...I would like to see gardening plots degrade over time, with regular soil expiring after 1 harvest and enchanted soil after 3, crop rotation and all...
...I would like to see gardening plots degrade over time, with regular soil expiring after 1 harvest and enchanted soil after 3, crop rotation and all...
Now that really would be a money and time sink! My real life garden has soil in it that was fine before I existed and will be fine long after I am gone. Why would plots degrade and expire?
Now that really would be a money and time sink! My real life garden has soil in it that was fine before I existed and will be fine long after I am gone. Why would plots degrade and expire?
IMO, I believe it would go a long way towards curbing the stacking garden exploit, which would go a long way towards removing the easy button for raising pets, which would make the pet games worth doing vs. auto failing so you can cram +50 snacks down their throat as fast as possible...and with grub guardian guaranteeing you basically AT LEAST one Wu/Energy Elixir a day Im not sure where the costing you anything comes from.
While those that dont know about the stacking garden exploits/grub guardian are buying Mega Snack Packs and Energy elixirs and are essentially getting shafted.
So to sum it up, those that exploit are getting rewarded and those that support the game are getting ripped off. I think its pretty clear why plots should expire...
Some crops actually do deplete the nitrogen or other nutrients in the soil, which is why farmers must do crop rotation and/or let fields "lay fallow" for a couple of years. Intensively growing the same crop year after year will indeed degrade the soil.
With crop rotation, the point is to take advantage of plants that are "nitrogen fixers," meaning they put it back in and so replenish the nitrogen levels after a previous crop depleted it. Often legumes or alfalfa are used as nitrogen fixers after a more intensive crop such as cotton has been harvested.
Adding a feature like this would certainly add complexity to the game.
I like the idea but the problem is that it would still cost energy. And get make the lifespan of the soil longer than one harvest and more like five for regular and seven for enchanted. Also get a fertilizing spell so the lifespan of the soil would start over. But the odds of this happening are very very low.
Now that really would be a money and time sink! My real life garden has soil in it that was fine before I existed and will be fine long after I am gone. Why would plots degrade and expire?
In real life soil quality decreases the more plantings you have and if you fertilize it keeps the plants growing correctly. Without fertilizer the quality of plant and speed of growth slow over time without fertilizer.
Rotation isn't the same as soil plots vanishing, which is what I (perhaps mistakenly) thought the OP was suggesting after one elder harvest. Looking after plants already costs excessive energy, presumably this is enough to maintain the soil itself? Do we really want the glitches of lost seeds or soil plots changing because their nutrients are now only appropriate for a different seed?
It's a side activity. We farm for seeds, we build our plots, we nurture the plants to get snacks and gold to hatch the pets, train the pets, hatch and retrain, rinse and repeat a bazillion times for one pet. Is it not enough time and energy already?
If my soil plots all decided to degrade I wouldn't be rebuilding them every elder harvest I'd be giving up on gardening....then pet training because of no snacks....then sharing pets because where is the fun any more when no-one has snacks to train....
Of course if I were a farmer irl then I'd maybe bother with such extremes (I've already gone to pretty extreme lengths on gardening in game as it is lol) but I'm not playing Farmville, I'm supposed to be a wizard!
Oh and stacking is NOT an exploit. Exploits can get you banned as they are against the Terms of Use. Stacking is not! Here is the thread where Moolinda Woo says we can stack but it isn't covered by support eg if you lose a seed or mess up they won't get someone to go into your account to fix it for you (her post is the 10th one down): https://www.wizard101.com/forum/gardening/rumor-or-not-bannable-for-plant-stacking-48826
It seems this actually all stems from the false belief stacking is an exploit that is being ignored. The problem this is trying to solve isn't a problem. It was solved when they made gardening spells affect a fixed number of plants instead of anything within the area it can hit.
Maybe pets should die after a while, wizards get sick or houses need constant repairs too?
IMO, I believe it would go a long way towards curbing the stacking garden exploit, which would go a long way towards removing the easy button for raising pets, which would make the pet games worth doing vs. auto failing so you can cram +50 snacks down their throat as fast as possible...and with grub guardian guaranteeing you basically AT LEAST one Wu/Energy Elixir a day Im not sure where the costing you anything comes from.
While those that dont know about the stacking garden exploits/grub guardian are buying Mega Snack Packs and Energy elixirs and are essentially getting shafted.
So to sum it up, those that exploit are getting rewarded and those that support the game are getting ripped off. I think its pretty clear why plots should expire...
A better solution would be to fix the stacking garden exploit. Pet training and gardening is hard enough as is.
