Goblin Squad Member
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I also remember having fun with "Zork," but I would not advocate for ravenous grues lurking in every dark corner.
I would. =P I've lost track of the number of times I'm GMing a game, and the party goes to explore the (cave|sub-basement|castle dungeon) and I look at them and say "Alright, who's got the light?" and they all stare dumbly at each other.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also remember having fun with "Zork," but I would not advocate for ravenous grues lurking in every dark corner.I would. =P I've lost track of the number of times I'm GMing a game, and the party goes to explore the (cave|sub-basement|castle dungeon) and I look at them and say "Alright, who's got the light?" and they all stare dumbly at each other.
That's why you play a dwarf. Infravision. Don't leave home without it.
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I also remember having fun with "Zork," but I would not advocate for ravenous grues lurking in every dark corner.I would. =P I've lost track of the number of times I'm GMing a game, and the party goes to explore the (cave|sub-basement|castle dungeon) and I look at them and say "Alright, who's got the light?" and they all stare dumbly at each other.That's why you play a dwarf. Infravision. Don't leave home without it.
Ah man, if they kept the races visions, like EQ did, that would be sweet.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I agree with farming for a settlement. I think that settlements should have a cost associated with keeping it running, since settlements provides benefits. I think that basically anything that provides a benefit should have a cost of some sort, more so for something as big as a settlement. A settlement should not be something that someone just decides one day and then forgets about it. Making a settlement productive should require inputs and care.
I like weight management and having gear/inventory be weight based. it adds to the game i think. I would love to go to a tavern and sit eat, RP, listen to a bard to play song, or a group play (ala LOTRO). I would love fishing, farming, cooking, survival. I dont think hunger/thirst is a good way to do it.
As to the hunger/thirst adding to the economy. You are correct it will, but not to the level you think it will.
So lets take a look at how a hunger/thirst mechanic would work.
1) Overtime your hunger/thirst goes up. As it goes up you get a penalty to some stat/ability/function.
2) in order to offset that penalty you need to eat/drink.
3) result of this system means to encourage players to hunt game, farm crops, fish, forage, and such in order to provide a variety raw materials for cooks. Cooks then take those raw materials and create a valued product for the rest of the players. In addition to that this also adds value to other crafters by having greater amount of tools that need to be made (fishing poles, plows, cookware..etc).
Ok so, the problem to this is, how do you encourage the wider player base to hunt game, farm crops, fish, forage, and such? The answer currently put forth is through hunger/thirst.
The problem with that is that hunger/thirst does not promote that level of interaction.
If hunger/thirst provides a penalty that can be gotten rid of by eating trail rations and drinking water (which unless there is something really out of whack will be very easy to make as well as really cheap) why will the larger player base put in the effort to hunt game, fish, forage, farm?
The wider player base will not go out of their way to put in any extra work to get rid of the debuff. For the wider player base why invest more time/gold into something that has the same payoff as something that is quicker and cheaper? The result will be the vast majority of people will find out whats the fastest and cheapest to to get rid of the penalty and do only that.
So the hunger/thirst system needs to encourage people to use a wide variety of resources in order to effectively add to game play.
How can a hunger/thirst mechanic possibly do that?
you basically have two ways of doing this.
the first is that you require different types (any or quality) of food based on how bad the penalty is. So while your hunger bar is at 90% you could munch of trail rations but if you were at 10% you might need a high quality home cooked meal to bring you to 40% then another home cooked meal or camp meal to get you to 80%, then another camp meal to get to 90%, then trail rations to get to 100%. the problem with that is that in general you wont get many people to go below 90%. People will keep a stack of trail rations on them, and then maybe only enough mats to make 1-3 of the other stuff for the rare occasion that they go below that.
This still will not drive the economy as most people will not allow them to drop down far enough to have to do extra work. Keep 2 stacks of rations on you can eat them the second your penalty shows up.
The second method is to have a penalty, but that penalty is random. As you get more and more hungry you get either more penalties or the magnitude of the penalty you get increases. In this case you force a larger variety of foods that have to be used. If you have each type of penalty require a different food, then each magnitude of penalty also require a different food, you have effectively forced players to use many types of foods, thus provided the drive to farm more than one thing that the first one does not. However this also has a problem. the problem with this is that if you require many different foods, then you force the character to keep a bunch of different foods on them at all times or they have to stop what they are doing, run into a town and eat, then run back out.
so one of the other things is that you encourage people to log off when they are not doing something because if they just hang out around town and talk to people or run into a friend and hang out with them you are penalizing that time they spend in game. My view is that a good game requires the players to have a COST for a benefit. temporary getting rid of a immortal penalty is not cost for a benefit. Providing a settlement with crops and stone and gold to keep it functioning is a cost for a benefit.
