Topic
A solution to the crop and herb looting problem
I have been visiting peoples streets a lot lately in search of herbs to find them weed ridden and dry and I have been working with a few awesome glitches to fix streets but this problem is getting seriously out of hand, to the point where people are removing their herb and crop patches from their streets.
To solve this problem I propose a simple solution. (not sure if this has been pitched before but if it has then it needs to be addressed still!)
I think it would be much better if the harvest, clear and plant steps were combined into one action!
You could change it to work like this -
When you click on a dry plot (at any stage of plant growth or when the plot is empty) you water it and clicking on an un-grown plant will also water it.
When you click on a fully grown plant to harvest, the game will ask you to select a seed to plant, after you have selected the seed you will then harvest, clear the plot and then plant the seed of your choice.
This will change two things - firstly it will stop people from being able to loot peoples crops and secondly it will give people a more viable reason to sell and buy seeds!
Yes it will mean that you can not harvest then shuck and then replant - but it is not hard to acquire at least one seed and I believe it will improve the game - or at least remove a lot of thievery.
hank you for reading :)
Replies
- I wouldn't always want this for my personal gardens and if there were an option to turn it off, it'd be less effective. That said, I think this is one of the more interesting ideas I've seen on the subject.
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Well this could be implemented for - Plots that you personally do not own, public plots or an option you can set on both your home street and your home.
I guess that the way it is now could be something like "Free harvest" mode and the way I suggested above "step harvest" mode, but something like that would be a lot harder to put into the game.
I just hope that by posting this that I draw more attention to the problem because something should be done about it. -
I think part of the issue might be how hard gardening is without skills. I harvested an 8-plot garden on an alt I made to see the new low-level game and by the time I was done hoeing, watering, shucking and replanting half my energy was gone and I ended up with only 3 herbs. The rest went back to seeds. It was kind of pathetic. I'm not terribly surprised there are suddenly more public gardens not getting replanted.
This is an interesting idea. As Diaveborn says, I wouldn't want it in my backyard. Sometimes I want to pick and not bother to hoe. -
This also nullifies the master gardener potions. There wouldn't even be the opportunity to use them for those that prefer to for whatever reason.
That's a lot of game economy that's sunk at that point. Essences won't be as useful so the prices of those will fall and the 4 MG potions will be worthless and unusable. - spacekadt... I do not think you understood what I meant properly... Your argument about making the potions useless is completely pointless here because they effect a whole plot where as this idea would only effect one square with in the plot.
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@Master Bean: I'm confused by your reply to spacekadt: (who I agree with)
If you can only harvest/clear/water/plant one square in the plot at a time then you cannot use the potions at all as they harvest all the squares in the garden at once. If potions continue to work then if you make a community garden available in your public Home Street there is nothing to stop an inconsiderate Glitch from using Many Harvest Cordial only and moving on without clearing and replanting.
I think the solution is to stop thinking of this as a problem. Stop using emotive words like 'loot'. It encourages the anti social to cause aggravation. People are moving 'their' gardens to their back yard. Well that's a good idea if they believe the garden to be theirs.
If however you accept that a garden provided in the public Home Street in front of your house is a Community Garden then it will soon sort itself out. We managed with only a few Community Gardens before. If only 10% of the Community Gardens we have now in Home Streets remain available we are still hugely better off than before. -
Master Bean, I'm one of the people that uses the potions, but not for everything. For instance, I don't see the worth of using the potion for harvesting since it's super fast to do it myself and not worth the resources (for me) that go into it.
Under your suggestion, my normal gardening process of manually harvesting, using potion to clear, manually planting and potion to water is no longer a viable alternative since I'm hitting each plot on its own before I do anything on a garden-wide scale.
Whether you think so or not, your plan makes a large portion of the potion usage and a large portion of the MG skill completely useless.
Yes, coming home to an empty or messy garden really does suck. But the vast majority of the people out there doing the herbing are good people that are generally willing to do what they can to make the suck a little less. Whether that's weeding some plots so you have less to do later or planting a garden or two out of the goodness of their hearts - it's at least something to help.
