#Rework berry bushes

407 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

marble cedar
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  1. Remove the need to fertilize replanted berry bushes, instead replace it with a need to prune them regularly.
  2. Add an alternative method for replanting berry bushes: using a shovel on the bush (or the dirt below it) digs up the whole bush as an item which has max stack size of 1. The dug up bush dies after a few days if not replanted. The inventory and time restraints make it not so easy to mass replant bushes, especially early game (when berries are most useful). After replanting, the berry bush has a period of acclimatization where it can't produce and has a chance to die. This chance can be decreased (or removed) by using a fertilizer on the bush.
  3. The cuttings method should still work for propagation of berry bushes, maybe requiring an initial investment of fertilizer until the bush reaches maturity.
tired cobalt
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I think this highlights traits and actualy allows them to get a bit wilder and cooler than if propogation was necessary

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(also, as a future thing I want to be able to breed traits to get better/stronger traits so badd, that'd be more of a pain to program but for a future thing def worth it)

obsidian spindle
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Yus. I basically made a post that said dis too but i think i worded it poorly cuz it didnt get much traffic

wet leaf
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I don't really think that propagation needs to be changed, but the first thing is what I'd rather see. It would be a more direct counter to large hundreds-of-bushes farms.

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Or rather, you're likely going to have to take a day out of your time once in a while to take care of your bushes, which is what I'd like to see overall. I want farming to be something you have to do actively. The only reason we currently have some 'set it and forget it' crops now isn't because they actually require no care, but because we have pesticide and herbicide and fungicide and and and to allow for it. In reality, farming at this tech level requires a lot more hands on work and nothing in the game accounts for it. Berries aside. But even those. So many people go "BUT THEY NEED NOTHING" and, uh, you're kind of wrong on that. If berries could literally grow anywhere, they would. They do not. Birds shit out berry seeds literally everywhere they go, but we don't see berries literally everywhere. We see them in the edges of forested areas because that soil is good. When you transplant a berry bush, you're likely taking it to somewhere with a similar soil quality.

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Oh, also: forest floor should drop medium fertility soil and actually have patches of high fertility soil under mushrooms.

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Honestly, I'd be happy with just the first bit. The last bit could be OP.

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Also, on the bushes downgrading soil quality: yeah, that doesn't happen. They're heavier feeding while they fruit. Overall, though, that's not a thing. It doesn't even make sense mechanically in game with soil as it is now. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they way soil quality works, aka, you can never get any tier to become better, is shite. I know that soil quality is likely to get a rework at some point, so hear me out: the soil tiers are fine. But as you fertilize them, with a combination of all 3 mains (saltpeter, bonemeal, and compost) you eventually get the next tier of soil.

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This would also help out people who are stuck with low fertility soil in an island survival scenario since they could eventually have a farm with good soils.

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...I may pull that out as a separate suggestion.

marble cedar
# wet leaf Honestly, I'd be happy with just the first bit. The last bit could be OP.

(Assuming you're referring to the 2nd point) I don't think it's too OP since you still need to do the work of bringing the bushes home in time, can't take too many at once, and have to wait before they start producing, plus there's the chance to permanently lose them. It's already more difficult than it was before, and all the values can be tweaked.

wet leaf
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I'm talking about forest floor having patches of high fertility under mushrooms. xD

marble cedar
wet leaf
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Forest floor being medium fertility makes sense. The patches also make sense in real life, but in game it could be OP. 😄

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The problem with shovel moving the plant is that the entire point of doing cuttings is likely to gate the progression after metal. I don't really think it's totally fair in the first place to do so unless we also gate moving fruit trees in the same way.

marble cedar
wet leaf
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Er. THey're not.

marble cedar
wet leaf
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I thought it was gated behind shears.

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Oh god, I've realized that I'm talking TEMPERATE FOREST here. Like, what's near me.

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That soil is rich as hell.

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Maybe the answer here is to differentiate the forests based on type and actually cut out 'forest floor' as a thing altogether.

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Because, yeah, deeper down, the soil in most forests is less rich. But the topsoil is STUPIDLY rich, especially in temperate forests.

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So that top layer of soil shouldn't be poor.