So the main question is. Is there a method/mechanic that can provide the benefits better or less drawbacks? Is there a system that can be put in place that does all of that, but provides players with an INCENTIVE to do it, not a punishment for not doing it? Is there a system that can be put in place that will be accepted by the wider player base, and not hailed as an unnecessary annoyance? Is there a system that provides a reward for doing it instead of a penalty?
I think there can be a better solution than hunger/thirst. hunger/thirst is an annoyance that takes away from the core of the game. its a micro management, which is good, but its not at the correct level. I do not think that hunger/thirst adds meaningful gameplay as a whole. I do not think that hunger/thirst can provide the economic benefits or the player interaction benefits without being unduly complex and unweidly and ultimately subtract from the fun of the game. Having cost for a benefit is a good thing, having continuing costs (for gear/settlements/player nations) is what will keep the economy going. I do not think hunger/thirst fits into that model.
I agree with farming for a settlement. I think that settlements should have a cost associated with keeping it running, since settlements provides benefits. I think that basically anything that provides a benefit should have a cost of some sort, more so for something as big as a settlement. A settlement should not be something that someone just decides one day and then forgets about it. Making a settlement productive should require inputs and care.
I like weight management and having gear/inventory be weight based. it adds to the game i think. I would love to go to a tavern and sit eat, RP, listen to a bard to play song, or a group play (ala LOTRO). I would love fishing, farming, cooking, survival. I dont think hunger/thirst is a good way to do it.
As to the hunger/thirst adding to the economy. You are correct it will, but not to the level you think it will.
So lets take a look at how a hunger/thirst mechanic would work.
1) Overtime your hunger/thirst goes up. As it goes up you get a penalty to some stat/ability/function.
2) in order to offset that penalty you need to eat/drink.
3) result of this system means to encourage players to hunt game, farm crops, fish, forage, and such in order to provide a variety raw materials for cooks. Cooks then take those raw materials and create a valued product for the rest of the players. In addition to that this also adds value to other crafters by having greater amount of tools that need to be made (fishing poles, plows, cookware..etc).
Ok so, the problem to this is, how do you encourage the wider player base to hunt game, farm crops, fish, forage, and such? The answer currently put forth is through hunger/thirst.
The problem with that is that hunger/thirst does not promote that level of interaction.
If hunger/thirst provides a penalty that can be gotten rid of by eating trail rations and drinking water (which unless there is something really out of whack will be very easy to make as well as really cheap) why will the larger...
Well thought out post! I can see the value of coming up with a better way to handle food, that also drives the economy and provides harvesters with opportunities to do more then just Farm X all the time.
I also agree that having a penalty for just sitting in town, or at an inn etc. doesn't really help gameplay. They can always auto kick people who are idle for a long period of time to prevent that from being an issue if they want.
I'm not coming up with any new ideas off the top off my head, but I'll definitely think about it.
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The solution to this that has been suggested is that higher quality food lasts longer, so rations means you would be eating much more of them and have to carry more of them than if you eat a good tavern meal.
This would help. As would having different foods give different benefits, with higher quality foods lasting longer then the iron rations etc.
I also like that differing quality foods could effect settlement NPC morale/happiness. Perhaps allowing settlements to stock up on food and drink, then have celebrations or holidays where the NPCs don't work and consume lots of food and drink, but they'd get a Big boost to their morale which would last a good while. This would require some work from the Devs, but I think the results would be really cool :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think the food supplies for towns also supplies some potential for open Guildwars 2 style questing where you contribute as much or as little as you like, and perhaps of giving out rewards as such apart from rating with the town, the benefit is in having a better town.
Communities could crop up that just sell food to other players to give to thrir towns.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could see 3 types of food:
1. "Fuel" for Settlements. This would be something that is used every hour by the settlement to "feed" the NPCs that invisibly run stuff behind the scenes. You run out of this and your settlement will suffer and eventually collapse. This would be "Barrels of Foodstuff" or some good name.
2. "Prepared Meals" for Inns and Taverns. This would be a type of food that isn't useful unless purchased at an Inn or Tavern. These would be fairly cheap to produce compared to rations since they are not usable in the field.
