Consolidate forage/botanise

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

Ok, so this one is a bit contraversial but hear me out.

 

At the moment; Botanise is 100% a stub skill.  It has been entirely supplanted by gardening save in the rare emergency you need to find cover ingredients out in the wild.  Even then, foraging for cotton is usually more of a priority!

 

Forage was always a bit wobbly near farming, but it is useful for getting essential early game resources; but as soon as you have a farm up it's pretty useless.  Once you can farm mushrooms, it is only marginally more useful than botanise for esoteric recipes and emergency cotton.

 

Given that these two skills are stubs, combine them into one skill (giving both sets of titles upon completion).  Call it something like "wildcraft" (just set it to Max(forage,botanise) to avoid controversy).

 

Why do this?  To make it marginally more useful to level, and to open up a nice skill slot that we can use for something else such as glassmaking.

[Reverent 282]

A solid idea. The utility of the skills is pretty compromised at the moment. I'd wager more people use them for gathering rare coins than actually using the foraged product.

[Ekcin 2,407]

-1

[armyskin 930]

I never understood why these were separate. +1

[Katrat 2,296]

Not everyone considers these skills as stubs and I really don't see the point in merging them.  I have over 90 skill in both and have no problem with continuing to skill them as is. Getting 90+ql herbs and veggies is very satisfying to me. And yes the coins are nice too.

[Amata 400]

I can see the point you're making here, but I'm not entirely convinced.
I dunno if "consolidate/combine" is the solution ... but, honestly, I can agree that it might be time to take a look at the range of nature-related skills & sort them out a bit better. 

Farming and gardening, and forage and botany. Where does one end and the others begin? Are each of these individual categories robust & fleshed-out? Can some be given a little love? What are ways to provide gardening, forage, and botany (and forestry, even!) the same breadth of content and "end game" goals that farming has? 

Katrat may be correct that skilling up forage and botany is considered by many to be a solid return on time investment... but that doesn't mean it couldn't be even better.

 

I have mentioned some of these ideas & brought up wildcrafting before.... Here are some ideas for fleshed-out "end game" content for these skills... and then also here is where I talk about wildcrafting for fun and profit health.   ✌🏼️🌱💜

 

Love everyone's ideas, as usual 
~ A
 

Edited November 18, 2020 by Amata
clarity

[Ekcin 2,407]

I fully agree to Katrat. And I do not envy the hunters prolly even getting a few more coins, it is a nice incentive, for beginners in particular.The "proposal" would basically destroy both skills, no less than, say, "concentrating" puppeteering and yoyo, DFC and HFC, or whichever senseless, mindless, and hearless "idea" may come up. It reminds me proposals of "concentrating" Freedom populace on a single server etc., therefore again, -1 to -100.

 

The original and lasting sense of both skills is that they provide the survival and skill development ability from scratch, even with no equipment, as a hunter/gatherer. Foraging and botanizing allow "bootstrapping" Wurming as demonstrated on Jackal (I loved that experience). And collecting food, berries, and resources is different from searching herbs and spices. The different titles do reflect that.

 

Destroying such basic and fundamental Nature subskills is cruel and irrational. There is zero considerable advantage in it, but it penalizes and alienates all who made some progress in both skills.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Ekcin
typo

[DaletheGood 1,073]

yeah, gonna go -1 on this idea. if you're looking for some veggies you forage, if you want herbs you botanize. if you combine them you'll end up with a bunch of pumpkins when what you really wanted was belladonna

[Etherdrifter 2,518]

The notion wasn't to combine the actions, just the skill total.

 

So forage and botanise as actions would remain the same, separate and gated behind the skill.  The only change would be to merge both skills into one with regards to skillgain.

 

2 hours ago, Ekcin said:

There is zero considerable advantage in it, but it penalizes and alienates all who made some progress in both skills.