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I feel like medium is actually a compromise.

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But anyway, I do think moving with a shovel is a good option. Considering in real life you'd need one to move a whole bush.

wary sail
wet leaf
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Yeah, that's the fun thing about temperate forests: they're actually really, really good soil. Absolutely incredible topsoil, actually.

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You find a spot with mushrooms, that shit is going to be GOLD.

marble cedar
wet leaf
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On traits: what do we think of like...traits improving as bushes are fertilized? Or pruned, if fertilization goes away?

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So like, RNG, traits improve once in a while?

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Due to care.

unreal latch
unreal latch
wet leaf
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...Yes.

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That's what I mean. xD

unreal latch
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Maybe at most cuttings would have that higher care in the beginning

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As it would have inherited the health of its parent plant

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But bad care could just yk

wet leaf
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(Okay, soil quality posted.)

oak python
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I'm just going to go out on a limb and say that you've probably never cared for a berry farm IRL before. Fertilizing them every once in a while is standard practice, especially when planting them.

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As it stand now, berries in the game are hilariously broken, so much so that we had berries ROTTING in the cellar on my server while waiting for a dozen barrels of their juice to ferment.
You can't tell me that doesn't need adjusting.
And we weren't even planting the berries that close to home either.

I think berry changes are a good thing. It makes other sources of food more important in the early game and also make setting up proper berry farms more rewarding without having so much go to waste.

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also I did the math and a dozen barrels of juice is 1,920 berries... with out a proper farm.

That's too much.

tired cobalt
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I don't know why you're arguing against the current system when this is a proposal for a new thing

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non sequitur

wet leaf
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Okay, crops and farming changes and soil changes are now both separate suggestion forum posts.

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And I linked the first post of the soil changes in the farming one...and I want to link this one to it, too.

marble cedar
tired cobalt
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these people see an alternative to the fert system they're going with as just saying "berries are perfectly fine and don't need a rework actually."

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and ofc those people exist but like not the people they're actually ever arguing against

marble cedar
tired cobalt
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so true

oak python
# marble cedar Where in my suggestion did I say "changes to berries are bad, revert all of them...

Where in my comment did I say that you said that? Did you even read my comments? Why are you accusing me of that?

What you said was that the fertilizer once a year thing needed to go and I said that was actually perfectly acceptable because that's how it goes IRL. You literally just feed your berry bushes every once in a while to keep them going full pace.

Then I said that that the current berries (1.21) were so hilariously broken that I think these changes that Anego is doing in 1.22 are a good thing. Just providing counterargument to your suggestion. That is how this kind of thing works. If you only accept statements that are wholly in support of what you are saying then you will never ever get constructive criticism to help you improve your ideas.

But yeah, just be all aggressive and stuff. 🙃 👎

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The only way I could see your suggestion working is if there was an option not to fertilize them and that just made the plants give you about the same yield as wild berry bushes because that is essentially what they would be at that point.

But by actually caring for the bushes, fertilizing them, etc, you could boost the yield to what we have with the current iteration of the bushes.

wary sail
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wouldn't have a problem with having to use fertilizer if composting wasn't locked behind querns or saws tbh

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composting methods were already a thing in the stone age

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and pruning as a way of upkeep for your bushes makes sense

oak python
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crushing and grinding bones shouldn't require a full-blown setup.

wary sail
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agreed! brings another layer of progression if you move up to more effecient ways to fertilize your crops as you scale up

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what's truly annoying people is that the only methods of getting fertilizer is putting a full stack of rot in a barrel and waiting 20 days, mining enough stone to make a quern or spelunking in caves

wet leaf
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Yeah, the changes would be a lot less annoying if fertilizer was less annoying. 😄

wary sail
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this game is cool because of how all the systems interconnect...

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but also pain when it highlights the flaws like this lol

oak python
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It could also be argued that by the time you get your berry bushes squared away, you'll have a quern anyway, but I have thought a mortar and pestle would be a good addition to the game anyway.... gonna go make my own thread about that.

wet leaf
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I mean, it's not a finished game, so things having inconsistencies is understandable.

wary sail
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mhmm

wet leaf
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Mortar/pestle could be useful for things like poultice making, too.

