Post by Acturios in Cheat Food

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I understand the want to include food and hunger to the game, especially since it ties into a game over, but I have some concerns.

The early game play is fine because there are a lot of encounter that provide food, but as the game wears on such encounters get fewer and farther between. When that happens food starts to dominate the game play, and foraging as it exists now is not fun.

I don't know what the logic is like, but it seems like you succeed while foraging less than half the time. While I haven't done significant tests, the Forager perk doesn't seem to do anything. I had taken to save scumming to get around it, especially since the bird event takes your virginity.

Companions:
* It makes sense for companions to consume food, but they should increase the yield of successful foraging.
* Having companions should not cause you to starve faster. i.e. only lose 5-10 HP per time period when out of food

The Foraging Events are oppressive. If you don't want to lower their frequency, you could add mitigating factors and allow you to continue foraging if the hazard is passed:
* Stealth to avoid the Bird.
* Scouting to avoid getting lost.
* Perception or Agility to avoid the hole.

Consider reduced food consumption when resting, sleeping, or riding on the coach, especially when already at full health. The reasoning being that you need less food when you're less active.

I was really irritated how much food the Mouth Fiend encounter consumed.

Incidentally noticed a bug with the hunger charm, when you get multiples, they are all equipped or unequipped as a group.

Majalis6 years ago

The Hunger Charm bug should be fixed in the current patron builds - food is intended to be finite. If foraging produced net positive food on a large number of iterations, food would be infinite. It's meant as a last resort, not as a sustainable means of acquiring food. If companions offset their food consumption, then the penalty of having companions (excess food consumption) would be pointless.

Acturios6 years ago

To clarify my points:

* Foraging, as currently implemented, is not fun.
* Food, as currently implemented, eventually makes foraging mandatory.
* Eventually, Not Fun is Mandatory.

The other things were suggestions to make it more fun or at least less not-fun.

Food should be a resource to manage, It should not dominate the game play. Food seems too hard to come by and the consequences of not having it are too quickly dire.

I have greatly enjoyed the game overall and just have that one complaint.

Side Note: Pucker Lips should be usable while kneeling.

Majalis6 years ago

"Food should be a resource to manage, It should not dominate the game play."

Gonna need a citation for that. There's no "managing" an inexhaustible resource. That's just busy work for the player. Foraging is meant to be used in desperation (which is why, when it's expanded upon, there'll be more potential "desperate" encounters within it).

Food is the game clock. When it runs out, the game is over. Since you don't get a game over for losing in combat, it is the only game over, outside of a limited number of events which any player could simply avoid through scouting and sneaking if food was infinite. The exact complaint you have - that foraging endlessly isn't fun - is why food is not infinite.

Acturios6 years ago

Mark Rosewater - Fun

Mark has an article about making sure your game is Fun, he's talking about board and card games, but I think it's relevant to most games.

I understand the desire to push the player towards confrontation with the final boss. I don't think Food is the right tool for that goal.

The scarcity of food doesn't make sense. If food was that scarce, all the people would have starved to death. Real world people can go days to weeks without food, in game you're lucky to last a day.

Majalis6 years ago

If food is not the right tool for that goal, why? Your stated reason is nonsensical - the player character is an adventurer, venturing into frontier and wilderness territories all alone - of course starvation is a possibility. The player character is going a long time without food, as you're not actually carrying fifty Food with you; as an example, resting at the inn recovers a large amount of food because you eat a hearty meal, because the food stat itself is more of a satiety stat. Same goes for sharing a meal with Urka or Trudy.

If we wanted to be strictly "realistic", then the first time you were severely injured in battle, you would die of sepsis, and even if you survived, it would be with debilitating injuries that would at best put you out of adventuring for months, and at worst end your career outright.

fuzzcat6 years ago

Sorry, but what's the point of food being finite?

I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely asking in case I'm missing some game mechanic or aspect.

The game expands more and more, with more map, more travelling, more companions and more options to explore, I don't understand what is the function, logic or balance (right now it doesn't makes any, sorry to be blunt) of food becoming more scarce as the game advances .

Is it meant to work as a sort of timer? Or as a way to limit the player to add replayability?

"It's meant as a last resort, not as a sustainable means of acquiring food"
And what would be a sustainable way? Bceause there are no taverns we could eat, and food on stores are a 1 time thing, it doesn't replenishes...

