Change Gardening so that it can harvest herb seeds from pre-existing herb bushes
issueid=1341 11-13-2012 09:43 PM
Pim Pim is offline
Member
Number of reported issues by Pim: 9
Change Gardening so that it can harvest herb seeds from pre-existing herb bushes
Add flavor and value to Gardening, without making it overpowered.

Problem: herb seeds are super rare. That makes Gardening very, very difficult to put to good use. Currently, the only benefit from having Gardening, instead of just having a lot of holy water, is being able to convert a non-herb level into an herb-sustaining level. (And, obviously, saving yourself some holy water.) In order to achieve this benefit, you must have an herb seed, which is very rare.

Suggestion: alter the Gardening skill so that when Used on a square containing an herb bush, it lowers the size of the bush (in exactly the same way that picking herbs does, i.e., according to the Herbalism skill), and generates herb seeds (but no herbs). Perhaps 1d3-1. Better yet, some formula based on the Gardening skill value.

Benefits: characters who acquire Gardening will have an easier time of creating gardens. Creating gardens is already easy enough even for those without Herbalism or Gardening, so this will not be an overpowering change.

P.S.: It's also possible, that there is a means of acquiring herb seeds somehow, that I am not aware of, which would obviate this suggestion entirely. Before anyone replies "kill things in the ID," that is not a means of acquiring any particular item, it can only generate random drops. In any case, that is likely to generate more than 3x as much holy water as herb seeds, given their relative rarity.
Issue Details
Issue Number 1341
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category Windows XP
Status Implemented
Priority Unknown
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 3
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 7
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 5
Votes against this feature 1
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




11-14-2012 02:31 AM
Senior Member
...it lowers the size of the bush... and generates herb seeds (but no herbs). Perhaps 1d3-1.
This is the only part I disagree with. If the Gardening Skill can be applied when in possession of herb seeds to create herb bushes, and then applied to the herb bushes to create even more herb seeds, then it becomes a herb seed factory, and ruins the effect.

I'm not sure what "stage" the herb bushes are created at when using Gardening with seeds, but here's my opinion: they should start at the withered stage, and it should only be possible to get seeds from the herbs when they are blossoming (after all, blossoming the main stage at which plants reproduce, so it would be the only time for the seeds to be growing). At that point, it should simply give you 1d2, and only when you have a fairly high Gardening stat. And when used, it should destroy the bush.

This means that the gardener has to wait for blossoming before they can collect the seeds, and then has to go through and replant after collecting seeds. With a 50% chance of getting a second seed, it's a slow enough process that it wouldn't be highly abusable.

The other alternative could be for PCs with gardening to have some chance of finding herb seeds left behind when picking a herb bush clean (that is picking it past withering). In that case, 1d3-1 could work if there were, say, an N% chance of it happening, where N is the skill level of Gardening (so with Gardening at 100, the PC would, on average, get one seed per bush).

11-14-2012 10:15 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Aielyn
they should start at the withered stage, and it should only be possible to get seeds from the herbs when they are blossoming
I like this idea.

11-14-2012 12:04 PM
Ancient Member
I like pims general suggestion to make the gardening skill somehow useful and I think that Aielyns suggestions are very nice for the details.

11-14-2012 04:29 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Aielyn
This is the only part I disagree with. If the Gardening Skill can be applied when in possession of herb seeds to create herb bushes, and then applied to the herb bushes to create even more herb seeds, then it becomes a herb seed factory, and ruins the effect.

I'm not sure what "stage" the herb bushes are created at when using Gardening with seeds, but here's my opinion: they should start at the withered stage, and it should only be possible to get seeds from the herbs when they are blossoming (after all, blossoming the main stage at which plants reproduce, so it would be the only time for the seeds to be growing). At that point, it should simply give you 1d2, and only when you have a fairly high Gardening stat. And when used, it should destroy the bush.

This means that the gardener has to wait for blossoming before they can collect the seeds, and then has to go through and replant after collecting seeds. With a 50% chance of getting a second seed, it's a slow enough process that it wouldn't be highly abusable.

The other alternative could be for PCs with gardening to have some chance of finding herb seeds left behind when picking a herb bush clean (that is picking it past withering). In that case, 1d3-1 could work if there were, say, an N% chance of it happening, where N is the skill level of Gardening (so with Gardening at 100, the PC would, on average, get one seed per bush).
I think this is a great idea. I think the original suggestion of the OP is maybe a little excessive--it means from one or two random useless bushes in a corridor, you could generate enough seeds to build a complete farm.

11-14-2012 06:04 PM
Senior Member
I think OP's idea is pretty good as it is, even without changes, but there should be a chance of failure depending on skill level. Then getting enough seeds from one or two useless bushes will be quite luck dependant.

11-15-2012 10:16 AM
Ancient Member
I think it should destroy the whole bush when picking seeds, including on fail. It's not realistic but it's more balancing. Herbs are immensely powerful after all.

11-15-2012 03:33 PM
Senior Member
This somewhy reminds me of Minecraft.

11-15-2012 03:41 PM
Ancient Member
So, an existing 2x2 pattern supplies infinite number of seeds? Not that gardening is ok now, but this is potentially a super-fast way to generate giant herb farms. Also take into account that destroying a herb bush in 1 go greatly lessens the dangers of messing up farms due to consequent generations.

11-15-2012 04:00 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by _Ln_
this is potentially a super-fast way to generate giant herb farms.
It sort of is, but I don't really see a problem with that? With 4 successful bush creations and the pattern that was posted a while ago you can already make a herb farm of 4 squares that together give you infinite herbs of all 7 types (and it involves very little risk of messing up). All a really big farm adds to that is giving you the same herbs a bit faster.

Granted, if this feature is accepted, it will mean any character with the gardening skill is now a farmer.. that might actually be worth considering. Maybe it's more fun to make picking herb seeds a farmer class power?

11-15-2012 04:36 PM
Ancient Member
The difference is that you can do this on any level or cover the whole CoC with herbs which you can pick while strolling from point A to point B.

Of course, I don't have anything opposing this - farmers (players, not char class) gonna farm in any case, but these are some epic proportions with little effort. Either we want to fix herbs or we don't.

11-16-2012 02:39 PM
Senior Member
Quote Originally Posted by grobblewobble
Granted, if this feature is accepted, it will mean any character with the gardening skill is now a farmer.. that might actually be worth considering. Maybe it's more fun to make picking herb seeds a farmer class power?
Any character with or without gardening and even herbalism can become a farmer. The only thing needed is a herb-supporting level, but if you have one, having seeds is nothing more than a nice bonus.

11-16-2012 02:57 PM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by _Ln_
The difference is that you can do this on any level or cover the whole CoC with herbs which you can pick while strolling from point A to point B.

Of course, I don't have anything opposing this - farmers (players, not char class) gonna farm in any case, but these are some epic proportions with little effort. Either we want to fix herbs or we don't.
Assuming that you've been pumping your gardening skill, which is, IIRC, fairly hard to train for pretty much any class (even farmers can't max gardening before about level 10). Realistically, even with this change, most classes will have access to the herbs they need in some form or other long before this becomes relevant. I don't think this is so terribly exploitable, honestly. Depends too on if/what changes happen to herbs themselves.

12-08-2012 08:49 PM
The Creator
I think I have added a nice mix of the things suggested above. Enjoy!

12-08-2012 08:50 PM
The Creator
BTW, since a number of other issues implemented today downturn the power of herbs I'm really curious to see if this opens up actual opportunities for abuse.

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