For Farmers, a lot of time is spent in fields and at the workbench so we’ve added new ways to increase harvest yields and improve production efficiency.
Indeed, I notice that we can now process 5 fair crops at a time. But what's this? One crop now equals one produce instead of the usual four? (I was pretty much farming just Black Barley this morning, but I'm assuming this holds true for other Westfold crops.) That means I have to buy, plant, and harvest 4 times as many crops to get the same amount of yield as I used to. Only then can I save time by processing 5 at a time. But the processing phase has always been, for me, the least time consuming. I can walk away and make dinner, or change diapers, or hitchhike across country.
So it seems that if, as stated above, the intent is to lower the amount of time spent on farming, Westfold is an astounding failure. Am I missing something here? Is there a facet or aspect that will change this dynamic as I level?
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Indeed, I notice that we can now process 5 fair crops at a time. But what's this? One crop now equals one produce instead of the usual four? (I was pretty much farming just Black Barley this morning, but I'm assuming this holds true for other Westfold crops.) That means I have to buy, plant, and harvest 4 times as many crops to get the same amount of yield as I used to. Only then can I save time by processing 5 at a time. But the processing phase has always been, for me, the least time consuming. I can walk away and make dinner, or change diapers, or hitchhike across country.
So it seems that if, as stated above, the intent is to lower the amount of time spent on farming, Westfold is an astounding failure. Am I missing something here? Is there a facet or aspect that will change this dynamic as I level?
SO MUCH THIS. ^
I was really unhappy last night when I decided to dabble in a little farming and cooking. Yes, we can process 5 crops at a time now. But ONE crop yielding ONE produce (instead of four) is a very, very significant slam. It means I'm spending 20% less time at the workbench, but paying for it by needing to spend 400% more time in the field. Net effect? Farming takes more than three times as long as it used to.
Like you, I'm wondering what on earth Turbine was thinking. If left unchanged, the amount of time we are going to need to spend farming barley, just to make our repasts, is staggering. Did they really intend this?
Would really like an official response, something to the effect of "Yes, we decided farming should take a lot longer." I'd hate to think it was just an oversight.
But ONE crop yielding ONE produce (instead of four) is a very, very significant slam.
I admit I only tested Westfold field recipes, but I was getting easily 8 to 10 crops per field with well tended hearty fields. Basically, the more expensive seeds give you the yields you are used to. Monsanto has come to Middle Earth.
I admit I only tested Westfold field recipes, but I was getting easily 8 to 10 crops per field with well tended hearty fields. Basically, the more expensive seeds give you the yields you are used to. Monsanto has come to Middle Earth.
Sometimes. Other times, even with a "hearty" field, I was getting only 4 or 5. And remember, even when you get a "good" 8-10, that translates to only 8-10 produce.
Before, those 8-10 crops would have yielded 32-40 produce.
Before, if you got a terrible field yield of 2 crops, you could still take them over to the workbench and get 8 produce out of it. And most fields were yielding MUCH higher. I would typically plant 5 fields and get 35-40 crops, which could then be processed into about 150 produce.
To get that same 150 produce now, you need to plant at LEAST 15 fields, and probably on average 20. It's a very significant increase in the amount of time you have to spend in the field, planting and harvesting your crops.
I have had a bit of a run through the farming today. My initial reaction is one of not being happy with the changes but that is a personal thing. I want to mention/explain the costs now associated with farming so people can understand the marked increases in prices on the AH they are going to see for T7 crops and food compared to previous Tiers.
Previously the costs associated with farming were modest.
20 fields T1 to T3 would cost you between 20 to 25ish silver depending on repair fees. This would generate at least 4 stacks of end use product once sorting was finished.
20 fields T4 to T6 would cost you between 30 to 35ish silver depending on repair fees. This would generate at least 4 stacks of end use product once sorting was finished.
The new changes brought in to sorting mean that we no longer get our 4 stacks of end product from 1 stack of fair crops. This has been reduced to a 1:1 ratio from 1:4. In effect our output has been reduced by 75%. I realise that there are people out there who sell crops at outrageous prices, This will not get better with these changes.
