Thread: Massive Westfold Farming Analysis

EDIT: Please interpret these results with caution. 5.2 patch "increased the output amounts on the Bundle of Black Barley, Bunch of Bilberries, Bunch of Leeks and Bag of Coffee Beans from 1 to 2 on the small crop and from 5 to 10 on the large. If a crit happens, the small crops will produce 4 items and the large crop will produce 24. " These chance will effect not the results from the crop plantings but will impact things like cost:benefit, and the number of total crops once processed.

Many farmers are unsure of whether to use regular Westfold or hearty Westfold crops, and whether it is worth it to use peat with either of them, this experiment tested that. I planted a total of four thousand crops which totaled 22,890 fair black barley crops.

This experiment compared one thousand plantings each for: hearty crop + peat, hearty crop no peat, regular crop + peat, and regular crop no peat.
I am not a statistician, but i believe my results have around a +-3% potential margin of error with a 95% confidence interval.

Please see this spreadsheet https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/...m9sNWdXdFg4VVE for raw data, charts, and results!
Below is some of the summarized and analyzed data.
Ratios are for each single planting of the crop black barley

hearty crop + peat: Herb ratio: .99, barley ratio: 8.38
hearty crop no peat: Herb ratio: .50, barley ratio: 6.57
regular crop + peat: Herb ratio: .51, barley ratio: 4.63
regular crop no peat: Herb ratio: .24, barley ratio: 3.31

For example for 100 plantings you should expect on average:

hearty crop + peat: Herbs: 99, barley: 838
hearty crop no peat: Herbs: 50, barley: 657
regular crop + peat: Herbs: 51, barley: 463
regular crop no peat: Herbs: 24, barley: 331

Here is the expected time for planting and harvesting 100 crops:
hearty crop + peat: 5.6 minutes
hearty crop no peat: 7.2 minutes
regular crop + peat: 10.2 minutes
regular crop no peat: 14.2 minutes

bulk processing 100: 3.3 minutes

Cost:Benefit for 100 fair barley crops, not including repairs, and assuming zero cost for peat.
hearty crop + peat: 147 silver
hearty crop no peat: 187 silver
regular crop + peat: 58 silver
regular crop no peat: 81 silver

Cost:Benefit for 100 westfold herbs, not including repairs, and zero cost for peat.
hearty crop + peat: 1.240 gold
hearty crop no peat: 2.456 gold
regular crop + peat: .525gold
regular crop no peat: 1.117 gold

Fun Facts:
-This took three weeks, averaging around 200 crops a day.
-I spent 30 gold in just materials.
-Total time farming and processing = 44 hours, around 2.2 hours a day.
-I now hate (westfold) farming with a greater passion than before.
-I forgot to include rich soil drop rate until halfway in the experiment, so i skipped it.

If you have any questions feel free to ask
+Rep if you enjoyed

Boldwin @ Elendilmir server

Very nicely done, and thank you for taking the time to share your results with the Westfold Farming Community!


I'd give you +4,000 rep if I could...

Thank you for the effort

I just planted 100 Hearty Black Barley Field without peats at 5% crit chance, yielded:
683 crops, 57 herbs, and 30 rich soil.
Everything seems about right compared to your data.

I would say rich soil ratio is 0.25 and with peats it could be 0.50.

I have rich soil pilled up in my vault. I just never bothered to compost them into peats due to the sheer amount of times to do it.

I'm sure I've farmed close to 2,000 crops by now, and my experience is in line with the OP's meticulous research. I concluded -- based purely upon trial and error -- that there is no point in using peat to produce well-tended crops. Normal crops offer the best return on silver. Hearty crops offer the best return on time.

However:

For all you dye farmers out there, I'd like to add my non-scientific observation that the increased yield from Well-tended Wildflower Fields seems well worth the effort of using peat.

Originally Posted by Dark_Toad

...that there is no point in using peat to produce well-tended crops. Normal crops offer the best return on silver. Hearty crops offer the best return on time.

I mostly agree with you, however as farmers we are usually also cooks, and desire the westfold herbs. using hearts crops + peat returns a 1:1 crop to westfold herb ratio, well worth it imo.

