Best Farming fix. Easy?

[Jackard]

First, I think the whole method of raising crop q should be scrapped. As I understand it, seed sorting is supposed to be a minigame, but if it's got just one solution (and an obvious one, to boot), it's not really a game. So, all seeds should be the same quality if the crops are grown in the same conditions.

...

Now, on to raising q. Quality of crops should be the average of the seeds and the soil quality, dragged down by farming skill if it's lower than the result. Soil quality should be improvable with manure, compost etc. It should be possible to push crop q beyond the soil's q through a minigame of sorts (how else do you get compost better than your soil?). Basically, your crops demand certain things (water, weeding, soil ph adjustment with limestone etc.), and each time you fill one of these demands they get a point or three of quality beyond what they would normally be. The number of these demands you can fulfil in one crop generation is limited by your farming skill (has to be higher than crop q to get any at all). Much like numen you can forfeit a demand, but that would still expend one of your q raising chances, and maybe even knock out some of the progress you've already made. Like numen, you should get a new demand (if you're eligible for it) as soon as you fulfil the previous one, so that you're not forced to log in at specific times to tend to your crops.

Potjeh why do you generally have more thoughtful ideas than the rest of your kind

edit: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4869
edit2: heh forgot onionfighter/niltrias

[Onionfighter]

. . . the rest of your kind

Give me a break.

[Sever]

Much of what I say here has been said since I started writing it, but for what it's worth:

I somewhat agree that using CTRL to automatically plant the best seed defeats the randomness in farmed crops, but I don't think that the current implementation is reason enough to write it off. Really, the most efficient thing to do is harvest and store enough of a field to replant and just bag the rest. The only thing standing in the way of perfectly sorting those seeds is a little attention and a lot of walking back and forth and scrollsorting seeds in and out of chests to obtain an optimal lineup. With walking delay and no pathfinding, this is nothing but tedious. The only joy that can be derived from it is knowing that you'll have better crops. It's only a couple of minutes to sort a 10x10 field, though, so I think it's hardly an issue.

I suppose that some kind of table that you throw all your seedbags on and abstracts the hearthling to be doing the sorting task "for you" is... reasonable? Since it takes time for it to spit out each seed, and is capped in some way by stats, I don't see why that would be helpful in any way right now. I could, instead, just do it manually, and probably faster and more reliably. Are you looking for a reason to deprecate scrollwheel sorting? (The correct answer is "No!" Try sorting without scrolling and remind yourself that it sucks.)

If the device is a kind of granary and dumps the best it has into your inventory when you hit a button, I can agree with that. I don't know what kind of awesome machine could really do that, though

Wait, people actually use seedbags?

Seedbags are actually pretty awesome for any task where quality is not important. Unfortunately there are too many crops that can't be bagged.

[Chakravanti]

The only question I have is Should/Would the same system be applicable to trees?

I mean, I'm rather sold on potjeh's idea. Not only is it realistic and enjoyable but it achieves the desired gameplay. I concede. Jackard's right, Potjeh totally outdid me and I posted completely out of turn. Disregard thread and send it hel if you like.

Still, if that's the case can we get ctrl+shift farming to stand as a stop-gap measure for seriously undesireable gameplay in the meantime as a the-devs-reallydon't-hate-us, gesture? I mean....given we're still looking forward to autospeed...

[SpidersEverywhere]

If quality sorting was supposed to be some kind of challenge then we wouldn't have shift-ctrl-mousewheel in the first place. Plant highest quality functionality would be cool, but a way to empty all you seedbags into a container at once would be almost as good.

[Sotsa]

Yes. I love the compost, but should farming then be affected by natural soil quality spots?

[Potjeh]

Yes, but they shouldn't be spots, they should be areas. Conquering prime agricultural land could be a good motive for PvP.

[Melgui]

Yes, but they shouldn't be spots, they should be areas. Conquering prime agricultural land could be a good motive for PvP.

2010 C&I Best Idea Candidate. Seriously, we really need this, Potjeh's farming concept would improve the game radically, is also more realistic and funnier than the current system.

[Gauteamus]

A Trinity of ideas I think would support each other well:

* Potjehs farming idea, for making land valuable, and farming funnier
* Jackards village management, including some way to share chat between village entities.
* I do not think I yet have seen a really convincing idea for "siege banner" mechanics (yes, I know there has been some threads).
War between factions will have meaning with land having value, and more involved diplomacy/faction branching should be one of the results of better village management. We still need some mechanics for war not being all or nothing - a well prepared faction should be able to grab some land in a blitz, even against a stronger faction, but a war between two near equal factions (or between two developed factions at all) should always give the defender the chance to rally allies through diplomacy, take defensive measures, and make the total victory a hard won, practically speaking impossible, goal.

[OvShit]

Well, the farmer work is now the most valuable work. We need to make it slightly harder to farm or make other jobs more rewarding.