Now we have T7
T7 introduces the hearty crop as well as the standard crop. You can no longer purchase the crit item it has to come from the fields you are harvesting and I am told can also come as drops in the new regions. (can someone confirm this last please?) The only benefit from this crit material is we no longer have to pay for it. To be frank I would rather pay for it myself - but that is just my opinion.
20 fields of T7 will cost you 96 silver plus repairs - so roughly 100 silver. I have had to run this test without using any crit materials as I smiply haven't harvested enough yet. It yielded roughly 70 crops each time.
20 fields of T7 Hearty fields will cost you 288 silver plus repairs and again I had no critting material here yet. It yeided roughly 130 - 145 ish each time, hopefully the crit material will improve this.
Naturally these costs will affect the prices of crops bought on the AH and also of food made with said crops. The cooks will still have to make their profit too.
To sum up:
Massive price increases at the T7 level compared to other farming levels coupled with massive reductions in end product over all levels produced. In other words it costs us a lot more to produce less.
I also agree with the above posts a LOT more time spent farming as well.
You can no longer purchase the crit item it has to come from the fields you are harvesting and I am told can also come as drops in the new regions. (can someone confirm this last please?)
Yes, that's true - got some off corpses and backpacks IIRC.
I admit I only tested Westfold field recipes, but I was getting easily 8 to 10 crops per field with well tended hearty fields. Basically, the more expensive seeds give you the yields you are used to. Monsanto has come to Middle Earth.
The problem isn't the yield of the fields, I'm VERY happy with the hearty fields. But they're giving me pretty much the same number of crops I'm used to...which are 4 times less potent than they used to be. A nice big yield of 10 crops used to equal 40 taters, let's say. In the new tier, it just equals 10.
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I submitted a bug report in-game about the 1-to-1 processing yield. I'm thinking it's an oversight or mistake of some kind, since all other crafting tiers have a crop-to-bunch yield of 1-to-4.
I submitted a bug report in-game about the 1-to-1 processing yield. I'm thinking it's an oversight or mistake of some kind, since all other crafting tiers have a crop-to-bunch yield of 1-to-4.
I doubt it. I also noticed today on my cook that crit items for Westfold tier only add 35% chance, instead of the old 45%. Can't confirm if that's true on other professions yet.
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I doubt it. I also noticed today on my cook that crit items for Westfold tier only add 35% chance, instead of the old 45%. Can't confirm if that's true on other professions yet.
It is. The crit chance was lowered from 45% to 35% ON ALL CRAFT PROFESSIONS.
No idea why.
Speculation in Beta was they did this in preparation for adding new craft tools that increased the crit chance back to 45% but that did not turn out to be the case since (so far) there have not been any new craft tool recipes found (maybe added with update 5?).
Another think I noticed last night was that the crit item (unrefined) was an actual necessary ingredient for the new flower recipe. It caught me off guard, I don't craft flowers, but that a crit item became an ingredient was a bit strange.
I think this is a mistake the 1:1 ratio of bushel to fruit, (although I have only tried the black oats) because there is no way this is a quicker easier way to farm. It makes me think someone who never farmed in-game made the new tier.
The crit item does not show up too often farming, but I got a few from looting corpses, chests.
I just obtained the ability to use the crit item and haven't used it yet, but I was secretly hoping that using the crit item would drastically change the output of the crops. Sad to hear from other posts that this is not true.
I wonder how well the Bonus Crafting XP Scrolls and/or Westfold Ingredient Packs are selling on the store?
Such an excellent point, and sad that it is so, particularly the Ingredient Packs for Cooking so you can bypass Farming completely. Experience isn't hard to come by, but the yields are. I'm not one to complain, but these changes to farming - especially under the premise that they were done to reduce the amount of time for this craft - are an insult. The 1:1 yield changes the entire dynamic of the profession, making it decidely not fun. Having craft enhancers available in the store should be a nice perk, not a necessity. I can only add that I'm happy they didn't make these changes backward down the other levels .. but it doesn't give my farmer much to look forward to other than a tedious time in the fields.
