Farming / Planting - Transparency Requested

[Terminal_Templari]

So, as someone with 60 herbalism... one would think a character would know how to plant things. Allegedly not. Plants inexplicably start withering and refuse to product any longer only after a long while... sometimes 24-36 hours after planting.

I understand seeding limits per plot, yet I see some farms in the game just crowded and I am confused as how to accomplish this. The wiki is unhelpful... and after having thrown away a couple thousand CP in plants that won't survive... I am asking for some help.

Can the farming/planting system please, Please, PLEASE be made transparent!?

I have no idea if this simply wasn't documented, or if it's intentionally left FOIG or if the system in general needs some love overall... but presently the farming system is frustrating me to near tears IC.

[Irongron]

The amount of plants able to be planted in any plot is set by myself, when creating the area. No amount of herbalism changes that limit.

I also set which plants can grow on a particular plot, this makes some spots more valuable, being able to plant higher tier crops, such as the Lady's Tear. This should also keep UD and Surface vegitation mutually exclusive.

If a plant is wilting there are one of three problems

It is planted outside an arable land location

That particular plant won't grow in that location

The arable land is already at it's limit.

I can see if a developer has time to look at this system, and give a message when placing the plant whether it succeeds or fails, and why.

[Hazard]

I really miss the old system where we could plant what ever we wanted where ever we wanted.
It was a lot of fun, and it made for some great RP on my gardener/druid characters.

My cotton field was adorable and people around Bendir always commented on it ICly and OOCly, saying how much they liked the effort put in and the aesthetic.

Cordor was so envious they started their own and it became the farm area!

When your settlement/faction/friend group needed something you could put in the work of gathering seeds, growing (crafting) the seeds into plants, planting them and harvesting slowly bit by bit day by day until you had a steady supply of the thing you wanted.

We had a little botanic garden too, with one of each specimen of plant, with little fixtures/equipment to support the plants that would struggle there and plaques with educational information on each specimen.

Now it feels gamey because there's very artificial limitations on what can be planted where.
I just wish there was more freedom on where you can put things.

/rant

[Cabarcos]

When I see a plant that is whitering, I usually replant it.
First, I destroy the plant (I don't know if it's a better way), then I pick up the destroyed plant fixture and place it again in the same zone, when I see the message saying that it's fertile. After that I fix the fixture and the plant produces again the berries or whatever.

[Hazard]

When I see a plant that is whitering, I usually replant it.
First, I destroy the plant (I don't know if it's a better way), then I pick up the destroyed plant fixture and place it again in the same zone, when I see the message saying that it's fertile. After that I fix the fixture and the plant produces again the berries or whatever.

There's a better way!

Type -pickup_fixture next to the plant and you can pick it up without destroying it.

[Irongron]

I really miss the old system where we could plant what ever we wanted where ever we wanted.
It was a lot of fun, and it made for some great RP on my gardener/druid characters.

My cotton field was adorable and people around Bendir always commented on it ICly and OOCly, saying how much they liked the effort put in and the aesthetic.

Cordor was so envious they started their own and it became the farm area!

When your settlement/faction/friend group needed something you could put in the work of gathering seeds, growing (crafting) the seeds into plants, planting them and harvesting slowly bit by bit day by day until you had a steady supply of the thing you wanted.

We had a little botanic garden too, with one of each specimen of plant, with little fixtures/equipment to support the plants that would struggle there and plaques with educational information on each specimen.

Now it feels gamey because there's very artificial limitations on what can be planted where.
I just wish there was more freedom on where you can put things.

/rant

Planting anywhere was absolutely awful. It totally ruined the resource economy, made foraging pointless and could be ugly as hell. All those resources were effectively infinite and had zero value.

Arable land is far more fitting and immersive, also for an RP server. Being able to plant literally anything, anywhere was just absurd.

[Terminal_Templari]

If a plant is wilting there are one of three problems

It is planted outside an arable land location
That particular plant won't grow in that location
The arable land is already at it's limit.

I see my problem. A fixed plant 'fixture' runs into the invisible 'limit' number.

Thanks!

[Hazard]

I really miss the old system where we could plant what ever we wanted where ever we wanted.
It was a lot of fun, and it made for some great RP on my gardener/druid characters.

My cotton field was adorable and people around Bendir always commented on it ICly and OOCly, saying how much they liked the effort put in and the aesthetic.

Cordor was so envious they started their own and it became the farm area!

