Genuinely what in Saint Tobias's name were they cooking with this update?

[InternetDragon]

Quote

• Feature: Added 'ruined' torch holders. They will hold torches, but if broken will not drop themselves.
• Feature: Fully reworked berry bushes. Pre 1.22 berry bushes are now legacy blocks. No longer available in the creative inventory, but still functional blocks in-game (WIP!)
  • Flowering/Ripening still the same for now
  • Fully reworked models
  • Can only be propagated by taking a cutting with a knife which takes 6 to 12 months to mature
  • Berry bushes require fertilization or they will stop bearing fruit
  • A handful of rare traits will be added in the next pre-release - which propagate to the cutting taken

Ok, one disaster at a time

1. Ruined torch holders better not replace or make the current aged torch holders even more rare. Looking for them is literally the best reason to go caving early game because they are the best way to get permanent light at that point (Yes, oil lamps exist, but they are way too dim.) 

 

2. Berry bushes... I don't even know where to start. Nerfed to oblivion. Fertilizer is already a pain to get. Cuttings are going to have a seemingly 110% death rate. 6-12 months means little to no more early game berry farms. By the time you get a bush to mature, you have probably made a farm to surpass any gains from berries. 

 

[THEREALDKC]

There was a discussion on the VS Discord about this topic. I hope that these changes suggest a step toward more keyhole farming methods. Imagine farms with compost piles or the ability to actually have aquaculture. I can see myself already walking through my food forest. Berries were just simply the best means of producing alcohol in the whole game; they completely overshadowed whiskey or vodka. Easy to plant, easy to harvest, easy to process; do not even get me started on how abundantly they occur within the flora of most regions. Berries are the undeniable cask kings, these changes try to alleviate that, whilst maintaining consistency with other fruit bearing crops.

[LadyWYT]

The title made me giggle. 

49 minutes ago, InternetDragon said:

1. Ruined torch holders better not replace or make the current aged torch holders even more rare. Looking for them is literally the best reason to go caving early game because they are the best way to get permanent light at that point (Yes, oil lamps exist, but they are way too dim.) 

I suspect that the ruined torch holders might be replaced in some ruins, but perhaps not all. While they are a nice find, honestly I do think it is just a little too easy to find them in ruins, to the extent that there's no reason for the player to bother crafting their own torch holders in most cases. 

Now that I think about it, it could also be in preparation for the procedural dungeons. If the dungeons are different from story locations, in that the player is allowed to break blocks and loot everything, then it makes sense to add something like this so that the player can light the dungeon up without being able to get a bunch of free, better lights early in the game.

54 minutes ago, InternetDragon said:

2. Berry bushes... I don't even know where to start. Nerfed to oblivion. Fertilizer is already a pain to get. Cuttings are going to have a seemingly 110% death rate. 6-12 months means little to no more early game berry farms. By the time you get a bush to mature, you have probably made a farm to surpass any gains from berries. 

The berry bush rework isn't full implemented, so right now it doesn't feel particularly satisfying to play, but I do expect that to change once the rework is fully implemented. Based on what I see right now though, it is a change for the better, since berry bushes were incredibly strong before. While it might be convenient for the player to loot the surrounding countryside for every bush and plop said bushes back at base for an easy harvest, it's not particularly realistic nor a particularly good design for long term play. The ease of berry bushes was also a rather large reason, I believe, that many players didn't even bother with fruit trees.

How I see it is that in the early game, the player will need to rely on foraging wild bushes while they wait on cuttings to establish themselves. Berry bush cuttings, at a glance, don't seem to have a failure rate, and mature to fruit-bearing bushes much faster than fruit trees. Fruit trees, in contrast, have a pretty high failure rate on the cuttings and it takes an in-game year or two for the trees to mature enough to have decent yields. In order to keep it balanced, berry bushes need fertilizer every once in a while(perhaps just once, maybe twice, a year) to keep them productive, making them a little more expensive over time, while fruit trees are expensive up front but rather cheap on the upkeep(which could be changed later to better match the new berry bush upkeep). 

I do want to note too that the ability to propagate berry bushes should mean that more players have a chance at having a berry patch at their base in multiplayer, rather than all the nearby bushes getting pilfered and the player needing to go miles away or rely on admin intervention to get some.

