Sign in to follow this  
SilverMoogle

Farming Overhaul ideas

Recommended Posts

farming in wurm online seems lackluster and really bland, the quality of the seeds do not dictate the quality of the crops and you can grow things in the winter out in the open like it was summer or spring, which really does break my immersion a bit, i'm currently growing a small garden for personal consumption, but it would be nice if we had more than just the bare-bones definition of farming in the game, so here are some suggestions from me, you're friendly neighborhood moogle, Kupo!

1st~ Drop crops growing in the winter, this adds another layer to the game, though the seasons are not that long in comparison to IRL, this means players would need to start preparing food for the winter, or storing things away for when winter season comes, towns would need to build granary-like buildings or food cellars in order to last the season
2nd~ make crops seasonal, though some crops grow during multiple seasons, make them bear the most fruits/vegetables during their preferred season, or make them have a higher chance of producing higher quality crops during their preferred seasons (locked by only your skill at farming for example you could never grow a crop who's quality would be higher than your skill)
3rd~ watering plants should be considered part of tending a farm, not just taking a rake to it and removing weeds, watering could also be used as a means of improve crop quality once per day, a small increase for people taking care of their farms properly.
4th~ (and my last suggestion) rain could possibly water crops for you, so on rainy days, players would not need to water crops, but still need to check for weeds.

 

this suggestion will probably be met with a lot of backlash from players who think farming is hard enough, but in truth, it is not hard at all. the amount of skill gain for doing farming is minuscule in comparison to other skills, and a small garden like mine nets next to no exp on a daily basis, but adding changes like these would make farming more in-depth like cooking, maybe even take multiple people to work on a large farm just to keep the work at a minimum, you know, like a real life farm. and in the winter months people would have more open time to focus on other things instead of just growing crops year round. you also already have growing seasons for trees and their produce, why not do it to farming too? Kupo!

Edited by SilverMoogle

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

dont know what about other ideas, but watering is to much, some people have quite big fields,  and i think they dont want to x2 daily actions

  • Like 5

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

yea,take something simple that works nicely and make stupid complicated and pointless.brilliant!  /me points at fishing

also grow up and post with your main account and take the hits and the good :)

  • Like 7

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I agree that farming is bot very immersive but i'm against most of ideas. Making it seasonal would make life way to difficult, it already is with fruits but still berable. As it can't be expected from us to log in when we can't or don't want just to catch small window to saw, and later harvest just to be able to produce our food...

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
35 minutes ago, SilverMoogle said:

farming in wurm online seems lackluster and really bland,

so let's make it more lackluster and more bland by adding more meaningless constraints to it

 

P.s. Farming is fine, only thing it needs is AoE tending, but then again, it can live just fine without AoE tending.

  • Like 4

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
37 minutes ago, Jonydowy said:

yea,take something simple that works nicely and make stupid complicated and pointless.brilliant!  /me points at fishing

also grow up and post with your main account and take the hits and the good :)

this is my main account

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

i knew i would get backlash from this, but all i get is lazy people complaining about a suggestion, if you don't have something constructive to say about this shove off, i have no interest in dealing with bums. this is why the community has been faltering, because people that play this game are afraid of change, whether good or bad. and yeah, i admit it makes it more complicated, but isn't this game supposed to be an ever growing and evolving experience? if you guys had things you're way it'd just be another minecraft, which is funny considering minecraft was originally based off this game.

Edited by SilverMoogle

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

As a wide fields owner i'm against ideas but my idea is:

 

- Vehicle like a small cart where you can put seeds into and drag on fields to make sowing easier :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
47 minutes ago, Pankivtanke said:

dont know what about other ideas, but watering is to much, some people have quite big fields,  and i think they dont want to x2 daily actions

watering would be more of a once a day thing, though it would be up to the devs to translate this into something that would more fit the game. and also you can always hire new players to help you tend the farm, which means you can charge more for crops to make up for the cost in manpower, you know, make a proper farm out of it instead of a giant field you sow a million and a half things in and forget about

 

Just now, Syhl said:

As a wide fields owner i'm against ideas but my idea is:

 

- Vehicle like a small cart where you can put seeds into and drag on fields to make sowing easier :)

this isn't a post to make things easier, it's a post to make them more resource intensive and rewarding to the player in general, like increasing the yield or quality of yield when the player puts more time into their farm.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
9 minutes ago, SilverMoogle said:

this isn't a post to make things easier, it's a post to make them more resource intensive and rewarding to the player in general, like increasing the yield or quality of yield when the player puts more time into their farm.

