binsh
Greenhorn
I love this game and spent countless hours playing it despite owning other games which are more "expensive" or "complicated".
Note that below are my personal comments/opinion made after *numerous* solo play times of year 1 and 2 with the goal of finishing the main objectives as early as possible, avoiding the "too rich, nothing matters" state of the later years. No cheats and mods. So this is focused on the replayability factor of the game which is already good but can be improved. Needless to say if you play a game multiple times, it is more "fun" if choosing different options can be equally effective or at least close if done properly. This is more about the technical aspect of the game rather than the aesthetics and content.
I. Remove bugs that ruin and discourage normal gameplay. Like item duplication, collecting tapper/honey/etc on later time to reduce processing time, and more. Yes it is easy to cheat but at least try to make it hard.
II. Professions
Despite the possibility to switch professions, and the fact that the game is made so that you can do any activity available if you want, it is still good to balance them based on usefulness and profitability.
You will notice "Artisan" being mentioned multiple times because it almost requirement instead of an option.
A. Farming - if you choose the Rancher path, you are already way behind.
Animal farming only produce a limited amount of products due to building (cost and building time) requirement. Not to mention petting, and collecting/putting hay, and getting a silo.
Compared to crops which is only limited on the farm space. And seeds are cheap. Making Tiller an easy choice in early game when you sell your crops before Artisan.
Yes, you can still farm crops with Rancher path but in a large scale, the difference is easily seen. Selling animal products directly is underwhelming, and this includes non-Iridium Truffles.
Turning animal products into artisan goods is more beneficial if you choose the Tiller -> Artisan path (+40%) rather than the rancher path (+20%), which I call the 40/20 issue.
Coopmaster and Shepherd does not offer enough to balance this. Aside from the 40/20 issue, killing Mummies are a better source of Cloth than Wool.
Only thing making animal farming profitable are Iridium Truffles and you don't even need Rancher for it, just Gatherer + Botanist. Also a Deluxe farm is expensive so you would still rely on Artisan to buy it.
Milk and Cheese is also good for cooking. Gold cheese is good food while mining. For profit, again, the 40/20 issue.
Conclusion:
1) Knowing enough, Keg/Jar products are better than average. Other artisan products like honey and cheese are average or below average.
2) Artisan (the profession bonus) is better than average (compared to other professions).
3) Keg/Jar products + Artisan bonus = way better then average
4) Artisan (the profession bonus) also benefits animal products and does it even better than the Animal Profession Rancher
5) Iridium Truffles (the best that animal farming has) does not benefit from Rancher but from Gatherer + Botanist
Possible options:
1) Replace Artisan with something else that is more focused on crops. Maybe something with fertilizers or sprinklers. This would be the easiest instead of changing everything else.
2) Even if you change Artisan from 40% to 1%, keg/jar products would still be better than many things in the game. Maybe that is fine since this is a farming game, maybe not.
Maybe set the same amount of increase for Rancher and Artisan (both +20%). Then still buff animal products, both processed and unprocessed. If not more quality then more quantity. Iridium truffles are already good.
B. Mining - internal balance is fine in a weird way.
Miner is good and Geologist is really bad. On the other hand, Blacksmith and Prospector are equally bad as Geologist while Excavator and Gemologist are also good like Miner.
Miner - 100% chance of +1 ore is very good due to the fact that ore rocks are so common.
Geologist - gems are already rare, and then you put a 50% chance for it not to be doubled which is bad.
Blacksmith - No one sells bars after trying to. First, they are needed for the game and takes additional effort to make. Then there is the scarcity of coal. And also, the sell price is too low. So +50% does not do enough.
Prospector - Doubling the small chance does not do much. Even with scarcity of coal, you would think that this is a better choice but no, it is better to choose other professions and just buy/make coal or kill dust sprites with Burglar ring.
Reasons for coal scarcity: Preserves Jars, Bee Houses, Bars for Tappers/Kegs/Crystalariums/etc, bombs and more. See most of this is because of Artisan.
Gemologist - Really strong in late game with Crystalarium. Also in early game it makes sense since you will be selling gems and keeping ores.
But how early does one get to Level 10 mining? Then compare this to Artisan which is +40% even tough kegs/jars are easier to produce than crystalariums.
