What's happened to the earthenware windowboxes?

[Piscator]

Well, that was the strange point about the original implementation really. The amount of water was proportional to the output (which was in turn proportional to the natural gathering rates). While this seems logical from a RL point of view, it doesn't really make sense game-wise. You needed 40g of water to grow a day's worth of lavender, but only 6g to grow a days worth of tarragon, which made the rare herbs comparatively cheaper. A man with a well could also easily operate 40 windowboxes in parallel and produce as much herbs as 10-30 men could collect in the wild in the same time. Without ever having to leave his village.

[Cogliostro]

Like I said, our team seems to be on a holy crusade against "imbalance". For the sake of what? Balance? As if that is a universal virtue? Doesn't anyone realize that static stalemates in game design lead to DEATHLY boring environments, and the crusade should have been to increase opportunities and fun in the game? All along?

The tiniest teeny aspects of the resource system get poured over by capable heads at the respective department, and airtight resource correspondences are being meticulously set up, as if the design goal of the whole thing is to be as dull and impossible to gain any advantage from as possible, excuse the word pun. Lots of us really wonder, what makes you love numbers and hate your own players so much? I get forum PMs about this regularly, you know. Players who feel like I'm about the only one fighting the good fight, so to say. The fight against the skull-crushingly dull fucking balance omnipresent in Cantr. Oh no, someone could build 40 flowerpots and grow herb! Let's make a council and implement safegaurds right now, against the possibility of possibilities and how anything that is possible should not be, or if it is, then it should not be worth it.

Don't you understand? The single most valuable and protected thing in the game should be player time investment - the real days-of-work, in the real world. They're not unlimited, you know. You cannot treat this irreplaceable (though slightly abstract) resource willy-nilly, the way you do. Did you know that the people who play this game age and eventually die? Now just take one look, and not at the numbers, but at how much time you require your players to put in to accomplish anything advantageous in the game. It's not just "rather a lot", it's an unprecedented amount that accumulates to decades of real-time. Is that what we want from players, if they are to have some tangible game results from their pathetic flowerpots? Really?

[Piscator]

Doesn't anyone realize that static stalemates in game design lead to DEATHLY boring environments, and the crusade should have been to increase opportunities and fun in the game? All along?

Exactly my point. Instead of everybody doing the same (building 20 windowboxes) to get their herbs, people now can *gasp* grow their herbs in a garden. Or even go out and gather them where they grow. That's what balance means, offering different but more or less equivalent ways to reach the same goal.

I'd also like to point out again, that Cantr is no game that you are supposed to play through in a few days. If you feel that playing a year to reach your character's goal in life is wasting your time, you better do something else.

[Misato]

Am I the only one who used the windowboxes not complaining? xD It's just a game, not like your government just issued conscription people..

I always thought that the small amounts needed to start the project were like "seeds" and ... yeah the small amount of water was always kinda weird to me, but it matched the "seeds" kinda..sorta...

Agreed.

I just recently got some windowboxes built for my char, and noticed that after I used it for a couple days, the amounts changed. I didn't notice IG, but through the wiki. I used it to see how many grams of herbs/water I needed to grow for a certain number of days. Then a couple days later I did that again, and they were different, but it was still listed like they were before in the wiki. That was how I noticed it. The amounts needed IG don't bother me at all, but I was about to freak out and tell someone to update the wiki. Don't scare me like that guys! ^_~ I use that for everything. Seems like I'm browsing the wiki more than I actually play the game! lol

[Snake_byte]

Like I said, our team seems to be on a holy crusade against "imbalance". For the sake of what? Balance?

The universe runs on chaos too...

[Mafia Salad]

I looked and saw that the rates are like 60g of water per day growing most things for a windowbox. I first used a windowbox a couple days ago and that's what it was. Is that pre or post change rates? because that seems reasonable enough to me.

Although I agree with Cogliostro in principal, unique societies are built on imbalances and the constant balancing of the game is deepening the monotony pit that plagues Cantr. Vehicle fuel is the one great exception. The more I interact with it the more I like it.

[Piscator]

Well, the thing about balancing is that little things should be able to tip the balance into the one or other direction. The circumstances should decide which option is the most preferable. If you have lots of dung you don't need for something else, using herb gardens and fertilizer might be the preferable option. If you can spare a lot of water, windowboxes are your machine of choice. And if you are lucky enough to have a certain herb growing in your town, it is now a sensible option to just gather it.
Until recently windowboxes were the only option that made sense economically, which is the reason why everybody was using them everywhere, contributing to the alikeness of towns.

And yes, it's 60g after the change.

[Mafia Salad]

Point well taken. Even with the current balance I think the people who built the windowboxes are doing really well. You don't need as many expensive tools as you do to make fertilizer and harvest the herbs with the garden, and you can keep 6 boxes of herbs growing with every day of collecting well water.

Now if only we could make the apocrathy table better by allowing you to combine any 2 herbs and one liquid and seeing what you get. (Ack! This combo causes two damage for each hundred grams!)

[Snake_byte]

Are they supposed to get updated IG soon... I don't think the math is adding up when they tell you how much you need compared to what is says you will need when you look at the project in the activities page.

[Piscator]

What do you mean?

[Arenti]

It really takes a lot of water now. Does this actually balance with how much water you can get a day?

[Piscator]

Pretty much. Gathering the herbs in the wild (without tools) requires a little bit less work, but growing the herbs yourself is of course much more convenient.

[Arenti]

Pretty much. Gathering the herbs in the wild (without tools) requires a little bit less work, but growing the herbs yourself is of course much more convenient.

Yes but even if using a well it would be a full time job to get water if you are using several window boxes.

[Doug R.]

Pretty much. Gathering the herbs in the wild (without tools) requires a little bit less work, but growing the herbs yourself is of course much more convenient.

Yes but even if using a well it would be a full time job to get water if you are using several window boxes.

That's why you'd use a garden instead. Window boxes are a convenience item, not a practical means to bulk production.

[Arenti]

Pretty much. Gathering the herbs in the wild (without tools) requires a little bit less work, but growing the herbs yourself is of course much more convenient.

Yes but even if using a well it would be a full time job to get water if you are using several window boxes.

That's why you'd use a garden instead. Window boxes are a convenience item, not a practical means to bulk production.

True but most towns can't have one. I don't even know how to use one lol never had one. Though can it be used without needing dung?