My take on the whole thing... even though I didn't get the herbs, I got the iMG from helping the garden owner clean up and if I have the seeds, I not only get the iMG, but I get the real life warm fuzzies that come with being a decent person... even if I'm the only one that knows what I did. -
My point is is that if this idea or something similar was implemented it would have no effect on the use of potions - that is something that I am not even going to get into - If some one has been playing long enough to be able to use the master gardening potions then they should know the benefits of replanting and tending.
This is more aimed at glitches with no or low level coppery or herbalism skill and new players to the game - perhaps to solve your issues this could be used for people with: no skills and levels 1 and 2 of those skills, rather than just say that we should not let people with our cropery harvest crops or with out herbalism harvest herbs.
Why do you not see this as a problem? I do not mind helping to fix streets, but the simple fact that we have to in the first place is the problem, I am pretty sure that Tiny Speck did not intend for us as players to have to do this. -
Is this really a problem that needs fixed by game mechanics or will it solve itself organically...
Fewer gardens in the world mean fewer flowers, essences, and seeds. This means the price on said items will increase. Making the risk more rewarding and, so, as the price goes up, more people will put gardens out. (see: yellow crumb days when nearly everyone had a garden or five on their front street)
As an herb grower, this thought pleases me.
Fewer gardens also means that when folks do stumble upon them, they'll treat them with more respect and be more inclined to tend the gardens when they harvest.
And, while I really hate "blame the newbie" posts... (I love you new glitches! Really!) We've just had a huge influx of players in the world who are both lacking skills and unaware of how things work. As they get their herb skills and gardens, they'll "get it." Give em some time & patience to catch up... they'll begin to have more successful shuckings (and thus have seeds to replant) and understand that the herb garden routes are most productive if folks keep them tended. If nobody tends to them, there's nothing for them to take, after all :) - -1
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I'd like to present a contrary viewpoint. I think it's nice to come upon a home street garden that is empty. That way I can throw some seeds in. I've walked the herb garden route a couple of times, visited other player's home street gardens and found very few plots that are either ready to harvest or ready to plant (I don't mind doing the weeding). If everybody is always replanting, that leaves little or no replanting for others to do. Those others might just like having the chance to contribute to the planting too.
It's really not such a bad thing to leave some stuff for others to do.
Also, -1 for the ideas in the OP. The main reason for a negative vote from me is the initial assumption that public use of public resources is stealing and the use of inflammatory words like "looting" and "thievery". Those actions are incompatible with the idea of public resources which are open and freely available to all, which home street resources indubitably are. -
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The reason why I give a negative response is because i personally do not like this idea,
1) You have to have herbs to shuck to get seeds or have one in your bags first which some do not.
2) The herb route is used by many people which offer the herbs for free for taking and they do not have to replant even though it is customary, I think this is good for the newbies or people who need to quick herbs.
Personally I like to go a long the herb route and stuff the empty plots full of seeds, (plus weeding and watering the plots give a real nice tidy sum of img) if what happens as you say, that img boost from weeding and watering will be gone because you automatically replant so there is no weeding (it would all be one)
Therefore I give a negative response -
@Vera - I didn't mean that to be a "blame the newbie" post. I meant it to be a "think about game balance for new players" post.
I believe this is a game balance issue. Returns on gardening are too slim on a character with no skills. You and I pick 45 herbs from a 15-plot garden and shuck maybe 6. A new player picks 15 and shucks half. Between all the time and energy wasted on failed actions and the relatively high cost of seeds it really sucks to replant. I'm sure there are Bartle clubs who pick everything and leave gardens bare to aggravate other players, but I bet most of the bare gardens are becasue the game discourages replanting if you're unskilled.