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Requiring it for making things like bandages would be neat.

oak python
wary sail
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it just works

wet leaf
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A mortar and pestle is also kind of a requirement of a dyer's kit if you're using natural stuff.

wary sail
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ooo good point

oak python
wary sail
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all the points brought up in that thread go to show irl does a fine job balancing itself already

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especially giving tiers to what things you can grind

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and just being really slow

oak python
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I mean it takes work to grind it by hand. Being slow is the price you pay for having the ability to grind things before the quern is obtained.

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But it would give you bonemeal for fertilizer which I believe would satisfy most of the complaints about the berry system rework.

wet leaf
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There are people who will not use the quern to grind things by hand before they get a windmill because it's too slow as it is. xD

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Like...I don't really understand what those people were expecting.

oak python
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Which is funny because you still need a saw to make the windmill actually do anything

marble cedar
wet leaf
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Uh. I think that they didn't respond to you specifically because they were just comments in general and not...to you.

oak python
hexed bronze
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I think berries should be able to spread over the ground as landcover. Obviously not as aggressively fast as in real life, but I worry that the change to cuttings and shift away from them being a viable early game food source will just cause the game to be even less approachable than it already is.

marble cedar
marble cedar
tired cobalt
marble cedar
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Goes on a random rant under my suggestion, calls it a couterargument, then blames my attitude. Genius.

hexed bronze
# marble cedar They are still viable as wild berries, just not as farmed ones. Replanting with ...

I think they did used to spread, really really slowly though. You'd sometimes see a bush having grown an additional one on top of it right? But nevertheless, while I do like stopping players from just amassing the Berry Nexus (making us have to be hunter/gatherers in the clay and flint age is very cool and probably the intent) I think berries do need something, this hit was a pendulum swing too far in the other direction aimed at hurting veteran players, so I like your shovel replanting idea.
I talked to a friend of mine who I tried to get into vintage story when 1.20 came out, and he told me that he feels bad about not playing VS, but that every update feels tailor made to make the game less and less approachable.
Berry bushes were previously the best early food source you could actually make stationary, and so were a lifeline for new players figuring out how the game works, and I really don't want to watch Vintage Story to push towards tedious realism and just making anything too "easy" harder, and that's what I'm worried is happening.

obsidian spindle
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Mhm :<

marble cedar
hexed bronze
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Ah, okay, good to know, thought they could grow.
I'm mixed on making crops and fruit trees harder, I like more complicated mechanics and needing to manage them, but I also don't want Vintage Story to turn into "all of your time is spent managing your farm's health in the name of difficulty" because that just wouldn't be fun. Yes, on a multi-player server having a designated farmer and cook could be fun, but for average people that would just be tedious and boring because they couldn't ever go and mine, fish, build, explore, hunt, smith, etc.

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I think a good example of what I'm talking about from my perspective is Don't Starve Together, I know that if I spent a week or two just shoving my face into the meat grinder that is it's survival mechanics, I would come out with the ability to play a game I would probably like. But I have a life and things I both want to and need to do instead of that, so the monolith remains unapproachable.
I don't want Vintage Story to turn into that for the uninitiated, and I feel like I'm reliving the discussions I had when the shiver got added.

marble cedar
wet leaf
wet leaf
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Also, as an aside...the 'lowers the quality of soil by one when it grows' thing does annoy me. If you fertilize your plants on start, they shouldn't do that.

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I'm creating a bunch of test worlds to test this.

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I'd be fine with this mechanic if they'd give us a way to fertilize the soil back to what it was before and beyond.

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The problem I have with it is that it turns healthy cuttings into struggling plants.

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And unless you have better soil, they'll always be struggling.

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They grow in two months now, though, so that's better.

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Honestly, I don't know what I'd rather have. In a vacuum, this feels extremely punishing for no reason. There's no way to get high fertility soil other than finding it, and therefore a lot of people are going to be dealing with struggling plants forever. The best way to solve this is to add in a way to create all tiers of soil with the previous tier and all 3 (non-potash) fertilizers.

