Topic

Gardening Changes Feedback Thread (reasonable or not?)

I figured I'd get a thread started for some different points of view. The details of the changes are in beta.glitch.com/forum/gener... , but basically stuff takes longer to grow. Considerably longer. What once took 30 minutes, now takes 5 hours. Potatoes now take a full real-life day.

First, let me state that I'm somewhat relieved that I won't have to be harvesting a crop every couple of hours. I was simply incapable of allowing my plots to be inactive for any period of time, and could usually be found tending to my crops . . . shirtless . . .to avoid the unsightly 'farmer's tan'.

That said, these changes seem to have taken away a nice profit stream and/or energy source. I will admit that gardening seemed to be a bit unbalanced, but does this swing things too far in the other direction? The guano part is nice, but it has been such a scarce resource that I'm not sure how feasible that approach will be. Do I have to return to the mines, or will that become less worthwhile too?

As you can see, I'm a bit conflicted on this. So, I turn to you for your feedback and sound reasoning (as evidenced by countless other threads ;). I haven't crunched any numbers, but feel free to share any that you might have.

Is this a good/fair change? Is guano more plentiful now and thus a feasible way to increase yields? What is the most worthwhile profession now? Does anyone want to buy any suntan lotion or a gently used straw hat?

Posted 17 months ago by Joe Blow Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

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  • I haven't tried it in game yet, but stoot said something about using guano to fertilize the seeds to speed up growing? Is that implemented now? How long does spinach take now? 

    Yes, the slow down, does reduce the ability to earn money quickly with gardening, though I've noticed them slowing down everything in the game (or reducing the effects of things). I think things were artificially sped up on purpose for the testing period. I think they want to slow down our ability to make money quickly, because it was a bit too easy. Still, I will miss being able to make 10k in one afternoon.
    Posted 17 months ago by FrankenPaula Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Reasonable, if in game consumables (food+drink) become more reasonable / beneficial. As of now I have no need for food so can't be bothered with gardening and making the "costs" higher makes it even more imbalanced.
    Posted 17 months ago by Another Chris Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really need to crunch the numbers.  I understand that guano can speed things up significantly, but so far I've never seen the stuff.    If it's relatively easy to acquire, I'll be OK.   If not, I'll feel like I've taken a big hit in my "trade of choice" in this game.
    Posted 17 months ago by Vicereine Linnæa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • From a how much time am I going to commit to this game (which determines if I'm going to play at all or not) aspect this is fantastic.  I really don't want to get on more than once a day at the most.

    From a Tiny Speck needs to make money aspect.  Well I would assume that they make more money the longer you are playing the game.  Maybe this isn't true?  Everything they seem be doing seems to limit the advantages of playing for a longer duration.  (Or multiple times in a day)

    TL;DR I think it's awesome but it may not be for Tiny Speck...
    Posted 17 months ago by jmc124 Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It is so not worth planting herbs now.  I used to sort of take care of one of the community herb gardens, making sure plots were cleared and replanted from my own seed stock, but now that it's clock-hours for every plant (including 36 hours for one of them!), it's a drag.  I'm going to stop.
    Posted 17 months ago by Eleanor Rigby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I haven't done any real calculations yet, but FWIW it just took me ~18 minutes to get 80 guano, at 5 good crops per plop. Lesser crops are seem to be 10 per plop.

    ETA: Say I use 2 guano to speed a cabbage seed up to 14 minutes (from 14 hours). That leaves me with a net gain of 4 cabbages (I get 14 per harvest, having maxed out croppery). 
    Posted 17 months ago by Sheepy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • To be honest, I have never been a user of community gardens so the plant 'em and forget 'em in my own yard has always been my strategy. So the time extension is not a big factor for me. 

    But I stopped plants a while ago. It is probably cost effective, but not with my time. It is cheap enough to buy at produce vendors at this point and the cash flow from everything else is so large that I am rarely in short supply of currents.

    But the really reason I don't plant is the pain in the butt getting seeds from pigs is. Without the ability to feed a pig three times with one click... it is just too much of a chore. And if I'm gonna buy seeds anyway, I might has well buy the produce. Cost effective, probably not. But that the way it is.

    Guano in the caves is falling pretty rapidly. I have not looked to see the number on feeding batterflies is now.
    Posted 17 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In related news, no more bats in the Alakol caves now? Sheesh.
    Posted 17 months ago by Joe Blow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • This has probably already been mentioned, but batterflies are now pooping of their own free will, which should help on the guano supply side.
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Eleanor Rigby - you and I are in the same boat there. In RL when I was working at my desk, I'd sit around in the Jethimadh gardens and greet people with flowers and seeds and tend as many of the crops as I could muster. And by and large, people could come and go and harvest what they liked. 