Originally Posted by Acebold

I mostly agree with you, however as farmers we are usually also cooks, and desire the westfold herbs. using hearts crops + peat returns a 1:1 crop to westfold herb ratio, well worth it imo.

An excellent point, and one that was lost on me in your analysis! I do, indeed, desire the critically cooked vitality and agility trail food, and my cooks chew (pun intended) through the Westfold Herbs at a furious rate. Thanks to your research, I'll now look at a Pile of Rich Soil and see a Westfold Herb.

Its very much worth the investment, i buy rich soil for up to 2g a stack in order to have enough peat to use with the hearty westfold.
For example, 2g for rich soil and 1.24g for the other mats, will give you 100 westfold herbs and around 840 barley. thats only 3.24g for all that, it would return a large profit margin even if you just sold those mats, and using the westfold herbs to make the crit food would give you more.

Just wanted to say nice piece of work and +rep.

The patch has changed things for the better - we now get 2x the output on Westfold crops not 1.

Indeed the patch will make a huge difference
Personally, I feel that all the numbers are still valid, just multiply by 2 with the patch (the bulk production crit magnitude change does not make enough difference for me to be concerned with, as it is applied regardless of what you plant)
Consider, instead of 3.3 minutes processing per 100, we will be around 1.5 minutes per hundred... and with half the cost to boot.
As a side note: the Westfold herbs will either be more or less valuable now, as the farming is FAR less tedious, allowing for more raw materials.

Sorry to pull up a slightly aged thread, but it has aged well. Even without any edits to the OP, I still have to agree that using the hearty crops and the peat soil for the crit is worth it. However, in my opinion the stock on Herbs and Rich Soil will be a bit lower, since fewer fields have to be planted and harvested to gain the same amount of materials. During the first weeks or so of RoI my farmer/cook make a lot of black barley and I ended up with a large amount of peat, rich soil, and herbs. As a result I burned through much of that as my mains hit cap and even though I've done little more farming lately (due to heavy stocks on the raw mats) my stocks of the crit soils and herbs is quite dwindled. (This could also be due in part to the fact I haven't done all that much gathering or farming lately either... been leveling alts instead of crafting. Shame on me.)

So, to put it more succinctly, Herbs and soil have probably become more valuable, though people likely (if selling them) won't charge as much due to the greater ease of the Tier.

In closing, my devil's advocate thoughts as to why Turbine left farming and other gathering professions at a loss (ie. forester's highest tier birch boards, and prospecting high-grade skarn, and scholar's Tomes) was likely to drive market share up for those that took part in it, and to make many of the higher level gear and consumables more difficult to come by.

For those who benefited from my work, know that I am conducting a more exhaustive research analysis for the T8 Eastemnet tier.
My goal is to conduct a 4 way experiment comparing
(Hearty + Peat) X (Hearty no Peat) X (Regular + Peat) X ( Regular no Peat)

I plan to have a sample size of 3000 crops of each of the 4 categories and collect data on the return rate of: Tarnished Crests, herbs, soils, crop ratios, and much more. This experiment will total 12,000 total crop plantings and unknown crop return.
I am currently about 1/4 of the way through.
ETA for results = Dec 1st.

Originally Posted by Acebold

For those who benefited from my work, know that I am conducting a more exhaustive research analysis for the T8 Eastemnet tier.
My goal is to conduct a 4 way experiment comparing
(Hearty + Peat) X (Hearty no Peat) X (Regular + Peat) X ( Regular no Peat)

I plan to have a sample size of 3000 crops of each of the 4 categories and collect data on the return rate of: Tarnished Crests, herbs, soils, crop ratios, and much more. This experiment will total 12,000 total crop plantings and unknown crop return.
I am currently about 1/4 of the way through.
ETA for results = Dec 1st.

You sir, are a masochist of the highest order... and we much appreciate it.

The 1° december this one will be the first thread i will read

Originally Posted by Acebold

For those who benefited from my work, know that I am conducting a more exhaustive research analysis for the T8 Eastemnet tier.
ETA for results = Dec 1st.

Thank you SOOO much =)

Since cooking so solely reliant on drops for anything practical I've limited any farming to the bare minimum needed for guild rep. I'll never be buying recipes for anything that cost more than 1g a pop unless its a single shot pattern I cant guild craft.

Eastemnet still seems to be the same as westfold though with costs.