Aren't hops too imbalanced?

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by StephenLynx, Sep 17, 2018.

Tags:
  1. StephenLynx

    StephenLynx Lucky Number 13

    Seeing that 1.3 brought a balance patch with the material price increase after year 1, I was wondering, does hops fit in the intended balance? Let's consider it's characteristics:
    1: available at year 1
    2: brought from pierre
    3: cheap seeds
    4: extremely high output, with a minimum of 17 harvests in a season and one harvest PER DAY after maturing.
    5: fast production time at the keg
    6: high sales price on pale ale

    Their profitability is on par with starfruit with a little more effort having to be put into it. Isn't it too much, if the game is now intended to be balanced?
     
      Medicell likes this.
    • ShneekeyTheLost

      ShneekeyTheLost Master Astronaut

      Ya really wanna break Hops? Plant them in your Greenhouse. Now you have hops being produced daily all year long. It out-performs Starfruit, and even Ancient Fruit, only Pomegranate or Peach trees can really do better.

      As far as balance... remember, they're a Trellis crop, so you have to be creative with your planting patterns so you can reach them all. In other words, you can't just have a whole field of nothing but hops, you'd never be able to reach the middle of the field, meaning you're going to need a 'filler' crop to go between them. If you are planting them in 3x3's with a quality sprinkler in the middle... well, it isn't that easy to get a ton of quality sprinklers at the beginning of your first summer. So if you CAN do this in bulk in your first summer... well, you deserve what you get.

      For the Greenhouse, it would mean holding back some hops from Summer to plant when the greenhouse opens, probably in fall if you didn't miss any seasonal goodies. Which is fewer Pale Ales to have sold.

      After year two... it doesn't really matter, gold is no longer a limiting factor on anything you want to do.
       
      • StephenLynx

        StephenLynx Lucky Number 13

        Is not really hard to plant them on 3x3 squares with an empty middle and leave a space between each square and just manually water it. You don't have to plant the whole farm either to get a gigantic return right off the bat. Just because it wouldn't be as easy as a non-trelice crop it doesn't mean it's not an absolutely dominant strategy. Scarecrows are too cheap to produce and you have too much space, so efficiency is not really a major concern here.

        Adding enough time between harvests so they would yield about 5 harvests or so would put it more in line with other crops, such as pumpkins.
         
          Last edited by a moderator: Sep 18, 2018
        • UnexpectedParole

          UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

          Frankly, I don't see how a $60 crop turning out seventeen $25 crops is that much of a deal breaker. $365 profit ($13.52 per day over 1 season)
          Two melons =$80x 2 sell for $250 each so 500 - 160 = $340 with less watering.($14.57 per day for that same season)

          The break as I see it comes in when the the $25 crop turns into a $300 pale ale (x12) in two days compared to melons say who go from $250 fruit to $750 fruit (x3) in two weeks.

          So I'd rather see a conversation to address the real problem of "broken" keg math as relates to the hops, than the crops themselves. If one was to happen.
           
          • StephenLynx

            StephenLynx Lucky Number 13

            Indeed, a 12x multiplication does seem excessive too. But at the same time, is there ANY other crop that produces daily after maturing? Was that even intended and not a bug that no one picked up as a bug?
             
            • UnexpectedParole

              UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

              Any other crop besides fruit trees? (Fruit trees produce daily year round in the greenhouse)

              I do not believe there are. But many have very short turn around which when placed in the greenhouse throw things out of kilter.
              Coffee is two days to repeat harvest 4 beans, That is actually 2 per day on average instead of 1 for half as many trips to the greenhouse. $25.5 gpd for just two seasons.
              Blue Berries are 3 berries every 4 days. (Which is .75 harvest per day eqv.) $20.8 gpd over 1 season.
              Both of these are better than hops, on a gold per day basis as a crop and they are not trellis crops.

              Where hops gets sick as I stated is the pale ale vs coffee or wine. But even then.

              Though pale ale is 280 profit in two days for $140 a day compared to say a $50 egg being turned into $190 mayonnaise for $140 profit as well.

              It's all relative isn't it? Eggs are produced daily, egg machines are pretty cheap when compared to kegs and you get them at farming 2 not farming 8. And you can even wait several days to harvest eggs without losing them unlike hops which require daily picking. Not to mention you can place the coop right next to your house and only walk a short bit to it every few days instead of all the way to the greenhouse daily.

              Hops are good. Pale ale is profitable. But I don't know that they are broken.

              If you want to break something, then shneekythelost is your go to poster. I'm just a dabbler.
               
              • StephenLynx

                StephenLynx Lucky Number 13

                I don't think the issue with balance is just how good something is, but how acessible it is too. Getting chickens in a good number requires a much more substantial investment. You have to pay for the coop, get the materials and pay for the chickens or wait for an egg to hatch and mature into a producing chicken one at a time.

                Same goes for trees, which take a whole season to start producing and have a higher cost and space requirements.

                This is why I posted all those aspects for hops, it's not just how profitable they are, but a combination of multiple factors.
                 
                  Medicell likes this.
                • One More Day

                  One More Day Cosmic Narwhal

                  Yeah, but you can't get 100+ chickens producing 100+ eggs per day by the end of the second week of summer. Also, you forgot artisan, so it's 210g/day, because at 6 XP per plant per day you'll hit farming 10 in no time.
                   
                  • UnexpectedParole

                    UnexpectedParole Phantasmal Quasar

                    Mayonnaise would also be artisan. 266-50 = $216 per day. So thanks for pointing out egg's make $6 more day.

                    And I left off artisan because "hops are broken because they can be gotten to easily" which I went ahead and assumed artisan at farming 10 would not be considered "easily".

                    If you have 100+ kegs by mid summer 1 and we have to figure in Artisan as well then the problem is not that hops are imbalanced. Seventeen $25 crops.

                    Which has been my whole point.

                    Pale Ale is the problem <and I myself think there seems to be no good reason to have the keg function different for this crop than others.>.

                    This might sound like splitting hairs, but it isn't. Because when something is 'broken' then you have to consider things to fix it.

                    Skip steps 1-4. Hops as my research and posted numbers show are line with other crops.

                    No-one has ever posted any refuting numbers to that. Anyone got any? I'd love to see them.

                    IS a 12x multiplier in 2 days much better than a 2x multiplier in 2 weeks. ?
                    Yeah, I think we see the issue here. Even if you didn't get 17 per season.

                    Fix pale ale then. Hops are a non issue. Unless I have missed something.

                    I've got a save I think where I can put in a few crops into the greenhouse to look at some alternative crops to support my position. Of course I also argue the greenhouse is neither "easy" or "unbroken" in itself. So the fix to "hops and pale ale" when a cheap 20 plant is thrown into the greenhouse and millions are made doesn't need to be a fix to a simple 20 plant.
                    It can be for example:
                    an adjustment to the greenhouse to place growing lengths and number of harvest limits on the crops. No crops grows longer than 28 days. Even though the season restriction is lifted, and you don't have to plant with the seasons. That would "fix" hops & pale ale" or do something else.
                    also, fix kegs so that when hops are placed in, then the multiplier is only 2x and the wait time is 2 weeks. just like other crops. (Or do something else.)

                    But that is my point.
                     
                      Last edited: Oct 1, 2018

                    Share This Page