Thread: Westfold Crop output is Terrible

So I went to make Bilberry pies today, and decided to see what my crit field outputs were, because in the past I felt like I was farming forever to make Westfold food.

5 Crit Shire Apple Trees gave me 104 Shire Apples
5 Crit Hearty Bilberry Fields gave me 43 Bilberries
5 Crit Bilberry Fields gave me 23 Bilberries

Its no wonder like it feels I need to farm forever now, because I do!

Having bulk crop processing doesn't help save time when you need to grow 4x the number of fields, or twice the number of the more expensive hearty fields to equal the same output as a field in the previous tiers.

Fix it so Westfold crops give 4 items instead of one again, or make Westfold Fields give 4x the crop they do, but the current setup is just terrible and needs to be changed.

That's right! New, improved Westfold farming is four times slower and four times more expensive than ever before.

While it's true you don't have to buy fancy soil for crit items anymore, any saving on that end is more than lost on the fact that you only get one finished product from any fair crop.

It's nice to be able to process your crops five at a time, but that's a rather tiny time saving overall. And it's a time saving on the process that's the least annoying! Pretty much everyone just sets their farmer to process all and wanders off to do something else while it happens.

Yes, I complely agree with this, Westfold Farming made Farming even MORE dreaded to me, I had enough issues getting myself to farm for critted output supreme teir and under. Now, it would take me quite a while to get my cook to Westfold mastery. While the lack of output MAY be somewhat helpful towards the overall farmer experience game, it doesn't seem that way, it just makes this game even more of a grind then it already is.

Originally Posted by SagerRonan

Yes, I complely agree with this, Westfold Farming made Farming even MORE dreaded to me, I had enough issues getting myself to farm for critted output supreme teir and under. Now, it would take me quite a while to get my cook to Westfold mastery. While the lack of output MAY be somewhat helpful towards the overall farmer experience game, it doesn't seem that way, it just makes this game even more of a grind then it already is.

Yes, it is really painful. Only way I found to make it palatable was to watch a football game as I farmed. I shouldn't have to seek other forms of entertainment while in a game, really, should I? I find my other crafters (have SM tailor, metalsmith, scholar, jeweler) much more enjoyable, as opposed the farmer repeatedly planting and harvesting 6 fields, with the attendant manual clicks and long delays...

I, too, mostly farm only while watching football. I suppose the one benefit of having to farm more fields is acquiring more crit items for our cooks. I'm fairly certain I've planted over 2,000 fields with my farmer. One thing that really struck me is that there is no real difference in the output from normal fields and (critted) Well-tended fields. Crop yields fall within the same range from both fields, as do the chances of crit item harvests. I don't bother converting my Rich Soil to Peat; rather, I grow Wildflower fields and turn that into dye to support my farming and cooking habits! Well-tended Wildflower fields do yield better than regular fields; those are the only Westfold tier fields that do, in my experience.

Something is very broken with Westfold tier farming, in my opinion, beyond the one-to-one bushel to crop ratio.

I just do hearty fields and 5x de-busheling. Never using crit item, better to grow wild-flowers with the Rich soil.

Its more expensive, by far. but much faster almost fast as prior tiers.

I agree... I now cringe at the thought of doing Farming and Cooking.
Also, after checking the Update 5 notes (Bullroarer), there was no mention of dealing with this huge time-sink they've created.

Thanks for the extra grind Turbine /endsarcasm

Judging by the huge lack of response by any Dev in any of the threads asking about/complaining about Westfold Farming I think after this much time has passed since launch of RoI it is safe to assume Tier 7 Westfold farming is working as intended and the change was indeed purposely designed by Turbine to be this way.

I don't think we'll ever see a change back to 1 crop = 4 produce ever again and what scares me is they may go back and revamp all lower tiers to be the same way.

I used to really enjoy farming. Tier 7 is trying my patience though. It's almost painful just thinking about having to go farm crops for my cook. ugh.

Maybe a change for the 4 output was needed but1? Geez, 2 would have been a lot better and not make farming feel worse than grinding certain slayer deeds.

5.1 today, and no fix for farming. sigh.

I needed 100 golden shire potatoes and 100 leeks today. To get the potatoes, I planted 4 seeds. To get the leeks, I had to plant 33 seeds. This is seriously messed up.

Originally Posted by Rhiana8

5.1 today, and no fix for farming. sigh.

I needed 100 golden shire potatoes and 100 leeks today. To get the potatoes, I planted 4 seeds. To get the leeks, I had to plant 33 seeds. This is seriously messed up.