But then again Crystalariums only need to be fed once.
Excavator - Not exciting but okay. Maybe if processing multiple geodes is faster/easier. Feeling another itch to mention Artisan.
C. Foraging
I have always chosen Gatherer + Botanist so there may be bias. Although there are reasons why:
1) Forester - You can still chop wood and also it can be bought.
2) Lumberjack - you only need a set amount of hardwood in my opinion. Maybe add more places to place casks.
3) Tapper - the cost of tappers is too high, processing time too long, and the sell price of products are low.
4) Gatherer + Botanist - is too good to miss especially with Pigs -> Iridium Truffles. Also strong with winter farming.
5) Tracker - close to useless. Maybe replace.
D. Fishing
Fishing is only done when it is needed (as early game food, quests, time filler, and community center bundles). It is time consuming so it is not used for profit.
I always choose Trapper and place 5-8 crab pots in the farmhouse. Then sell the fish and recycle the junk. Accumulate Periwinkles until House Upgrade for Sashimi.
You get to Level 10 Fishing for completeness. The Fish Pond also has low usefulness/profit for its cost/space/effort.
E. Combat
There are lots of ways to improve on combat (take inspiration on ARPG's out there, they copy each other all the time anyway).
I always choose Fighter -> Brute which makes more sense to kill monsters faster.
Defender - is boring and can be better if it increased defence (reduced damage taken) instead. Also you have infinite food anyway to heal.
This makes the whole other branch (Scout -> Acrobat/Desperado) redundant.
One way to go is replace Defender with Acrobat or Scout. Then Defender (increased defence) is the new level 5 profession to replace Scout.
Under the new Level 5 defender are two new Level 10 professions (focused on defense) - maybe thorns and the old defender (+50 HP not just +25) but change name.
With that you have two branches where one focuses on dealing damage and the other in taking damage.
III. Others
- Cooking and crafting: always use up the lower quality ingredients/items to avoid wasting the higher ones
- Add a Notebook where you can write something and see it later (for when you leave a game for a few days and come back to know what were up to or something).
- Forage crops (from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter seeds) sometimes leave untilled soil and lost fertilizer after harvesting. Better if not.
- Slime Hutches occupy too much farm space for what it does. Maybe change?
- Mills can be useful but the food make with rice/sugar/flour, I always compare with Sashimi and Gold quality cheese which are easy to get.
- Weapon drops in Skull Cavern to be rebalanced based on Galaxy Sword. All you need is one prismatic shard then these weapon drops are put straight to trash.
- Rethink death penalty in the mines, usually this just equates to a reload of the day. Maybe just lose time?
- After fainting - don't save automatically. Ask user if he wants to save or proceed to the next day.
- After waking up, start with the game paused (opened inventory). Or maybe just an option.
IV. Less important others and wishful thinking :)
- Add option to put all items into a chest.
- Add option to put all items from inventory to a chest only for items that both exist in the chest and the inventory. For example, I open my ore chest and push this button. Then only the ores from my inventory will be put there.
- Add option to lower a quality of an item (therefore making more space in the inventory/chest)
- Fixed location of items on inventory upon pick up/placement? For example, if I get gold cheese from chest or cheese maker, it will always put on the top-right except if said item is already in the inventory.
- Luck indicator in interface in case you forget from TV.
- Other ways to get Red Cabbage in year 1? Hehe this is just a personal thing, it is the only thing making community center completion in the first Year hard/impossible (if not on the Secret shop).
- Other ways to permanently increase health or other sources or Iridium milk? In the end you don't even need the all the star drops for energy but need more health to utilize the best food.
- Make it easier to check valid areas (scarecrow range, beehouse flower range, sprinklers)
- Missing tools/items how to locate? Hehe sometimes we misplace them or forgot it was at Clint's.
- Toolbelt? so that tools will not occupy inventory space, although this will mess up the hotkeys so just an idea.
- Improve slingshot aiming to just where the mouse is and make it faster?
- Able to move kegs/jars/crystalariums while processing? I guess its hard to do.
- Common mushrooms are not so common (if you take the fuit bat cave) :)
- Gift log (to know loved and like gifts) to be account wide instead of character wide? People will look into the wiki anyway.