3. "Trail Rations." Standard Adventurer fare. These cost a bit more than Prepared Meals since they have to be specially prepared to last in the field.
Also, a lot of people intending to be chefs will likely also hunt their own game to ensure lower margins.
I certainly plan to hunt my own stuff, using the leather for armor and the meat for foods. It would rock to be able to throw an oven onto a wagon and start my own food truck business. But I'll settle for being able to sell my food in a market stall or to inns :)
I could see 3 types of food:
1. "Fuel" for Settlements. This would be something that is used every hour by the settlement to "feed" the NPCs that invisibly run stuff behind the scenes. You run out of this and your settlement will suffer and eventually collapse. This would be "Barrels of Foodstuff" or some good name.
2. "Prepared Meals" for Inns and Taverns. This would be a type of food that isn't useful unless purchased at an Inn or Tavern. These would be fairly cheap to produce compared to rations since they are not usable in the field.
3. "Trail Rations." Standard Adventurer fare. These cost a bit more than Prepared Meals since they have to be specially prepared to last in the field.
1. I could see settlement food being separate from players foods. So long as you can create different types (levels of quality) of settlement food. These should be fairly easy to craft but require a decent amount of material, more then is needed for player food.
2. Works for me, I do think players should be allowed to take meals with them, they would just have a quick decay rate? Otherwise when you buy a meal it would have to be eaten immediately upon purchase right?
3. I agree totally..
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Goblin Squad Member
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I dont think making rations cost more is a good solution. trail rations are cheap and they last a long time. its why people use them while traveling.
Having food last longer, well you have to take a look at cost vs benefit. Unless those either those high time foods are cheaper and easier to make then its not going to beat trail rations. I dont see trail rations weighing so much that you cant take 5 lbs of rations in your saddlebags to keep you going for a long time.
Not only that but if there is a hunger/thirst mechanic in the game my first character is going to be a druid, and im going to under cut every single cook in the entire lands by selling goodberries for cheap and wands of create water. While i do that im going to have a cleric craft rings of sustenance for cheap. 1250 to make, sell for 1500, tidy profit. i bet every single person will want one so they can avoid hunger/thirst.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That assumes that good berries will be so good that you won't need to eat 40 an hour just to stay full, or that adding them to a pie in a tavern, or a tart, or a cake, or trail ration won't improve them and make you need to eat less and less often, that water will be particularly satisfying, and that tea or ale or wine or cider (good berry cider? :p) would not be better.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also remember having fun with "Zork," but I would not advocate for ravenous grues lurking in every dark corner.I would. =P I've lost track of the number of times I'm GMing a game, and the party goes to explore the (cave|sub-basement|castle dungeon) and I look at them and say "Alright, who's got the light?" and they all stare dumbly at each other.
You know that gives me an idea. They have already explained why they won't add darkness as a way of obscuring vision to this game. (It's too easy to hack.) but they could make everything not in range of a light source stealthed and impossible to detect without a method of seeing in the dark.
That's a discussion for another topic though.
You know that gives me an idea. They have already explained why they won't add darkness as a way of obscuring vision to this game. (It's too easy to hack.) but they could make everything not in range of a light source stealthed and impossible to detect without a method of seeing in the dark.
That's a discussion for another topic though.
/sigh I was hoping.... Ah well.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I could see 3 types of food:
1. "Fuel" for Settlements. This would be something that is used every hour by the settlement to "feed" the NPCs that invisibly run stuff behind the scenes. You run out of this and your settlement will suffer and eventually collapse. This would be "Barrels of Foodstuff" or some good name.
This would be ideal, farms produce bulk food stuffs that are labeled "bulk wheat" or "bulk corn" have them all crated up or in barrels, a farmer or a merchant could break down the bulk goods into usable amounts for cooking or get them to a settlement to be fed to the peasants, keeping the starvation away from the masses and keeping the settlement running smoothly.
2. "Prepared Meals" for Inns and Taverns. This would be a type of food that isn't useful unless purchased at an Inn or Tavern. These would be fairly cheap to produce compared to rations since they are not usable in the field.
Instead of having food as a buff or to remove a debuff I believe stopping at an inn should a "relaxation=morale" type buff, something tied like "food quality" + "entertainment quality" + "companionship" + "time spent = a boost to morale (with a cap that keeps it from getting crazy high), that lasts for a full game day (6hours I believe).
The same could be said of camps though you'd need a bard or some other kind of entertainment to get the entire bonus.
Now, if they want to tie food & drink to the refresh mechanics (the "ability reset button") that could work.
