I still don't like herbs

[Evil Knievel]

Herbs have been changed to reduce their scumminess and the connected tedium.

I still find myself stopping on herb levels where 4x4 patches are, press lots of w5 a few times to get those spenseweeds etc, and waste my real life time this way. Not much anymore, but it is NOT FUN and I don't have enough RL time anymore for this game anyway.

I thought of a change that would eliminate the problem once and for all:

Every X turns put a little random element into the herb growth rules. No more indefinitely stable farms, no more scumming.

(I would even like it if herbs behaved even more random, so you basically only can pick them up on passing by. Make more herb levels to compensate if required)

[Heikki]

Herbs have been changed to reduce their scumminess and the connected tedium.

I still find myself stopping on herb levels where 4x4 patches are, press lots of w5 a few times to get those spenseweeds etc, and waste my real life time this way. Not much anymore, but it is NOT FUN and I don't have enough RL time anymore for this game anyway.

I thought of a change that would eliminate the problem once and for all:

Every X turns put a little random element into the herb growth rules. No more indefinitely stable farms, no more scumming.

(I would even like it if herbs behaved even more random, so you basically only can pick them up on passing by. Make more herb levels to compensate if required)

Spenseweed and stomafillia are not scummy, stat-raising herbs are no longer scummy (IMO) because they cannot raise the stat potentials anymore.

I like farmers, and randomness to herbs would totally ruin the fun playing a farmer.

[grobblewobble]

Well, to be fair spenseweed is still an unlimited source of healing, if you farm it long enough.

But I wouldn't call it "scumming", either. Scumming is a word that once (?) meant "borderline cheating", or rule abuse. Ring of weakness, piety overflow, dragon gold doubling, that sort of thing. Anything that makes you wonder if it is a bug or a feature, because it's gamebreakingly OP.

And farming is definitely not that. This is something I'd call grinding, rather than scumming. Just like saccing monsters for hours, smithing, or pickpocketing.

I don't really care if another herb nerf will happen or not, but it will always be possible to grind. And if you don't like doing it, just don't. You do not need to grind to win. Set yourself a challenge, if it helps.

[anon123]

I still find myself stopping on herb levels where 4x4 patches are, press lots of w5 a few times to get those spenseweeds etc, and waste my real life time this way. Not much anymore, but it is NOT FUN and I don't have enough RL time anymore for this game anyway.

Then just pick every herb bush you find to death and go on your merry way. You'll spend more time actually playing the game and have more fun.


(...) farming is definitely not that. This is something I'd call grinding, rather than scumming. Just like saccing monsters for hours, smithing, or pickpocketing.

I don't really care if another herb nerf will happen or not, but it will always be possible to grind. And if you don't like doing it, just don't. You do not need to grind to win. Set yourself a challenge, if it helps.

Agreed. That's the same reason I see (for example) no need to touch wish engines further. There will always be someone spending insane amounts of time and effort exploiting certain things in the game to ridiculous extents. Doesn't mean they should be nerfed to the point they're bland and of no interest to anyone.

[Blasphemous]

There will always be someone spending insane amounts of time and effort exploiting certain things in the game to ridiculous extents. Doesn't mean they should be nerfed to the point they're bland and of no interest to anyone.

Truer words have never been said.

I for one love herb farming and I don't think it's tedious because I simply enjoy it. Maybe I should have become a farmer in real life rather than engineer but that's beside the point.
I wouldn't want to see herbs changed in the suggested way, they aren't op and like the other posters said, it's not a mandatory feature.
Actually a few of the last games I had, I never bothered with extensive herb farming.
I had 3 herb levels with 3-4 stable patches each and what I got from them over the course of the game were some emergency stomafillia herbs and a bit of Dx and To training, nothing op.
I think it's a fair balance.

On the other hand, nothing pleases me as much as seeing a pacified big room with four wall-to-wall herb rows of all types :D
Like Ln once said, "My inner farmer approves."

[divij]

i feel like not being able to increase stats past its potential is already a MASSIVE nerf to herbfarming. however farming spenseweed or pepperpetals is scumming/grinding for sure. using morgia/moss to reach potentials is being smart.
also i think people who want to use a feature will use it neways no matter what you do and if you make things difficult, people who genuinely want to use that feature will be the real ones getting affected. so though its counterinuitive i would say that dont touch herbalism as it is right now...
on a related note..i think grinding for books in ID is BIGGER grinding than herb farming EVER can get..so lets get our priorities right!!

[Evil Knievel]

Well, grinding was the word then, not scumming.