    But I think that addition of guano will make people more possessive of the plants that they themselves plant. Because now it's more than just expending a little energy and a seed and who knows when it'll grow (most people don't hang around to find out), but if you use guano too then it's a bit more work and a commitment. 

    On one hand, I don't mind the really long times, but I think what would really alleviate the pressure would be if there are going to be such very long times, then at least let us plant a little bit of herbs and crops in each house. If I had a small, raised garden (2x2 plots even) in my home that I could plant herbs in addition to my larger garden for crops, I wouldn't mind nearly as much. 

    I will miss tending the garden though.
    Posted 17 months ago by Folderol Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Does fertilizer work on herb gardens? I hadn't seen it mentioned that this was the case.
    Posted 17 months ago by katlazam Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah it does work on the herb gardens. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Folderol Subscriber! | Permalink
  • katlazam, I just procured 2 overpriced pieces of guano by auction and tried them out: yes, they do work on herb gardens.  Guano #1 moves the seeds to seedling stage, Guano #2 reduces the remaining time-to-harvest by 90%.  (Yawn.)
    (And oh yeah, once guano has been applied, the image of the seedling looks slightly different, with bits of, um.... bat poop sticking onto its tendrils and around its base.)
    Posted 17 months ago by Eleanor Rigby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just got a chance to try the guano:) So, essentially in my 28 patch garden, 56 guano applied immediately will get my crops to finish in half the time that it used to? I suppose that's not too bad. Just some more busy work.

    Parsnip used to be 30 minutes base time. New base time is 5 hours.
    One guano will reduce to 2.5 hours. 2 guano will reduce to 15 minutes.

    Now, about those bats in Alakol :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Joe Blow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • jmc124: I think it's awesome but it may not be for Tiny Speck...

    It depends on how they want people to play.  I think it works out best for them if players are casual, drop in for a while, then go away.  If they're on the server 24/7, they're burning resources and blowing through content.

    Ideally, I would guess they'd want a player on the server as little as possible, but paying a monthly fee for as long as possible.

    As for the actual issue at hand, I started by racking up mostly cooking and gardening skills because I found them to be the most interesting, but the more I play, the more inefficient I find them to be.  Never mind that it's almost never useful to cook the vast majority of foods, I'm finding myself doing less and less cooking at all. I'm just eating meat and eggs, and occasionally going nuts and whipping up some flour.  (I'd like to see someone try to eat 20 bags of flour in one sitting!)

    I think I got kind of a slow start going this route.  Rather than dealing with all the interface fiddliness of maintaining the lawn, harvesting, running some of the proceeds through the hogs, replanting, then making a trip to the vendor (or having to do a number of other things to get other ingredients), I could just mine for a little while, sell some of the raw materials immediately, and drive the porcelain bus to power levelling.

    I think this is a symptom of a larger problem that's been mentioned, in that spending a lot of time to process and enrich raw materials isn't significantly rewarded in the game, with a few notable exceptions (Flaming Hoojeebeavers, Sparkly Toilet Bowl Cleaner, etc.).
    Posted 17 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I don't have much of an opinion on the changes to gardening; I realize that the devs are looking for ways to slow gameplay down, considering that you can burn through 20 levels pretty quickly and there's not too much content beyond that. I think this is a reasonable way of doing that, especially once you add fertilization to the mix. (Though I do agree that either some of the herb growing times need to change, or you need to be able to have herb plots in houses in areas other than the bogs.)

    The one thing about all of this that bugs me is the "Hey, guess what? The whole time, you've been gardening 10x faster than intended, so we fixed it!" Well, okay, but to us, the old times were just the normal times - it didn't feel like a bonus, or like we were getting super-speeds for nothing. So a change of this nature is naturally going to feel like something's being taken away - especially for the herb gardeners.

    I guess I just would like to see one of two things in the future: either a Known Issues page that's for more than just coding bugs, which would have info like "gardening is super-fast right now, expect it to slow down significantly sometime soon," or if when changes like this are made the devs just say "We slowed down gardening." It's a minor difference in communication, but it might make a difference as to how the news is received.
    Posted 17 months ago by Tally Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I can see this heavily affecting community gardens. People used to be happy to harvest, clear, plant, water and go, leaving the next crop for the next visitor. But now there's a choice of whether or not you fertilize crops for someone else. I can't see many people bothering, unless guano becomes really freely available (and the batterflies apparent removal from Alakol suggests the intention is to limit the supply a bit).