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But even so, the mechanic itself feels wrong.

wet leaf
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With mechanics as they are, it doesn't really make sense to move berries until you have at least high fertility soil, and that's, in vanilla, better used to make terra preta because of how rare it is. Turning down the rarity on high fertility soil would help with this. Allowing us to create medium and high fertility soil with fertilization would be another way to go. As it is, I think the change is needlessly punishing for no real reason.

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I would rather see a mechanic that allows amending the soil through to high fertility where it stands. That would mean that you could move the bushes earlier without such a high penalty.

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And also: pruning could take struggling bushes to healthy when done regularly.

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So: if the soil has to be bumped down a peg, give us a way to bump it back up. Also, pruning to help struggling plants.

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This would work with the mechanics presented in a better way.

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I also think that we should just be planting the stupid things on farmland.

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It's not REALISM, but it would allow these mechanics to work well across all things.

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(though, to be fair, 'farmland' in game is just what you plant shit on)

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I've never really liked potash being the only thing to give permanent boosts, either.

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The only problem with allowing fertilization to permanently increase soil quality after so much is that it kind of negates the entire reason for potash existing as it does. 😄

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But the thing is, that's only for K, so it's only so useful in the first place.

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I dunno. More thought required.

tired cobalt
wet leaf
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Eh. I don't really think that 'farmland' needs to have the shaved bit off the top it does. I don't really understand why Minecraft does that, nor why this game does.

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There's a lot of stuff that this game seems to do just because Minecraft did it and they were holdovers from that.

tired cobalt
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I mean that's kinda how inspiration happens

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you gotta start somewhere

wet leaf
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Yeah, but I think it could be changed.

tired cobalt
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maybe

wet leaf
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The farmland change is just a visual one, but it would make so much difference in how things look in general.

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Farmland would no longer be a weird ugly block next to your other blocks.

tired cobalt
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they said that bushes aren't required on farmland specifically for decorative purposes so obviously their priorities are just make bushes go wherever

tired cobalt
wet leaf
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I'm not saying to remove the darkness.

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I'm saying to make it a full block.

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There's no reason to cut off the very top of the block. xD

tired cobalt
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oh I thought you mean like make it look more like grass

wet leaf
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No.

tired cobalt
# wet leaf No.

do you add periods bc of habit or are you trying to give me a tone?

wet leaf
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I'm also of the mind that planting stuff requiring a tool makes sense, but that tool should be a trowel, not a hoe. 😄

tired cobalt
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anyways if it's still brown I don't want it to be forced, regardless of the height of the block.

wet leaf
tired cobalt
wet leaf
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I don't really care how people use them now. It's how I write and it's how I've always written.

tired cobalt
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I have a friend who uses periods for grammatical reasons and they keep getting "in trouble" from friends from misinterpreted tone so I thought I'd ask

wet leaf
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I like writing proper sentences because they're easier for me to read.

tired cobalt
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otherwise I'd assume you're trying to tell me you hate me from a single "No."

wet leaf
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Er, yeah. That's more the problem of people reading things into stuff that isn't there.

tired cobalt
wet leaf
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If I don't like you, I'll tell you. 😄

tired cobalt
tired cobalt
wet leaf
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Yes.

tired cobalt
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anyways

wet leaf
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It's really just proper grammar.

tired cobalt
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yeah that tracks loll

wet leaf
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Reading stuff into proper grammar is...a choice.

tired cobalt
wet leaf
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Yeah, well, if someone gets offended from me using PROPER GRAMMAR I'm going to side-eye them and keep doing it. 😄

tired cobalt
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well that's your perogative

wet leaf
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Now: to get back to berries.

tired cobalt
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doing things at the expense of neurotypical understanding you out of spite is a very autistic thing to do <- say autist

wary sail
tired cobalt
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not every night is dangerous

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and nights being dangerous is a human instinct. shits scary out there

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i like how it also sometimes makes days dangerous tho bc ive had monsters spawn in broad daylight

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its more varied

wary sail
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yeah getting stranded in the dark in this game is terrifying lol

wet leaf
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Anyway, berry bushes would be fine if you could get the soil back to what it was in some way.