In order for something to be "fixed", Turbine has to decide that it is "broken." Draw your own conclusions.

--W. H. Heydt

Old Used Programmer

Originally Posted by Rhiana8

5.1 today, and no fix for farming. sigh.

I needed 100 golden shire potatoes and 100 leeks today. To get the potatoes, I planted 4 seeds. To get the leeks, I had to plant 33 seeds. This is seriously messed up.

Like whheydt, I do not believe Turbine agrees with our position. It is working the way Turbine wants it to work. Turbine not changing.

Food for Thought - Fussing about it too much might not be a good idea. Turbine could decide to change Tier 1-6 to work like Tier 7. Each bushel gives one veggie. Thank goodness Turbine has a lot of inertia and lack of interest for messing with old content. I doubt they would got to this much effort.

Another thing is that Turbine has not done much with Tier 7 crafting. It still looks very unpolished and not finished. Perhaps there is hope Turbine will get a Round Tuit to work on Westfold crafting.

Let's not forget the fact that it takes ~20 seconds to make ONE peat. But at least you can AFK for that part.

One thing I've noticed (and that I haven't seen mentioned yet) is that tier 7 farming feels (at least to me) like it levels faster than previous tiers. The output is terrible, granted, but mastery helps a little with that.

It is an insult what they've done with farming in RoI. 4x the planting, 4X the harvesting, but oh wait 1/5 the processing to get the same produce. And to have to use the same crit ingredient for planting and processing is yet another insult. I'd rather have 1:4 crop to ingredient ratio than hearty seeds that cost 5x regular seeds but barely produce 2x the yield and saving a little time at the workbench.

Please guys, correct your cranial rectal immersion and give us back our 1:4 crop to produce ratio.

I just did a little testing with times.

It takes 20 seconds to plant a field. It takes 6 seconds to harvest a field. It takes 10 seconds to process a bushel of crops.

Say you want 100 of a certain ingredient, leeks for example. If you average 5 crops per planting, it will take 20 plantings to get 100 leek crops to turn in 100 leeks. Then you use the bulk processing to 'save time'. That's 20*(20+6) + 20*(10) for a grand total of 726 seconds or just about 12 minutes. Say you need 100 Golden Shire Potatoes. If you average the same 5 bushels per planting, you need 5 plantings. Since you don't have bulk processing, you have to use the original processing. That's 5*(20+6) +25*(10) for 380 seconds, or just about 6 and a half minutes.

So I've lost 5 and half minutes in tier 7. Nearly double the time for the same amount of ingredients. So we were spending too mush time at the workbench....Hrmmm, looks like I'm spending 20% more time at the workbench now that I have to plant and harvest 4x the ingredients.

Just wanted to add my voice - I am also SO frustrated with this. My husband is sick of hearing me complain about it

What it comes down to is there are so many other things I'd rather be doing than the craft grind. And tier 7 really is a grind. It is ridiculous for it to take that much longer than the others. And one of the worst parts is they said it would make farming faster. Nope!

All this time since RoI and Westfold farming were introduced and still not a single Developer response to the current state of Farming or even Crafting in general....................... that tells me they simply do not care and what we have is exactly what was intended.

It is also my belief that the current state of Westfold Farming (ie 1 crop = 1 produce) will be retroactively applied to ALL Farming levels Tier 1-6 without any announcement or input from the Devs.

I have given up on Turbine and their lack of communication.

The changes to Farming with the Westfold Tier are a sucker punch to the gut of all Crafters and the total lack of communication is the exclamation point that says Turbine does not care about it's player base.

It just sucks the wind out of wanting to play the game.

Originally Posted by Grhysli

It is also my belief that the current state of Westfold Farming (ie 1 crop = 1 produce) will be retroactively applied to ALL Farming levels Tier 1-6 without any announcement or input from the Devs.

I seriously doubt this change will happen. Turbine does not have the resources to do retrofits. You look at game features it is real easy to find many situations where a direction change occurred going forward. Turbine never went back and changed the older content.

You are talking about crafting. It is not well funded feature. Turbine does not have the resources to finish tier 7. They certainly do not have the resources to go back and change all the tier 1 - 6 farming recipes.

It is lot like Finesse. I doubt we will ever see any changes to the level 1 - 65 gear to put a Finesse stat on some of the items.

I guess thanks are in order, somewhat. Turbine met us halfway with 5.2 and increased the yield to 2 per crop. It's far from being correct and consistent, but that doesn't seem to be a concern of Turbine's anymore. At least now I only have to plant 1600 leaks to make soups for all my alts.