 

And the reverse is true too, is not because you will make things harder or more complex it will reward the player. As you said:

 

Quote

i'm currently growing a small garden for personal consumption

...

this suggestion will probably be met with a lot of backlash from players who think farming is hard enough, but in truth, it is not hard at all. 

 

Believe me, as a 99.99 Farming skill farmer with around 4k tiles (and not a personal garden) Farming is .... boring as hell and the reward of this boredom is almost 0. With recent changes even less reward.

 

Farming needs an overhaul i agree but making a boring skill more complex or harder won't turn it into something really fun to do and discourage all who want to grind that skill.

 

Balance is for example:

 

A machine when you load with seeds and drag to sow your fields but the yield of these crops is divided by 2 compared to seeds sown "manually" for example !

 

All you ideas is just to make things more complex, harder and .... for nothing gained

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
11 minutes ago, Syhl said:

 

And the reverse is true too, is not because you will make things harder or more complex it will reward the player. As you said:

 

 

Believe me, as a 99.99 Farming skill farmer with around 4k tiles (and not a personal garden) Farming is .... boring as hell and the reward of this boredom is almost 0. With recent changes even less reward.

 

Farming needs an overhaul i agree but making a boring skill more complex or harder won't turn it into something really fun to do and discourage all who want to grind that skill.

 

Balance is for example:

 

A machine when you load with seeds and drag to sow your fields but the yield of these crops is divided by 2 compared to seeds sown "manually" for example !

 

All you ideas is just to make things more complex, harder and .... for nothing gained

we barely have technology enough in the game to make war machines, you can carry seeds in a small pouch on your person and use a small cart to move pouches full of seeds around, i made suggestions as to rewards that could be given, such as increase in crop quality or crop yield. what you're looking for is a sowing cart which would require a lot more components than just walking outside once a day and checking if your fields need watering or weeding. i don't know if you've worked on a farm before, but it isn't easy work, and the food you get from it is the reward, you just feel this way because there is no penalty for letting your character starve. you'd be singing a different tune if there was. and actually now that i think about it, why isn't there a starvation mechanic? and on a side note, another mechanic that would make things easier <.< why can't we tie rope to a drawn wagon and lead it that way instead of always having to drive it? we can lead horses and other animals around with rope normally, this idea does not seem wholly impossible.

Edited by SilverMoogle

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

we have people out there farming 2.000 tiles, 4.000 tiles or even 6.000 tiles fields a day.

 

raking them everyday is enough to harvest max quality and max amount that your skill allows you to get

we have bees, bees significantly increase the yield of farm tiles

 

if this is all just a bonus and farming can still be done as it is, then i dont see the issue

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Even if there would be a starvation mechanic, Cooking ingame is so easy you can producce tons of meals without lot of efforts.

 

That's why farming itself is not really rewarding, here are some examples:

 

- Cooking is so easy to grind that grinders don't need a huge amount (for me) of food to grind up skill

- You can cook tons of meals with a small field

- 50QL Veggies or 100QL Veggies is not a big difference in the market but grinding from 50 to 100 is a pain

- Favor recent changes nerfed Farmers even more

- Newbie 100% creation future patch on ropes will nerf high QL Wemp

etc ... etc ...

 

Farming is boring and the reward was nerfed patches after patches and you just suggest to make it harder ... i don't think it's a Farming overhaul you are describing but another Farming nerf hidden under "it's unrealistic it needs to be changed" and i'm totally against.

 

Oh and: 

Quote

i knew i would get backlash from this, but all i get is lazy people complaining about a suggestion

 

saying someone with a personal garden !!

 

If you state: "People who don't like my ideas are lazy people" i don't think your ideas will have much sucess :D

Edited by Syhl
  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

there are straight stairs to a barrel of honey..boring but you can do it multiple times and still get the reward and then there is this puzzle to solve to get to the same honey.. its fun the first few times sure,but then you wish for those straight  stairs.

 

did you take a look at fishing? exactly the same example.

 

I'd rather have no new content but see bugs fixed and problems solved. Overhauls are stupid its the same result for different people.