47 minutes ago, THEREALDKC said:

There was a discussion on the VS Discord about this topic. I hope that these changes suggest a step toward more keyhole farming methods. Imagine farms with compost piles or the ability to actually have aquaculture. I can see myself already walking through my food forest. Berries were just simply the best means of producing alcohol in the whole game; they completely overshadowed whiskey or vodka. Easy to plant, easy to harvest, easy to process; do not even get me started on how abundantly they occur within the flora of most regions. Berries are the undeniable cask kings, these changes try to alleviate that, whilst maintaining consistency with other fruit bearing crops.

Pretty much. Berries were also a problem when it came to composting. Bushmeat, at least, requires some effort to get, and dough required the player to actually grind the grain into flour before turning the flour into dough. Berries, on the other hand...it was very easy to just plunk all the bushes back at base and then let most of the harvests rot.

[ifoz]

1 hour ago, InternetDragon said:

1. Ruined torch holders better not replace or make the current aged torch holders even more rare. Looking for them is literally the best reason to go caving early game because they are the best way to get permanent light at that point (Yes, oil lamps exist, but they are way too dim.) 

As far as I know, they won't. They were added because Elvas wanted players to have a way to light up the dynamic dungeons with torch holders, but since dungeons aren't claimed like story locations are he also didn't want to give players access to a whole lot of functional torch holders for only visiting a single dungeon.
The ruined ones allow you to light up the dungeons, but don't break game balance since they shatter when broken.

Edited March 3 by ifoz

[ArgentLuna]

Changes that when finished will make sense, right now as normal is the typical kneejerk reaction to any change that alters how something that is existing gets changed because it doesnt suit or was a interim. Berries are too easy right now.

[Thorfinn]

I don't see either of these making much difference to my play. I stopped moving bushes a couple versions ago. There are more than enough to harvest as you go about your collecting of other stuff.

And I didn't care that much about torch holders anyway. Replacing torches takes maybe 10, 15 seconds every day, day and a half. Not really worth the inventory spot to bring back unless you find a half dozen or so. You will have to replace all the rest of your torches anyway, so you only save a few seconds per loop. Also, I am very seldom home, and there's no point in lighting up the place when I am not there.

[Zane Mordien]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Pretty much. Berries were also a problem when it came to composting. Bushmeat, at least, requires some effort to get, and dough required the player to actually grind the grain into flour before turning the flour into dough. Berries, on the other hand...it was very easy to just plunk all the bushes back at base and then let most of the harvests rot.

Why, so year 2 you have compost which you don't really need because you have more food than you can ever eat.

 

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Fruit trees, in contrast, have a pretty high failure rate on the cuttings and it takes an in-game year or two for the trees to mature enough to have decent yields.

I still don't understand why wild trees can't be mature the first year. 

 

6 hours ago, THEREALDKC said:

There was a discussion on the VS Discord about this topic. I hope that these changes suggest a step toward more keyhole farming methods. Imagine farms with compost piles or the ability to actually have aquaculture. I can see myself already walking through my food forest. Berries were just simply the best means of producing alcohol in the whole game; they completely overshadowed whiskey or vodka. Easy to plant, easy to harvest, easy to process; do not even get me started on how abundantly they occur within the flora of most regions. Berries are the undeniable cask kings, these changes try to alleviate that, whilst maintaining consistency with other fruit bearing crops.

They are king of a useless mechanic, making alcohol doesn't impact game play yet. Maybe they are adding that with alchemy.

[Stralgaez]

8 hours ago, ArgentLuna said:

Changes that when finished will make sense, right now as normal is the typical kneejerk reaction to any change that alters how something that is existing gets changed because it doesnt suit or was a interim. Berries are too easy right now.

That's fine, but this is feeling more of one step of several foraging elements that come on the chopping block 'because it's too easy'.

What will be next - The mushrooms, with no alternative to cultivate them on your own in a cave or cellar? 

The wild produce and grain you find? The amount of meat you find from hunting game? 

... I think the image I put on here does display the views a few have for the game. 

[Brady_The]

If people don't like the changes, they always have the option to install the inevitable 1.21 reversion mods. 

[Facethief]

1 hour ago, Stralgaez said:

That's fine, but this is feeling more of one step of several foraging elements that come on the chopping block 'because it's too easy'.