Something along the lines of different quality food & drinks which determine how long the refresh takes and how many abilities reuses it refreshes.
cheap bread and water gives you 1 extra ability reuses, common bread & water 2 extra ability reuse, elegant meal and fine drink 4 extra ability reuses.
In combo with the above, adding in the quality of entertainment, companionship(just sitting near others while eating/drinking should do this one)and time spent seems like an ok way to do it as long as the morale boost is a small enough reward or buff that in a one on one fight it's not an I win kind of reward but would add up in parties of adventurers to turn an equal fight into a slight advantage for those that have a morale boost.
3. "Trail Rations." Standard Adventurer fare. These cost a bit more than Prepared Meals since they have to be specially prepared to last in the field.
I can't find the quote but in addition to the tie to the refresh of abilities you could keep them cheap and have your trail rations increase your heal rate while eating. (I would keep 1st aid firmly in the fixing bad injuries/stopping bleeding area if this were the case, so as not to cut the demand of cheap trail rations.)
So food by itself increases your healing and helps refresh abilities. Going to a tavern, inn or camp with fellow adventurers causes a morale bonus and refreshes more abilities, the NCP population gets fed through bulk goods. This system allows for the stratagies in warfare keeping your settlement fed, Trail rations should be eaten on a regular basis by players creating a need for them and gets peoples butts into taverns or around campfires without the "oh its been 10 minutes, I better go back to town and buff up" problem. It keeps the gamechanger buffs in the hands of potion makers. It also adds more gameplay chioces making dancing, singing and juggling something worth going for.
I do think players should be allowed to take meals with them, they would just have a quick decay rate? Otherwise when you buy a meal it would have to be eaten immediately upon purchase right?
Golden Arches ride through?
Leads to inattentive riders. A horrible problem on our Kingdoms roadways that must be regulated immediately!
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Goblin Squad Member
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If you look at the "Adventure in the River Kingdoms" blog and check out the diagram there, I do think they were planning on having food at the macro level be an input that effects Settlement health as you can see arrows for both "food" and "crops" there, and that really makes sense...as food supply would be one of the biggest determinants of the size of population (common people) that a settlement could support.
What's being discussed here is really, I believe food and rest (Camps & Inns), and how it might effect individual adventurer's.
For me it's pretty clear that it's better to impliment it as a "bonus" then a penalty. Even if there is mechanicaly not much difference between though two (and I personaly don't think there is) it seems to make people FEEL much better about the concept of possibly getting a "bonus" rather then possibly getting a "penalty".... so why annoy people if you don't need to do so?
Pathfinder the PnP Ruleset is pretty comfortable with the concept of bonuses ("buffs") belonging to certain categories (dodge, morale, etc) that stack or don't stack with each other. So I think that can be usefull here, you make "Food" it's own category of bonus that can stack with "buffs" provided by spells/potions but not with itself. I think that's the simplest interpretation.
So an adventurer that really wanted to be performing at peak effeciency would eat in order to get a "food buff" going along with any other "buffs" they might get from spells/potions. The buff doesn't have to be huge but as long as it's enough to notice, people will be inclined to do it because they WANT, especialy in PvP, whatever edge they can find to win an encounter. The reason why people don't usualy bother with such things in most other MMO's that have it (LOTRO has a food system) is that the PVE encounters in them are so laughably easy that you can do them blindfolded...so seeking out extra edges is simply a waste of time. When you take that away, and the encounters actualy become challenging (and PvP tends to be so )...that equation changes.
Now you can have different food-stuffs that give you different TYPES (strength, health, will, etc) of buffs but only 1 food category buff (whichever one you ate last) active at a time. You could also have certain types of food stuffs that are ONLY availble at an INN/CAMP (e.g. stuff prepared "fresh") and these give stronger versions of a buff... and you could actualy run a timer say 2-5 minutes where the person had to stay in the INN/Camp "eating" in order to get that buff.
That actualy makes people hang-out in the INN/CAMP for a little while, giving some "down-time" and providing a locust for socializing and interaction with folks who are there.
So if people didn't want to bother with the whole food/drink system they COULD forgoe it, but they would be giving some mechanical benefit in order to do so.
If people wanted some mechanical benefit from the system, they could buy ready rations of some stuff to take with them in thier packs and eat. That would come at the cost of some coin and some pack space.
If people wanted the largest mechanical benefit from the system, they would take the trouble to seek out INNS and or CAMPS which involved planning, downtime from other activities and coin.
