Fallow fields

[Lusewing]

It is common practice to let a field go fallow in order for it to rest and stop the build up of parasites. This made me wonder if there might be a way, and more importantly a reason, to add this practice into the game

The idea is fairly simple. When a field is left with no crops growing on it there is a chance for it to ‘go to seed’ and become fallow. After 3-4 days the field can be harvested for grass that can then be dried to hay in the normal manner. The grass however is merely a byproduct. The real mechanic is that a fallow field will remove all of the progress to the influence bars (resetting them to zero) and in turn improve the Aether according to how full the bars were - resting the field and improving future crops. For actual numbers, I would rather leave that to someone who has a much better grasp on field Aether gain at its current rate. (Logically something a long the lines of 1.0% Aether per full bar but logic shopuld always bow down to balence)

In order to prevent grass spamming or mass aether gain, fields would only become fallow through chance, not action. The more of the influence bars that are at least partly filled, the higher the chance of it becoming fallow. This would insure that it would be a waste to simply raise one or two bars as high as they could go and then have the field go fallow. By the time the field would go fallow this way the resulting Aether could have been gained from simply growing on the field normally. Instead this is mostly an option for those fields that have been teired up and now have 3-4 bars going up and down, often with less desirable crops over taking the higher tiered ones.

Since we already have the option to ‘rip up’ a field, as well as the fact that few people harvest without the intention of replanting right away there is little chance that a field will lose its influence by mistake. Plus the higher Aether grass/hay might prove beneficial to the future farm animals.

[Procne]

We already have "three-field system" skill and we have to rotate crops to increase influence. I think that's enough, no need to add another item to the rotation

[Lusewing]

This is more an option rather than an addition. I often find myself looking at my fields bars and then back at the wiki to work out what I should plant next. Its easy when you just go a>b>c but after you grow a few of the tier three crops you end up with a field that's more of a puzzle box. Having the option to 'wipe the bars clean' would be wonderful to my orderly sensibilities but right now my only option is to remove everything - and thats never going to happen.

[NordErdTod]

I like the idea!

Moreover, I would add parasites eating grown crops that are left with no attention for, say, a week, so people don't jsut leave their gworn crops (and that will lower the Aether of a field after harvesting isntead of raising)

[Procne]

Oh come on, don't add more chores. I like haven and salem farming specifically because I don't have to check up on fields every 1-2 days, like in Wurm.

[Lusewing]

hehe the reason I didnt add parasites or things like that is because, as Procne said, that would make farming a chore. Im hoping my idea is fairly well balenced in gain and cost, without adding something that MUST be done.

[Procne]

hehe the reason I didnt add parasites or things like that is because, as Procne said, that would make farming a chore. Im hoping my idea is fairly well balenced in gain and cost, without adding something that MUST be done.

It's still a chore because you have to make you replant your fields after harvesting them. You can't simply leave tiered fields empty

[TotalyMeow]

I gotta say, I don't like this idea at all. I often leave my harvested fields empty for a few days. Pumpkins, for example, are best harvested in stage 2, so if I don't need a lot of pumpkins right now, I harvest that field and then leave the field empty until I need more pumpkins. I don't want to lose my tiering just because of that. The purity system is also already balanced to increase for each player at a certain rate based on work put in and it seems to be going at about that rate right now, we don't want to shorten the time of farm purity increase.

I'm not entirely against the idea of a field going fallow and that providing some benefit, but transferring the influence to the purity is just not the way to go.

[Lusewing]

Thanks for the feed back Meow, I had not thought much about Pumpkins, those things are such a pain to store. I still like the idea of having the fields go fallow but as an idea in its current state I can see that it would not work well. I shall let the idea stew in my head for longer and see if it comes out tastier or should just be tossed.