I don't think forcing hoe/water/replant is a good way to fix the issue. I think perhaps seeds should be redesigned. Imagine if you always got a seed from a plot and the number of herbs/crops depended on your skills. Pick 15 plots and you end up with 15 seeds, plus anywhere from 8-45+ herbs depending on skill. Players with no skills would sometimes get only a seed to replant and no herb. Players with high skills would get their usual yield. Yes, it would change the seed economy a little, but I bet gardens would be mostly replanted if picking automatically generated seeds. -
Interesting views :)
Firstly my idea would make harvesting, weeding and then replanting happen in sequence not all at the same time in one motion - first you would harvest (getting mood, losing energy, gaining imagination), then clear (gaining mood, losing energy, gaining imagination and your hoe would take damage) then replant (gaining mood, losing energy, gaining imagination) - although you would need imagination to preform all 3 actions it would not change anything else (just to explain it a little better so people do not keep thinking its a one step process) but obviously from what you have said this is not a good enough solution so I will keep looking for a better one.
I agree that the imagination for clearing and replanting is great, the problem I have with it is that I end up having to shuck the very few herbs or convert the very few crops I actually get from visiting other streets or I have to shuck / convert more of the crops and herbs I get from my own garden in order to do that, its not that big of a problem, but just lately the vast majority of streets I visit are completely empty, just weed ridden, if I turn up to somewhere like that with no seeds, I still weed and water but then its up to some one else to replant?
A lot of people are saying that the seeds are the problem for newer players - but all of us have to shuck herbs and feed crops to pigs to get them or buy them, not just the players with no skills / low skills. perhaps an even easier solution would be to increase the amount of seeds gained from shucking and crop feeding and increase stack size on them? Perhaps if the seeds are more readily available it will promote replanting and make it easier for those who do.
About the idea of getting seeds from harvesting - it would mean flash harvesters get seeds as well as herbs when they harvest - would they just end up with more to sell?
Even if you agree that something needs to be done or not I thank you all for your idea's and your views :) if any one has any more, please share them. -
How about:
1. increasing the rewards for hoeing, watering and planting (but not for harvesting, as getting the product is the "reward")?
2. Having a high-energy food item be a relatively common random drop for the above actions *only* for players who don't yet have herbalism skills trained, and perhaps are below a certain level?
3. The plots talk, why not have them remind players every few harvests to hoe/water/plant?
4. Decrease the chance of getting nothing when shucking.
By the way, if I'm online, and you see home street gardens that need tending, IM me. I love using my MG potions. The rewards aren't too bad, especially when I get 26 loam at once. :) I also am happy to restore ANY resource; I carry a restoration kit at all times with enough materials to restore any item. -
oh Lucille! I got ya... I was more talking about me because I was going into "influx of new player blahblahblah" mode and, so, I was totally blaming the new guys. I always feel bad when I do that.. I was new once, too! There's definitely a pretty hefty divide in the herb skills and shucking. I'm not convinced it's a BadThing that needs fixed, though increasing rewards for tending would be a good way to do that... might not increase the planting by unskilled glitches, but people don't mind planting as much as they mind hoeing. Or maybe that's just me. I really hate hoeing & watering. I do it, of course, but I grumbled through it before the new potions.
I also really love the idea of whining plots. I'm almost about as bad at watering my RL plants and when they get all droopy, I whine for them... thirsty! i's so thirsty! gimme water! waaaater! (really, whining for my plants is about the only thing that gets me to drag my hose out... of course this year, I nearly killed my marigolds by overwatering them for a few weeks because they got droopy from the heat or something and I thought they were thirsty... buggers. they were decidedly *not* thirsty ;)) -
Oh gosh, please no more items whining in game!
I do like the idea of incentivizing the hoeing and watering and replanting. -
Perhaps an improvement would be to make garden harvesting a more skilled action. That is, change the game mechanics so that glitches need croppery1 to be able to harvest crop gardens and herb1 to harvest herb gardens. A quest could be developed for post-learning to clue glitches in on 'social gardening'. And glitches without the skills could get a 'you need to learn a skill' message from the plot when they try to harvest.