If people wanted benefits but want to mitigate the costs (in coin, travel time and pack space) they could train in skills like Survival and Cooking to setup thier own camps and catch and prepare thier own food (or for party mates)...but of course that would mean sacrificing by training in that rather then other skills and a little time to hunt down and prepare thier meals....and of course could be a locust for PVE encounters in the wild (wandering monsters smelling food cooking).
I think the above has the benefit of being reasonably simple to impliment, should be reasonably acceptable to most people (even many who would otherwise be resistant to hunger/thirst mechanics) and achieves alot of the goals that a hunger/thirst system would be aimed at (e.g. adding to the economic cycle, allowing players to make interesting game-play decisions, providing for some importance of non-combat skills, and fostering human interactions). YMMV.
Edit: What I'm hoping to do here is provide something that doesn't take alot of Dev time/resources to impliment by reusing systems (like potion and spell "buffs") that are likely to be in the game already. That, I think, makes it much more likely to see implimented....rather then something that would be awesome to do, but never gets done because of the resources it would take to impliment.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think programming wise a penalty is not more effort than a bonus
one allows negative numbers, the other doesn't.
there is also mechanics in place for the effect starvation brings: poinson/dissease/curse.
P&P paper rules wise a characters take non-leathal damage and get fatigued from starvation or thirst
which is -2 to Strength and dexterity
which equals -1 (on the d20) or -5% to hit
a character can go 1 day without water and 3 days without food.
MMO wise this equals what?
6 to 18 hours of playtime before the player needs to do something about it?
is it really too much to ask for to get your virtual water skinn filled every 12 hours?
log on, fill water skin, play 12 hours, find water before logging off.
this could even be automated as long as you are passing by a river or fountain
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Goblin Squad Member
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@dropbearhunter
the problem that i see is that such a system does not encourage people to do a variety of things. People wont brew drinks to get rid of hunger, they are going to buy decanters of endless water or wands of create water or drink from a stream. If you throw something like hunger/thirst people will not go out of their way to farm different things, prepare different meals, or any of that. Players will find the simplist and easiest method to get rid of the penalty and use only that.
So my question is this. What value is asking a player to waste time drinking from a water skin add to the game? Economic? I disagree as outlined with my above posts that a hunger/thirst mechanic will not add value to the economy in a meaningful way without being unduly complex and burdonsom.
Is the value RP? Sure, eating and drinking has an RP value for people that want that level. HOWEVER eating and drinking can be done without hunger/thirst, so why force others? While i am sure this game will support RP, its not focsed on that. The problem is is it worth penalizing the entire player base for a couple of people to RP?
So why if its just a drink and eat do you include that into the game? Just wave that and let people enjoy hanging around. The other thing is that hunger/thirst penalizes people who just want to hang out, people who just want to sit down and talk to friends. "ohhhh guys id like to stay but if i do my hunger is going to go out. No point in wasting the gold, ill see you tomorrow."
How about food for seiges...well you can still do that, you can do that using a settlement level farming/growing mechanic. More importantly such a mechanic can be lead in the cost of having a benefit (in this case a settlement), where part of the upkeep (cost) of your settlement is providing it food for the NPCs.
If you look at the "Adventure in the River Kingdoms" blog and check out the diagram there, I do think they were planning on having food at the macro level be an input that effects Settlement health as you can see arrows for both "food" and "crops" there, and that really makes sense...as food supply would be one of the biggest determinants of the size of population (common people) that a settlement could support.
What's being discussed here is really, I believe food and rest (Camps & Inns), and how it might effect individual adventurer's.
For me it's pretty clear that it's better to impliment it as a "bonus" then a penalty. Even if there is mechanicaly not much difference between though two (and I personaly don't think there is) it seems to make people FEEL much better about the concept of possibly getting a "bonus" rather then possibly getting a "penalty".... so why annoy people if you don't need to do so?
Pathfinder the PnP Ruleset is pretty comfortable with the concept of bonuses ("buffs") belonging to certain categories (dodge, morale, etc) that stack or don't stack with each other. So I think that can be usefull here, you make "Food" it's own category of bonus that can stack with "buffs" provided by spells/potions but not with itself. I think that's the simplest interpretation.
