Farming on Xanadu is broken

[Cista 426]

1 hour ago, Shazaam said:

 

2. Is there even such a system to test?

 

 

Make two identical fields, one on Xanadu and one on a small server, and farm them with cotton for a few weeks, making the same number of tending sessions on them.

[Retrograde 12,013]

If it's Xanadu it could possibly be tied to the tile polling and general lag, with the possible increase of crop tiles from everyone farming them adding to that.

 

Will need investigating on that side, but there may not be any quick or easy solution.

[Retrograde 12,013]

1 minute ago, Cista said:

 

Make two identical fields, one on Xanadu and one on a small server, and farm them with cotton for a few weeks, making the same number of tending sessions on them.

Yield isn't the issue, it's growth. Far too much randomness in that proposed situation.

[KillerSpike 295]

1 hour ago, Retrograde said:

Far too much randomness

Never thought I would hear Retro say these words

 

Back to topic :

I am on Xanado. I planted 1 of each of the new crops on the day the new version was released. None of them has even reached "almost ripe" stage when I checked about 12hrs ago.

I planted some of the "old" crops and have harvested them already. If the problem was the tile poling/lag I would have seen the old crops also being slow to grow?

I have waited for Maple season because I planted my farm tiles with trees. Will chop them of now and as soon as the new crops are harvested start to plant them to build up a high QL stock pile.

 

I think once I have multiple tiles under the new crops I well see better how the growth cycle really is on the new crops.

 

 

[Wulfmaer 413]

14 hours ago, Ecrir said:

Is everybody who reported this so far on Xanadu? I know I am, so perhaps it's a server specific issue.

 

I'm on Xanadu as well

[Galadhel 92]

I have a farm running on Deli as well as on Xanadu and for the past 2 years the crops on Deli have always been growing to the ripe stage for AT LEAST one day less (on the average) than they have on Xanadu. I cant say much about whether things have changed now that the latest update has been released but I can certainly say, that the tile polling has ALWAYS been slower on Xanadu than it has been on the smaller servers.

[elroth 279]

i planted extra fields after the update, some of them are still not done..9 days seems a lot longer then before

also have a field of cabbage that has been at allmost full height for 4 RL days now.

 

you sure nothing changed? 

I am on Xana

[Corsan 199]

I am on Xanadu, and I have 2 10x10 sections that I'm farming...(Minus a few for trees I'm still waiting to age up to chop out)...and I'm noticing a few sitting in stages a bit longer too. I am 70+ farming now and I purposely plant everything I get from foraging to raise it's QL to my level, so I have whole fields of random QL crop timers going....but I'm noticing whole sections coming up at around the same time...like they just start on the day you plant them, and QL of seeds doesn't matter as much. (37 foraging, so 34-43ish variation with the current system for QL of those things I plant, unless I'm replanting something I have need of.)

Honestly not sure if there's anything 'wrong'. I actually tend all my crops as I see they need tending, and am not one of those 'leave a whole field going and come back and tend once then harvest' people...

[zigozag 918]

1 week later...

 

SAME PICTURE

 

It seems what used to take precisely a week on Xanadu, now takes at least 9-10 days.  Please, investigate.

 

 

[Hampsterman 21]

On xana and crops are now taking consistently over a week. Suspect "tile polling" is dying in a fire from increased load. Perhaps a fix for this might be smoothing our polling somehow, prioritise polling over "something" or... If this wouldn't just be laughed out of the room give the server a lil hardware upgrade? 

[geode 292]

I have noticed a slow down of crops growing, and I am spending overall less time ingame than I was 3 weeks ago as I am no longer medically retired and back to work fulltime. I don't have the time anymore to play Wurm like I used to so I am not checking crops as much, and I am noticing on Xanadu a slow down of how often I need to tend and how often I can harvest. I wish I had been keeping activity logs, I don't.

 

For what it's worth only in last 3 days have I had time to finally forage to get sugar beets so I can start growing them to make sugar for beekeeping, and I only just got the sugar beet seeds in the ground tile. NOW I will start watching the pot for it to boil (no reason before Retrograde, for me this is NOT a impatience issue).

Edited December 6, 2016 by geode

[Aeryck 862]

Make crop growth static and consistent. Problem solved #OCDlivesmatter

[Morhedron 42]

Yup.  This is bad.  Triple the time to ripen and very uneven in when tiles change stages.  A very few start to grow quickly (but still take very long to ripen) and other tiles linger as freshly planted for a week or more.  Very poor.  I was counting on farming and if it stays like this.... well.... not sure what I'll do.

 

Farming is practically useless in this condition for supporting my deeds or my priest.  Seems to be another tick in the doomsday clock for me.  I have multiple deeds and can't effectively manage them as I am forced to stay on the farm so I don't lose crops that may ripen while away.  Very, very unhappy about this.

Edited December 6, 2016 by Morhedron
Additional thoughts.