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And improve it.

tired cobalt
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I once went swimming in a river or lake in the wilderness at night once and that shi was so scary

tired cobalt
wet leaf
tired cobalt
wet leaf
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I also feel like since getting away from the crafting grid is something they want to do, improving soil quality should be doable in-world by just right clicking on a dirt block with the proper stuff.

tired cobalt
wet leaf
tired cobalt
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besides it's just a joke

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a silly

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my friend writes mostly like that (though they probably wouldve put a colon after "lets talk:" to give a ... type vibe. like more follows)

wet leaf
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Well, you continuing to bring it up is actually making me HELLA uncomfortable.

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I'm literally just talking in complete sentences here.

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So anyway.

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SOIL STUFF should be changed if berries are going to downgrade.

tired cobalt
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oh now the things I'm doing making you uncomfortable matters? I thought it didn't matter how other people read what I was saying :3

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you should've just read it in a comedic light and I don't understand why you're making it my problem that you're reading into stuff I'm not meaning

wet leaf
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I think that the current mechanics would be okay with a few tweaks.

tired cobalt
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i think itd be more fun

wet leaf
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And the tweaks are: give us a way to get the soil back up to par, and add pruning to get struggling bushes back to healthy.

tired cobalt
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yeah

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and make fert a bonus instead of a requirement

wet leaf
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If it's going to be required, I'd say to have fertilization replace the soil downgrade.

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If it can be removed, then the soil downgrade should be reversible with fertilization.

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As in: we fertilize the soil, not the plant.

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And really, that's how I'd like it in the first place.

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So basically like you'd do it on farmland.

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What feels weird to me now is that fertilization is tied to the plant itself, not the soil it's on. xD

tired cobalt
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I think it's probably for like programming reasons

wet leaf
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That doesn't really make sense either, though, because it works on farmland that exact way. 😄

tired cobalt
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I've seen some people prefer it being attached to the bush so it's really a toss up

tired cobalt
marble cedar
tired cobalt
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bc it fundamentally changes the tone if their texts to make me misunderstand them to the same level of it being barely legible?

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at least I can kinda figure out what someone is trying to say w barely legible but the only way to figure out mistooken tone is asking about it

marble cedar
tired cobalt
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great that it doesn't matter for you, but it isn't legible to me

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I gen thought they hated me from the "no." and "yes."

marble cedar
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That sounds like you have some severe social anxiety and nothing to do with how people write.

wet leaf
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I used to have that problem until I talked to someone about it. xD

tired cobalt
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y'all are frankly in the minority of people who never noticed the tone shift

marble cedar
tired cobalt
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it's a sliding spectrum my dude

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and I never said hostile

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I said I thought they hated me Ie. they were less sincere about the conversation with me

marble cedar
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How does being less sincere become "they hate me" in your mind?

tired cobalt
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bc I'm autistic and it was the first words to come to mind ffs

gleaming vector
tired cobalt
marble cedar
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I can be insincere while memeing, that doesn't mean I hate everyone who reads my messages

marble cedar
gleaming vector
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it's only threatening to use periods in very online spaces. a lot of people in the vintage story discord use periods and high punctuation so it's good to get out of the habit of seeing them as threatening

tired cobalt
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if you're insincere when conversing then you don't care, if you don't care about the conversation then you don't care about me, if you don't care about me you hate me. obvi

tired cobalt
gleaming vector
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what?

wet leaf
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Berry bush chat guys. WE should take more conversation on this outside the thread.

marble cedar
marble cedar
tired cobalt
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the period was still the reason

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and it being a tone indicator of negative thought has presedent

marble cedar
gleaming vector
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but it's literally on you and you alone for feeling this way. using periods in any space outside of chronically online discord servers is a normal

tired cobalt
gleaming vector
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i say this as someone who used to be in those servers. it's a toxic way of viewing texts

tired cobalt
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yall literally arguing against a scientific paper w "nuh uh" you guys are ridiculous

marble cedar
tired cobalt
wet leaf
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I mean, I'm reading the conclusions the paper came to. It doesn't say that people should stop using periods in conversation. It says that they're being misconstrued. xD

tired cobalt
marble cedar
tired cobalt
gleaming vector
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you should probably reevaluate

marble cedar
tired cobalt
marble cedar
tired cobalt
# gleaming vector you should probably reevaluate