    Not having a herb garden at home, herbs were a pretty much borderline activity for me as it was. Now I don't think I'll bother with them at all. Having said that, Glitch has so many facets and layers, nobody can expect to find time to do everything on offer... it's not like I'll be sitting around bored :-)
    Posted 17 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Tally - I think if they'd just said "we slowed down gardening" then they'd have been hit with a barrage or "why? We preferred the old speed! Change it back!". This way they're communicating that the new speed was the speed that they always intended for a balanced economy.

    I think the alternative ("gardening is super fast right now, expect it to slow down sometime soon") is reasonable. I think they said that they'd realized the bug was on the live servers but hadn't done anything about it until the guano mechanism was ready, so they could have given a warning. I don't mind the communication personally though - as a dev I kinda like seeing other people own up to making mistakes :-)
    Posted 17 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I think the times are a touch long, but having the guano balances that out... but! it needs to be a menu option, not an automatic. I just spent a bit of times down in the caves getting myself some guano and while I was there my gardens dried out. When I went back home, I somewhat mindlessly tended my garden thinking I was watering my withering crops, when in reality, I'd just fertilized the smaller plot. I realized what I had done, dropped my guano and went to water the larger plot. The larger plot came to harvest seconds after the smaller one - I wasted all that guano. Grr.

    Now that there are several options (and some that you may want to avoid), it'd be nice if each patch was handled in the same manner as the animals & trees with a little menu.
    Posted 17 months ago by Vera Strange Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Imbri - I agree with you on both things. Guano balances the time out, for sure. I'm just sad to see the community gardens' dynamic change because of it. 

    And I also did that with spare guano on my crops - I would prefer that watering be the default function, and guano be applied differently. It was very cumbersome to have to drag my watering can over to all of the crops one by one from my bag. 
    Posted 17 months ago by Folderol Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I agree that the times were previously way too low and an increase was in order, although a factor of ten seems on the high side. I'll reserve judgement until I've tried playing with it for a while. 

    Similarly, the benefit given by guano seems way too extreme. Are the miners going to get sticks of dynamite for instant blocks of sparkly too?
    Posted 17 months ago by dopiaza Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ditto on the fertilizing/watering thing--I actually reported it as a  bug.
    Posted 17 months ago by Sheepy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • In some ways, slowing the game time is a good idea.

    On the other hand, I need something else to do to pass the time.  This will encourage me to come on maybe for an hour a day, tend my garden, chat with a few folks, etc, but not really to stay awhile, especially now I'm finished the quests and my skills take days or weeks to learn.
    Posted 17 months ago by Tradescantia Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I trhink this whole batshit thing stinks!!, I enjoy my gardening, well did, but i'm not chasing those damn bats around for crap, its a really bad idea, esp for those of us with limited hand use, this makes my fingers sore, not happy at all, sorry a big thumbs down.
    Posted 17 months ago by ~Annie~ Subscriber! | Permalink
  • it renders many crops useless or at least highly inefficient.

    you want to stay away from most anything with a fast grow time. the guano boost is percentage based so you'll want to maximise it by focusing on only the long grow time produce.

    from a game design perspective, it seems a little boneheaded .. why would you want gameplay to become so heavily focused on such a relatively small cave system far away on the periphery of everything? why would you want to increasingly push people into growing only one kind of produce when before they might have planted based on, say, return rhythm to their homes?

    maybe it is a good decision from the perspective of teleportation token sales?

    if you don't have tokens, you might feel forced to buy overpriced guano at auction, whereas if you have teleportation tokens, travelling to the mines to feed some batterflies each time you need one guano per plot is no big deal. 

    i know i keep harping on about this, but it is such a key aspect of what glitch is, teleportation tokens being such a key revenue stream. the issue is that almost every game design decision will have to go through an additional filter of "how will this impact teleportation tokens and thus subscription sales?" when ideally you only want to have to deal with is the "will this be fun?" filter, along with all the innately necessary technical issues.

    at any rate, i've never been much into gardening so this doesn't impact me much. i thought it was cool that glitch was starting to develop a greater diversity of gameplay, without everyone just mining, mining, mining .. it is kinda hilarious to me that as soon as they break away from that gameplay monoculture they're sending everyone back to the caves again : ]
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I wouldn't mind the option to buy 'genetically modified' seeds for more currants that have decreased base growing times. This way I can decide whether I want to pay for convenience, or work for cost/benefit efficiency.
    Posted 17 months ago by Joe Blow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • also, since i'm primarily a miner, it is difficult for me to be upset when i can do my mining and pick up loads of naturally dropping guano to put up at auction. it's like free money at the expense of people who don't like mining.