So an adventurer that really wanted to be performing at peak effeciency would eat in order to get a "food buff" going along with any other "buffs" they might get from spells/potions. The buff doesn't have to be huge but as long as it's enough to notice, people will be inclined to do it because they WANT, especialy in PvP, whatever edge they can find to win an encounter. The reason why people don't usualy bother with such things in most other MMO's that have it (LOTRO has a food system) is that the PVE encounters in them are so laughably easy that you can do them blindfolded...so seeking out extra edges is simply a waste of time. When you take that away, and the encounters actualy become challenging (and PvP tends to be...
The more I think about it, the more I like GrumpyMel's suggestion above.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@DropBear,
I'm sure technicaly it's just as easy to add a debuff rather then a buff...the reason for the buff instead is purely player psychology.... there seem to be a fair amount of players that would be resistant to a debuff but have no problem with adding buffs....so no reason to go around poking tigers with sticks if you don't need to do so. You can achieve the exact same goals by making it a buff and will get less resistance.
The making the development easy part refered to the details of how to impliment the buff....e.g. piggy-backing off existing systems rather then developing a brand new system from scratch for it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, Leperkhaun, it sounds like you think food and water are complete wastes of time. You claim making food give 15-30 minute buffs will magically less tedious and more beneficial to the economy than longer lasting penalty relief. I don't buy it. Mainly because duplicating the effects of spells makes parties less useful. Why party when you have everything in a sandwich you have 50 of in your pack? I don't see why you want the repeat to something WoW has done for years (and I have never touched in that game because short term buffs I have to buy are a waste of my time).
But since you keep repeating yourself, so will I. Let's get rid of item crafting too. Let's get rid of buying stuff and an economy! Those are useless things in a simple dungeon crawl game. Everyone gets a free sword when they create their character that never dulls, so they don't have to worry about item maintenance. We're getting rid of everything that could be considered annoying to someone! Let's have monsters automatically die when you look at them so you don't have to (annoyingly) do battle!
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Goblin Squad Member
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Penalty vs Buff? Always go with a Buff. Even if you have to reset "normal".
When WoW first introduced the idea of cutting XP in half if you weren't rested, the community rose up and loudly protested. So they cut all xp in half and doubled xp when you were rested. The community loved it.
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Penalty vs Buff? Always go with a Buff. Even if you have to reset "normal".
When WoW first introduced the idea of cutting XP in half if you weren't rested, the community rose up and loudly protested. So they cut all xp in half and doubled xp when you were rested. The community loved it.
Well someone taught them to "roll over". Wonder if they can "play dead" and maybe even "fetch"!
Sorry, sarcasm +5 assault.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, Nonexistant, GrumpyMel :: You guys have nailed almost all of the critical points I could conjure during the 4 1/2 page novel I just read.
Andius definitely hit it on the head in regards to various degrees of food. Nonexistant for the morale aspect and Grumpy for pointing out about bonus stacking in PnP.
I want to say that I'm not comfortable with the idea of food giving a buff. "Moar buffs" is just a bad mentality for games in general in my opinion, and this is no exception. There is a time and place for buffs, but why on earth would something as mundane as eating be one of them. ><
A lot of the other points Andius made bear considering. The idea of using morale and how morale bonuses stack (to my recollection) though, that is where a solid foundation for an idea comes together.
Let's see if I can keep this brief.
- One long lasting 'sustenance' meter for a player. This needs to take into account average player playtime, length of days in game / out of game, etc.. suffice to say, it's something you could ignore for a good full in-game day's worth of playtime before it starts to have an effect.
- Once this has been depleted to the point of being in the 'red', let's say 10% or so, a very minor debuff comes into play. This would be something like, "movement speed reduced by 10%".
- Once it has been completely depleted movement speed is further impacted, say up to 20% in addition to combat penalties for melee, ranged and casters alike, and to top it off resting rates are slowed showing how it takes longer to recover while famished.
- These penalties are morale based. As such they are able to be overcome by morale boosting skills such as a bard might have to temporarily overcome the detrimental effects. If they get too bad it would take a very skilled bard to overcome these effects (as equates to the more powerful bonus taking precedence in PnP, not sure if this is done the same in PF as in DND).
- Players can use travel rations to slow or temporarily stop the downward progress of this sustenance bar.
- Player made food would be a nice way to offer a stronger alternative to rations, though I believe they should have an expiration date of 1-2 days in game. (Unless preservation techniques come into play, at which point the effectivity is decreased, though still higher than a ration.)
- In order to refill this bar, a player must remain at a camp or a tavern for an extended period of time. Camps refill it at a much slower rate than do taverns. Perhaps something like a 1:3 ratio.
Here's where I throw in something new.