Last edited by Jenara; Oct 01 2011 at 12:44 PM.
Reason: clarity
It is. The crit chance was lowered from 45% to 35% ON ALL CRAFT PROFESSIONS.
No idea why.
Speculation in Beta was they did this in preparation for adding new craft tools that increased the crit chance back to 45% but that did not turn out to be the case since (so far) there have not been any new craft tool recipes found (maybe added with update 5?).
Isn't that kind of like marking up the price on items 100% and then putting them on sale for 50% off? All the same in the end, except this time we got no tools to make up for that 10% that has gone missing
Shady dealing? Unfinished work? I'm not sure, but I do know that my scholar is happily making +12.5% crit scrolls (about the only recipes scholars get from cases) for kinnies, to skill up her scholar skills.
Last edited by giniluv; Oct 03 2011 at 10:58 AM.
Reason: edited for clarity
Another think I noticed last night was that the crit item (unrefined) was an actual necessary ingredient for the new flower recipe. It caught me off guard, I don't craft flowers, but that a crit item became an ingredient was a bit strange.
What ARE those flowers for? Is there a new housing item recipe I'm missing?
Another vote for spending 2 full days farming Black Barley to get enough for guild recipes, regen & vit food really effing blows.
"The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity; the quest for power is childish"
No more hunting woad/indigo plants or yarrow roots ^^
-----------------
I didn't even notice the change from 1:4 to 1:1 at first, only when I got back to the computer after making 60 of each new crop I saw that I had way fewer than I should've had.. So yes as stated, farmers are gonna have to spend -more- time farming now.. Cheers, Turbine :|
That recipe for crit items is a roi exclusive? With current work and studies, level-wise roi will be needed in a year perhaps.
The only rep-gated farmer recipes are the wild flower field recipe (friend with men of dunland) and the wild pipeweed field recipe (friend with theodred's riders). Onji did a good job describing the flower recipe and I assume the pipeweed recipe is similar, except for pipeweed.
The crit item recipe is there by default for your farmer, but it requires a fairly rare ingredient.
Another addition to the huge timesink that is RoI farming.
The 'crit' item Pile of Rich Soil must actually be converted at the workbench into Clump of Peat which is the true crit item. And the induction to do so is 20 SECONDS per conversion!!! So again, MORE time spent at the workbench.
Add that to the 1:1 ratio of crop to produce, I estimate one would spend 5x as much time doing RoI recipes than before this 'improved' farming system.
I simply adore cooking, but farming (for me) has always been that unpleasant-but-necessary-evil one must undergo in order to get to the good stuff. Like getting vaccinated before taking a tropical vacation.
Only now, the vaccination takes approximately 20 minutes and must be repeated every day.
Before RoI, I farmed at most one or two days a month. Maybe on a weekend when I was busy doing things at home. I'd farm several fields then just go afk at the workbench. A few minutes later I'd come back and my bags would be full to bursting with lovely produce, ready to cook.
Since RoI, I've needed to set aside time EVERY DAY to farm and process barley, just in order to make my repasts. I've tried to find enough time to get a good "stockpile", but with my limited playtime (and the sheer volume of the stuff we need to use in RoI cooking), I can't seem to get ahead. So every day, before I can cook my repasts, I have to head back out to the field. It is incredibly annoying and let's face, dull.
I make the hearty fields, and still average only 6-7 crops per field (tested across 5 evenings where 20 hearty fields each night produced 120-135 crops). This means it takes ~20 seconds to get 6 unprocessed barley crops. And more workbench time and cooking time to turn that finally into...3 cups of barley flour. This simply cannot be what Turbine intended...can it?