    .. and it isn't like i'm worried about the food supply that fuels my mining drying up or becoming more expensive. there's always NPC vendors for that and when they're removed i can just hyperlevel to get obscene amounts of free rooster energy each day .. and even if they nerf that somewhat it is just a matter of stopping mining and waiting for the day counter to roll over, which is still better than gardening because you gardening chumps have to wait for crops to cook AND you have to worry about seed processing through pigs AND you have to worry about collecting guano.

    i'm guessing that in order to make this even remotely fair to gardeners relative to other in game activities, there will be a massive increase in per plot crop yield in order to compensate for all the additional hoop jumping.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I hope so, striatic. 

    Just to highlight the disparity between mining and every other activity: I've been pretty much broke ever since I mined my way to my 50k house in Alakol, and haven't visited the caves since — until today. 

    One cave trip = roughly 20k currents, which is more than I've seen in some time.  Now, I do have Mining IV — but I just don't see how it's possible for anything to compete with that.  

    This is, of course, hardly a new discussion, but we really do need more "professions" with a comparable amount of profit. (Although I'm sure there are some I've never participated in that people can tell me are plenty profitable!) Otherwise, it'll be much like what just happened; roaming around and having aimless fun before dragging myself back to the caves if I actually want to make some moolah.

    EDIT: Although I do suspect that the entire "profession" situation will change completely once the promised massive changes/additions to the skill tree are made! :D
    Posted 17 months ago by Jannisary Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Agreed - the yield is messed up now unless you've got the Croppery skill or you pick up naturally dropped guano. You take 6 crops, feed 3 to a pig to get a packet of seeds and then feed 3 to a batterfly to get a dollop of guano. That gives you the ability to grow one garden plot (at a time which is now 5x slower than before) and get 6 crops... rinse & repeat.

    I suspect the naturally dropped guano is going to be mostly picked up by the people who mine rather than garden. So that'll be on the auctions and will push the price of growing crops / making food up.

    I guess it'll take a day or two to let the world find the balance but my guess is it'll move more people back to the mines. As you say striatic, given that mining seemed to be acknowledged as the most efficient way to get currants, it's odd to tilt the balance in its favour more.
    Posted 17 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm a little disgruntled by the gardening situation. A couple of tests ago, the rewards got nerfed and now the times have been nerfed. When will the mining rewards and energy costs get nerfed? This situation seems really preferential to miners and punitive to gardeners.
    Posted 17 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • It makes quests like the one I'm trying to do now for 50 potatoes and 50 tomatoes a royal PITA for those of us without a garden. >.<

    But...I'll just hope that when I go back tomorrow those potatoes are still there in the community garden (yeah...right...)
    Posted 17 months ago by g33kgurrl Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Ok I stand corrected. Simean Dims in Alakol has 2 bats. Real high flyers though lol.
    Posted 17 months ago by Joe Blow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Just did some rough testing.  IMHO it's not worth it to use guano when you add the time gathering it takes to collect it and how much in crops it takes to feed the bats.

    Sure you get crops 2x as fast as you used to, but you get 1/3 as much and spend all the time saved feeding bats.  <YAWN>
    Posted 17 months ago by Vicereine Linnæa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Don't batterflies still eat planks?
    Posted 17 months ago by Eleanor Rigby Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @linnaea

    you don't need to feed the batterflies crops.

    you can feed them cherries, or planks, or lots of other things.

    and guano gathering time is very quick if you know the correct quantities to feed them in order to get max guanos per feeding.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "When will the mining rewards and energy costs get nerfed? This situation seems really preferential to miners and punitive to gardeners."

    in terms of us versus them, please let us not make this about gardeners versus miners.

    it's really gardeners versus nerfing.

    basically, the developers have made it take more useful hours or your day to do in game things. yes, yes i know this only increases wait time which you can spend logged out or doing other things but there is a time cost to scheduling and a time cost to repeated log in and log out too.

    putting miners in the same camp doesn't help that.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I'm open to max efficiency suggestions on what and how much to feed the bats :)
    Posted 17 months ago by Vicereine Linnæa Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The most efficient I've found is 10 meats for 3 guano (I have remote herdkeeping, so meat is cheap). That's the max -- even an awesome stew only gives you three. The cheapest prepared food that leads to 3 is Rich Tagine.
    Posted 17 months ago by Sheepy Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I really don't like it.  I need to do some more cheffery but I need the crops and they just don't grow.  Furthermore I have to water them more than once.  If i wanted to do all of that, I would either grow real crops or play Farmville. 

