Topic

Fruit changing considered harmful

There's only one real sort of fruit in the game: cherries. The recipe for fruit salad presently calls for an apple, a banana and a bunch of grapes, but it might as well just call for 11 cherries.  The same goes for other recipes - having different fruit just delays the process a bit, because you don't need to collect anything but cherries.

I imagine that designing lots of different sorts of fruit trees would be difficult, so how about having fruit trees give fruit *and only fruit* as bonuses. And they'd be big bonuses - you might win a dozen bananas or twenty oranges. This would mean that it would be worthwhile collecting cherries just to get the bonuses, and it would give players an ever-changing random collection of fruit to use for making different cocktails or food.

Posted 15 months ago by Tanga Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • I've got to agree that the constant fruit-changing is a bit of a drag. It's a weird kind of mechanic, since it acts basically as "filler" time: it just makes it longer and more frustrating to make anything, and doesn't really add much to the experience. It makes me wonder why I bother with fruit at all, sometimes. The other resource trees are more interesting.
    Posted 15 months ago by Shoehorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But don't you have to change the parts of other trees as well??? With the wood tree and paper trees as exceptions.
    Posted 15 months ago by Gabi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I was thinking of mining and elements and cooking with various non-fruit ingredients I guess

    With fruit you just have a big lump of undifferentiated cherries; you can tell yourself "man I have enough cherries... now I get to change all this, and probably screw up a bunch of times, and then have to get more cherries"

    Because all fruit comes from cherries, making fruit-based dishes is much less interesting than cooking with spices and other ingredients that come from a variety of sources. And there are a lot of foods that are just fruits.
    Posted 15 months ago by Shoehorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • But all spices come from allspice, from spice trees. All bubbles come from plain bubbles, from bubble trees. All gases come from general vapor, from gas trees. And the same goes for bean and egg trees though slightly different application because they're not always used the same way/as much (depending on how you play).

    I could be completely missing the point however :P
    Posted 15 months ago by Gabi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • No. It's not harmful. Bonus of other fruit on fruit trees might be cool, but it would be a bonus... not a fix. There's no problem to fix here.

    Look. The game isn't about making things. It is right now, but this isn't the full game. No beta is ever the full game. The base ingredient becoming many other ingredients is a way to add variety. If we want a fruit salad, sure it's 11 cherries, whatever. But the flavor of it shouldn't be that. It should have nanners, apples, oranges, and other fruit. The changing, grinding, etc is a way to use a single tree to produce a lot of different items.

    Also, consider using your cherries differently. Sure, having cherries gives versatility, but it also creates that extra step. Do what I do. I have a fruit bag full of a stack of each fruit. I make them well in advance of when I'll need fruit. That way, I have all the fruit I could want just by grabbing my fruit bag. I have two full spice racks, two full fruit bags, a bubble bag, and a gas bag. They have the base ingredient in there too. By doing it all in advance, I save myself tons of time and energy later. But...

    I keep asking myself what I'm preparing for. Why keep making full spice racks. Why fill fruit bags, etc. I mean, what's the point? I could cash-in. I could make something for exp. I could do x, y, z, but what am I going to do with the EXP or the Money? I don't really know. That's the problem, not fruit changing. We need to be making things for a greater, more interesting purpose. 
    Posted 15 months ago by Mr. Dawgg Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm not thinking of the versatility or how great it would be to save time. Right now there are only a couple of uses for fruit that are really worthwhile, unless you have a quest to complete. That's because cherries will turn into any fruit you want. The mechanics need to change so that fruit are mainly random. If you get a whole bunch of whortleberries you'll make whortleberry jam - not for the novelty, but because it makes sense. If you get a whole lot of oranges you'll make orange juice. If you're stuck, sure, you'll use the fruit changer to convert cherries - but the focus won't be grinding out the required fruit, it will be taking advantage of your windfalls.

    And yes, a similar argument applies to spices.
    Posted 15 months ago by Tanga Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I do the exact opposite Señor Dawgg. I keep all of my materials in as raw a state as I possibly can (cherries, meat, milk, allspice, etc…) until I have so much of them I don't know what to do, then I load up my bags and head off to the nearest street project and pwn it with my "I can create as much of anything as I want because I have 5000 cherries, 4000 meat, and 6000 milk, and 40 no-no powder in my pockets" powers!
    Posted 15 months ago by Skwid Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't understand this:
    The mechanics need to change so that fruit are mainly random.

    Are you saying that you shouldn't be able to make fruit?  That it should only be available as a drop from some other action?

    Or are you suggesting that fruits should be added as a reward along with music blocks, and drinks and food? 
    Posted 15 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • -1. I don't want to have to go crazy trying to find whortleberries or oranges if I need them at that moment. I also am always struggling to find enough space in my inventory for everything I need, so I don't want to be carrying around lots of different types of fruit that I may or may not use. I like it the way it is now.
    Posted 15 months ago by Shepherdmoon Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree with Shepherdmoon:  I'd rather have a bag with one fruit changer and 15 stacks of cherries than try to carry around all the different fruits in the correct proportions. 
    Posted 15 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I also agree with Shepherdmoon. I like it the way it is now.
    Posted 15 months ago by Audaria Subscriber! | Permalink
  • WindBorn, I suggest that picking cherries be nerfed so that even high level players only get a few cherries each time. Most of the benefit from picking cherries would come from random drops of fruit. The cherries would be available to replace missing fruit (e.g., make bananas for a fruit salad if you already have apples and grapes) but they wouldn't be enough to replace all the fruit you need.

    As for the people who don't want to carry around lots of fruit - firstly, I bet you don't make most recipes unless you're working on a street project. So you could just eat the fruit. Secondly, when you have a lot of fruit you just look at your recipes and see what you can make with the fruit you have. Lastly, just think how much less fun the game would be if we had a vegetable and a protein changer to make vegetables and milk/meat/eggs? Or a universal foodmaker that ran on currants? There's be no point in recipes at all.
    Posted 15 months ago by Tanga Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What about spices, and metal rocks, and beans and eggs?   Should those all be nerfed too so that you have to rely on random drops to get the output, instead of being able to create spices, tree beans, ingots, and baby animals? 

    I don't see how the game is currently unbalanced with players being able to collect as much as they need of the basic item, and then choosing which of the more advanced items to create. 
    Posted 15 months ago by WindBorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah WindBorn that was my point I think I have to disagree with this one. But thanks for posting ideas :D
    Posted 15 months ago by Gabi Subscriber! | Permalink
  • +1 Shepherdmoon I always keep my cherries/gas/bubbles in a raw state until I need it, I also have problems with full bags, I like it the way it is.
    Posted 15 months ago by Phochai Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I like the idea of being given different types of fruit, but like others have stated the fruit quickly start to take up a lots of space in your inventory. So how about a fruit basket, which takes up one slot in you inventory, but is capable of holding a LOT of fruit. This would have to have more slots than a standard bag or else it wouldn't be worthwhile.
    Posted 15 months ago by GavinLeigh Subscriber! | Permalink
  • When I say a lot of fruit... I mean that if a standard slot holds 250 cherries, a slot in the fruit basket might hold 500 cherries. Just to clarify.
    Posted 15 months ago by GavinLeigh Subscriber! | Permalink