Like another poster above pointed out, the "crit" soil is pretty much a scam. It takes 20 seconds to process the soil in order to use it. Essentially the same amount of time it would take to plant another field entirely. Using it does NOT generate double field results (anything less means you are losing time, not saving it). Using the soil, I got about 30% more produce from a field. So processing and using the soil actually increases the time sink of farming.
You can also use the soil at the workbench to try to get a crit result, but that also is a bad idea. Each soil raises your crit chance to 40% for one attempt only, and upon successful crit you get 5 extra crops. This means, on average, you will have spent 20 seconds (processing the soil) to get 2 extra crops (40% x 5). Again, worse results than you would get if you had spent those 20 seconds just planting a new field.
TL;DR? Save your soil for wildflowers or dump it on the AH. And Turbine, please unbreak farming!
I think spending 16x more for a 30-40% improvement on stats is a little crazy, no?
So not only are they making us farm more, they have greatly excaberated the cost to farm a field. This means that now farming enough for our trail food or any other general purpose item costs drastically more to produce, not to mention time at the workbench.
...(some good examples showing how much our productivity has been reduced)...
So not only are they making us farm more, they have greatly excaberated the cost to farm a field. This means that now farming enough for our trail food or any other general purpose item costs drastically more to produce, not to mention time at the workbench.
Thanks for doing the math. I'd been intending to do something like this myself. Another interesting thing to consider: Our overall crop yield is down as well.
Let's say you need to make the 100 dough balls from your example above. You need to farm 400 bundles of winter barley to do this. But how many fields do you plant? The output is different every time. There's no direct calculation to tell you how many fields to plant.
Well, if you do a lot of farming and tend to enjoy crunching numbers you may start taking averages of your crop to field production. For me the magic number was 5. Which is to say, if I needed 400 winter barley crops I'd divide that by 5 and subsequently plant 80 fields. This typically worked out pretty well for me. That average held true over all 6 tiers, for me at least. 100 crops was roughly equal to 20 well-tended fields. NOTE: I'm talking about well-tended fields produced with a vendor-bought crit item. (yeah, hold on to that thought)
Now, I haven't produced nearly as many westfold crops as I have the other 6 tiers. I have, however, taken detailed notes over the course of 300 black barley field runs. I understand this isn't enough to establish an "accurate" estimate but it's enough to get us in the ball park till I refine it further with more runs. But, the average output for westfold black barley fields appears to be right at 3.5 crops per field. So, it seems the base production rate has been reduced by about 30%.
In all fairness I have to point out that I'm comparing well-tended T6 fields with normal T7 fields. You may think this comparison unfair. So, let me frame it a differently. I'm comparing the best fields I can make from both tiers using reasonably priced components from the vendor. For all the previous tiers you could buy the farming crit items from the vendor for a reasonable price. That option isn't available with westfold farming. So, I'm comparing what you can get from the vendor for a reasonable price. Besides, I haven't gotten more than a handful of the pre-crit items (you have to process crit items now?!?) so I'm unable to establish any averages in that area.
Hearty seeds cost 500% more than their normal counterparts. Do they produce 500% more crops per field? The short answer is: No, they don't. Again, in all fairness, I have to say that I only ran a handful of Hearty black barley fields, about 20 of them. That's not enough to get a fair average, but it was enough for me to see that they weren't producing 5 times the number of crops of the regular fields (they weren't even producing double the regular fields).
But, for me, the Hearty seeds boil down to one thing. If you think I'm going to pay 12 silver for ONE seed you're ... <ahem> ... sadly mistaken. So, when they said...
Originally Posted by Rise of Isengard: Developer Diary: “Crafting in the Westfold”
For Farmers, a lot of time is spent in fields and at the workbench so we’ve added new ways to increase harvest yields and improve production efficiency.
I can only assume they're referring to the use of Hearty seeds coupled with the 5-at-a-time crop production recipes. What they didn't mention is that this boost in production comes at no small in-game gold cost. Yes, you boosted our production if we're willing to pay 500% more for it. If we're not willing to pay the extra 500% we'll find that the status quo has been lowered and it now takes even longer to produce the same amount by standard means. ...and this is all before the 1:1 item to crop ratio is even factored in!