 

 

Edited by Jonydowy

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
1 hour ago, Jonydowy said:

points at fishing

 

The cooking update had similar concerns levelled at it initially. Why can't we just cook our meals and be done with it? But everyone warmed up to it quickly because cooking did one thing very right that fishing got so cataclysmically wrong: Maintaining old ways for non-enthusiasts. You can still cook meals, or pizzas, or bangers and mash which are the go-to thing and not hard to make, while the cooking enthusiasts have more depth to enjoy.

I'd suggest to OP's ideas to simply amend the restrictive aspects, let people farm whatever, whenever, just add seasonal bonuses for certain crop/season pairs, allow watering and whathaveyou. But don't drag the non-enthusiasts who only farm for self-sufficiency into it like fishing did and cooking was feared to do.

  • Like 3

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
25 minutes ago, Flubb said:

 

The cooking update had similar concerns levelled at it initially. Why can't we just cook our meals and be done with it? But everyone warmed up to it quickly because cooking did one thing very right that fishing got so cataclysmically wrong: Maintaining old ways for non-enthusiasts. You can still cook meals, or pizzas, or bangers and mash which are the go-to thing and not hard to make, while the cooking enthusiasts have more depth to enjoy.

I'd suggest to OP's ideas to simply amend the restrictive aspects, let people farm whatever, whenever, just add seasonal bonuses for certain crop/season pairs, allow watering and whathaveyou. But don't drag the non-enthusiasts who only farm for self-sufficiency into it like fishing did and cooking was feared to do.

 

Yes hit the head on the nail or whatever. I always felt farming boring, I don't have acceptable farming on either of my accounts. I always felt fishing boring too (in RL too), I went to 70+ fishing back when personal goals wanted me to but never held a fishing rod in my hand since. Not really interested to browse through complicated sheets of data to just fail after fail. I always felt cooking boring, but I do affinity meals as those are still easy and I don't feel forced to chopping thousands of ingredients and cook them layer after layer to achieve some meal that will rot away in two days.

Those immersive changes work which don't take away the basics that can be achieved with acceptable effort but give something to those who enjoy the said activities or love to put in the work to get something more unique.

When I've started Wurm I was really afraid to see winter coming I was very sure I will not be able to forage or even grow anything in the winter - also expected animals to be more hostile :D So seasons having some effect could work for me.

Edited by Jaz

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

If you want more depth in your farming there already are a ton of nature skills to help you bolster your delve into farming. The life of a farmer in the time and location Wurm is supposedly set in involved very little actual tending to fields - that's something for the summer and autumn.

Farming already has a lot of depth: Animal husbandry, brewing, forestry and gardening to mention a handful of skills. You're not a farmer if you have 10 tiles of carrots. You need an orchard of apple trees, cider in the basement and an herb garden as well - and a corral of horses. Not to mention the herd of cows you have freely grazing about in your perimeter that you occasionally milk or slaughter for meat and hide when the time has come.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I think getting a harvest of 2 for a plant of 1 is ludicrous.  Realistically, nobody would ever plant a crop for that kind of return, but the bland (yes bland) "set and forget" nature of farming, apart from the occasional "tend" means that a more reasonable return of say 10 to 1 is an awful lot for little effort.  Maybe the twofer should remain as the return for the bland farm, but have tending, fertilizing (via sharing space with animals), watering occasionally (or irrigation), growing in season, improving yield and/or quality.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Crop yield from farming is tied to the idea that your character knows little aspects of farming as his skill raises.

 

How many seeds do you plant per square meter? What type of soil are we talking about? What about Crop rotation? Some plants require more water than others, etc.

 

It's already implied that you get more plants at higher ql per farming because your character "learns" these things over time.

 

Adding them as in game mechanics would make everything insanely tedious for no purpose than complicating a system for the sake of having complicated things.

 

 

  • Like 2
  • Cat 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

So what I'm hearing is that you'd like to play WurmDew Valley on your deed?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I like the idea of making seasons actually mean something, and farming would be the thing most effected.  I do therefore give a thumbs up to that aspect of the first two suggestions.  Nothing in the OP said that any watering or such would be required, or that planting in an off season would not yield produce (except in winter time).  Paying attention to the little nuances suggested in the OP (adding water daily, using higher ql seeds and such) would yield an increased crop and better ql.  If you did not want to pay attention to any of the little additions, players could still continue to run their 6,000 tile farm as they currently do.  If  a player did pay attention to the little nuances to farming that increase yield/crop quality/production times, then they get a better result.