Rotation isn't the same as soil plots vanishing, which is what I (perhaps mistakenly) thought the OP was suggesting after one elder harvest. Looking after plants already costs excessive energy, presumably this is enough to maintain the soil itself? Do we really want the glitches of lost seeds or soil plots changing because their nutrients are now only appropriate for a different seed?
It's a side activity. We farm for seeds, we build our plots, we nurture the plants to get snacks and gold to hatch the pets, train the pets, hatch and retrain, rinse and repeat a bazillion times for one pet. Is it not enough time and energy already?
If my soil plots all decided to degrade I wouldn't be rebuilding them every elder harvest I'd be giving up on gardening....then pet training because of no snacks....then sharing pets because where is the fun any more when no-one has snacks to train....
Of course if I were a farmer irl then I'd maybe bother with such extremes (I've already gone to pretty extreme lengths on gardening in game as it is lol) but I'm not playing Farmville, I'm supposed to be a wizard!
Oh and stacking is NOT an exploit. Exploits can get you banned as they are against the Terms of Use. Stacking is not! Here is the thread where Moolinda Woo says we can stack but it isn't covered by support eg if you lose a seed or mess up they won't get someone to go into your account to fix it for you (her post is the 10th one down): https://www.wizard101.com/forum/gardening/rumor-or-not-bannable-for-plant-stacking-48826
It seems this actually all stems from the false belief stacking is an exploit that is being ignored. The problem this is trying to solve isn't a problem. It was solved when they made gardening spells affect a fixed number of plants instead of anything within the area it can hit.
Maybe pets should die after a while, wizards get sick or houses need constant repairs too?
Love the sarcasm funny as well true true if you want farming to the extreme then go to another game like as you said farmville, mine reference is pure farming simulator but because wizard101 is for all families and i dont know about you but but a kid of 13 is not going to be gardening if it is not fun or going to thier houses to fix them either it would make wizard101 a complete waste of my time and my 10 years of playing would be a waste of my life i have been playing since October 23, 2008 i have several wizard at 100+ and love the game gardening not changing to extreme.
If stacking was so much a problem that it absolutely must be fixed, this isn't the direction I'd want them to go. This wouldn't eliminate stacking, just make it a lot more tedious. Rather, they could make the spells that provide a Need to all plants trainable, as well as making a 2-day prevention version and pest removal/prevention spells with the same full range. This would also make plot placement headache-free and would give wizards a lot more creative freedom in where they would want to place their plants. You would no longer have to worry about clustering them together for maximum efficiency. Ok, well, you'd still want to do that since plants only like or dislike the things they do if they're close enough, but that can be fixed too.
LOL, all you exploiters can jump up and down screaming all you want...but it is an exploit. While not a bannable offense, it is shady and goes against the spirit of the game. Just because you built up these huge 3000+ plant empires (as another poster in this thread brags about in other threads) doesn't make it my fault you did so on something that is not supported.
As an aside...throwing around something someone said SIX years ago, when the game has obviously changed from when I stopped playing (Level cap 60), just an desperate attempt by people who have built their lives around some online activity and are deathly afraid to have their reality shattered.
Games like life are evolve or die...you people cost KI untold amounts of revenue META gaming the gardening how you do...you DONT care about the game...and while Im at it, I would love to see everything shaken up as it is...I've been back a month and already have all the gear that all the youtube videos say is to die for...so what have you been doing with these last 10 years of your life?
The general rule is that if you take advantage of an exploit that is clearly costing the game company revenue then you can expect to be banned. While this exploit increases the rewards you get for a fixed amount of energy, I assume KI have calculated that it isn't costing them revenue. Perhaps because they are making more from people purchasing more crown seeds. To take advantage of stacking you need more seeds, and the best seeds cost crowns.
So who suffers? The people that don't stack because it is against the spirit of the game. Why? Because some plants have incredibly low drop rates for the rare reagents or tc you might particularly want. The drop rates have to be low because people stack, and the people that don't stack have virtually no chance of getting them with the same amount of energy.
LOL, all you exploiters can jump up and down screaming all you want...but it is an exploit. While not a bannable offense, it is shady and goes against the spirit of the game. Just because you built up these huge 3000+ plant empires (as another poster in this thread brags about in other threads) doesn't make it my fault you did so on something that is not supported.
As an aside...throwing around something someone said SIX years ago, when the game has obviously changed from when I stopped playing (Level cap 60), just an desperate attempt by people who have built their lives around some online activity and are deathly afraid to have their reality shattered.
Games like life are evolve or die...you people cost KI untold amounts of revenue META gaming the gardening how you do...you DONT care about the game...and while Im at it, I would love to see everything shaken up as it is...I've been back a month and already have all the gear that all the youtube videos say is to die for...so what have you been doing with these last 10 years of your life?