- Players who take the time to visit a tavern also have the option of 'recounting their adventures'. This means that if the player remains at the tavern for a set amount of time, perhaps until their bar is full, that their exploits are offloaded to the tavern's sort of leaderboards. Except this one uses actual data instead of leaving room for exaggeration. Simple things like, monsters slain, enemy players slain, criminals slain, caravan distance escorted, etc..
- Tavern food should still be a cost, it would be nice if the tavern itself had to participate in the stocking and supply of this food, but that belongs in a logistics discussion I think. Ultimately this should be a way for taverns to generate a profit if they are well run and well patroned.
I believe the more encouragement we can lend to getting players into the tavern for any substantial amount of time, even if it's their login/logout location just to recoup their sustenance meter, offers more chances for interaction. I would like to see this generally be applied to only your home tavern, to help foster that sense of community; of, well... home. Having a leaderboard for players to compete on in a non-official sort of way, without breaking immersion would be invaluable. Players would be able to see who is doing what the most, if those players want their deeds known they get to compete in a friendly fashion (like Achievements/Trophies of console friends lists), it gives merchants a chance to see things like who is the most effective at long haul transportation, it gives adventurers a chance to see who has crafted and/or sold the most equipment, or equipment of a certain quality threshold.
Let's see what you guys think.
P.s. Coincidentally, this in conjunction with the death penalties discussed lately in this thread coincide nicely for the impact on how Wars would be directed.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@drakhan
Who said that food had to be 15-30 minutes? Make them last a couple of hours. Allow a variety of food to provide a buff. So for example. Lets say oatmeal provides increased health regen out of combat, normally that lasts say 4 hours. Well now i add strawberries to the oatmeal and the effect of that is that oatmeal provides increased hp regen and say a minor run speed boost. Ok then i add blueberries. Now i have strawberry blueberry oatmeal, this food provides out of combat regen and a minor run speed boost, but for 8 hours.
So about making others in a party not as useful. So lets take increasing a stat as an example, we will use strength. Lets say the food you eat allows you a +2 bonus. Well guess what, bull's strength provides +4 to STR, thus making it still useful to use, as you will net an extra +2 to str. By making food provide 1) benefits not in potions/scrolls/spells and 2) those benefits that are in those be lower in magnitude you allow those thing to still have value.
So answer me this. How do you get players to farm and use a wide variety of goods by using the hunger mechanic. Why should someone say, farm cabbage instead of fish? Why should someone farm cabbage, hunt rabbit, pick apples to make a meal, than just kill the rabbit and roast it? How do you encourage the player base to use a variety of goods other than the simplest and cheapest on possible?
Also get rid of crafting? Come on. Crafting is centeral to providing a meaninful economy to the game. Crafting facilitates gatherers and adds value by providing people who do not want to craft I have already stated how i do not think that hunger/thirst will add meaningfully to the economy. The reason for that is it does not provide enough demand for different resources. In order to hunger/thirst to provide a demand for different resources it will require significant resource drain (more than once every couple hours) and it will require a variety of goods to be harvested and it will require a large variety of goods to be crafted.
The reason is that players will not go out of their way to do extra work for the same payoff. it will not happen.
So i explained why I do not think that hunger/thirst can provide the above.
I would like to have you come up with an outline that shows how hunger/thirst can provide a large demand, provide a large demand for various amounts of goods, provide crafters with demand for many different types of food/drink, provide a reason for players to eat anything other than the simpliest type of food, discourage players from finding the easiest type of food and only using that. Then do that without making hunger/thirst overly complicated or turning it into a health simulation game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Re: Penalty vs Buff .. @Nihimon, the point you made simply serves to demonstrate that players react more to how something is being presented than to what is being presented.
There's also the growing mentality of the latest generation of gamers and even those of us who have been doing it for a long time to feel entitled to all of these +'s and extras that we've been spoon-fed by games with very little meaning to them. It's a cheap feel-good tactic that is in no way responsible behavior for setting realistic expectations among players.
I sincerely hope we do not see GW give in to this mindset. It is incredibly unhealthy for the game itself and for the players that grow accustomed to it, and particularly for the gaming industry as a whole. Based on the level playing field approach they are taking to levels and strength gap between players, it does not seem like they are particularly open to this. It's very little precedent to go off of, but it is a strong sign of their stance.
Also, FFS people, it's PnP tabletop. Pathfinder. The game that broke off of DND because 4E was too much like WoW got a PnP version of its own. Please consider the relatively hardcore nature of the source material compared to the "give everyone bonuses" mentality Blizzard and Activision and Zynga (to name a few) have injected into our industry.