When your settlement/faction/friend group needed something you could put in the work of gathering seeds, growing (crafting) the seeds into plants, planting them and harvesting slowly bit by bit day by day until you had a steady supply of the thing you wanted.

We had a little botanic garden too, with one of each specimen of plant, with little fixtures/equipment to support the plants that would struggle there and plaques with educational information on each specimen.

Now it feels gamey because there's very artificial limitations on what can be planted where.
I just wish there was more freedom on where you can put things.

/rant

Planting anywhere was absolutely awful. It totally ruined the resource economy, made foraging pointless and could be ugly as hell. All those resources were effectively infinite and had zero value.

Arable land is far more fitting and immersive, also for an RP server. Being able to plant literally anything, anywhere was just absurd.

I disagree that it's more immersive, but I understand why it was done from a resource economy perspective.

Arelith has changed a lot and I don't see the old way working on the new server at all. The playerbase is huge now and things are a lot more meta/co-ordinated over discord. If we had the old system I'm sure within a few days we'd see factions with industrial level grow-zones. It doesn't stop me from missing it, but I wouldn't want it back either.

[Cabarcos]

When I see a plant that is whitering, I usually replant it.
First, I destroy the plant (I don't know if it's a better way), then I pick up the destroyed plant fixture and place it again in the same zone, when I see the message saying that it's fertile. After that I fix the fixture and the plant produces again the berries or whatever.

There's a better way!

Type -pickup_fixture next to the plant and you can pick it up without destroying it.

Will try next time

[Flower Power]

Planting anywhere was absolutely awful. It totally ruined the resource economy, made foraging pointless and could be ugly as hell. All those resources were effectively infinite and had zero value.

Arable land is far more fitting and immersive, also for an RP server. Being able to plant literally anything, anywhere was just absurd.

But - what resource economy?

Foraging is also still pointless because the majority of things you want to gather either could never be farmed (King's Crown), are still better off gathered off farms even with the reduced capacity (Harnak) or can be bought in infinite quantities cheaply from NPCs (berries, fruit, nuts, etc.)

[Archnon]

Honestly, in terms of realistic game play, these farm plots should not be infinitely sustaining. I know players invested a lot in naming their plants and all but right now the farms (bendir aside) generate little RP. Cotton doesn't just grow forever. it would be awesome if plants would get wiped every six in game months.and if plants had seasons. Then herbalism seed creation would actually have a purpose. They would be a key part of most settlements economy to keep the farm going. That is just.y humble opinion.

As far as transparency, a really nice in character book about farming the island and what grows in different regions would be awesome.

[Flower Power]

Saying that having plentiful arable land is somehow 'unimmersive' or 'unrealistic' is a bit pointless in a setting where there are users of nature magic in plentiful supply, as well as where one of the largest and most powerful deities in existence is an earth goddess purely devoted to the support and flourishing of agriculture (and one whose domain in PnP provides spells that explicitly improve the arability and fertility of farmlands.) Even a single midlevel Chauntean priest can easily tend to an entire community's farmlands, given the radius of their plant-blessing spells.

It's a fantasy setting. It should be fantastical.

[Curve]

I don't like the idea that because fancy magic exists to solve all of the mundane needs and activities of life it should be used setting-wise. Gods of agriculture may give these powers through spells, but do they really want them to make it so generations of farmers don't really need to know how to farm because we have a strong supply of magic? I like the idea of commoner and farmer hin in Bendir toiling away at their fields without a 'character' coming in an solving every issue that could cause any adversity in their lives.

I think we have to find some way of balancing the cold fact that there are thousands of adventurers on Arelith and the fact that normal life should go on in some parts of Arelith without their intervention. It makes the setting more reasonable and immediately identifiable with typical ideas of what life was like in an unindustrialized world.

That being said, with plants I what should be done is what is most fun. Making new plants every six months does not sound fun to me.

[Rowlind Salem]

Honestly, in terms of realistic game play, these farm plots should not be infinitely sustaining. I know players invested a lot in naming their plants and all but right now the farms (bendir aside) generate little RP. Cotton doesn't just grow forever. it would be awesome if plants would get wiped every six in game months.and if plants had seasons. Then herbalism seed creation would actually have a purpose. They would be a key part of most settlements economy to keep the farm going. That is just.y humble opinion.

As far as transparency, a really nice in character book about farming the island and what grows in different regions would be awesome.

Giving plants seasons is an amazing idea