I'm assuming this is directed at me as I did recently mention my extensive gardens on another thread while HELPING someone manage their garden that they felt overwhelmed with. My point was not made to brag, but to reassure them that their garden was not beyond their control and they could achieve what they hoped to
When it comes to reading the tone of a post that could be read in multiple ways we attribute them with the tone we have within ourselves. If you do not hear the intended sincerity, encouragement, excitement and camaraderie in my posts then I can only explain to a certain extent before accepting that it is an influence outwith me rather than my articulation.
I do have extensive gardens and do stack. I don't think there are many people in game who would want/need such excessive resources and many people would not enjoy tending their needs the way I do. I choose to spend time on this, not to brag, but to share! I make many pets purely to share and I give all my TC to my daughter who is even more prolific with hatching and helping others. I use my gold for hatching or buying TC to help fund my daughter's hatching. If not for stacking I would be unable to help other players the way I do.
It doesn't cost KI because I would never be buying mega snack packs and would not be farming for the amount of snacks I use while making pets to share. I do buy energy elixirs, hatching elixirs (for long timers) and reset hatching timer elixirs to keep hatching/training to finish projects faster to be able to start offering them to others who want them. I also never turn away a hatch when anyone asks for one even when it means buying an elixir to do so...this happens regularly and I am glad to have the resources to be able to always say, "Yes of course!"
Gardens = gold/snacks = ability to make nice pets = ability to share nice pets = elixirs for KI and happy wizards with nice pets they can enjoy using and sharing too. This makes me happy
LOL, what EXACTLY is so rare it takes exploiting stacking gardens? Amber? If its so rare...why in less than a month do I have all three craft-able fire spells?
Also part of my objection was exactly that...you think people who are stacking and running 25 perfect grub guardian games a day, while auto click farming couch potatoes while they sleep in a rote effort to expand their ridiculously extreme gardens across multiple wizards and accounts are SPENDING CROWNS...lol.
I seriously doubt it, what I would IMAGINE is happening, if we're going to assume things about their motivations, is that the people who pay for things like seeds, mega snack packs and elixirs are doing the heavy lifting...while people who exploit the previously mentioned problems with gardening as it stands today, are making a killing off of KI's kindness.
Hey, I see the light, Im in the process of building my CP farms as we speak, but its my opinion that it would be better for the game if the stacking would be fixed sooner rather than later. Why spend my money on this game when I can exploit all the holes and do it like everyone else...
LOL, what EXACTLY is so rare it takes exploiting stacking gardens? Amber? If its so rare...why in less than a month do I have all three craft-able fire spells?
Also part of my objection was exactly that...you think people who are stacking and running 25 perfect grub guardian games a day, while auto click farming couch potatoes while they sleep in a rote effort to expand their ridiculously extreme gardens across multiple wizards and accounts are SPENDING CROWNS...lol.
I seriously doubt it, what I would IMAGINE is happening, if we're going to assume things about their motivations, is that the people who pay for things like seeds, mega snack packs and elixirs are doing the heavy lifting...while people who exploit the previously mentioned problems with gardening as it stands today, are making a killing off of KI's kindness.
Hey, I see the light, Im in the process of building my CP farms as we speak, but its my opinion that it would be better for the game if the stacking would be fixed sooner rather than later. Why spend my money on this game when I can exploit all the holes and do it like everyone else...
I don't understand what your heartburn is about stacked gardens. Decide if you want to do it or not.
Nobody else's stacked garden interferes with your gameplay or experience in the slightest.
KI is okay with stacked gardens. Who made you the plant police?
There is absolutely no need to do this. Anybody, and everybody,, can stack gardens. There's nothing to fix. It's not broken. This idea would completely backfire. People would train pets LESS, and thus spend less money. KI legitimized the practice when they stated it was not a bannable offense. You're taking a chance when you do it, and they wont help you recover lost items, but it is a legit way to play the game. The ONLY way I can see to getting rid of the stacking garden issue, would be to at LEAST triple our energy. This way, we can still plant the same number of plots/seeds. It really seems like, more than anything, that you're a purist. IE, the game should be payed "this way" and "this way" only. That's fine if that is how you want to play, however, I will take advantage of any LEGAL method I can in the game.... and garden stacking is one of them. I'm sorry, but your post has the earmarks of being upset that you were beat in PvP due to a pet with "godlike" abilities. If I'm wrong, i'm wrong, but the grudge you hold about SOMETHING that happened is palatable.
First of all, don't get too heated it is just a game. Though I do know you Pyromancers can get very passionate about things.