 

I LOVE the way fishing works now, though I know many older players do not because they can't afk do it anymore.  The depth brought to fishing though is a fantastic thing in my opinion.  You can still fish simply though, if you like.  I see what has been offered here with farming in the same light- players that love farming/gardening for the sake of the activity itself and not just for the ability to grind large amounts of products would enjoy some more immersive content in the area of farming.  And just for the sake of transparency, I hate farming in general, as those who know me are aware.  I will however support any game suggestion that offers adding realistic, immersive mechanics to the game.

+1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

1) Being able to grow crops in the snow was honestly a bit disappointing, so having them not grow in winter works for me :)

 

2) As some players have said, I can support this as a rewarding addition, giving bonuses for planting in season, but not as a penalty that will hurt current farmers who don't want or have time to follow the Wurm calendar that closely.

 

3 & 4) are the ones I'm on the fence about. I don't think it's bad as long as it doesn't get turned into a penalty, but "watering crops" beyond irrigation ditches or just relying on rain is relatively new to agriculture; medieval farmers didn't walk their fields with a water bucket in hand. Maybe this feature would be better just for herb gardens and flowers rather than field crops?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 2/18/2020 at 8:52 AM, SilverMoogle said:

1st~ Drop crops growing in the winter, this adds another layer to the game, though the seasons are not that long in comparison to IRL, this means players would need to start preparing food for the winter, or storing things away for when winter season comes, towns would need to build granary-like buildings or food cellars in order to last the season

You do realize winter lasts for about 3 RL days, right?  That's not even a full harvest cycle.


2nd~ make crops seasonal, though some crops grow during multiple seasons, make them bear the most fruits/vegetables during their preferred season, or make them have a higher chance of producing higher quality crops during their preferred seasons (locked by only your skill at farming for example you could never grow a crop who's quality would be higher than your skill)

So if it isn't "cotton season", my cotton will be limited in QL and quantity?  -1.


3rd~ watering plants should be considered part of tending a farm, not just taking a rake to it and removing weeds, watering could also be used as a means of improve crop quality once per day, a small increase for people taking care of their farms properly.

We already have this feature.  Automatic sprinklers called bee hives.  Try them.

 

 

Why does every "overhaul" suggestion involve convoluting perfectly functional game mechanics?  Farming is fine the way it is.  

Plant your seeds, walk away for a week, come back and harvest your 6 plants per tile, rinse and repeat.

For those that put effort into farming, tending every day, standing there with a rake in hand waiting for each tile to turn "untended", with their farm littered with bee-hives, yes, there is a significantly increased (doubled) yield.

 

It is "cotton season" when I plant cotton, when I need cotton, not when the game says I should plant cotton.  If you want the game to tell you when to harvest certain fruits and vegetables, I highly recommend taking up forestry and leaving the rest of us alone.

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'd love to see farming changes that do not punish people who only log in once per day.

 

How about let us use wood scraps to fertilize farm tiles for better harvests?

 

Using 20 kilos of wood scrap on a tile turns a <crop> into a <fertilized crop>

 

Fertilized crops have a bonus yield of 1 unit per 20 skill in farming?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Complicating a feature of the game :O amazing idea! No really, amazing. I believe the game lacks specialization by allowing late game players so solo. What made me love wurm at first sight was how long it took to do anything, and i imagine living in a village with people who work their butts off in specific areas to yield amazing things. But instead what I saw were people who were able to accomplish nearly everything on their own and fight uniques together. 

 

Only issue I see with the suggestion is that there is that complication of farming doesnt lead to NEW features, simply just a nerf. Now, theres no benefit to making the quality or yield much higher with how easy for a mid tier player to get large amount of crops (let alone a high tier), and improving quality wouldn't matter since its easy to become a good chef. The only benefit i see possible is to add new items as a result of the complication, such as decoratives from a rare yield. I would love it if I planted pumpkins on pumpkin season, watered them and tended them frequently, only to raise my chances of growing oversized pumpkins. Once that can make HUGE jack-o-lanterns. Or maybe make huge crop based figurines that can be burned to increase settlement bonuses.

 

Spoiler

Or maybe even try something with over sized onions...

7aaf17b5874c6d62042c7f01ebafb0b1.jpg

no..? okay..

 

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this