What will be next - The mushrooms, with no alternative to cultivate them on your own in a cave or cellar? 

The wild produce and grain you find? The amount of meat you find from hunting game?

Ok, so if you’re going to complain about changes that could happen to foraging, don’t pick three changes that have basically been implemented in 1.22 already.

Mushrooms, while not necessarily nerfed, have been given additional features to keep you on your toes: several species that aren’t necessarily poisonous to eat (no health penalty) are now hallucinogenic.

Wild crops have (seemingly) been made to spawn mature less frequently.

Of the examples given, hunting is only the one that seems unchanged, and if anything, buffed by the addition of fishing.

In my opinion, these changes make the early game marginally more challenging and rewarding, but not meaningfully more difficult. While the additions to mushrooms are interesting, most of the hallucinogenic ones aren’t really harmful. And while wild crops are convenient, it gets boring (for me) to be able to waltz out in late fall and pluck some ripe turnips from the frozen soil.

[Vratislav]

About berries, we were warned, that the mechanics is temporary and will be changed significantly, especially to stop convenient but unrealistic method of replanting bushes next to the base to get second harvest there in the first year. 

I did not have time yet to check, but is there already known, which particular fertilizer berry bushes will require? For early game, P would be convenient, but whatever.

Also, I haven't seen if it was mentioned anywhere in forums, crops actually grow very long time unless they are fertilized on medium fertility soil. The medium soil is now very depleted before the last phase of growth and the phase 9 takes forever (speed around 0,2). This limits harvests to only one in the first season (tried to plant crops in August as usual, and got to collect dead plants mostly in phase 8 in December). To have only one crop harvest per season is not as bad as mechanics. I see the problem that first 7 phases now take similar time as the last two, that makes the crops growth unpredictable for unexperienced players, so the implementation is a bit lacking here.

 

Edited March 4 by Vratislav

[Stralgaez]

44 minutes ago, Facethief said:

While the additions to mushrooms are interesting, most of the hallucinogenic ones aren’t really harmful.

When its just giving me funky colors with no other side effects, I just eat them either way. Maybe not while I am at running speed through a forest, but otherwise it won't stop me from eating them by the dozen if they satiate my hunger just the same. There is no 'challenge' or 'reward' (other than the fun factor) by having spiked shrooms when they just trip you out and you can just wait until the effect is gone. 

Edited March 4 by Stralgaez

[MKMoose]

46 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

About berries, we were warned, that the mechanics is temporary and will be changed significantly, especially to stop convenient but unrealistic method of replanting bushes next to the base to get second harvest there in the first year. 

See, this is the one part of the discussion about berry bushes that I don't get. Several of the changes (mainly requirement to fertilize, as well as soil degradation on maturation) are clearly not aimed at just curbing replanting. As of now, we simply don't have any confirmation on the reasoning behind any of these changes.

The vast majority of complaints that I've seen (and that I've personally made) is literally some variation of "some changes were expected and are welcome, but other changes go too far".

 

46 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

I did not have time yet to check, but is there already known, which particular fertilizer berry bushes will require? For early game, P would be convenient, but whatever.

They require all three nutrients in the same quantity for maximum yield, but you can sustain them at decent health with only one nutrient.

Edited March 4 by MKMoose

[williams_482]

44 minutes ago, Vratislav said:

About berries, we were warned, that the mechanics is temporary and will be changed significantly, especially to stop convenient but unrealistic method of replanting bushes next to the base to get second harvest there in the first year. 

I did not have time yet to check, but is there already known, which particular fertilizer berry bushes will require? For early game, P would be convenient, but whatever.

Also, I haven't seen if it was mentioned anywhere in forums, crops actually grow very long time unless they are fertilized on medium fertility soil. The medium soil is now very depleted before the last phase of growth and the phase 9 takes forever (speed around 0,2). This limits harvests to only one in the first season (tried to plant crops in August as usual, and got to collect dead plants mostly in phase 8 in December). To have only one crop harvest per season is not as bad as mechanics. I see the problem that first 7 phases now take similar time as the last two, that makes the crops growth unpredictable for unexperienced players, so the implementation is a bit lacking here.

 

This is a result of a bug fix in when nutrients are consumed from the soil, and it sounds like that bug might have been unexpectedly load bearing? You really shouldn't need to fertilize a crop planted on max-nutrient med fert soil. 

