So this is something that was discovered while investigating all the other details on skills in my last thread, but I think it has now changed so much in scope from when I thought it only affected food buffs that it warrants its own topic. So it turns out this issue is a much bigger problem than I initially thought. After it was pointed out in the code on the subreddit by /u/rabidcow, I confirmed through several tests on multiple characters that outside of the partial benefit from Basic/Quality Fertilizer, the game either considers you to be at Farming Level 10, or Farming Level 0, with no other possible values. Apparently this is due to the first division in the previously mentioned quality formula being calculated as integral division, or something? For reference, here is the crop quality formula as found in the code, and confirmed through testing by me: For other crops: gold = 20% * farming / 10 + 20% * fertilizer bonus * (farming + 2) / 12 + 1% and silver = the remaining percent * (twice the percent change of gold to a maximum of 75%) However, the first division, (20% * farming / 10) is apparently calculated as integral division, as so returns 0 at farming levels <10, and returns 20% for any farming level 10 or higher. The second division, (20% * fertilizer bonus * {farming + 2}/12) seems to work as expected in all my tests. Just to clarify, as confirmed by my tests, this means that when you are at Farming Level 0, or 1, or 2, up to level 9, you get no benefit from your Farming Level, and all your crops will always be 97% regular, 2% silver, and 1% gold. When you hit farming Level 10, suddenly your crops jump to 46% regular, 33% silver, and 21% gold. And then using buffs to go beyond Farming Level 10, the game still only considers you being at Farming Level 10. So outside of fertilizers, these are the only two quality chances for crops used by the game. Using Basic or Quality Fertilizer complicate this slightly, since the separate fertilizer boost amount does still get the intended benefit from your Farming Skill. This actually makes Basic (or Quality) Fertilizer much more useful in comparison to no fertilizer at Farming Levels below 10 than they would be normally, since they still partially take your Farming Skill into account. For example, at Farming level 5, without fertilizers you currently still only get 1% golds. However with Basic Fertilizer (fertilizer bonus = 1), you currently get 12.7% golds, and Quality Fertilizer (fertilizer bonus = 2) gives you 24.3% golds. If everything were working as intended, however, it would be 11% golds with no fertilizer, 22.7% golds with Basic, and 34.3% golds with Quality. This also means that if you are at Farming Skill Levels 7, 8, or 9, eating + Farming Skill foods to reach Level 10 can have a HUGE impact. For example, in my test with 263 Radishes with no fertilizer, at Farming Skill Level 8 I get 97% regulars, 2.7% silvers, and 0.4% golds. However, with a +2 Farming Skill buff to reach Level 10, I instead get 45.6% regulars, 33.5% silvers, and 20.9% golds! EDIT: I've updated the old bug report I made in the Support Forum a few weeks ago to include this new info, but with the nature of this bug being so much broader in scope than I first thought, should I submit a new bug report?
An unfortunate bug to be sure. Definitely needs some lookin at. Good Catch! In practice, however, I'd personally rate this bug as 'minor' since I usually hit 10 farming somewhere in the middle of the first summer. I'd rate the animal bugs as being much worse. PS do you know if this is new to 1.1? Or has this always been there?
Well, I've only started playing since v1.1, so I'm not sure if this has always been the case or not. And yeah, clearly this isn't a game-breaking issue or anything, because the game is still outstanding, even with this and the Animal issues. As you say, once you're at Farming Level 10 all it really means is that + Farming Foods don't work, which is pretty minor. I do think there are a large group of players who progress at a much more relaxed pace that us forum-divers, who would be getting the effects of this bug up until hitting Farming Level 10 sometime in Year 2 or even 3, though even then all it likely means is that they get money slightly slower. Plus I'd wager the majority of players don't know that Farming Skill is even supposed to increase crop quality, since I don't believe it's ever mentioned in-game (same with most other Skill effects). So as far as they know, everything is working as intended anyway.
Hmm I see. Basically I was just curious why all this code diving was happening now. There seems to be a lot of it happening now in any case, even though the game has been around for a while. And yes, it's not explained how or when farming skill affects crop quality. Whether it does, whether it applies at harvest, at sowing, how much it matters, etc. As a strategy game junky, hiding of information typically bothers me a lot. I guess I just have a much more chevalier attitude for stardew as its not something I'm as hard core about. AND no. It DOES matter! Its major not minor! I want my 1.3x crop quality modifier for having 13 farming skill!
If you keg/preserve crops, star-rating is largely irrelevant anyway. I think the biggest thing this impacts is the difficulty of completing the quality crops bundle.
This bug matters. You use your kegs/jars, when you are good enough but until then you have normally no farming level 10 and this is the time, where you want to have every gold item for more profit at the start of the game!
This bug is important, but there really is no reason to even determine if it is important or not. It should just be corrected because I think CA can literally just add one "." to fix it. Sorry if that statement comes off as a bit offensive, but I don't mean it to. I'm simply trying to point out that there is a lot of reward here for very little work.