    I went to a project today that required items made from corn.  I made about 4 and was out of corn.  Meanwhile I already had a corn crop planted so I went home the slow way (walked) to get the crops in.  When I got there not only was nothing even sprouted but everything needed to be nourished.  I am not staying home to tend these crops and I am NOT buying what I could grow myself.

    I need to do more cooking but at this rate, that is NOT happening.  Again, I am not buying vegetables.

    I was told that guano will make things grow faster but I have chased batterflies until I was dizzy and just can seldom click on one - worse than butterflies.  Oh and BTW, I have not been able to sing to a butterfly since the little milk icons appeared.  Everytime I click on a butterfly I get milk instead of a menu.

    Sorry, not happy about gardening (or butterflies) at the moment.  I will either get over it in a day or two or just quit gardening.
    Posted 17 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I used to garden for money, but I left in exchange for mining. Now that growing base times have been nerfed gardening looks even less attractive to me.

    The guano does help balance out the growing times, but you have to consider what it takes to get guano in the first place. Aside from transportation to Ilmenskie (if I understand this right that's the only place they're found now?) what about the resources fed to the batterflies? And the energy needed to to harvest those resources in the first place? Combined with the energy and mood loss involved in gardening (because cultivating and harvesting something you grew with your own hands is not fulfilling in any way) how much more do people need to invest in gardening to make the same amount of money they did before?
    Posted 17 months ago by Liridona Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There are batterflies in most caves I think.  I believe I saw them in Kajuu.  I am mostly unable to click on one so they are no help to me and I am NOT buying guano!
    Posted 17 months ago by Brib Annie Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "in terms of us versus them, please let us not make this about gardeners versus miners."

    But it does when the guano gives miners another revenue stream.
    Posted 17 months ago by MaryLiLamb Subscriber! | Permalink
  • As a more casual player (i.e., I can't play non-stop for hours at a time) I like the idea of longer growing times. I'll probably plant more crops at once, because I don't have to worry about sticking around in order to harvest them at peak freshness.

    In general, longer growing times make more sense. It's more realistic (sort of!) and also aligns with the type of farming gameplay many people are used to (for example, Farmville).
    Posted 17 months ago by Becky Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I may have to re-think gardening.  I planted potatoes yesterday evening.  Have put guano on them twice and watered them twice and they're still not ready.  I thought the guano was supposed to help?
    Posted 17 months ago by Cabinwood Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You need to talk to them too!
    Posted 17 months ago by Dura Den Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Cabinwood: of you put two doses of guano on them, the longest time potatoes should take is 1h12m. Are the plots maybe too dry? Things stop growing if they need water.
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Dura - that's a great idea..if we have to have long conversations with rocks and chickens, we may as well discuss the finer points of life with our crops - especially if it helps them grow faster...just imagine, the more people that talk to the crops, the faster they grow...I see all kinds of gardening parties on the horizon! Maybe that would add a ray of sunshine to the new gardening situation?!
    Posted 17 months ago by Morticia Addams Subscriber! | Permalink
  • "But it does when the guano gives miners another revenue stream."

    and?

    so long as it doesn't affect how easily and fun-ly you can push out your crops, the additional revenue shouldn't bother you.

    the issue is that gardening is becoming more tedious and less fun for you in absolute terms.

    if gardening is enough for you to buy what you need and explore the world and have fun and whatnot, if you enjoy gardening more than mining, you win. it doesn't matter how much money miners make.

    i'd say the same thing if it was the other way around.
    Posted 17 months ago by striatic Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @stoot -- for people who don't have gardens, even 1h 12m is a horribly long time to sit in front of a community garden plot just so you can complete a quest. 

    I'm not sure what the answer is here but it's frustrating to have quests you can't complete because you have a house that is on the "wrong side of the tracks".
    Posted 17 months ago by g33kgurrl Subscriber! | Permalink
  • g33kgurrl, that's kind of a separate issue: before this change, you would have had to wait 2h24m instead … but either way, completing the quest in a community garden is hard. Probably the quest shouldn't be offered to people who don't have a home with a garden.
    Posted 17 months ago by stoot barfield Subscriber! | Permalink
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