It seems like it's always this way with Turbine. There's always a catch. They brag about how they reworked some system to make it better for us, and then we find out that it's not better at all - in fact it's worse. I see stuff like this in dev diaries and just cringe. Waiting for the other shoe to drop... ...seems like it always lands on us.
I can only assume they're referring to the use of Hearty seeds coupled with the 5-at-a-time crop production recipes. What they didn't mention is that this boost in production comes at no small in-game gold cost. Yes, you boosted our production if we're willing to pay 500% more for it. If we're not willing to pay the extra 500% we'll find that the status quo has been lowered and it now takes even longer to produce the same amount by standard means. ...and this is all before the 1:1 item to crop ratio is even factored in!
It seems like it's always this way with Turbine. There's always a catch. They brag about how they reworked some system to make it better for us, and then we find out that it's not better at all - in fact it's worse. I see stuff like this in dev diaries and just cringe. Waiting for the other shoe to drop... ...seems like it always lands on us.
Emphasis mine.
I appreciate that the focus of your post here is about the cost of farming, but I did want to write to clarify that in NO WAY has our farming efficiency been improved in RoI. There's no "catch," it's just a plain false statement by Turbine.
Farming time has been drastically increased. Period. No matter HOW MUCH gold you are willing to spend on special seeds, soil, etc, you will still be spending about 300% more time farming in RoI to get the same yield of crops you were accustomed to.
AND (this is the major sticking point for most people, I think) the increase in time is "in the field" time. Our workbench time (time you could just pop out afk anyway) was shortened by a whopping 25%. Now we can produce 5 barley every 10 seconds at the workbench, instead of 4! Yippee! But our "in the field" time (time you have to sit staring numbly, twiddling your fingers and watching your character, which is VERY BORING) was increased by about 400%.
The single fastest way to get crops is by farming regular (non-crit) hearty fields. I explained why in my post above, but the short version is that the crit soil takes too long to process and returns far too little "extra" crops. It's faster to just plant another hearty field. And while these hearty fields might produce more crops than regular RoI fields (I get 6.5 crops per field, tested across 5 sessions of 20 fields each, where each yeild was 120-135 crops), RoI crops still result in 4 TIMES fewer produce than previous tiers. In other words, we have to plant ~4 times as many fields as before to get approximately the same results.
You say you were getting 5 crops per field before RoI. What you've forgotten from your equation is that those 5 crops could be turned into 20 produce at the workbench, due to the 4:1 ratio we were getting before. So you didn't need to plant 80 fields to get 400 produce. You needed to plant 20 fields.
20 fields x 5 crops per field = 100 crops x 4 (old 4:1 workbench ratio) = 400 produce.
Now in RoI, to get 400 produce, you need to plant either 114 regular fields (using your 3.5 results), or 62 hearty fields (using my 6.5 results).
So somewhere between 310% and 570% as much planting as before, depending on how much of a hurry you are in, and how much gold you want to part with.
It's a giant slap in the face to the good farmers of Middle-Earth, many of whom were putting faith in Turbine's promise to "increase harvest yields" and "improve production efficiency." If this was just a "bug" or mistake on Turbine's part ("Oops, somebody fell asleep at the wheel, we meant that to be the same old 4:1 ratio!") then I can't understand why we haven't received an apology and a hotfix by now. If it was actually intentionally misleading, then my opinion of this company just took a very sharp fall.
You say you were getting 5 crops per field before RoI. What you've forgotten from your equation is that those 5 crops could be turned into 20 produce at the workbench, due to the 4:1 ratio we were getting before. So you didn't need to plant 80 fields to get 400 produce. You needed to plant 20 fields.
First of all let me say that I agree with you completely. You'll get no argument from me regarding anything you've said regarding the "new and improved" state of farming.
Also, you're right, I blew the math. I'd only need 20 fields in the example I gave. Point taken. However, I didn't blow the multiplier. It still dropped by 30% from 5 to 3.5 (in the experiments I conducted).