That way only glitches with a little more 'invested' in gardening would be able to harvest the crops. Surely they would then be more aware of how it works. Some new glitches probably think the crops will just grow back like the trees do and that they are doing nothing wrong, because they've never been exposed to the whole process. -
I'm not crazy about requiring gardening skills to harvest. You can interact with most of the world as a new player, which seems right. The only inconsistency (and it's a little weird really) is that you can't mine rocks without Mining 1 but there are no other skills you need in order to learn it.
If we think the issue is simply not knowing, we could ask that harvesting and replanting a small garden be added to the tutorial. Given the number of skills to get to Croppery and Herbalism, I think a small buff to unskilled shucking would also help the situation. Simply removing the shucking failures would go a long way towards making gardening feel better on a low-level character. -
This suggestion would change game mechanics to solve a player-behavior problem. I do not think this is a good idea.
The watering suggestion I do agree with. It would be nice to be able to water a plot before planting.
However, by removing the shucking action from the Herb you take away one of the game-balancing mechanics. Glitches have a direct impact on their environment, whether we have forgotten this or not it is still true. If every Glitch only Harvested and used the product without shucking and replanting - eventually the Herbs would go extinct.
Newer players may not understand this mechanic, so perhaps there should be an example garden in the Tutorial - if there isn't already.
Removing this mechanic greatly over-powers the Herbs. There would be no risk associated with Herbalism, the supply would never decrease, and inflation would ensue.
The effects of the proposed change would have very far-reaching, and I believe, unintended consequences.
Resources on Home Streets are not owned by anyone, if anything they are borrowed from Ur itself. If you absolutely need your herbs and cannot risk anyone taking them, plant them in your backyard. If you plant them in the Front, you are partaking in a Risk activity and must accept the consequences that go along with it.
The problem here is not one of game mechanics but player-behavior. Instead of trying to change the game-mechanics it would be wiser to try and change the detrimental behavior. Maybe teach a Gardening Class or start a Beginner Gardener Outreach Program. -
If you absolutely need your herbs and cannot risk anyone taking them, plant them in your backyard. If you plant them in the Front, you are partaking in a Risk activity and must accept the consequences that go along with it.
+1It seems to me what you see as a universal rule is just an implicit custom for some users. I'm very new to the game and what Godiva said is how I understood the game worked. Things I plant in my frontyard/street are things I want to give so I don't expect anyone, especially new players w/ few items and abilities, to give me anything in return.Looting? What looting? - Putting watering before planting would mean that you would have to water every time without any choice as to whether it was needed. Frequently in my backyard gardens, I'll look at the water bar on a plot and plant something I know will take less time (for example, water bar is at halfway point and I plant gandlevery or purple) to get multiple sessions out of a single watering.
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Tiny Speck has changed plenty of game mechanics in order to solve player-behavior problems. For example, briefly locking herbs to the person who planted the seed. The question is whether there is really a problem to begin with (since you can make private gardens in the back) and what sort of mechanic change would encourage the behavior change while keeping gardening fun in general. I would argue that there is a problem of some sort simply because of the number of upset players. Perhaps the problem is created by inappropriate player expectations of home streets though.
I think perhaps a better gardening tutorial is what we need to be asking for, one that explains the different between front yard and backyard plots. -
The main problem for me on this subject is that I enjoy gardening in this game, harvesting, weeding, replanting and watering is a fun element of the game for me, continuously turning up to streets that are nothing but weeds left behind is not the real problem - the real problem is that I end up using all of my seeds or shucking more of my herbs or converting more of my crops if I want to replant it, I do not mind doing this at all - to replant what I took - but to replant what some one else took - that is where it becomes a problem - If I do not replant them while I am there, this then falls onto another player to deal with in order to even be able to use the area and that is the issue that I wanted to address with this post.
There have been many times where I have wanted to make myself some tinctures and decided to go on a herb run and have run across so many places left baron that I have ended my run with less than 20 herbs - you could say that I should of left the places that I visited as they were and just replanted what I took but that is not the point, if every one did that then there would never be anything to harvest.
