Remind Me about Agriculture?

What are the prices of different things to grow and why?

Background:

I like growing coconuts and sometimes different veg, but mostly coconuts. I find they are easier for my hands to tollerate all the moving and clicking, providing a nice break time between for my hands to recover, and they're also something that's more easily seen if they have been watered or not.

But I can't remember why all our agriculture NPC sales prices were reduced into non-profit.

Why do we all have to be cotton pickers?

Can anyone remind me why things were changed like that?

Does anyone remember our developers motives in killing the many fun things to grow for selling to NPCs?

I can't see any new changes to justify it, so I'm asking to see if there's still a good reason.

I'd like to change all of the NPC sales prices back to where they once were if there's not a good reason for it.

Searching for the answer...
~Time Lord~

 

As with most pricing changes, the changes were made to force players to interact instead of living in their own silos. Prior to the change, you could have a comfortable time planting and harvesting your crops and selling them to NPCs and other players could buy the basic ingredients for meals from NPCs and cook up their buffs and go off merrily adventuring. The devs found this unacceptable and decided that adventurers desperately needed that "I'm in a giant grocery store with no aisle signs with goods that are marked up 800% next to those marked down 80%" mechanic to improve their gaming experience.

 

Yep, that sounds exactly like what the reasons given I saw in the forums before. I never understood those reasons because they left cotton, only cotton, and those who still wanted to grow to sell to NPCs became nothing but cotton pickers.

The thing I never understood and still don't understand, is that it was always cotton that was on top of the profits to sell to NPC, while the others that were wiped away, were worth far less to NPCs.

I guess it's just over my head to understand it.

"Only Cotton, it's what's for breakfast, lunch and dinner"
~TL~

 

Probably because changing the cotton profit margin would affect both farmers and gatherers, it makes for a harder time when you piss off the majority of your remaining player base instead of just half. That or a particularly ravishing example of Balaenoptera musculus whispered sweet nothings in the managements ear and earned cotton an exemption.

 

It is a very good question @Time Lord. While observing someone newly returning to the game he has questions regarding agriculture that I as a sometime gardener don't question any longer. As I mention often we do have many types of players who come to this game. Some appreciate repetitive alone time and monotonous (well to some) things to do. They find it relaxing. While others have to be on the go socializing and doing all the group things possible to build their character in a challenging way. Then we have players who do a huge variety of things like all of it.

Anyway in reality to get back to agriculture it is important for agriculture to provide interest for those players who enjoy solo type activities. These must provide things like interesting surprises such as finding a few seeds during harvesting, maybe worms or other bait, trophies, or perhaps a buried item occasionally with a ta da you've found such and such.

From what I've heard from the player I mentioned before was why no seeds back from all my planting?, and why can I buy this item instead of planting it? and where are the special things like xp or extra reasons to do agriculture? I know we did get comments from the Devs that some items got removed from vendors or prices raised for those items but this did not make the resources as viable yet as just selling the seeds and having players buying from each other or going out in the world to harvest the items. Black Pearl cannot be planted which is one item that you have to buy or find in the world and which is very limited. Many resources fit the bill to be grown by players only and sold by players for the win.

Anyway I know we have a small team but imo this needs to be corrected. With the ability to search all vendors listings in towns and not have to go from vendor to vendor it is a more perfect opportunity to make this change. New players do need to know that they will need to visit towns that have player vendors in them though for those resources.

 

Unfortunately, @majoria70 returning farming to its previously profitable state would be undermining the economic principles of the game, namely that "Crafting shall be a money sink, not a money faucet". That's the same reason that makes the ingredients for any crafting recipe be worth more sold than selling the finished good to an NPC vendor. Farming initially snuck through the cracks because I assume farming products were being considered to be the first stage of crafting, making them worth the most instead of priced as if they were on the second stage where they belonged.

If management wants to rethink that principle and turn crafting into a faucet, that's fine, but it needs to be done across the board, not just for farmers.

 

That's an agreed way of thought, yet I think I make more hunting than I do agriculture. It's the "gold per hour of play" that I think is the better measure accross all form of SOTA playtime.

The combat pet for instance, is still the "gold gathering lawn mower of PvM".

Am I wrong in that analysis?
~TL~

 

You are kind of wrong. Combat is currently the best gold per hour because combat has access to one of the best gold faucets in the game. However, by design, crafters were supposed to then receive a part of that gold to repair and replenish the supplies and gear the adventures used as well as to provide upgrades. The idea is that it should always be more profitable, for both adventurers and crafters, to trade with another player instead of with NPCs. So, in terms of "gold per hour", crafters are designed to be competitive with adventurers.

The problem with all of that is that within a month of that original design being codified, the devs immediately compromised it by introducing incentives to mass produce as a crafter (Skill leveling by use) and then reducing consumption as an adventure (Item wear is always unpopular and has been nerfed multiple times). But, at its core, the system was doomed from the beginning, RG tried to implement virtually the same system in UO and it failed miserably since video games aren't the real world and RG is not an economist.

 

You have a good memory
Indeed, I remember (one of our more famouse and noteworthy bygone crafters) Elrond would speak of this allot here in our forums, how wear slowly left our crafting, slowly slipping away into the world of COTO repair.

~Treated Seeds~
What @Elgarion had mentioned once briefly in a live stream was an idea he had involving "Treated Seeds" which I found facinating to ponder on, as no further was mentioned, for the acception of possibly getting some ideas from our community that may help that idea become something more than an individual dream. His idea being to increase agriculture's complexity...

