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« on: July 09, 2018, 01:34:32 PM »
I think the current implementation of berries (and I'm talking berry bushes and strawberries, both) is a bit lackluster. There is many easy ways to improve this. I tested most of these with patch operations in my games and I enjoyed it.
First, berry bushes were excellent in B18 and before, because they grew fast (3 days, now it's 6) and gave absurd amounts of nutrition (10, it's still 10). It made them the best crop in the entire game by far, but they were random and nearly disappeared later into the game. I think their efficiency is fine, because there isn't many of them, especially now in 1.0.
Halving their growing time definitely makes them a lot better and more useful, especially early where it's mostly needed. If they would grow in a bit tighter clusters and with a bit more bushes they would be perfect. It's really pleasant to play if there is few, but large clusters of bushes you can harvest regularly - until the lifespan of the bushes is reached. At this point you should not rely solely on berries anymore.
Strawberries, they are the odd crop. Potatoes for poor soil, Corn needs little labor but is risky, rice needs a lot of labor but produces the most and is solid due to short growing times. Strawberries? You can eat them raw but... food poisoning.
I think what they need is a niche. And I think their niche could be "super low labor/replace bad cook with good grower" - basically when harvested they don't need to be sown again, just like berry bushes. Increase grow time and yield. Their food poison chance should be really low, much lower than other raw food. They could also give a tiny mood buff "ate juicy berries" +3 mood. It's not as good as a fine meal, but it's better than simple meals. Their nutrition could be reduced, so you need to eat more of them - why is this relevant? Storage. They need more space.
So you have a grower with high enough skill to plant strawberries, they have to be harvested rarely, don't need to be planted again (at least for a long time) and give a small mood buff. You also don't need to cook and deal with high food poison chance (but there still is a chance). The downside is long growing time (risky), needs lots of space, needs growing skill, low nutrition per time (= again need more space because you need to plant more) - and always the chance you might still get food poison, however small it may be.
Last but not least, they could be a joy source, albeit a really bad one, if the mood buff is not wanted.
I just think that would give them a proper purpose in the game and some people will default to using strawberries if they don't start out with a good cook or don't want to deal with kitchen/cleaning/setup etc..