You are all right, herbs have been nerfed to death already. Still I think it is just a grindy thing, which serves no purpose. All this nerves have not hit the point. The point was to remove the grindy thing.

Make herbs unpredictable/unfarmable should have been the only change in hindsight. All the others not required. You find some herbs, you are lucky, you get a few of them. You don't, you don't. No sustainability in adom!

I also think that corruption is now so pointless, it should be massively re-introduced. The game becomes grindy without the kick into the butt to move on. All the content is grindy. I am level 20 but I still have 10 caves far below my standard to explore and grind - fun? no. Throw back in corruption, so I would have to chose were to go and where not.

(guys take it easy on me - these rants are whiskey-ridden)

[Al-Khwarizmi]

Well, grinding was the word then, not scumming.

You are all right, herbs have been nerfed to death already. Still I think it is just a grindy thing, which serves no purpose. All this nerves have not hit the point. The point was to remove the grindy thing.

Make herbs unpredictable/unfarmable should have been the only change in hindsight. All the others not required. You find some herbs, you are lucky, you get a few of them. You don't, you don't. No sustainability in adom!
+1 to all of this. I think exactly the same. As I already said in more than one thread, it's the ability of producing infinite herbs that caused all the grinding and imbalances, not the effects of the herbs. Herb nerfs have made the game much better but it would have been easier and better to just make them finite. Unfortunately I don't think we'll ever see that, I guess the game of life thing is too iconic, even if it does more harm than good to the game.



I also think that corruption is now so pointless, it should be massively re-introduced. The game becomes grindy without the kick into the butt to move on. All the content is grindy. I am level 20 but I still have 10 caves far below my standard to explore and grind - fun? no. Throw back in corruption, so I would have to chose were to go and where not.
I agree, but I think the current corruption nerf isn't supposed to be permanent. Or at least more late-game content will be introduced that is supposed to make us get corrupted again. I don't think TB himself thinks the current situation with this is ideal, it's just under development. I do agree with you anyway, the game is long enough, I like the race against the clock and having to choose where to go.

[gdo]

What, precisely, is forcing you to keep standing around and doing something that you consider unfun in this single player game?

This having been said, spenseweed as a source of 'unlimited' healing is not really any more 'unlimited' than Cure Light Wounds on casters. Should Cure Light Wounds be nerfed because some players feel the need to spam the infinite dungeon getting many, many books of CLW? It's silly - these provide a nice source of healing for non-casting classes. Nothing scummy about it.

[kevintrimble]

I think a simple nerf would be for herbs to rot like they do in real life. Most fresh herbs last a week at most in my fridge but if I stored them in a back pack while hiking through caves, crossing rivers, and going into hot towers I think it would be closer to one day. Granted dried herbs last longer but you have to mix them into food. I guess thats a idea make it so you have to combine herbs with other food before eating. Most pills you have to eat with food. Honestly I just pick herbs when I see them and really only use the poision and sickness curing ones.

[SinsI]

Solution should be a way to get herbs consistently via normal gameplay, not nerfs or other changes to herb effects. My idea was to create some kind of flower pot item that sits in inventory and constantly generates new ones, similar to the way SI propagates itself. This way player will no longer be tied to the same level for thousands of turns.

[Blasphemous]

Herbs are actually magical in nature, that's why they don't rot.
There will always be something in the game that can be abused by grinders/scummers.
You change herbs, people find something else.
In a game as complex as ADoM, there is just no way to remove all methods of scumming.
Just leave it be, if that's how people like to play this game then so be it, let them play it their way, it's the price you pay for having MANY options in virtually every situation.
ADoM has always been about having enough things to play comfortably.
If you don't have enough means to remove corruption, either you play a fast game or find/make more corruption removing items.
If your stats are low because of drains or race/class you selected, you will inevitably try to raise them.
If not through herbs then through ID tension rooms and painstakingly gathering items and eating corpses.
If you don't like tension rooms, use chaos alchemy with Moonsickle and a great number of useless potions.

All you achieve by implementing the OP suggestions and similar ideas is a decreased flexibility.
There will ALWAYS be some grindy elements in the game; as soon as you remove one, another one pops up in your head.
If you continue on this path, this will lead to an extremely linear game, which is always a bad thing.
Let the diversity be, let it flourish and let players have a thousand options to choose from.
Let them make bad decisions because of not knowing what is the best course of action, instead of only leaving them with one.

As I mentioned somewhere else already and others pointed out - nobody is forcing you to farm herbs.
I have played both extreme herb farmers and characters without herbalism.
They are both playable and both fun, just in a different way and I wouldn't want that changed.