Admittedly I don't mind the compression of the effective growing season given how easy it is to accumulate a huge amount of grain and vegetables, and in practice this is a nerf that limits capable players more than inexperienced ones because there should still be plenty of time for the first crop to be harvested even with a lateish start. Personally though I'd much rather see a reduction in vegetable yields per plant and the ability to get 2-3 harvests per year than this, because harvesting, rotating, and replanting is much more engaging than a single harvest year one and a choice between a single summer crop or two stunted cold weather crops in subsequent years. Plus, as you note, having the crops sitting there seemingly almost done for a month feels terrible. 

15 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

I suspect that the ruined torch holders might be replaced in some ruins, but perhaps not all. While they are a nice find, honestly I do think it is just a little too easy to find them in ruins, to the extent that there's no reason for the player to bother crafting their own torch holders in most cases. 

The primary reason nobody makes their own torch holder is that they're too expensive. 2 plates = 2 torch holders is a lousy deal when a bee farm or som bony soil panning and a few minutes mining quartz will upgrade that to two brighter, more versatile, and all around far superior lanterns. 

Torch holders should be a single ingot smithing recipe, and we'll see more players use them. Ideally they should be smithable with bronze and ferrous metals as well as brass, although I agree that copper would be too early. 

Edited March 4 by williams_482

[LadyWYT]

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

Admittedly I don't mind the compression of the effective growing season given how easy it is to accumulate a huge amount of grain and vegetables, and in practice this is a nerf that limits capable players more than inexperienced ones because there should still be plenty of time for the first crop to be harvested even with a lateish start.

In my 1.22 testing world, I got a really late start. Usually I have farms set up by the end of May/first of June, but in this case I think it was late June/July before I actually bothered with making a farm. The first harvest has been more than enough to keep me fed through the winter. As for the second harvest I tried to plant? It froze right before it matured,  though some of it somehow did not freeze over the winter so I guess I'll be harvesting a bit in the spring when it thaws. Very strange and I wonder if it's a bug.

 

2 hours ago, williams_482 said:

The primary reason nobody makes their own torch holder is that they're too expensive. 2 plates = 2 torch holders is a lousy deal when a bee farm or som bony soil panning and a few minutes mining quartz will upgrade that to two brighter, more versatile, and all around far superior lanterns. 

Torch holders should be a single ingot smithing recipe, and we'll see more players use them. Ideally they should be smithable with bronze and ferrous metals as well as brass, although I agree that copper would be too early. 

This is also true. I don't think copper would be too early either, as that gives players more incentive to cast a copper anvil aside from just getting a saw and chisel. On the other hand, it's not really difficult to find zinc, so limiting the torch holders to brass is likely fine as well.

[Ceridith]

For berry bushes, I think the main issue is to do with the ease of relocating them. It's definitely too easy to collect and replant them in a single location, there should be some hurdles to clear to do so successfully. In reality you would have to carefully dig around the root structure, you can't leave the bush dug up for too long otherwise it will dry out and die, and after replanting you would need to make sure to water and possibly fertilize the bush to ensure the root structure takes hold.

Sensibly carrying this over into the game could mean it taking some time for a dig interaction using a shovel, which slows down the process of digging up a bush. Dug up berry bushes should have a spoil/decay timer, if they're not replanted before the timer runs out, they dry out and die. Which leads into the main hurdle of replanting, relocated berry bushes should require time and effort for them to recover before they begin producing fruit again. This could be helped along by players attentively ensuring to water (either through a watering can, irrigation, or getting lucky with rain), and/or fertilizing said bushes while they're still in the recovery phase. If we're feeling particularly punitive, the longer a berry bush is left dug up before replanting the longer it takes for it to recover from being replanted, and/or berry bushes still in the replanting stage could dry out and die if they don't get enough water which would require more player forethought and interaction.

Beyond that, I think continually requiring fertilizing all berry bushes goes a bit too far into making them tedious. Especially so if needing to fertilize wild berry bushes becomes a thing.

And as for fruit trees, which were previously mentioned earlier in the thread, similar changes should likely be made for them. Fruit tree trimmings should have to be replanted or grafted before drying out. Also, players should be able to increase the chance of successful replanting or grafting by engaging in extra interactions such as watering and fertilizing. Fruit trees in general should also be able to bear fruit during the first game year though, it's silly that they don't.