Majalis6 years ago

There are no sustainable means of acquiring food. The game will eventually end, and if you don't reach the end before you exhaust food, you lose. Just because something doesn't make sense to you doesn't mean it makes no sense at all.

fuzzcat6 years ago

Ah, that's why I've used the "Is" and "mes" and "personally", to be precise about just being personal opinions. ;)

I really meant "genuinely asking", not trying to be douche or trolling.
You've explained the logic behind the mechanic on a previous post, and now I understand, that's all I needed.

But please consider at least rising a bit the forage income.
I'm not saying something like a multiplier per chaarcter (so food x3, which indeed would be too much), but at least something like 2 units per character. It doesn't breaks the game, but it's a slight help.

Seriously, food it's really an issue, I guess that there's more to come in the future but right now by the time you reach 1/3rd of the map you're out of it. And then it's a lot of save scumming just to advance a little more.
Have in mind that yes, some encounters can be avoided... precisely at the cost of food. Perfectly understandable. But the map now it's huge, and there's some content that can't be reached even with the most careful planning.

For example, you really need to see the witch to defeat the Xiuh "lord". But just reaching the witch it's really hard, you can barely make it. And then save-scumming to move from the witch's cottage. And "If" you make it to Xiuh, then you need to travel back. And again, a butt-ton of save scumming. And I'm not even taking into account the extra tiles avoiding certain encounters, or moving from town to town (which it's a death sentence... and required to complete a quest).

I understand your logic of food=timer. But it's like saying "the game has 3 hours of content, and you have 1 hour to complete it"
It's not that we can choose and plan a path, and then later choose another one (probably the intention of the mechanic)... it's simply not enough to follow any path.

Really, and again I'm not trying to be an asshole, as it is now, it's not balanced (even for a timer style of playing), not even with the hunger charm.
But hey, it's just my opinion ;)

Majalis6 years ago

I disagree - I'm able to easily complete all the content without ever foraging, between food caches, use of the carriage and altar and Town Portal when necessary instead of hoofing it, resting at the inn for food, hitting up random food encounters like Dryad and Centaur and Orc, etc, big rewards for the Spider and Quetzal, the new healing pond, etc. That's without getting the Hunger Charm, also. The new Elfblood race has lower food consumption and increased EXP requirements, if that's still an issue, but if you're running out of food because you're resting constantly after combat or avoiding difficult encounters the long way or scouting and sneaking often, you're just losing the game the way the game is meant to be lost.

Right now the greatest straight-shot distance from the bottom left of the map to the top right is around 30+ locations, amounting to 60 food with the base rate... which is how much you start with. Obviously doing the quests requires more backtracking and such, and there will be inevitable losses, but the Food Caches give 10 or 15, Spider encounter alone gives an additional 30, for instance, and resting at the inn gives 25, and you get several free rests at the inn, and plenty of money with which to rest at it.

There's also a no-food cheat mode if you want to just play an infinite file without any time pressure.

fuzzcat6 years ago

Nevermind me

I just realize I never use the Inn, and keep forgetting about the Town Portal scroll *facepalm*.
Nice breakdown, made me realize several things and others I didn't knew (like the Spider encounter. I assume it's the one at the ruins, which I avoid like the plague because it creeps the heck outta me. "birthing" spiders from my mouth is definitely not my thing :P )

Btw, about caches, the most common thing I get is some gold. I don't get food too often (maybe 1 out of 5), and half the time I get something like "You find nothing, are you missing something?" but couldn't figure what is causing it. A low attribute?

Usually I have no food problems, but my last run was a nightmare.
But, I've been using the same save. Basically, I make a character carefully, and save on the very first spot to avoid having to go thru character building whenever I want to restart. Judging by your game breakdown, and my own mistakes, most likely I have a "unlucky" map set up, and all this makes it for my current food troubles (more than once on previous builds I had to restart from zero due a troublesome map).

Anyways, thanks for replying. And being patient :P

Majalis6 years ago

Low attribute indeed - Perception. But that just sets your base scouting score (the little eye in the bottom left) - if you use the Scout command, you'll raise that value, and you'll be able to recover more from caches, particularly if your score is so low that you're getting that message.

Also, to avoid having to go through character creation again if you're going to create the exact same character, I just added a feature that if you get a game over, and then hit "Continue", you'll start a new game with a different world and the same character template as the one that got a game over (same class, starting stats, starting skills/perks/magic, customization) so you don't have to redo character creation.

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