I just mentioned that they're using periods made me uncomfortable and misunderstand their tone and suddenly I'm the bad guy for pointing out information that would be helpful to know if your goal isn't to make people uncomfortable

wet leaf
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It's also kind of easy to tell that I don't mean anything by it by context clues. Like...I always type like this.

gleaming vector
marble cedar
tired cobalt
tired cobalt
gleaming vector
tired cobalt
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everyone here is more autistic than me and it shows

marble cedar
wet leaf
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Anyway, on berry bushes: I thought of something else.

marble cedar
tired cobalt
gleaming vector
gleaming vector
tired cobalt
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you don't have to change how you write just know that you'll make people uncomfortable sometimes, like my friend

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and then they'll be like, "Oh, my bad. I didn't mean to make you upset, I just write like that." and then they'd move on. instead they doubled down and decided that they never have to care about what they're saying affects others

wet leaf
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Fertilization and pruning could both have a place. Pruning could modify yield. Fertilization could modify speed.

gleaming vector
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i do like the idea of pruning for more yield

marble cedar
gleaming vector
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can we even still prune bushes though in 1.22? i heard someone say that you can't anymore

tired cobalt
wet leaf
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No, we're all saying it should be added back.

gleaming vector
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oh okay

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yeah then i agree

marble cedar
tired cobalt
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not with the topic of the thread tho you smartass

gleaming vector
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name calling is mature

marble cedar
gleaming vector
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im unsure about fertilization causing increased speed though

wet leaf
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I like pruning as a mechanic, and I feel like fertilization should do something other than just...nothing. xD

fossil ridge
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Vixen? Making a thread on the berry bushes hostile and derailing it? More likely than you think

tired cobalt
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oh shut up foxhunty you're a troll and everyone knows it

gleaming vector
gleaming vector
tired cobalt
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you did the same exact thing with the last berry thread

gleaming vector
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im not sure what it should do though

marble cedar
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I'm dying of funni, sorry kek

gleaming vector
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i dont think that speeding it up is quite right

wet leaf
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Well, there's also allowing it to get soil back to the original quality if they keep the 'growing the plant degrades soil quality by one' thing.

gleaming vector
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oh yeah definitely

wet leaf
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Like, I DO NOT hate that as a mechanic.

gleaming vector
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or increasing the soil even

wet leaf
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As long as there's a way to counter it.

gleaming vector
wet leaf
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The problem with a lot of these mechanics is that it feels like there's no counter for them.

gleaming vector
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i just realized they could do this then break the bush and grab the soil

wet leaf
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I mean, yeah.

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But that takes time.

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If it took time as a resource, I'm not even against that.

gleaming vector
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that's true

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maybe increasing the tier would just take longer then

wet leaf
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People forget that time is also a resource in a game like this and one way to limit how much you can do at once is just...make shit take more time. 😄

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It's often the best way to get people to slow down.

gleaming vector
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i really like the pruning berry bush idea though. getting more yield because of it makes sense because you can see the berries more

wet leaf
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Me too.

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Anyway, I need an actual dinner. 😄 BRB.

gleaming vector
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see ya

elder whale
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My two cents is that: I like pruning providing more yield. I like the idea of fertilizing the plant helping it take root, and that being able to amend the soil over time feels like it make sense... but also that I feel that it should take a lot of time. My vague understanding is IRL this is usually a multi-year process.

fossil ridge
gleaming vector
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oh wait, unless you mean the buffs from fertilization

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my bad

elder whale
gleaming vector
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ohhh

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then yes in that case. although its usually 1-2 years versus anything above that unless youre aiming for like. super soil. assuming you routinely care for it

elder whale
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🙃 Sorry if I use the wrong terminology! I learned most of this from my soil sciences parent from osmosis in Chinese.

gleaming vector
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thats fine i use wrong terminology 90% of the time even if i know what im referring to

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rip dyslexia lol

marble cedar
fossil ridge
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I do actually like the idea of an additional mechanic of pruning them. I'm sure they do plan to add a "clipped" state later, so you can visually see which bushes you've taken a clipping of.