 

No... That was making wemp plantable.  That definitely royally screwed anyone who ground botanise to any reasonable degree.  Forage has always been a minor utility (with mushrooms) being the main draw, but those can only be planted mid-late game.  Woad you can plant pretty much from day 1, and from there on out botanise was doomed.

Edited November 18, 2020 by Etherdrifter

[Retrograde 12,013]

There's a lot more to address than just "take the higher of the two" especially since many people have worked on them both at the same time. 

 

The reasoning is solid, they have definitely had their benefits diluted across other areas, but skill merges aren't something that has been discussed at length. 

 

If the decision to add new skills in the future is made, I'm sure some existing ones could be candidates for merging, and this would be one of them. 

 

 

[Maiya 490]

15 hours ago, Etherdrifter said:

 

 To make it marginally more useful to level, and to open up a nice skill slot that we can use for something else such as glassmaking.

there is no problem at all to add a new skill slot, without taking away one of those we got now. Sooo no need for merge anything. 

[Oblivionnreaver 5,174]

1 minute ago, Maiya said:

there is no problem at all to add a new skill slot, without taking away one of those we got now

adding new skills would reroll everyones affinity meals, so yeah it kinda is a problem

[Maiya 490]

1 minute ago, Oblivionnreaver said:

adding new skills would reroll everyones affinity meals, so yeah it kinda is a problem

it might be so but that must be a way to add that, like they added those affinity we got now. But still no need to take away skills we got today couse we get a new skill.

 

2 hours ago, Retrograde said:

If the decision to add new skills in the future is made, I'm sure some existing ones could be candidates for merging, and this would be one of them. 

Why  would some existings ones could be candidates for merging?

 

[Platyna 521]

I do not skill any of those, but honestly merging them so just the highest one is taken into consideration would be a massive skill points loss and would make very angry. 

[RainRain 591]

holding back decisions to improve the game because it might anger a minority of people is the same reason we still have epic around, despite it literally doing more harm than good right now

 

 

just pulk the trigger and merge them, as well as milking/dairy and milling/cooking and the two subskills for weaponsmithing into weaponsmith/blacksmith for the non weapons

 

let people keep the titles they’ve earned for legacy reasons otherwise.

Edited November 19, 2020 by RainRain

[Finnn 3,303]

after cooking update.. skills are kind of set in stone else aff food will go kaboom.. gone.. and affs will shift around to useless time-dumps pissing off everybody who have stocked on such

 

idk makes no difference for me.. you get to sort it to herbs or veggies mostly.. 

merging will add 2x more sub menu options to 1 skill.. why complicate things?

 

 

--edit

works as is.. no need to break what works, this helps nothing more than helping laziness win 2x more benefits for grinding 1 skill

 

 

Edited November 19, 2020 by Finnn
edit

[Platyna 521]

2 hours ago, RainRain said:

holding back decisions to improve the game because it might anger a minority of people is the same reason we still have epic around, despite it literally doing more harm than good right now

 

 

just pulk the trigger and merge them, as well as milking/dairy and milling/cooking and the two subskills for weaponsmithing into weaponsmith/blacksmith for the non weapons

 

let people keep the titles they’ve earned for legacy reasons otherwise.

 

How is an extra skill detrimental to the game? Wurm is a slow pace game people work hard for many years for their skills, you can't just jump in and take them away. 

[Ekcin 2,407]

6 hours ago, Retrograde said:

There's a lot more to address than just "take the higher of the two" especially since many people have worked on them both at the same time. 

 

The reasoning is solid, they have definitely had their benefits diluted across other areas, but skill merges aren't something that has been discussed at length. 

I fail to see much solid reasoning in that. The common basic benefits of both skills are their use to "boot a character" from scratch as a hunter-gatherer, but there is a clear distinction between searching and identifying herbs and grains, and rummaging for fruits and resources. Lumping them together is counter-immersive, and just serves those who hate both skills anyway, took a grudge when certain resources could obtained otherwise, or just do not care as they never practiced them to any significant amount. I can say that axing these skills would hurt.  