/rant off
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Goblin Squad Member
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@drakhan
what? I did not say that. How did you even read that?
How would a single +2 str bonus replace a wizard that can provide you with a +4 bonus, or replace a crafter that makes a potion that gives you a +4 bonus?
How does some out of combat regen replace a party? You can sit on your butt for 5 minutes healing with the food buff vs say 7 minutes without it. you can have your cleric hit you with a cure spell to get you going now, or have the rogue use the wand of cure light to heal you, or you can drink a potion of cure light. The advantage is that your entire party doesnt sit around for 5 minutes wiggling their thumbs while everyone waits to heal. Sure for one fight it might be fine, but after 5 fights people will not want to keep on just sitting there, thus the advantage of working with a party.
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Goblin Squad Member
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re: Grumpy Mel and Leperkhaun
it's possible to do both
good food that gives a bonus from being well fed
and trail ration sort of stuff every 3 days for those that don't like the mechanic behind it to keep the simply alive (well, avoid a penalty for starvation)
... Well, you can live on it, but it taste like s+&+.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, Nonexistant, GrumpyMel :: You guys have nailed almost all of the critical points I could conjure during the 4 1/2 page novel I just read.
...
Just one note: IF we are going to get our own houses when our characters have matured, then our homes should give us at least similar benefits as taverns would.
Oh! One more thing: if you didn't see it we had a pretty interesting discussion up there above on food at the settlement level, and how that part of the mechanic might work in sieges, as well as for a tactical/logistics consideration for warcommanders.
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Goblin Squad Member
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today's Questionable Content ilustrates why going to the toilet should be a function in an MMO
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think making people sit and recover something by sitting around a campfire or eating or something is good, it provides a natural afk point for getting a drink or snack, bio breaks etc. TERA did it with campfires and I forget what the thing was called, but it could be raised to 135% after resting at a campfire and once it got below 80% started affecting your stats. It makes people take short breaks, which is a good idea, it also gives people a chance to chat a bit, work out plans, rp etc. perhaps resting and eating could give you an extra refresh to use? Could be useful in dungeons and the like.
Just some ideas to throw in.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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There is. But you can't just give a player everything he or she wants. If you do that, they get bored. There's a reason you have to make games a challenge.
There's no difference in the mechanics being suggested; the suggestion is about how to describe the mechanics.
It's the difference between a -2 penalty to AC and attacks for not limbering up and a +2 bonus to AC and attacks for doing so, but all enemy attacks and AC are 2 higher.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Just one note: IF we are going to get our own houses when our characters have matured, then our homes should give us at least similar benefits as taverns would.
Oh! One more thing: if you didn't see it we had a pretty interesting discussion up there above on food at the settlement level, and how that part of the mechanic might work in sieges, as well as for a tactical/logistics consideration for warcommanders.
Yes, homes should, except the leaderboard thing. One would of course need to provide their own meals though. It would be a matter of convenience and bragging rights at that point.
I glossed over it while attempting to retain a semblance of the idea forming in my head. I'll go back and read it though!
@Jameow Yeah, I could see consuming a meal provide the hunger prevention effect that a ration would in what I suggested, in addition to it filling up the meter. So you would effectively not start ticking down for a good hour or so after leaving the tavern.
@Gayel That's exactly the kind of outlook I like to see! Keep it coming. =)
I think this is slow and casual enough that it offers consequences for ignoring it, ease of satisfying it, secondary motivation for socializing, some small difficulty in maintaining for bandits/criminals that stay out of town for lengths of time without proper forethought, depth for long drawn out battles that do not afford much in the way of downtime.
Couple things I forgot to mention: rations should certainly not consume a lot of space, nor should you ever be carrying around a month's supply (without a very good reason) and when you sit down to eat a ration it really should be more than just a passing affair, it's a great moment for downtime, like recovering from battle, if you interrupt it you should only get as much effect as you've gotten out of it up to that point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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No idea if they're gonna go EQ backpack style on this, or if it's going to be a pack as much weight as you can carry kind of list in a bag. I'm sort of tired of the former, I'd be willing to give the latter a try. This has always been a point of belief suspension anyhow, even in PnP.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Don't forget that with characters eating all that food/drink they are also going to have to make time to excrete the waste. There could be penalties associated with "holding it in" for too long for people who don't heed the warnings. Not to mention issues with sanitation that would need to be solved in cities and for large armies in the field.