- Show names of missing collected items instead of ??? (again people will look into the wiki anyway).
Note that below are my personal comments/opinion made after *numerous* solo play times of year 1 and 2 with the goal of finishing the main objectives as early as possible, avoiding the "too rich, nothing matters" state of the later years. No cheats and mods. So this is focused on the replayability factor of the game which is already good but can be improved. Needless to say if you play a game multiple times, it is more "fun" if choosing different options can be equally effective or at least close if done properly. This is more about the technical aspect of the game rather than the aesthetics and content.
I. Remove bugs that ruin and discourage normal gameplay. Like item duplication, collecting tapper/honey/etc on later time to reduce processing time, and more. Yes it is easy to cheat but at least try to make it hard.
II. Professions
Despite the possibility to switch professions, and the fact that the game is made so that you can do any activity available if you want, it is still good to balance them based on usefulness and profitability.
You will notice "Artisan" being mentioned multiple times because it almost requirement instead of an option.
A. Farming - if you choose the Rancher path, you are already way behind.
Animal farming only produce a limited amount of products due to building (cost and building time) requirement. Not to mention petting, and collecting/putting hay, and getting a silo.
Compared to crops which is only limited on the farm space. And seeds are cheap. Making Tiller an easy choice in early game when you sell your crops before Artisan.
Yes, you can still farm crops with Rancher path but in a large scale, the difference is easily seen. Selling animal products directly is underwhelming, and this includes non-Iridium Truffles.
Turning animal products into artisan goods is more beneficial if you choose the Tiller -> Artisan path (+40%) rather than the rancher path (+20%), which I call the 40/20 issue.
Coopmaster and Shepherd does not offer enough to balance this. Aside from the 40/20 issue, killing Mummies are a better source of Cloth than Wool.
Only thing making animal farming profitable are Iridium Truffles and you don't even need Rancher for it, just Gatherer + Botanist. Also a Deluxe farm is expensive so you would still rely on Artisan to buy it.
Milk and Cheese is also good for cooking. Gold cheese is good food while mining. For profit, again, the 40/20 issue.
Conclusion:
1) Knowing enough, Keg/Jar products are better than average. Other artisan products like honey and cheese are average or below average.
2) Artisan (the profession bonus) is better than average (compared to other professions).
3) Keg/Jar products + Artisan bonus = way better then average
4) Artisan (the profession bonus) also benefits animal products and does it even better than the Animal Profession Rancher
5) Iridium Truffles (the best that animal farming has) does not benefit from Rancher but from Gatherer + Botanist
Possible options:
1) Replace Artisan with something else that is more focused on crops. Maybe something with fertilizers or sprinklers. This would be the easiest instead of changing everything else.
2) Even if you change Artisan from 40% to 1%, keg/jar products would still be better than many things in the game. Maybe that is fine since this is a farming game, maybe not.
Maybe set the same amount of increase for Rancher and Artisan (both +20%). Then still buff animal products, both processed and unprocessed. If not more quality then more quantity. Iridium truffles are already good.
B. Mining - internal balance is fine in a weird way.
Miner is good and Geologist is really bad. On the other hand, Blacksmith and Prospector are equally bad as Geologist while Excavator and Gemologist are also good like Miner.
Miner - 100% chance of +1 ore is very good due to the fact that ore rocks are so common.
Geologist - gems are already rare, and then you put a 50% chance for it not to be doubled which is bad.
Blacksmith - No one sells bars after trying to. First, they are needed for the game and takes additional effort to make. Then there is the scarcity of coal. And also, the sell price is too low. So +50% does not do enough.
Prospector - Doubling the small chance does not do much. Even with scarcity of coal, you would think that this is a better choice but no, it is better to choose other professions and just buy/make coal or kill dust sprites with Burglar ring.
Reasons for coal scarcity: Preserves Jars, Bee Houses, Bars for Tappers/Kegs/Crystalariums/etc, bombs and more. See most of this is because of Artisan.
Gemologist - Really strong in late game with Crystalarium. Also in early game it makes sense since you will be selling gems and keeping ores.
But how early does one get to Level 10 mining? Then compare this to Artisan which is +40% even tough kegs/jars are easier to produce than crystalariums.
But then again Crystalariums only need to be fed once.