A tutorial sounds like a great idea for new players - But what about the existing players who are doing it now?
I joined a group called "The order of the broken hoe" and I will look for more groups that aim to educate people on the importance of replanting crops and herbs and join those too, but as the games population grows, it will be a lot harder for us as players to deal with, that is why I suggested a mechanics change.
Thanks again for your idea's please feel free to contribute more if you have them :) - -1 First this makes learning Master Gardener and Potionmaking 3, rather pointless skills, that and the gardening potions as well. Yes some players are greedy but that is not the majority.Since new players have small energy tanks i can see how they cant always finish a whole garden, water, weed, hoe, and plant. And yes some may not know what is customary and what isn't. Customary is nice but its not a given and its not an absolute. Its not "looting" though front yard resources are for everyone to use, the Home Street owner gets img from other ppl useing thier resource, that is your way of getting "paid". That being said, its best to not dictate behavior and get hung up on ppl not necessarily doing what you want or like, its just best to let things go, you dont have to fix all of your gardens, if you want to go ahead, but you dont HAVE to, some will come along and weed or water or plant if its not done, they do get img etc. for doing so, and some simply enjoy gardening. Just relax and don't feel compelled to fix everything and get bent out of shape about it, if it bothers you too much then maybe another resource in the front is better for you.
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Not being rude Lyrical DejaVu but it seams like you only read the original post before you wrote that - I already explained that no changes to the uses of potions need to be made - I have no idea why people keep bringing that up even though I explained it to the best of my ability.
Community gardens both in the world and on home streets are meant to be there for every one to use and benefit from - and if people keep taking everything that is grown with out replanting it back themselves they have also taken the means for others to replant it with out them having to use their own crops, herbs and seeds to replant - that is the biggest problem that I see and the one I wanted to address and find a simple and effective solution for - you have to understand that leaving some where un-planted means that its more time before some one else does and you can go back and use those plots again - effectively making them useless (because they are not growing anything) hopefully this time its clear enough for people to understand.
I have herb plots in my garden and bean tree's on my street - I appreciate that others have these plots on their streets for us to use - and would actually like to be able to use them - instead of just clearing them and watering them and leaving them empty. - A solution to the crop and herb looting problem: Plant and Harvest your own herbs. You get 30 seconds of time for whomever planted, to harvest.
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This is another point I a trying to make - If people were to remove these plots from their streets and people only had them in their gardens then:
It would limit the amount of resource's grown - vegetable, herb, tincture, potion, food and some drink prices would increased due to less supply.
People would feel forced to have these plots in their garden if they wanted access to these resources - limiting options as to what you have there.
It would also remove / reduce an element of the game that people enjoy doing.
I am talking about community gardens and home street gardens - they are meant to be free on the condition you replant for some one else, the 30 thing does not help. - The reason ppl keep bringing up the gardening potions is....if you were to make it so all things were done in one step,per plot not per garden, it makes the potions in turn less useful; because it won't be worth it to make them. Making potions requires a lot of items, and if it barely takes any time off...then its really not worth making them. Put signs up or Gnomes, hopefully ppl will listen or read and do what you ask, if they don't though you shouldn't let it bother you, you did try at least. Yes its annoying that ppl aren't always replanting and weeding and watering, but resources of any kind are a nicity, not a given, if it bothers you how they are being used, either don't have those resources, or change them to something else. Odds are if the gardens are bothering you certain other items and how they are used are likely to bother you as well, Icons, Machines, Wood Trees, are some other good examples, dictating how people should behave and play, isn't going to make you happy. There have been MANY, MANY, posts about how player A thinks things should be done, but player B doesn't see it that way but demands that, other players only play the way he wants them to. People have different views on whats right and wrong, what acceptable or not, its going to vary, its best to ecspect a wide variance, and learn to accept that, because a variety of behavior will always exist, and that really is not something that can be controlled.