gleaming vector
elder whale
wet leaf
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You know how trees grow in like 2 months with vanilla settings? 😄

gleaming vector
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it can help with health since it gets rid of the dead parts or parts of it that are evil, but it won't technically "increase" it depending on how you look at it. it just helps the bush thrive

wet leaf
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So maybe over the course of an in game set of months or even a year.

elder whale
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😂 Yeah, multi-year is a bit excessive in the context of how long worlds tend to last.

wet leaf
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I play with trees at 4x slower growth, but wouldn't expect anyone else to. xD

gleaming vector
wet leaf
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(I'm actually trying out 8x slower this go around.)

gleaming vector
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my logic was pruning = more visibility = being able to collect more berries

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also more berry growth

wet leaf
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I think pruning should improve yield, but not because you can see more berries. It's because it makes the plants healthier.

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It does in real life, too.

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You don't have to prune a bush to see more berries because IRL you can move branches to do that. 😄

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I do see what you're saying, though.

elder whale
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Anecdotally, not pruning our berry bushes typically reduces the size of the berries I get for yield.

gleaming vector
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thats true but ive done that with wild blackberry bushes and have definietly missed a lot lol

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but i also guess im not eating those to survive, just for taste

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so im not really looking as hard

wet leaf
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Also, the current textures for struggling bushes could use a little work so that the berries are visible but visibly less than a healthy heavy bearing bush.

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Because even when they're ripe, you have to read the tooltip to figure out they're actually producing. 😄

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Or, well, with white and black currants it's especially problematic.

gleaming vector
wet leaf
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TBH, I don't really understand why strawberries have bush mechanics to begin with.

gleaming vector
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probably just cause they have berry in the name

wet leaf
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They should just be a normal crop.

gleaming vector
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im gonna go eat goodbye

wet leaf
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It's likely due to most crops we have being annual and the berries being perrennial.

elder whale
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Don't we break most crops for harvest? Aside from the pumpkin. Never saw the bell pepper.

marble cedar
fossil ridge
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Maybe pruning berry bushes could work like growing pumpkins currently does, where there are dead branches that can be removed? Idk how that would work for a one block bush though

main helm
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oh yay new thread!

main helm
wet leaf
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I mean, not really. Time gating is a viable mechanic.

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I don't think it should be the SOLE mechanic.

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Like...let me try to make clear what I mean by that. Time as a gate in a game like this is practical because there are PLENTY of things to do while you, for example, wait for your leather to finish, or your crops to grow, or whatahveyou.

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But only where it makes sense for it to be.

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Time gating makes sense where time can reasonably be part of the process.

main helm
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specially on sp worlds, on servers time-gating is a much, much smaller issue

wet leaf
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I mean, I don't find a lack of shit to do. xD

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I only actively get bored with the game when I rush metal stuff.

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So...I stopped doing that. xD

main helm
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VS was quite popular among lotta my friends who typically hated similar stuff (minecraft's TFC) because it knew how to keep pacing and avoid extremely repetitive/slow gameplay

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that and extensive modding :P

main helm
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I mean, at a certain point, if the developers do want to follow through on that, a config could be used

wet leaf
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I mean, you're playing a survival game that is supposed to be at least a little realistic. Things are going to take time sometimes.

main helm
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and plus time-gating is kind of unreliable when you consider that like, whether you play solo or MP gives you two completly different senses of time

wet leaf
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And, arguably, should.

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I mean, yeah, but that's realistic, to.

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...er, too.

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Because more hands would speed up some things.

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Solo survival is going to be a bit of a different game.

main helm
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oh not more hands
just the virtue of a server having higher uptime

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I played a couple of worlds, the gap between planting and my first harvest felt like eons, (when I really wanted flax for automation)

wet leaf
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I just don't want dumb nerfs to the single player game to balance multiplayer for no reason. I do see what you're saying.

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But I also don't want single player to feel like multiplayer. 😄

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Like...when I play a game like this alone, in single player, it tends to be because I've made the decision that I want to slow down. xD

main helm
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well yeah, which is fair for more seasoned players, but for people starting off, SP is brutal by comparison

wet leaf
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One thing I think would help is a toggle to make all wild crops spawn as mature.

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Maybe having a better chance at berries spawning as ripe, too.

