Topic
The tension of the tree cycle and the Seed to Scythe quest
tree, then ten dustings made me believe the trees were at level 10; he confirmed they were at 10 but there was no quest acknowledgement of that).
So, this test, I started out knowing not to use the dust. Wow - what a drag this became. In order to do that, I would have to sit in my house through the entire tree life cycle, because in venturing out I'd miss a watering chance (and did - I was in the game the entire test and never got the trees past I'd say level 3, because I was out and about too long).
I'm not sure how the tree logic works, but my guess is that it is something like this:
- seedling != tree and takes x pets before petting does nothing (3?) and some time to turn into a tree
- when it becomes a tree, it asks for water every n minutes (where n is short - 10 min?)
- it takes x waterings for a tree to move to the next level
- it will stay at a level if you miss y waterings and then drops a level (or enters a death cycle) - if you miss z waterings (where y and z are small)
So, that growing logic may work very well on public streets, where there a large number of players that pass by to keep a tree alive, but it doesn't work well in your yard where it's likely only you keeping the tree alive and growing. That's the natural tension of the game.
Unfortunately, that short growing/death cycle in the public streets really seems very long in one's private yard in terms of the quest and too too too short in terms of the game! For the quest, either I bore easily or am too impatient to hang out for 10 10-15 minute cycles to complete a quest (that's over a hour, right?). For the game, it annoys me that if I'm out of game for a day, the trees in my yard are dead.
So, back to the tension. If you shorten up that time or kill some of the death cycle in a private space to allow players to complete the quest, after the quest that logic becomes worse for a homeowner - trees in one's yard already die off far too quickly. Without this quest, I would argue for either private yard logic on a longer cycle than public streets or a new gardening skill that allows you to install a watering system (like the pig/butterfly feeding systems). But with this quest, perhaps allow the fertlidust to register with the quest logic rather than counting whatever it being counted and stored in a table. So, the quest could be based on "what level is the tree?" rather than "how many cycles did the player water for?" (again - this is me making assumptions based on in-game experience as to what is happening in the code).
Beefcake also noted - fairly enough - that some quests aren't meant to be completed right away. But over the course of the last long test I tried to complete this quest twice and in the last test once (and others have had the same problem), which was a considerable amount of gameplay. I'm all for long quests, but something about this one feels 'not quite there yet'.
Replies
- Thank you
- +1
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yards should have installable sprinkler systems. that's just too cool not to have and solves the very real backyard premature tree death issue.
as for the quest, i think the way it is set up currently is fine .. there's just a known bug with the fertilidust. once that bug is addressed the problem is solved, no? -
+1. My concern with the tension is the time variables in @zeeberk's equations regarding Tree levels, watering and petting. It may be a bug, but if this quest is fertilidust-resistant that seems at odds with the skill level requirements (Gardening V, money to buy a larger house). A player at that caliber probably mastered AdMixing enough to make Fertilidust, which is an gained advantage on the quest. Not being able to use it would seem particularly stubbon gameplay.
I grumped about this on my status at @zeeberk, since I was working on the same quest during the same tests, it seems.
I do like the idea of a watering/harvesting system like the Butterfly Milker. If this quest is the beginning of more rigorous tree-related quests, that'd make the effort more worthwhile in terms of watching the game (and Street building) go by outside your house.
I've completed all my available skills, so I can't see if something like Gardening VI leads into full orchard-like stuff. -
Oh, you can't sprinkle them up? Now I know why I couldn't complete it.
What I found most difficult about this quest is that it's so hard to tell whether a tree is fully grown or not. Towards the end the stages look very similar. Maybe the tree should also mention that it's grown as much as it can once it reaches that stage? - @Cefeida, my first attempt, I was hoping that hitting "info" on the tree would show me its level. Not that it would be providing much context but it would have given me some place to start figuring out @zeeberk's variables in tree-growth. Seems like a natural place for that information.
- Or in backyards there could be a wee wooden post beside each tree which we could click for that info?
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+1 for sprinkler systems....or maybe a really cute little rain cloud that you can treat like an animal.
It breaks my heart that every time the game opens up I've gotta go chop down my dead trees.