Note: These are all just my personal ideas and suggestions for an update, and your opinions would be greatly appreciated for improving it! Apologies if any information in regards to the hunger system or cooking are incorrect. Once AO releases, and the Suggestions Category is open again, I’ll make necessary edits to fix incorrect information and post it again there. Also, this is greatly inspired by Don’t Starve Together’s system of Farming, where it’s pretty lenient on how much effort you put into gardening.
The Farming Update! With the addition of clans being able to build on captured islands, and a new cooking and hunger system, why not the addition of gardening!
From what can be seen by the leaks so far, there seem to be various fruits and crops that are exclusive to specific islands, such as the Sky Apples (shown in Selectorch’s showcase of the Cooking Update, and presumably from the Sky Islands) and the rumored “Unique Fruits” from the Dark Sea. But let’s say you’re all the way at like, Palo Town or something, and you’re suddenly craving for the sweet taste of Sky Fruit. Is it really that worth it to travel all the way to a water spout, wait for it to go off, and traverse a Sky Island all for a single ingredient? Well never fear, for that’s why the gardening system should exist!
How Would It Work? Well for starters, first to come with this update would be the
- Magic Hoe Tool! Obtainable by a foraging quest in a nearby island from the starter one, it would allow you to change one patch of ground into… FARMABLE GROUND!!! The more you garden, the stronger your Magical Hoe becomes. It basically levels up on its own as you farm more and more.
- Gardener Profession! There’s a Chef and Alchemist profession, so why not a Gardener one too! As you farm, your Gardening Level will increase (not exactly sure how Cooking Levels work yet, but for the purpose of speculation, we’ll assume that it’s separate from the Chef Profession), similarly to your Cooking Level, allowing you to farm more efficiently. At higher levels, it would allow you to unlock your inner plant, become one with the Earth, and truly understand the crop. There’s also a plant bestiary in the menu, similar to the fish book.
- Seeds! You’re able to turn ingredients like spices and apples into seeds! Usually, you’d produce at least 1-3 seeds from a single plant, but that number can increase depending on your Gardening Level.
- Planting! Now that you have seeds, you’re ready to plant them into that nice patch of soil you made earlier! Each patch of soil can sadly only hold a couple seeds of a single type of crop though. You plant the crop into the ground, and with patience, it’ll grow into a nice ripe harvest!
- …and that’s it! This system of Gardening is super lenient, and you’re able to produce food with ease without much effort put into it. It’s meant to be an idle food source you can get on the side if there’s other things you wanna do. However, doing so doesn’t actually produce the greatest quality or amount of crop, and if you want to actually push gardening to its limits to have an actual feast, you’d need to put some effort into talking to your plants!
| The Actual Gardening for a Gardener |
-
Watering! If you didn’t place your nice patch of soil near a water source, you’ll have to account for watering it. Your Magical Hoe is actually Multi Purpose, and comes packed in with a Watering Bucket (don’t question how the Magical Hoe is supposed to look). Simply just go to the nearest source of water, fill your hoe up, and water the plot! Each time a crop grows into its next stage of life, it consumes around 10% of the water in the farm plot. That may seem like a lot (30% per crop), but your Watering Hoe is capable of holding around 300% of water! Not all crops use water, however, so you’re able to feed some lava, poison, drugs, y’know, normal plant things for recreation!
-
Growth! Crops will take an average of around 3 ingame days to grow. Each day, it enters a different stage of its life.
Stage One: This is its seed form. It’s quite simple, and is the period in which you give it Fertilizer to determine its fate. (5% Water)
Stage Two: The crop is midway through life, and needs an increasing amount of water (10% Water)
Stage Three: The crop is nearly ready to be harvested, and this is the point in which it needs the most water. (15% Water)
Harvest: FOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD -
Location! Each island has a differing type of climate, temperature, and soil type, which could greatly affect the feelings of plants if you choose to grow them in a specific island. For instance, a plant grown in the desert with sandy soil, like a Cactus, would not survive easily in a snow island like Frostmill, with its much denser soil. However, if you’re that desperate to have a plant grow in the worst possible spot, there are workarounds!
-
Hoe Part 2! The Hoe is able to adjust the plant’s environment to fit its needs! Shove it into the ground, and it’ll be able to change the temperature, soil type (your pet garlic doesnt like living in sand? change it to dirt!), etc! However, it isn’t the most effective method, with the Hoe only being able to alter the temperature by 50% to what the plant needs, and it can only tend to one farm plot at once.
-
Involvement of Magic: With the power of magic, you can tend to the needs of your plant! No longer a tool of murder and harm, now an energy for growth and life! By Flaunting (if that’s still a planned feature), your Magic can help you grow your plant!
Water Magic waters the plant and cools it off (you can become a sprinkler lmao)
Heat Based Magics (Fire, Magma, Etc) warm it up!
Cold Based Magics (Ice, Snow) cool it down!
(Please give me ideas for what other Magics could do)
“But what if I’m not a magic user, or i don’t have a magic that would help me in a specific area of farming?”
That’s why you’ve gotta stop being lonely, and collaborate with others!
-
Fertilizer! Y’know, there isn’t much use to Rotten Fish at the moment, so why not give it one! Things like Rotten Fish and other things past their expiration date will finally have a purpose, being to improve the crop’s quality of life. With fertilizer, you have two options, being to use it to speed up the crop’s growth cycle by 2.5x (making the crop finish growing in a bit over a single ingame day, though don’t expect it to yield much of a feast, producing less food in a lesser quality than it would if you grew it normally with patience) or to increase the length of the crop’s growth cycle by 2x (will yield a greater harvest, with a much more delicious future feast).
-
Greenwich Cultists! Ngl, we barely know anything about these dudes, but I’m gonna assume they’re plant cultists or something
-
Plant Happiness! You think you’re sane?? You think you have a life?? Talk to your plants! If you want a good meal, you’ll have to make sure that funky crop of yours is happy.
Each stage, you get the chance to talk to your plants. This will improve its mood significantly. If you meet all the other conditions that it wants (Having its ideal temperature, soil type, etc), you have a chance to grow a Super Crop! -
Super Crops! These crops are crops who have reached the perfect conditions in life! They’re the most tasty version of the crop, golden in nature… literally. Once the crop is fully grown, it’ll produce food with a hard golden shell. All you have to do is beat the shit out of it to reap what you’ve sowed, but it does prove to be a lengthy task. However, the higher your strength stat is, the greater your damage multiplier is to the shell! While mages and warriors are struggling to even crack their food, you can open it with a couple hits as a berserker.
-
Plant Combat! Your fucking crop not being nice? Not being loyal? Beat the shit out of it. All it does is lower its happiness
-
Overgrowth! If you give the crop a little too much Fertilizer and water, it’ll begin growing outwards and flooding the nearby area with vines (this also has a chance to occur during rain as well). Your only choices here are to burn it using fire magic, a torch (another use for torches other than light! :D), or a weapon, slicing the vines into Itty bitty pieces. You can sell the overgrown crops for some money, or add it to your next stew for extra flavor.
-
The Plant’s Fight Back! If your crop’s happiness is the lowest possible, it’ll have a 20% chance of turning into a fucking monster and beating the shit out of you. Your magic will do nothing but make it stronger, all you can do is use your final reliable weapon, the torch. This plant beast’s only goal is to turn the tables on you, and its kill animation is just shoving you into the ground. Upon defeat, you’ll be rewarded with drugs.
Please submit more ideas you may have!
I think my favorite part is giving more use to rotten fish and torches ngl