What you ( @Burzmali ) mention here in the way of "needed sumps" comes to mind in all my dreams of such increased agriculture complexities:

(treated seeds) ~A Bio Fueled Way~
Bio Fuel and something to expend it in for the adventurer to get somewhere special that they could not access without it, "like an outer or inner worldly instance destination".
I use the example of "Ultima Savage Empire's Space Cannon" as an example (in the spirit of). Whether a "Kobold Mining Drill"(hypothetical) where by the player would have to fight there way to the Drill and then place the Bio Fuel into the device so they may activate it as a transport to an isolated deeper destination, or a Bio Fueled Kobold Ratchet which would then crank a Kobold Slingshot's loading basket back to slingshot them to the top of an isolated mountian...

(treated seeds) ~Food with Consequences~
If extraordinary food boosts could be had through treated seeds, where, just as in agriculture, the player who eats it, then has a super boost with a timer that also comes a super burn-out period, then, just as with agriculture, the player then needs to plan their hunting activities more in advance to maximise boost and minimize burn-out.

Such expending in great amounts of processed agriculture product could provide "sump" for many things. It could even damage equipment within the travel and thus "sump success".

Successful sumps have yet to be found in our game "that I'm aware of".

I personally have a vast amount of SOTA wealth, with no sump in sight or motive to get to any "excitement sump" to expend any of that economic power into.

Where are our "successful sumps"?

So many times I feel like I'm just hanging onto a rope attached to the Goodyear Blimp it's all so over my head to understand where a successful exciting sump could be found, or if there will ever be such a thing.

To have a successful market game, there must be increased consumers added to our game, yet our population growth isn't enough and everyone soon collects abundance in our world where there is no loss or risks. I think agriculture is the most risky of all SOTA indevors due to it's timers creating time demands with production risk consequence. Agriculture is more risk than PvP, PvM or any other crafting indevor. Agriculture = Risk, mothing else really dose.
Am I wrong in that?

In Search of Fandango: (a foolish or useless act or thing).

Treated Seeds: We do need ideas to bring motive into action.

~Time Lord, "The Forgetfully Confused", because it's way over my head~
(I barely understand my IPhone, ~TL~ is not a tech guy)

 

The best options for resource sinks have been around since the beginning, but the devs were determined to create a generic fantasy MMORPG so they never really explored them. SotA could have been the first MMORPG to formally incorporate aspects of the Grand Strategy genre by having players able to participate in a continental struggle for control of Novia and beyond by sinking tens of thousands of crafted goods into development funds, war funds, special project funds while able to participate in courtly drama and intrigue. But why do something novel when you can have player bash the same spider on the head with different scale and texture parameters?

 

Maybe here's what should happen: NPC vendors should have different and rotating pricing for farmed goods based on the moon cycle. For example: On Day 1 of the Month, NPC purchase prices are the highest for coconuts in NPC Town 1. On Day 2, they switch and are highest in Town 2. By Day 30, the best purchase price has rotated through many towns, with 50% of towns offering break even pricing, 20% at loss, 20% at a modest profit, and 10% at a nice profit. And somehow it should be understandable who is offering the top price for a good. The value of rotating pricing like this is that it might cause more players to have a reason to visit more NPC towns, rather than the same one, over and over.

 

That and seasonal pricing. Harvesting the same regardless if Autumn or Winter? No, the harvest time for most goods with a bonus should be autumn and prices lowest due to the supply. Winter should see the lowest harvests, hightest prices.

Oh, and add a spoilage time on fresh fruits while in unrefined state, say 1 year so that farmers can´t stack the harvests of decades in a bank.

 

Realism at cost of convenience? No, thanks.

 

~Cotton is Boring with No Flavor of Variety~

While anything would be an improvement from what we currently have, I still think we needed a problem to fix a problem, and there was never a problem to begin with before developers caused a problem.

Cotton always, always, always has had the largest profit ratio of all crops. Nothing about cotton ever changed.

~The Problem~
Our game just doesn't like players that want NPC profits from agriculture, other than picking cotton.

All crops other than cotton have a NPC profit loss when produced, while cotton still remains at the dominant NPC profit level it was before all other agriculture was thown into negitive profits by our developers.

~I'm not happy with agriculture~
I am and have been upset about the situation of agriculture development. This is one issue I am totally at odds with our developers about.

~Player Funded Money Raised for Agriculture~
Our game was pitched during and after Kickstarter, and all the way through it's fund raising as having an enjoyable agriculture. Most all interviews with developers included much time spent entertaining many questions about agriculture. It came as a big surprise when agriculture was discouraged to the point of killing it as has been done.

What Happened...
We lost a developer, that's what happened, and that was the developer who was working on agriculture, yet killed the only enjoyable part we had, "profitable crop variety".

What Happened...
Our agriculture development was halted during a transition it was making through the ideas of that same developer that we lost. "Treated Seeds" were the last words that developer said before leaving the project in it's current failed state due to whatever personal reasons.

What Happened...
I don't think baddly about that programer for his personal decision, "personal decision stuff happens". But, that part of our game had it's legs broken because of our programer loss. I have heard he may return some day, but time marches on and we need a return to NPC profits for our other crops because cotton is boring.

~Player Trust in SOTA's Unique Development~
I am not a developer of games and "just like card combat", I support ground breaking uniqueness for our game. "Treated Seeds", I'd like to see, but leaving our agriculture in it's current state does not make me a happy SOTA gamer.

~Conclusion~
Leaving our agriculture in it's current state is a mistake and should be reverted back to it's prior level of development until a "completed change" can be made for it's future.

90% of all processed foods (*cooking) are worthless which means that further processing does not justify causing agriculture's NPC financial demise, leaving cotton as agriculture's only source of income.
~Time Lord~