Farm access exploits

[Rias]

There are several farms now that appear to be virtually unused by their actual owners, but are instead primarily used by others who have access to them via the ACCESS system. This is not what the access system was meant for - it was supposed to be so that farmers can have others come assist them with farm chores (pulling weeds, feeding animals, structure repairs) and build structures and the like for them, even if the owner wasn't around at the time. Individual farms have an expansion limit for a reason - having someone else get a farm just so they can give you access to use as a second farm of your own farmland is essentially an exploit to get around an individual's farmland expansion maximum.

Here are the solutions I am considering:

1. Remove the access system, and have it so the only way to get to another person's farm is to be in their group and follow them when they go there.
2. Prevent several of the various harvesting mechanics (harvesting crops, milking cows, shearing sheep, getting honeycomb from hives, etc.) when on a farm that isn't your own.

This is one more thing adding to my already significant frustration with the farmland access mechanic, along with things like people treating farms as group storage/workplaces for all their friends. This makes option 1 easily the most tempting option for me, as option 2 doesn't prevent the group storage/workplace issue. I'm opening up this discussion here to give players a chance to suggest alternative solutions.

[Bonehead]

Whoa now, I didn't consider this an exploit when I did this. This was all discussed OOC as well as IC, along with the Risks and benefits that would come with it.

The deal, as discussed IC and OOC, was for me to front the money to build up the farm, and the money to purchase the cattle, in exchange for mainly running it and giving the actual owner a cut of the profits. This took enormous effort to accomplish in logging the materials, constructing the farm, and getting the Riln to purchase the animals. It's a sizeable amount of Riln every day, yes. But, it's sizeable due to the amount of work, effort, and Riln invested into the farm anyway. Yes, the Farm is primarily worked by myself and whoever helps, but that's simply me living up to my end of the deal in providing a cut to the technical owner.

Exploiting makes it sound like I came up with this devious idea to get ahead of everyone. I simply saw a possiblity, and asked my friends if they were willing to help for a mutual benefit. If there is a change needing to be done after all that, well, I guess that's just balancing in action. But, I will argue that the results you see before you took an extraordinary amount of work to get to, and extreme amounts of time just to maintain.

[Rias]

I understand there was an investment, as there would be for anyone setting up a farm. The "exploit" part is bypassing the farmland cap by having someone else get their own farmland but essentially turning it over to you for use (even if they're getting paid for it). I'm not saying you (or anyone else) had nefarious intent, I'm just saying it's an unintended workaround to the farmland cap per individual, which I termed an "exploit" of the access system. Sorry it came across as accusatory that way.

In general: If anyone thinks a particular cap is unreasonable or too low, make suggestions for expansions of said cap rather than seeking a workaround.

[Bonehead]

The issue I see with increasing Farmland is it potentially becomes a perpetual chase. Work the farm, get money, invest it back into the farm to get more money. The real limit of farming then becomes playtime - How much time are you willing to dedicate to Farm upkeep.

I've discovered through playtesting that at least for Cow milking, having 48 cows to milk is the hard limit in what I have the patience to work every day. That leans me to suggest a Maximum of 200 plots for land for a character. But, people could use it for crops, or just fill it with beehives.

As for using farms as storage, I think it's just a convince more then anything. I keep things on the farm that will be used on a regular basis, Or in containers for semi-regular basis. Craftsman have lots of tools and things they use to get where they are going.

[ironcross]

I don't think there was any thought on our part about working around a limitation. At least, I can say with certainty that it never occurred to me. As Kumaar was hired by Hoss to build those buildings, and as he is a full-time employee on Hoss's farm, nothing like that crossed my mind.

I tend to think of it like a leasing agency / property management office that handles maintenance and upkeep on the properties so the owner - their client - doesn't have to.

In this case, Hoss footed a huge investment to get the farm up and running. Aether gets a cut - a living wage - and the remainder of that is going to Hoss in repayment of that initial investment of capital. After that, presumably, Aether would make full income on his farm once paid + whatever interest, if applicable, that they agreed on.

[Rias]

Intent aside: Any thoughts regarding the two proposed solutions and any possible additional ones? The bottom line is that I want it so that a character's farming and husbandry production are limited to their own farmland. If I go to someone else's farmland, I should be doing so to assist them, and not to utilize their land as if it were my own.

[Rias]

In this case, Hoss footed a huge investment to get the farm up and running. Aether gets a cut - a living wage - and the remainder of that is going to Hoss in repayment of that initial investment of capital. After that, presumably, Aether would make full income on his farm once paid + whatever interest, if applicable, that they agreed on.

If this were a matter of Hoss giving out a loan of some kind to get someone else's farm going, and the majority of proceeds of the farm owner's efforts going to Hoss to pay that off, that would be fine. That isn't exactly what's happening here, though. The owner of the farmland in question has not done a single animal hunsbandry or farming act on the land. They haven't milked any animals, gathered any honey, planted or harvested any plants, nothing. They are simply paying the farmland rent and being the one who purchases the livestock. Everything else is done by others. This is clearly not someone receiving help to get on their feet on their farm: it's them being used as a proxy for the farmland rent and animal purchases so that others can then utilize the land and animals.

[Bonehead]

Well, if you want people only to be able to help when others are around, option 1 would do it.

Both options would also stymy folks helping eachother on larger farms as well. Both options might solve an exploit, but it does leave me feeling like working as a group to achieve a communial goal would no longer be something to work towards in regards to the farming system.

Also, in regards to them not using the farmland, that is simply because there was nothing for them to use in said farmland until the past day or so. It was empty of everything but beehives and sheds. They had recently mentioned the struggle of combat grinding, and I told them to get to milking some cows for the experience and riln.

[Maina]

At a first glance, I would lean towards #1 being the cleanest way to do it. I do have another suggestion though:

Perhaps make it so that only the owner can take things off the farm that they didn't bring with them. So it could only be used as storage by the owner (as nobody else could retrieve what's there), and only the owner could take products that have been harvested to market or to sell to other PCs. It seems a way to let people help when the owner isn't around, and also easier to explain in an IC fashion (there are guards or other NPC staff that prevent the removal of farm property by non-owners?).

[ironcross]

My only issue with option one is that it means that if you are also the one who must provide all the materials for a building job, if you calculate wrong, they will have to come back to let you in again. Maybe an all-day pass?