add structures and spells to help speed up and grow the plants, maybe increase yield as well. Plus consideration for cross breeding for epic potions etc.

Lots and lots of possible things can be done.

[Paul Spring]

Sounds good, accept if they implement it, it will mean grinding your life away to get the stuff needed. Everything they add in this game requires you to grind away. Do these people not realise that most people have actual lifes with jobs? Make the game easier so you get more from grinding and building needs to be cheaper too!! I just do not have time to build a big base.... put defences down for it and then have to spend ages upgrading them.

This game becomes more like a wow grinding game with every update. :(

[Floyd ^A^]

They should introduce the "wayfaring stranger" who will find you near your base and offer to farm and hunt for you in exchange for a place to live. You would build chests for him to store what he produces, he wouldn't have access to your base except for his own designated quarters.
Every so often you stop by his place and collect the goods. That way there could be farming without the grind and add another dimension of interactivity.,

[Bob]

@calruin
sounds a little uninspired and generic. I mean, theres a FEW games that basically do all those.
How about since we are wizards and stuff we do something totally different?
Like build a "mana generator" style building that stongly incentivizes the desired product to spawn randomly in a radius. Easy to balance and keeps the fantasy without copying literally every other survival game.

[Calruin]

Originally posted by Bob:

@calruin
sounds a little uninspired and generic. I mean, theres a FEW games that basically do all those.
How about since we are wizards and stuff we do something totally different?
Like build a "mana generator" style building that stongly incentivizes the desired product to spawn randomly in a radius. Easy to balance and keeps the fantasy without copying literally every other survival game.

I kind of like the first idea of mine to be honest. The idea of having a "shapeless" plot that allows me to build it as i see fit and sow seeds that vary in rarity

I do agree it does seem a little generic, however there really is only so much that can be done with farming in general.

Though I am interested in hearing more about your idea. Like how would you encourage select plants to grow?

Though I think it would be neat to maybe have a "many crystal" type of system for it. Like you need pure mana crystals, and the plant in question, craft them into say a "plant" crystal which keys in for whichever plant you used to make it. Could also make it so it only lasts for a set amount to help balance it. Maybe give ways to speed up growth, and harvest levels etc.

So how do you see your idea working?

[Bob]

The idea would basically be that you would craft a machine, possibly for each variety that you wanted to grow ( or one machine that could be reconfigured to grow different plants). Which would mean they could say you need 100 of each variety of plant you want to grow so there is a logistical limit to how soon you could grow (or whatever - maybe there is a hard to find "seed" or a recipe, or a skill / level requirement), and then the machine would need to be powered (adding a limit to how many you could run at once).
The problem with farming in games like this is that it is usually the end of scarcity. Once you start farming it increases exponentially because the only cost (in the traditional system) is time and space, which are both very readily available. At that point you might as well just turn on god mode and add whatever you need directly to your inventory via console commands. The only "fun" is aesthetics.

[Awakened Gamer]

Originally posted by IMMORG:

I like to hear your ideas. How would you put farming into this game?

Honestly they need to start small and add to it later, half now and half later sort of thing, I am not saying we should get anything shallow though.

[Calruin]

Originally posted by Bob:

The idea would basically be that you would craft a machine, possibly for each variety that you wanted to grow ( or one machine that could be reconfigured to grow different plants). Which would mean they could say you need 100 of each variety of plant you want to grow so there is a logistical limit to how soon you could grow (or whatever - maybe there is a hard to find "seed" or a recipe, or a skill / level requirement), and then the machine would need to be powered (adding a limit to how many you could run at once).
The problem with farming in games like this is that it is usually the end of scarcity. Once you start farming it increases exponentially because the only cost (in the traditional system) is time and space, which are both very readily available. At that point you might as well just turn on god mode and add whatever you need directly to your inventory via console commands. The only "fun" is aesthetics.

Interesting idea. Also, i can see what you're saying if they used that idea (or mine), there would be no point in searching for plants going forward once you get set up. Putting a rarity on higher tier plants just increases the grind to get them, but doesn't prevent them from being gotten. Once you get them, you're set. Some of the fun of the game is foraging for the plants needed for pots and such. So while farming would bring it's own type of fun (more so just building the set up for me, than the actual act of farming), i can see where you're coming from with it taking from the overall game.

[Bob]

Originally posted by Calruin:

Some of the fun of the game is foraging for the plants needed for pots and such. So while farming would bring it's own type of fun (more so just building the set up for me, than the actual act of farming), i can see where you're coming from with it taking from the overall game.

What if there were designated nodes that were the only place that the plots could be placed, so that you could encourage plants of a kind to grow but you would only be able to encourage them in places they already grow and aren't necessarily ideal places to set up bases. So that you could boost your income with some effort, but would still have to travel to the location, still have to forage for the location in the first place and would still be limited in how much you could reasonably be expected to get in return. Let the nodes be somewhat randomly placed like resources already are, but considerably rarer so you can know where to look to find them, but not have a garuantee on finding one.

They could be gaurded by "Out of Depth" monsters or temporary enemy camps to discourage low level exploitation. They could burn out over time, forcing you to keep looking for the next node, and preventing people from monopolizing them by building a base right on top.

They could require however much setup the devs want them to have: requiring you to build the machine at your base, carry it to a location, prepare the location, plant the machine (possibly power it somehow? mana generator etc), gaurd it from other players if pvp (another use for pets?), return to the location possibly several times over its lifetime, and then reclaim the machine and find a new node. Or to simply require activating the node and fueling it with an activator (rune stones? Flawless runestones? whatever)
This would cut out the inventory clutter also, since the type of farm could be determined by the type of node. And it maintains the RNG nature of the game so it's possible that you could get rich or have a crappy node that barely pays for itself rather than the gauranteed income that you can plan around like most traditional farm simulators.
However, this doesn't allow for the aesthetics of building a farm and having a garden at your base.

[Bob]

A seperate idea entirely: what if you could "plant" a sample of anything into one of the big rune crystals that you can harvest and over the course of a day or so, the crystal turns into a giant version of the plant. Let it be extracted like a tree. or left alone to spawn the smaller harvestable versions in the immediate area.

To go a step farther: allow "gardens." Let people seed rune crystals somehow (like just add a way to tell the game you want a rune crystal here, and eventually one spawn there instead of elsewhere in the area.)

[Nubetastic]

You have a floating ball of dirt that the plant grows out of. Like so[images.duckduckgo.com]

Can have it be upgradable for higher yields.

[Bob]

Originally posted by Nubetastic:

You have a floating ball of dirt that the plant grows out of. Like so[images.duckduckgo.com]

Can have it be upgradable for higher yields.

Like potted plants, but magic? That sounds pretty good

[Retro]

If they added farming i would lvoe that, I suck at building so if i could go full farmer mode i would love that, I wanted to be a full our animal tamer but it shows that you have a limited time to tame certain creatures which turned me off

[Calruin]

Originally posted by xo+:

If they added farming i would lvoe that, I suck at building so if i could go full farmer mode i would love that, I wanted to be a full our animal tamer but it shows that you have a limited time to tame certain creatures which turned me off

Making the scrolls to push the time they are tamed out is pretty easy and you can feed many of them to the pet and it appears to stack. Not sure if you knew that or not, so just saying. If you did, sorry for going over it.

I too had dreams of walking around with a small army of Dire Wolves, and to expand on that... until i found that we can only have four pets max.... army idea = dead :(

[Deli]

Very interesting ideas, friends :) We're listening ;)