[LadyWYT]

2 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

For berry bushes, I think the main issue is to do with the ease of relocating them. It's definitely too easy to collect and replant them in a single location, there should be some hurdles to clear to do so successfully. In reality you would have to carefully dig around the root structure, you can't leave the bush dug up for too long otherwise it will dry out and die, and after replanting you would need to make sure to water and possibly fertilize the bush to ensure the root structure takes hold.

I think the cuttings make more sense than digging up the whole bush. Not all bushes are hardy enough to transplant well, and planting a cutting is much easier than trying to dig up a mature bush without damaging the root system.

 

3 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

Beyond that, I think continually requiring fertilizing all berry bushes goes a bit too far into making them tedious. Especially so if needing to fertilize wild berry bushes becomes a thing.

I think it depends on how often the player needs to fertilize the bushes. Once a year, to me, seems rather reasonable. Or perhaps even once every couple of years or so, if the player just wants to keep decent production, and isn't trying to maximize the output.

Fertilizing wild bushes though doesn't really make sense. It's a wild bush--it can take care of itself. The wild bushes should always be present as an easy option for the player to take advantage of, no maintenance required. It's only the cultivated bushes that should require a bit of work, since the player is putting in the work to grow more bushes in the safety of their base, potentially bushes with specific traits(since traits were mentioned as a possibility).

7 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

Fruit trees in general should also be able to bear fruit during the first game year though, it's silly that they don't.

I do agree, but to my knowledge the fruit trees were rather difficult to even get working properly when they were first implemented. So I'm guessing that what we have right now is a "good enough" placeholder, and they'll probably get some changes themselves later. Possibly when certain crops in general are reworked to be proper seasonal, berry bushes included. It makes more sense to change fruit trees then, because that way only certain trees and bushes will have ripe fruit at the start of the game, and not absolutely everything, thus giving the player a bit of a survival challenge. 

 

10 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

Fruit tree trimmings should have to be replanted or grafted before drying out.

I actually disagree somewhat here, both for fruit trees and berry bushes. I did enjoy that mechanic in Wildcraft, however, I think the drying out part might be a little much. If the player has several days to plant the cuttings before they dry out and die, then it's probably not too bad.

 

12 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

Also, players should be able to increase the chance of successful replanting or grafting by engaging in extra interactions such as watering and fertilizing.

This would be nice. Perhaps it doesn't bring the survival chances up to 100%, but giving fruit tree cuttings extra care while they try to establish themselves could at least double the chances of survival. Berry bush cuttings don't seem to have issues with survival(although maybe it's just not been implemented yet), so maybe caring for those cuttings can simply help them grow faster or even give them a chance to develop good traits thanks to getting quality care. 

In both cases, the player can still do the minimum and get a decent reward for the effort, or they can go the extra mile and get even better results.  Now that I think of it, I think this has been the reasoning behind some of the weed mechanic suggestions for farming, though I'm still skeptical that the logic really works there given how fast weeds grow and how much time it really takes to deal with them. Especially since the player needs to make bigger grain fields now due to the grain crop tweaks.

[Ceridith]

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I think the cuttings make more sense than digging up the whole bush. Not all bushes are hardy enough to transplant well, and planting a cutting is much easier than trying to dig up a mature bush without damaging the root system.

That's a fair point, and another possibility. Trying to replant an existing bush could carry a chance of failure, similar to how planting fruit tree trimmings work. I'd like it to still be an option of replanting, but having an alternative path of trying to plant a trimming would be safer to the survival of the existing bush at the cost of it taking longer for a trimming to mature into a fruit bearing bush. Some additional depth could be added to this as well, with the quality of the trimming being impacted by the tool used to extract it as well. i.e. using a simple stone or flint knife yields a poor quality trimming, metal knife a better quality, but the best quality would be from using clippers. This would work to both encourage and reward players for progressing through material ages.

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I think it depends on how often the player needs to fertilize the bushes. Once a year, to me, seems rather reasonable. Or perhaps even once every couple of years or so, if the player just wants to keep decent production, and isn't trying to maximize the output.

The frequency is the important part, I agree. Having to fertilize bushes too frequently makes them tedious, and too much like crops. Ideally it would be nice if the soil quality the bush was planted in had an impact as well, in that bushes planted on higher quality soil should require less or potentially no continual fertilization if planted on terra preta.

