Seasons now 91 days long? (OP updated with links and Kevin's answers)

[latogato]

But gameplay surely will be change because of it in the future. I like to play on default - i believe the game optimised to default settings - and now i worry because this can change the game pace and generaly a lot of things.

[latogato]

I don’t think, but maybe cold spring will be much longer. Hm, so maybe not now but they have to fix it soon. Or just start in summertime, there will be plenty of time to do anything because the long seasons.

[Caplin]

I’d love to hear from @CleverRaven on the thinking behind this change. I’m not opposed to it, just curious. In some ways, I really like the added realism.

[mlangsdorf]

Set default season length to 91 days

Read the discussion on the PR.

[Trigon]

Man. It’s gonna take me a while to get another survivor to truck on for four years. Time for another restart.

[kevin.granade]

Will be the crafting times longer, possibly days long?

Sometimes, but for the most part they’re already scaled for number of hours rather than season duration, so there will be no change.

Breeding and evolution times will be change to less?

No, these were already set based on real-world timespans instead of the season setting.

What about the experiences and the learning time?

Nothing to do with this change, though there has been consistent feedback for roughly forever that this kind of thing is way too fast.

[Vastin]

Huh, I’ve certainly used 30-day seasons, and that felt pretty decent. 90 day seasons though… seems like they’d get kinda monotonously long. It would certainly make it trivial to get full winter gear and a hardened vehicle long before winter rolled around for the first time. I mean, you’d basically be well into the late game long before the first winter started - probably cybered or mutated to hell and back, much less with a full winter gear set put aside.

The only new challenge would be that your stored food supply would have to last 90 days, which is significant - but with a decent setup, it currently takes maybe 2 days of foraging and preserving in order to put aside enough food to last several weeks.

[Warlander]

To be honest, I’m not even sure if average game would last the whole year with 91 day seasons (ignoring games that end in first few hours/days). If anything, it would be more interesting to see seasons changing faster rather than slower (10 days looking like a sweet spot).

[Trigon]

How does this effect farming? Before even on thirty day seasons it took nearly sixty days to grow anything, which seemed off as many of the crops should grow in around a month or so

[kevin.granade]

Crop maturation should take as long as it does IRL, my understanding is that with modern methods one can harvest several batches of crops a year.

[pingpong]

This is a really terrible change. I don’t think I’ve ever made it to year 3, and had most skills at super high levels and was at the fema camp by year 2. That includes DAYS of grinding skills at high levels. Did the people who did the pull even try to play the game, instead of just “it’s more like real days”? You’ll see 99% more noobies dying before the temperature is above freezing, and a handful of long-term players on old (eventually) versions complaining about how their “first year” cataclysm saves are two thousand experimentals behind.

If you spent 5 minutes/day, it’s 30 HOURS before you hit the next year. It’d make more sense for them to push evolution things to multiple seasons or x days than make the game 30 hours per year to solve it.

[Demosthenes]

I think this a great change. Have none of you considered the inherent heroic realism? You play a game that counts calories, vitamins, seconds… but let me have 14 days seasons? That is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in a while. Two week seasons. Right. Applaud the change.

[Shard]

I’ve been playing on 90-91 day seasons for about five years IRL. It isn’t anywhere near as massive of a problem as everyone is making it out to be. I have taken dozens of characters multiple years in both 90+ and 14 day seasons.

Things that change: Time between checking shrubberies in forests, time between checking berry bushes, time between checking trees, time for farming I think (I don’t farm), both time to prepare for winter and time to survive winter (requires planning but is easier if you do plan ahead of time… until butchery change, now just kill one animal), and possibly construction time if you have that option set.

Additionally, development is, and has been, based on 91 day seasons for a long time now. And you can easily change it back if you seriously think the world is going to end over it.

[Trigon]

I’m fine with 91 day seasons. My main concern is that it just massively deincentivises farming. Which was already niche by requiring you to be stationary The yields would have to be enormous to even consider sitting in one spot for 90 days doing nothing of consequence. I can’t wait till my first winter though. Finally a reason to dip into all the canned goods.

[mlangsdorf]

I’ve played on 90 day seasons for years and every survivor I’ve had has at least attempted to farm. Put down some seeds, fertilize, go roam around for a week, come back and sort your loot/read books/upgrade your equipment for a few days, check on the crops. It’s never been a problem.

[Robik]

It’s never been a problem.

It is not a problem technically, it is a problem from game play perspective.

I play at 28 day season, because that way, I do have a harvest (entire point of farming) before I reach the endgame. In other words, farming helps me reach the endgame - brings variety of food etc.

With 90 day season, the game pacing will be that I plant at mid game, and return to my farm in my deathmobil as a demigod, mutated and CBMed to the brim. Just to retire and watch my plants mature while sharpening my diamond katana on the grind stone.

In other words, with 90 day season, farming does not help you reach the endgame, it is something you do in retirement.

And if other progress like reading, crafting etc. is slowed down to match the real season length? The game will end up with pacing of grindy korean MMO, boring as f*ck.

[latogato]

I think this a great change. Have none of you considered the inherent heroic realism? You play a game that counts calories, vitamins, seconds… but let me have 14 days seasons? That is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve seen in a while. Two week seasons. Right. Applaud the change.

No, i don’t. We have 14 days seasons, also we have “cities” which means a bunch of random houses with few dozen of ex-inhabitants. We can master any skill in hours or days. We craft things in minutes or hours.

The game should have small scale for everything to ensure its variety. If the seasons are long, most people will never live (or get bored) to see a season change. Our characters will be end-game heros before the summer. We could craft insane ammount of items within a season.

The small time scale gives game immersion. We travel and clear some (small) places and a season passed. It looks stupid if we can clear dozens of cities in a season. Also nomad characters should have to plunder whole cities for food to survive a season, because the season is long but the city loot is few in comparison. That is hilarious.

[Sanehatter]

This is not a problem, its meant to work like that.

[latogato]

But it is a problem. People wear clothes for the actual day. If it is spring but the weather is cold, you will wear warm clothes.

[Sanehatter]

How is that bad? Season starts work like that because the weather doesn’t change instantaneously, using warm clothes on early spring is no tragedy.