Excavator - Not exciting but okay. Maybe if processing multiple geodes is faster/easier. Feeling another itch to mention Artisan.
C. Foraging
I have always chosen Gatherer + Botanist so there may be bias. Although there are reasons why:
1) Forester - You can still chop wood and also it can be bought.
2) Lumberjack - you only need a set amount of hardwood in my opinion. Maybe add more places to place casks.
3) Tapper - the cost of tappers is too high, processing time too long, and the sell price of products are low.
4) Gatherer + Botanist - is too good to miss especially with Pigs -> Iridium Truffles. Also strong with winter farming.
5) Tracker - close to useless. Maybe replace.
D. Fishing
Fishing is only done when it is needed (as early game food, quests, time filler, and community center bundles). It is time consuming so it is not used for profit.
I always choose Trapper and place 5-8 crab pots in the farmhouse. Then sell the fish and recycle the junk. Accumulate Periwinkles until House Upgrade for Sashimi.
You get to Level 10 Fishing for completeness. The Fish Pond also has low usefulness/profit for its cost/space/effort.
E. Combat
There are lots of ways to improve on combat (take inspiration on ARPG's out there, they copy each other all the time anyway).
I always choose Fighter -> Brute which makes more sense to kill monsters faster.
Defender - is boring and can be better if it increased defence (reduced damage taken) instead. Also you have infinite food anyway to heal.
This makes the whole other branch (Scout -> Acrobat/Desperado) redundant.
One way to go is replace Defender with Acrobat or Scout. Then Defender (increased defence) is the new level 5 profession to replace Scout.
Under the new Level 5 defender are two new Level 10 professions (focused on defense) - maybe thorns and the old defender (+50 HP not just +25) but change name.
With that you have two branches where one focuses on dealing damage and the other in taking damage.
III. Others
- Cooking and crafting: always use up the lower quality ingredients/items to avoid wasting the higher ones
- Add a Notebook where you can write something and see it later (for when you leave a game for a few days and come back to know what were up to or something).
- Forage crops (from Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter seeds) sometimes leave untilled soil and lost fertilizer after harvesting. Better if not.
- Slime Hutches occupy too much farm space for what it does. Maybe change?
- Mills can be useful but the food make with rice/sugar/flour, I always compare with Sashimi and Gold quality cheese which are easy to get.
- Weapon drops in Skull Cavern to be rebalanced based on Galaxy Sword. All you need is one prismatic shard then these weapon drops are put straight to trash.
- Rethink death penalty in the mines, usually this just equates to a reload of the day. Maybe just lose time?
- After fainting - don't save automatically. Ask user if he wants to save or proceed to the next day.
- After waking up, start with the game paused (opened inventory). Or maybe just an option.
IV. Less important others and wishful thinking :)
- Add option to put all items into a chest.
- Add option to put all items from inventory to a chest only for items that both exist in the chest and the inventory. For example, I open my ore chest and push this button. Then only the ores from my inventory will be put there.
- Add option to lower a quality of an item (therefore making more space in the inventory/chest)
- Fixed location of items on inventory upon pick up/placement? For example, if I get gold cheese from chest or cheese maker, it will always put on the top-right except if said item is already in the inventory.
- Luck indicator in interface in case you forget from TV.
- Other ways to get Red Cabbage in year 1? Hehe this is just a personal thing, it is the only thing making community center completion in the first Year hard/impossible (if not on the Secret shop).
- Other ways to permanently increase health or other sources or Iridium milk? In the end you don't even need the all the star drops for energy but need more health to utilize the best food.
- Make it easier to check valid areas (scarecrow range, beehouse flower range, sprinklers)
- Missing tools/items how to locate? Hehe sometimes we misplace them or forgot it was at Clint's.
- Toolbelt? so that tools will not occupy inventory space, although this will mess up the hotkeys so just an idea.
- Improve slingshot aiming to just where the mouse is and make it faster?
- Able to move kegs/jars/crystalariums while processing? I guess its hard to do.
- Common mushrooms are not so common (if you take the fuit bat cave) :)
- Gift log (to know loved and like gifts) to be account wide instead of character wide? People will look into the wiki anyway.
- Show names of missing collected items instead of ??? (again people will look into the wiki anyway).
