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Hi Players!

Now that livestock has been out for a while, I hope that you are all enjoying it! Given a bit of time playing around with it, I have a follow-up question now.

There are two ways to get mobs:

Herds that give only mobs take a long time to mature, and then are guaranteed to give a mob.
Herds that give objects and mobs have a short time to mature, and there is a small chance to get a mob each time.

When designing the system, I discussed for the mob-only herds whether it would be better to do it as I have with the guaranteed returns and a long wait, or if it would be better to do it with the shorter wait and only getting a chance at a return each time. We decided that guaranteed returns seemed more desirable.

Now that this is in and you've had some experience with how it feels. Did we make the right decision or would it be better if we adjusted the other way around? For example, if you have a herd of horses, would you rather have a 25% chance of harvesting one every week, or a 100% chance once a month? It should average out to the same thing, but they may feel very different.

I chose 100% returns and a longer wait, though my ideal choice falls somewhere in between the two options.

I haven't had a chance to play much with livestock either, and my interest is solely in the harvesting of cooking stuff (eggs and milk). But in my opinion, and taking in balance of fun vs. realism as I personally interpret it, I believe the ideal setup is a guaranteed return with a known wait.

Using aged cheese and wine as examples, you have the item visible in a room when you make it, and you just have to wait a while for it to reach its final form. It's probably not easily done for livestock, but if there was some way to harvest the animal regularly but have it be "too young" for a while to use, to keep to whatever pacing was reasonable... I think that would be a good balance. Since we don't deal with animal genetics I don't think it should be a "gamble" to get an animal from a breeding pair.

I voted for the first option. I have not played at all with Livestock, so that should be taken with a grain of salt, but ultimately I'm in favor, generally, of things which allow those of us who can't be online quite as often as others to reap most of the same rewards.