Second, stacking is not an exploit, what Professor Greyrose said back in the day still stands and has been reaffirmed by Dworgyn in KI Lives multiple times. The most interesting pit of knowledge is that the spell is in such a way as to only affect a limited number of plants. AKA you can not get infinite rewards- the spell caps out at about 70 plants. If you try and stack more into the area there will be plants whose needs can not be met and you can't "exploit" the game beyond what the developers want you too.
I see no benefit in having soil deteriorate. I don't play a game about Wizards and magic due to it's realism generally speaking.
I personally have not done any garden stacking, because I'm not 100% clear on how to set it up, but more importantly I don't want to take the time to set it up. (maybe they could invent a plant pot that holds the max number of seeds? haha. I also am OCD and would feel like I would need to be able to do it all or nothing (so I'd need 69-70 of the one seed type.)
KI gets their revenue from Crowns Purchases and Memberships, what/how you spend those Crowns doesn't really matter so long as you buy more. I personally am still opposed to the idea of "packs" however, I recognize that is a Crowns sink for some players and they'll buy more crowns and in turn the game keeps going for all of us. I also recognize that there are players that think- that's a waste of money, I'm going to instead just pay my membership and farm Loremaster until the end of days- I'm not wasting crowns on that- either way- your paying for your experience it's just how do you wish to pay for it? Both can keep the game going.
I also just want to say that ChicoValerian's comment is the best. I literally laughed out loud at the "plant police." If they ever have an expansion to Gardening there should be a quest that involves the plant police haha.
Some crops actually do deplete the nitrogen or other nutrients in the soil, which is why farmers must do crop rotation and/or let fields "lay fallow" for a couple of years. Intensively growing the same crop year after year will indeed degrade the soil.
With crop rotation, the point is to take advantage of plants that are "nitrogen fixers," meaning they put it back in and so replenish the nitrogen levels after a previous crop depleted it. Often legumes or alfalfa are used as nitrogen fixers after a more intensive crop such as cotton has been harvested.
Adding a feature like this would certainly add complexity to the game.
Alia Misthaven
Rotating crops in real life is good but a game isn't real life and I don't want it to be. In fact that's a huge part of its appeal for many. Escapism.
There are games that have toilets in them but our wizards do not need to eat, drink or use the toilet. I'd say that's fine to leave out. I'd say it's fine to leave out soil erosion also. I already stay away from gardening in Wiz because it's too time consuming and detailed.
Also farmers haven't rotated their crops for decades. Most of them just pile more chemicals in or GMO crops now, instead. (I agree the old way including crop rotation was best but this is a game.) For that matter if we are to start putting real life in here, our wizards could only die one time and the game wouldn't be very long then.
Rotation isn't the same as soil plots vanishing, which is what I (perhaps mistakenly) thought the OP was suggesting after one elder harvest. Looking after plants already costs excessive energy, presumably this is enough to maintain the soil itself? Do we really want the glitches of lost seeds or soil plots changing because their nutrients are now only appropriate for a different seed?
It's a side activity. We farm for seeds, we build our plots, we nurture the plants to get snacks and gold to hatch the pets, train the pets, hatch and retrain, rinse and repeat a bazillion times for one pet. Is it not enough time and energy already?
If my soil plots all decided to degrade I wouldn't be rebuilding them every elder harvest I'd be giving up on gardening....then pet training because of no snacks....then sharing pets because where is the fun any more when no-one has snacks to train....
Of course if I were a farmer irl then I'd maybe bother with such extremes (I've already gone to pretty extreme lengths on gardening in game as it is lol) but I'm not playing Farmville, I'm supposed to be a wizard!
Oh and stacking is NOT an exploit. Exploits can get you banned as they are against the Terms of Use. Stacking is not! Here is the thread where Moolinda Woo says we can stack but it isn't covered by support eg if you lose a seed or mess up they won't get someone to go into your account to fix it for you (her post is the 10th one down): https://www.wizard101.com/forum/gardening/rumor-or-not-bannable-for-plant-stacking-48826
It seems this actually all stems from the false belief stacking is an exploit that is being ignored. The problem this is trying to solve isn't a problem. It was solved when they made gardening spells affect a fixed number of plants instead of anything within the area it can hit.
Maybe pets should die after a while, wizards get sick or houses need constant repairs too?
"Maybe pets should die after a while, wizards get sick or houses need constant repairs too?"
Plz no. I hate those types of games. (I know you are joking btw!)
I lasted about five minutes with those city games where things are always burning or a tornado wipes things out. I can read the headlines if I want that type of stress or problem or concern.