[Amadee 1,543]

Yep, definitely a slowdown on Xana.  I have sugar beets that have been in the "almost ripe" stage for 3 days now and still don't even need tending, while others are at "halfway" etc,  Today I finally got to harvest an Onions.  Used to rake my field daily with the majority needing tending in the morning and the rest in the afternoon and nearly always had tiles ready for harvest every day.  Since the update, only a few out of about 40 tiles need tending in an entire day and only 3 or 4 harvested in a week.  This is a mix of old type crops like corn/onion/pumpkin, and new crops like sugar beets.

 

I can live with the statement that "nothing has changed" if a qualifier is added.....Nothing has "intentionally" changed.     Def needs a look see since it's obvious that something has changed.

[SallyIronside 7]

2 hours ago, Aeryck said:

Make crop growth static and consistent. Problem solved #OCDlivesmatter

This is how real life works.  I live in a rural community.  When the farmers plabt corn or soybeans, they dont harvest half of them in October and the rest in November.  No, they harvest them at the same time.  How else could farmers plan when to plant to get their cook to market at the proper time?  There are decreased or increased yields based if various effects though.  Rainfall, irrigation, drought, pests, bee pollonation, etc.

 

I am also on Xan and waiting 10+ days for crops to ripen.  No good suggestions other tracking when crops are planted and having set stages of growth.  you could then check the current growtg stage only when players are in local rather than polling the whole server over and over again.  i doubt this will be easy to do though since it is a fundemental change to the growth system.

[zigozag 918]

1 hour ago, Amadee said:

I can live with the statement that "nothing has changed" if a qualifier is added.....Nothing has "intentionally" changed. 

 

I also got confirmation from some other Xanadu resident who didn't post in this thread.

Edited December 6, 2016 by zigozag

[Cista 426]

On 1/12/2016 at 8:13 AM, Retrograde said:

Yield isn't the issue, it's growth. Far too much randomness in that proposed situation.

 

Yes, so measure growth.

 

Can I just say that it is things like this that makes Wurm the best MMO in the world. There is no other game where you can read of farmers complaining about how bad the seasons are treating them compared to elsewhere 

[Reylaark 1,100]

Just curious, do you all have animals on your crops?  Sorry if obvious , just preparing to get back into farming myself so gathering up info on what will be needed to maximize efficiency.  Just want to confirm the perceived slow-down also exists when no animals are on the crops, and that there is no relation.

Thanks.

[Morhedron 42]

17 minutes ago, Reylaark said:

Just curious, do you all have animals on your crops?  Sorry if obvious , just preparing to get back into farming myself so gathering up info on what will be needed to maximize efficiency.  Just want to confirm the perceived slow-down also exists when no animals are on the crops, and that there is no relation.

Thanks.

Speaking for myself....  no.  But then, I haven't had them in the past either.    This is a change in the way crops ripen regardless of other factors like having animals grazing on them.

 

[Amadee 1,543]

4 hours ago, Reylaark said:

Just curious, do you all have animals on your crops?  Sorry if obvious , just preparing to get back into farming myself so gathering up info on what will be needed to maximize efficiency.  Just want to confirm the perceived slow-down also exists when no animals are on the crops, and that there is no relation.

Thanks.

 

I did have a couple horses on mine but removed them about 5 days ago just in case they were having an effect, although I've always had horses on mine in the past with no bad effects.  Haven't noticed an improvement.

[zigozag 918]

5 hours ago, Reylaark said:

Just curious, do you all have animals on your crops?

I have no animals on mine.

[SallyIronside 7]

I have five sections of farm tiles each ranging from 30 to 35 tiles.  I have two horses in one of those sections and have noticed no difference between that section and the other four.

[Retrograde 12,013]

This is likely due to the general lag issues Xanadu faces. With more farm tiles existing, the tile polling for growth is taking longer to do, which leads to the extended growth times.

 

The lag in general is an ongoing issue, and optimisation is always being worked on (often one or two pieces are done in most updates)

 

It will continue to be looked at and raised.

[Morhedron 42]

2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

This is likely due to the general lag issues Xanadu faces. With more farm tiles existing, the tile polling for growth is taking longer to do, which leads to the extended growth times.

 

The lag in general is an ongoing issue, and optimisation is always being worked on (often one or two pieces are done in most updates)

 

It will continue to be looked at and raised.

I'm only farming 1/5 of what I usually farm, 100 out of 500 tiles.  In the past I've farmed as many as 1200 and the growth rate wasn't affected by the lag, which was overall a lot greater.  If this is lag related .... well  ....  who knows what'll happen.

[Ricowan 199]

Retro is talking about a different kind of lag.  This isn't caused by lag between the server and the client, it's a lag in the amount of tiles that can be processed each game cycle.

 

Imagine there are twice as many farm tiles on the server since the 1.3 update.  It takes the server twice as long to check each tile to see if crop growth needs to be updated, and what stage to update it to.

Now imagine there are four times as many farm tiles, or 10 times as many.  The server is unable to check every farm tile in each game cycle, so some are bumped to the next one.  And so on.

 

Sounds like Xanadu is too big for the server its hosted on.