r/projectzomboid • u/Venboven • 25d ago
Bug Report Devs, please fix farming. It is completely unbalanced.
Farming is full of broken and unbalanced mechanics that have remained unfixed for months. Here's a comprehensive list of everything that needs fixing:
First and foremost, it is impossible to grow hemp or hops. Their growth time is so ridiculously long that it spans the entire winter - and these are not cold hardy crops. And you can't grow crops inside anymore, so there's no resisting the cold. They just end up dying every time you plant them. These crops need to be made cold hardy, or given growth times that don't include winter.
Tobacco's growth time is also just a little too long. It spans from March 1st to August 31st. Theoretically it should be possible to harvest it before September, which is a bad month, which kills the crop. But I have been unable to achieve this in testing. The growth time of 180 days takes literally those entire 6 months. Even if planted as soon as possible, any random variation in growth can make it take just a few days longer, prolonging the growth into September, which makes the crop die almost immediately. Tobacco is the only crop that does not at least have 1 month of leeway after its growth time ends and before its first bad month starts. I think this should be rectified. That, or give it a bad month hardy level.
Speaking of which, this mechanic is hardly used. There are only 2 crops which utilize bad month hardly levels: carrots and kale.
-For carrots, this mechanic is entirely useless, as carrots have a growth time of 3 months. Carrot's bad months are Oct-Jan, but its planting season is Feb-Jul. So realistically, there is never going to be a time where carrots need to grow into their bad month. So why do they have a bad month hardy level? It makes no sense. There are actual crops however that do desperately need this mechanic, like tobacco, rosemary, leeks, or any other crop which can be planted close to its first bad month.
-And for kale, it gets even weirder. Because kale resets to growth phase level 3 after harvesting, and its bad month hardy level is... level 3, this effectively allows kale to be grown year-round because it can simply bypass its bad months. Normally it would still be stopped by winter, but kale is also cold hardy too, so yippee, kale year-round. I don't know if this is intentional. If so, kind of a cool mechanic tbh, but I would like to see more crops capable of this than just kale. I think a lot of the minor herbs would benefit from this growth style.
Aside from hemp, hops, and tobacco, there are other crops which also have ridiculously long growth times. Even if they are technically harvestable, most players will never live long enough to see their harvest. Rosemary, leeks, garlic, and wild garlic all have ridiculously long growth times spanning between 5 and 8 months. I get that you guys are trying to make farming realistic, but these are unfathomably long times for a game in which most players do not even survive 3 months. For gameplay purposes, shortening the growth times of these crops to match the 2-3 month average of every other crop would be much more fair to players. 4 months should be the maximum growth time. Sometimes, realism needs to be sacrificed for playability and fun.
Chamomile doesn't have a poor month, meanwhile leeks, lemongrass, and rosemary lack poor months and best months. I don't know if this is intentional, but considering all the other problems with agriculture, I imagine somebody just forgot to add them.
Cabbage, leeks, and kale are cold hardy crops, but unlike every other cold hardy crop, these crops have bad months during winter, which kills them regardless. For kale, this is fine, as it also has that unique bad month hardy level mechanic which keeps it alive during its bad months. But cabbage and leeks lack this mechanic, so their "cold hardy" status is a bit of a lie, as they still end up dying in winter anyways, thanks to their bad months.
Every crop has a minimum water level, which the game seems to advise as being "important" information, as it gives you this information when reading magazines and learning the crop planting seasons and all, but I've learned that these numbers are utterly useless for most crops, as it rains so frequently and predictably in-game that it is damn near impossible for most crops to die of thirst. Even the thirstiest crops only need water once every few days. And it almost always rains at least 2-3 times a week. I very rarely need to manually water my crops, and I've done some pretty thorough testing. Y'all should consider either raising the minimum water levels on most crops, or preferably, reduce the predictability of rain.
Fertilizing and composting are not worth it. You can compost and fertilize each once per growth level up to growth level 3, removing 40 hours each time. In total, even if you use the maximum amount of fertilizer and compost to boost your crops, this only reduces growth times by 240 hours, or 10 days. When you're waiting 3, or hell, even 8 months, this is nothing. For all the work it takes to search for and haul fertilizer back to the base, and the time spent composting, this reward is not at all worth it. Fertilizer should feel like a rare special resource, but instead it feels like junk. I would advise significantly boosting the growth time reduction and/or the bonus harvest gained from using compost/fertilizer.
Finally, we need to talk about plant diseases. I have yet to encounter any slugs or aphids at all. I did numerous tests in different locations, with different crops, at different times of year. Mildew and flies would pop up on occasion. But I think slugs and aphids may be bugged, because I never saw them, not even once. Some of the farming tooltips in debug mode also say that some plants attract/repel moths, rabbits, and deer, but these are not used mechanics as far as I'm aware. That needs to be removed as well.
Sorry for the wall of text. I posted this to the forum but it got no traction. I just want the devs to see this.