Those games with the toilets and kitchens in them where your person, for some reason, has no clue they have to eat so you have to keep feeding them...and reminding them to sleep as well Lol...were fun at first because of the sandbox aspect, but then it became too much micromanagement.
Nothing about Wiz is like real life so I agree with you that bringing real life in here would be like a discordant bell.
Some of the arguments in this thread sound like Lance Armstrong arguing that he did nothing wrong because almost everyone else in the peloton was using drugs and cycling's governing body wasn't punishing people.
Clearly the game wasn't designed for stacking. If it was, they would support it, and as noted above, they don't support you if anything goes wrong.
Without stacking, you can get 14 couch potatoes covered by a spell. With stacking you can get ~70 for the same energy and this isn't an exploit? If it is intended for you to be able to get 70 plants with one spell, why not just make the radius of the spells larger or the plots smaller? Why even have small, large and medium plots if you are only limited by number of plants?
Justify it to yourselves however you want, but it is an exploit of a glitch. Plenty of space in red barn farm to plant 70 couch potatoes, so there's nothing stopping them increasing the radius of the spells to remove the need to stack/exploit.
Rotating crops in real life is good but a game isn't real life and I don't want it to be. In fact that's a huge part of its appeal for many. Escapism.
There are games that have toilets in them but our wizards do not need to eat, drink or use the toilet. I'd say that's fine to leave out. I'd say it's fine to leave out soil erosion also. I already stay away from gardening in Wiz because it's too time consuming and detailed.
Also farmers haven't rotated their crops for decades. Most of them just pile more chemicals in or GMO crops now, instead. (I agree the old way including crop rotation was best but this is a game.) For that matter if we are to start putting real life in here, our wizards could only die one time and the game wouldn't be very long then.
I don't stack gardens and don't have a dog in this fight.
I merely stated crop rotation exists in the real world because soil does get depleted, and that adding a feature like this to the game would complicate it. Those are facts. As for whether anyone thinks adding complexity is a "bad" or "good" idea probably depends on whether they want more or less challenge from the game. As for my own opinion on the matter, I did not share it in my previous post and I'm not sharing it here either.
Given KI's intent to keep this a kid-friendly fantasy game, I'd imagine they will not introduce this concept of soil degradation. That's as close to an "opinion" as you're going to get from me.
Some of the arguments in this thread sound like Lance Armstrong arguing that he did nothing wrong because almost everyone else in the peloton was using drugs and cycling's governing body wasn't punishing people.
Clearly the game wasn't designed for stacking. If it was, they would support it, and as noted above, they don't support you if anything goes wrong.
Without stacking, you can get 14 couch potatoes covered by a spell. With stacking you can get ~70 for the same energy and this isn't an exploit? If it is intended for you to be able to get 70 plants with one spell, why not just make the radius of the spells larger or the plots smaller? Why even have small, large and medium plots if you are only limited by number of plants?
Justify it to yourselves however you want, but it is an exploit of a glitch. Plenty of space in red barn farm to plant 70 couch potatoes, so there's nothing stopping them increasing the radius of the spells to remove the need to stack/exploit.
You want to call it an exploit of a glitch? Fine, call that all you want if it makes you happy. However, KI has no problem with players exploiting this glitch. They don't have a problem with players glitching housing items to create crazy environments either. KI probably decided to pick and choose it's battles and figured this wasn't one of them. So players who stack gardens don't need to justify anything as the creator (KingsIsle) has already given the final word... and that is not you.
Some of the arguments in this thread sound like Lance Armstrong arguing that he did nothing wrong because almost everyone else in the peloton was using drugs and cycling's governing body wasn't punishing people.
Clearly the game wasn't designed for stacking. If it was, they would support it, and as noted above, they don't support you if anything goes wrong.
Without stacking, you can get 14 couch potatoes covered by a spell. With stacking you can get ~70 for the same energy and this isn't an exploit? If it is intended for you to be able to get 70 plants with one spell, why not just make the radius of the spells larger or the plots smaller? Why even have small, large and medium plots if you are only limited by number of plants?
Justify it to yourselves however you want, but it is an exploit of a glitch. Plenty of space in red barn farm to plant 70 couch potatoes, so there's nothing stopping them increasing the radius of the spells to remove the need to stack/exploit.
I don't even know what 'stacking' is and if I could give couch potatoes away I would, but there is no way to give them to an intended recipient without risking them in the Bazaar market.
If KI allows it though how is it an exploit?
With another game I hinted about, people were always saying a code included in the game and publicized by its devs was "Cheating" if you used it. But if the game company did it on purpose it's not cheating; it's opting for another, approved, way to play. Some people like more of a challenge, others don't see a challenge in a game as being any fun.