I was just focusing on the decreased returns from planted fields. I fully realize how much of an impact going from 1:4 to 1:1 is and I don't like it any more than anyone else. It represents a great reduction in our productivity. My point was that our productivity has been reduced even before you get to that step in the equation. In other words, our productivity was reduced in several ways. The switch from 1:4 to 1:1 is only one of them.
Also, I appreciate you running the numbers for the Hearty fields. I somehow missed that information in your post. Regardless, the 1:1 switch, as you say, negates any improvement Hearty fields may have offered.
Originally Posted by Evebel
It's a giant slap in the face to the good farmers of Middle-Earth, many of whom were putting faith in Turbine's promise to "increase harvest yields" and "improve production efficiency." If this was just a "bug" or mistake on Turbine's part ("Oops, somebody fell asleep at the wheel, we meant that to be the same old 4:1 ratio!") then I can't understand why we haven't received an apology and a hotfix by now. If it was actually intentionally misleading, then my opinion of this company just took a very sharp fall.
I'm right there with ya. There's an old saying that I think is appropriate here, but I doubt I can say it without getting in trouble. But, it has to do with something unpleasant happening to my leg or foot while being told "it's just raining".
And I absolutely agree with your points. Farmers "on a budget" will be hit even harder. I've been using the hearty fields exclusively, regardless of the cost, and the time increase is driving me crazy. My play time (the little bit I get every night) has been effectively cut in half, because I have to spend so much time farming, just to keep up with my repasts and making food for myself. All the while, I realize other people have it worse than I do!
I'm reminded of those stores that advertise "We're having a sale! 25% off!" They neglect to mention that they jacked the prices up 400% the night before the sale. So those $120 pair of shoes that you can now get "on sale" for $90? They were $30 last week. Sale or no sale, you're still spending 3x as much if you buy today.
RoI is exactly like that. We can process crops 25% faster at the workbench, but each crop is worth 1/4 of what it used to be worth. The net effect is that everything takes 3x as long.
Or, put another way, it's as if Turbine advertised that they were "increasing your dps by 25%!" while neglecting to mention that average mob morale was increased from 4,000 to 16,000. Net effect? It's going to take you 3x as long to kill anything, good luck with that.
My play time (the little bit I get every night) has been effectively cut in half, because I have to spend so much time farming, just to keep up with my repasts and making food for myself. All the while, I realize other people have it worse than I do!
Cooking for raiding kins.
The bright side of f2p is that I'm strongly considering a second account to run on the kid's computer processing farm ####.
"The quest for excellence is a mark of maturity; the quest for power is childish"
Like a poster above, I tend to cook to support my raiding kin. I rarely make power/morale food in batches of less than a thousand. Ingredient packs aren't really an option.
Everyone needs to /bug this in-game. If you think you'll forget, then do it now from here in the forums. Obviously the devs are not reading this forum, or one of them would have chimed in by now, so let's make SURE they're aware of the problem, because it's almost certain, given the RoI Crafting Dev Diary, that this is not what was intended.
If you don't know how to report a bug, here's the link:
This only seems to affect the new tier - not sure if that indicates it is intended or simply buggy as expected. I haven't done any Westfold farming yet (I have 3 farmers but only 1 is 65), but what farming I did do returned the normal four items from one crop (carrots and tea leaves). Now I'll have to watch and make sure others seem normal as well.
Wingwoz (on hunters in LOTRO), "I prefer to think of them more like Elvis or James Dean. Terminally self indulgent but their presence in a party, nay, the very fact that they ever existed, makes the world a cooler place."
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Everyone needs to /bug this in-game. If you think you'll forget, then do it now from here in the forums. Obviously the devs are not reading this forum, or one of them would have chimed in by now, so let's make SURE they're aware of the problem, because it's almost certain, given the RoI Crafting Dev Diary, that this is not what was intended.
If you don't know how to report a bug, here's the link:
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Re: RoI: Am I missing something, or is Turbine?
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