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Give easier early game, but keep mechanics as they are.

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Also, and I cannot stress this enough, NEWBIES NEED TO MAKE A DAMN COOKING POT. I remember one person who came into the Discord a while back who was ready to melt METAL but hadn't made a cooking pot yet and they were starving and asking how to survive. When I said to make one, they said they weren't ready for it yet.

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I think that will haunt me for all time.

hexed bronze
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I just read through the last bit of talking about the berries, I agree on the "degrading soil by one upon growth" being VERY stupid. Crops don't do that, fruit trees don't do that, and all it does is essentially force the player to ignore berries until very late in their exploration. Instead, berries should just take a big chunk of nutrients on growth, that way fertilizer can offset it but it doesnt mean you just cannot effectively grow them until you get tera preta

wet leaf
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I do think that what we need is someone to come in here and explain what these changes are supposed to do overall so that we understand that.\

dusk hedge
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This seems like an attempt to "balance" the bushes without actually changing anything or bringing balance.

  1. Regular pruning - this feels more like busy work than adding fertilizer, and would likely clash with the clipping mechanic. Are they the same mechanic, this seems clunky.
  2. I actually like this, but would suggest that doing it this way the bush should lose all traits, good and bad, that way you don't lose incentive to grow from clippings. Also, a bushes output is a combination of the bush and its position in a garden so moving it with a shovel in game gives no reason to keep the trait.
  3. Maybe a third option on a toggle - clippings and bushes need no fertilizer/fertilizer once when planted/fertilizer every year if you want to set the difficulty. I think pruning would really clash with this though, how do you indicate a bush needs pruning as opposed to being ready to take a clipping? Are they the same mechanic? If so, doesn't that just make bushes op in that now they produce rot as well as clippings?
wet leaf
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I think you're making it more difficult than it needs to be with regard to clippings/pruning. Clippings are done with a knife. Pruning is done with shears. Both take different bits off.

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Also, not that anyone else was worried about this: the animals do actually eat the berries now. But if you interrupt them mid-meal, they drop them. 😄

leaden canyon
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I would like to pitch my idea for this rework:
Keep the clipping mechanic and make the soil not degrade and that fertilization was not needed.
But instead we could use fertilization and/or pruning to interact with the traits system.
Make traits not hereditary and use fertilizer + pruning to improve certain traits.
For example, weak-rooted becomes normal, then strong-rooted when you give enough potassium.
And you start with weak traits that improve over time.
This way, berries would be nerfed by the traits from being a young plant and not have to interact with soil degradation while being strong late game.
And maybe add some very special traits that could be hereditary and in the future used in alchemy.

dusk hedge
# wet leaf I think you're making it more difficult than it needs to be with regard to clipp...

My point isn't the mechanic of harvesting the item, its the clarity of displaying the bush to players so they know what they can do. Can they clip it, can they prune it, can they do both, can they do neither. That would be four base states. Then with clipping/empty/flowering/ripe on top, that's at least 16 models required for every berry type. That's way too much. Or you just go for a visually confusing mess.

I'd rather see an approach where if people didn't want to fertilize their bushes, add in a pollination mechanic where bushes within say 15 squares of a populated skep didn't need fertilizer.

wet leaf
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...but then everyone would do that instead.

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(though I like that idea outside of this.)

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Anyway, my brain is currently declaring war. Probably going to have to lay down to think more about this.

dusk hedge
main helm
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anything that makes my bees and my fruits work together I am a fan of

main helm
vivid timber
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I joined specifically to suggest that there be a way to move berry bushes. The inability to transfer existing bushes into better soil, or just move them out of the way of a building project I want to do without obliterating them, is SO. FRUSTRATING. I've been stalling on building a lot of things in my current game because I don't want to have to sacrifice my one source of fruit satiety.

plush terrace
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I think they should remove the RNG of how long berry bush needs to grow after planting. The 21-30 days by random is just nuts.

Maybe tone it down to 2 weeks (14 days) or so

proud saddle
plush terrace
unreal latch
proud saddle
violet tartan
proud saddle
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Or fair. I see.
Yeah, two stones should be able to be ground down with just stone tools to get a mortar and pestle

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Should take some time too.