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

I actually disagree somewhat here, both for fruit trees and berry bushes. I did enjoy that mechanic in Wildcraft, however, I think the drying out part might be a little much. If the player has several days to plant the cuttings before they dry out and die, then it's probably not too bad.

I wasn't thinking of having bushes and trimmings drying out quickly, I was thinking more medium term of maybe 7 days or so. Something reasonable so that players are discourage from digging up every berry bush they come across and hoarding them. Replanting fruit bushes, or their trimmings, should take some planning and forethought beyond just collecting every bush a player comes across and later plunking them down wherever and whenever it's convenient. Which I think should be similar for fruit trees, if you're going to take a trimming you should have some plan for what to do with it and have to act on it somewhat soon rather than being able to simply dump it in a basket or chest and leave it there indefinitely until you decide what to do with it.

34 minutes ago, LadyWYT said:

This would be nice. Perhaps it doesn't bring the survival chances up to 100%, but giving fruit tree cuttings extra care while they try to establish themselves could at least double the chances of survival. Berry bush cuttings don't seem to have issues with survival(although maybe it's just not been implemented yet), so maybe caring for those cuttings can simply help them grow faster or even give them a chance to develop good traits thanks to getting quality care. 

In both cases, the player can still do the minimum and get a decent reward for the effort, or they can go the extra mile and get even better results.  Now that I think of it, I think this has been the reasoning behind some of the weed mechanic suggestions for farming, though I'm still skeptical that the logic really works there given how fast weeds grow and how much time it really takes to deal with them. Especially since the player needs to make bigger grain fields now due to the grain crop tweaks.

My personal perspective is that I'd prefer the default game mechanics focus more on positive rewards for choosing to engage more frequently and thoughtfully, rather than punishing players who choose to do the minimum or disengage entirely. I think that's where a weed mechanic starts to creep into the more punitive and tedious side of things. Not that it couldn't be added, but then we get into questions of whether we should also add insect infestations, blight, and/or crops outright dying if left dry for too long. It's a fine balance to try to strike, and while some players might love a more engaging and punitive farming system, others might hate it. Those things would be perfect for optional world settings or a mod though.

[williams_482]

What if the mechanics for berry bushes gave you a choice between packing them densely and needing to fertilize, or spreading them out and getting full yields without maintenance? Perhaps they could draw nutrients from not just the block they are planted on but the eight adjacent blocks (or the four cardinally adjacent blocks) as well, and at optimal dispersal they would draw nutrients at the same rate the soil refreshes nutrients. Pineapples are an existing crop that grows so slowly relative to their nutrient consumption that they don't actually deplete the soil, so that part is already possible with the current game rules. 

So if you have a huge field to plant in and you spread berry bushes evenly across it, you can set and forget. If instead you want a densely packed set of hedges or a continuous field of berries, then you'll need to fertilize, more often depending on how densely you've packed them. 

[LadyWYT]

36 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

That's a fair point, and another possibility. Trying to replant an existing bush could carry a chance of failure, similar to how planting fruit tree trimmings work. I'd like it to still be an option of replanting, but having an alternative path of trying to plant a trimming would be safer to the survival of the existing bush at the cost of it taking longer for a trimming to mature into a fruit bearing bush. Some additional depth could be added to this as well, with the quality of the trimming being impacted by the tool used to extract it as well. i.e. using a simple stone or flint knife yields a poor quality trimming, metal knife a better quality, but the best quality would be from using clippers. This would work to both encourage and reward players for progressing through material ages.

If transplanting the adult bush is a higher risk/higher reward situation then it might be okay. However, I'm still not keen on the idea since it's likely to cause issues in multiplayer with players opting to continue digging up all the berry bushes within decent walking distance rather than take the time to propagate cuttings. While that's never been a problem I've had to deal with(private server), it does seem to be a common problem with public servers, especially the larger ones.

 

39 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

Ideally it would be nice if the soil quality the bush was planted in had an impact as well, in that bushes planted on higher quality soil should require less or potentially no continual fertilization if planted on terra preta.