 

I consider it a complete misconception, especially in a sandbox game, that a skill is unnecessary, "diluted", or invalidated because not everybody is forced to use it most or all times. Until now, I did not even know that wemp was ever be obtained by foraging exclusively, but welcome than both, wemp and cotton, can be obtained by foraging, but also and mainly by farming. Same goes for herbs like rosemary and lovage by foraging and gardening, which made my preferred healing covers before I was able to butcher trolls in numbers.

 

There are less used skills in this game. Please save them from "reorganizers" who for personal grudges or selfish motives want them to be axed.

 

 

6 hours ago, Retrograde said:

If the decision to add new skills in the future is made, I'm sure some existing ones could be candidates for merging, and this would be one of them.

 

If there is a technical need to keep the number of skills constant not to reroll affinities, and are skill slots to refill, kill hammers, two in my perception absolutely unused skills. Give a valuable reward and compensation of any kind to those who ever obtained and used the Hammer of Magranon. This is my superficial impression at least, and I would look forward for reasoned objections against that idea.

[Amata 400]

with regard to "reasoning" - I wouldn't want to put words in Retro's or Etherdrifter's mouths, so I'm just gonna put my guess / interpretation out there & see if it resonates with anyone.... 

 

I don't think that foraging and botany are "diluted" so much as "underdeveloped" ... I think the impetus underlying this entire topic is the "solid reasoning" mentioned above - that, as the game has developed, Foraging and Botany can get lost underneath other, more robust, skills. And therefore: Etherdrifter's suggestion on how to approach that fundamental issue. (by nature of the Suggestion forum de facto "rules" - suggestion posts are not supposed to only point at an issue and say, "high time someone takes a look at this" - but actually provide an idea about what one possible solution might be.) It is the need for a solution that is solid, even if Etherdrifter's specific solution is one that you, personally, find fault with. 

 

I agree with Etherdrifter (and Retro) in the assessment that, comparatively, foraging and botany are both lagging behind other, more robustly developed skills & subskills. I really think it's high time someone takes a look at this - not because F&B are useless or unnecessary - but because they both can and should be so much more.
 

 

Questions Raised By This Topic (include but are not limited to)

• Could developing forage & botany as skill sets also trigger a broader re-organizing of all skills & subskills? 
   
• Could a closer consideration of forage & botany skills necessarily result in a merging of the two skill sets? 
   
• could an overhaul of skills & subskills create a parent skill (like "wildcrafting") and forage & botany become individual subskills in that category?
   
• what, if any, high-level usage can be added to forage and to botany to highlight the usefulness of these skills at all skill levels (not just at the newbie level)? 
   
• could an over-all skill organizational review impact the current food affinity system - and if so, how great an impact could be the result?
   
• if skill merging is undesired, what other approach could prioritize the goal of expanding these two skills while retaining their individual / unique purposes? 

 

I have zero experience with game design, programming, or coding. I currently have pretty much no experience on which to even hazard a guess at some of these questions. I think that any of these question has a possibility of a "yes" - I have no way to determine if that is merely a non-zero possibility or actually a probability. The following comments are entirely my extremely unsubstantiated opinions... I would not want F&B merged. I would want F&B very clearly delineated from each other. I would not want a large overhaul of all skills to get involved unless absolutely necessary (or unless there is information that the devs have that makes that a desired option instead of an onerous undertaking). I would be pleased with the creation of a new parent skill and both forage and botany moved into that category as subskills. I would not want the food affinity system completely up-ended. But, also, I would not want positive game development delayed or avoided simply because of changes to the food affinity system.

And, finally, I would like finding random loose coinage to be removed from foraging; bc I would like to see a future "treasure hunting" type skill that takes skill level into account in a risk/reward system starting at "finding a penny on the ground" and moving through "loose change in the couch" and "fought a troll for the treasure chest he was carrying"  the whole way up to "followed a treasure map to buried riches beyond my wildest dreams"... but that's a topic for another time.