Agreed. If terra preta practically negated the need for fertilizer, that'd probably prompt more players to invest in it, as well as just make those first few pieces more valuable. Terra preta isn't difficult to make by any means, but it does take quite a bit of time and effort to actually produce any notable quantity.

 

41 minutes ago, Ceridith said:

I wasn't thinking of having bushes and trimmings drying out quickly, I was thinking more medium term of maybe 7 days or so. Something reasonable so that players are discourage from digging up every berry bush they come across and hoarding them. Replanting fruit bushes, or their trimmings, should take some planning and forethought beyond just collecting every bush a player comes across and later plunking them down wherever and whenever it's convenient. Which I think should be similar for fruit trees, if you're going to take a trimming you should have some plan for what to do with it and have to act on it somewhat soon rather than being able to simply dump it in a basket or chest and leave it there indefinitely until you decide what to do with it.

A week sounds pretty reasonable to me.

 

11 minutes ago, williams_482 said:

What if the mechanics for berry bushes gave you a choice between packing them densely and needing to fertilize, or spreading them out and getting full yields without maintenance? Perhaps they could draw nutrients from not just the block they are planted on but the eight adjacent blocks (or the four cardinally adjacent blocks) as well, and at optimal dispersal they would draw nutrients at the same rate the soil refreshes nutrients. Pineapples are an existing crop that grows so slowly relative to their nutrient consumption that they don't actually deplete the soil, so that part is already possible with the current game rules. 

So if you have a huge field to plant in and you spread berry bushes evenly across it, you can set and forget. If instead you want a densely packed set of hedges or a continuous field of berries, then you'll need to fertilize, more often depending on how densely you've packed them. 

I like that idea. It sounds quite fair, and offers some interesting options. Maybe we'll see something like it in the future? If not in the vanilla game, then perhaps as a mod.

[InternetDragon]

7 hours ago, Facethief said:

While the additions to mushrooms are interesting, most of the hallucinogenic ones aren’t really harmful.

Putting it in a porridge and handing it to a blackguard going caving. Nightmare^2

[LadyWYT]

1 hour ago, InternetDragon said:

Putting it in a porridge and handing it to a blackguard going caving. Nightmare^2

If only. Cooking the shrooms seems to remove the hallucinogenic effects. Which I mean...makes sense. To my knowledge that's one way to tell if certain mushrooms have been properly cooked or not.

[MKMoose]

1 hour ago, williams_482 said:

What if the mechanics for berry bushes gave you a choice between packing them densely and needing to fertilize, or spreading them out and getting full yields without maintenance? Perhaps they could draw nutrients from not just the block they are planted on but the eight adjacent blocks (or the four cardinally adjacent blocks) as well, and at optimal dispersal they would draw nutrients at the same rate the soil refreshes nutrients. Pineapples are an existing crop that grows so slowly relative to their nutrient consumption that they don't actually deplete the soil, so that part is already possible with the current game rules. 

So if you have a huge field to plant in and you spread berry bushes evenly across it, you can set and forget. If instead you want a densely packed set of hedges or a continuous field of berries, then you'll need to fertilize, more often depending on how densely you've packed them. 

I really feel like you could instead just force the berries to be planted at a minimum distance between each other instead of implementing such a complex system. Given the option to avoid maintenance, people will choose it every single time.

[LadyWYT]

For what it's worth, according to the handbook in pre5, only cultivated bushes will require maintenance. Even then, it seems to be more of a yearly thing, since the nutrients will only deplete after a harvest, but producing a harvest doesn't guarantee that nutrients will be used up. It also looks like cultivated bushes will require less and less attention over time, eventually requiring no fertilizer at all, though it appears to take several in-game years to get them to that point.

Basically, it looks like they'll require a little more maintenance up front to get going, eventually getting to the point they need no further attention. Wild bushes don't appear to need attention at all, which makes sense, but won't be able to produce the same yields as cultivated bushes, so to get the best yields players will want to spend some time setting up their own berry patch. Relying on wild bushes though still seems like it will be perfectly viable as well, just not as lucrative as it was previously.

[williams_482]

20 in-game years to be down to 5% (notably not 0%) nutrient loss is an absurdly long time. Extrapolating from my 500-odd hours in a 6 year world, That's nearing 2,000 hours in-game. I'm actually surprised they're bothered about anything on that time horizon, as even obsessives will need multiple real world years of regular playing to see that much of a decline.