Goblin Squad Member
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Preferably said food will keep you going for, say 4 hours of play time. Meaning if you're playing for 8 hours, you'd have to eat twice. If you only play for 2 hours, then two weeks later you play for 1 hour, then you still would be good to go for another hour even if you stopped playing for another month. Perhaps going AFK would stop the timer too.But isn't the day night cycle something like 3 hours?
If we want a purpose to farmers then lets tie it into the settlement growth. Let settlements require certain consumables.
I'm just spitballing numbers. The point is you wouldn't be punished for logging off in the wilderness.
@Dario: Good point.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Preferably said food will keep you going for, say 4 hours of play time. Meaning if you're playing for 8 hours, you'd have to eat twice. If you only play for 2 hours, then two weeks later you play for 1 hour, then you still would be good to go for another hour even if you stopped playing for another month. Perhaps going AFK would stop the timer too.
Right. I don't want a system where I get hungry every five seconds either. Farmers and cooks won't care if you have to eat a tiny meal every five minutes or a feast every five hours. So long as you have to buy their products in a quantity that allows them to profit they'll be fine.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The benefit should be small enough that I do not feel like I am REQUIRED to take the 40 minute run to a tavern each night, but nice enough that what I have some free time I would pop in and spend some time there.
The problem with tying it to training time is you aren't getting Exp. for killing monsters, you're simply training 24/7. I have no problem with other incentives, but training time isn't acceptable.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I've got to point this out. I find it pretty bizzare that alot of MMO players are perfectly ok with having "Potions" and "Scrolls" and all other sorts of "Magic" consumables play a very important role in other MMO's but seeming to freak out at the idea of having "food" or "drink" consumables play fundementaly the same role. What is fundementaly different between a "potion of constitution" and a "leg of mutton" other then the name?
Is it the idea that something "non-magical" that could affect how well you function?
So a glowing green "potion" is ok before a fight....but needing to have something in your belly after a 20 mile forced march in order to perform your best in a pitched battle is a no no?
I'm not trying to put anyone down here...but I'm honestly trying to understand why one is so objectionable when the other isn't? It just strikes me as very odd, is all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The benefit should be small enough that I do not feel like I am REQUIRED to take the 40 minute run to a tavern each night, but nice enough that what I have some free time I would pop in and spend some time there.The problem with tying it to training time is you aren't getting Exp. for killing monsters, you're simply training 24/7. I have no problem with other incentives, but training time isn't acceptable.
I have to side with Drakhan here. Given the direct relationship between real world money and skill growth, I'd have to eye anything that speeds up skill gain very carefully, and this doesn't pass muster.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is fundementaly different between a "potion of constitution" and a "leg of mutton" other then the name?
you said it: one is magic the other isn't
eat, drink, crap, piss - I don't need to play an MMO for that.
I guess they want to have as few RL problems to worry about as possible when playing a game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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What is fundementaly different between a "potion of constitution" and a "leg of mutton" other then the name?you said it: one is magic the other isn't
eat, drink, crap, piss - I don't need to play an MMO for that.
I guess they want to have as few RL problems to worry about as possible when playing a game.
While we're at it let's get rid of having to craft items, harvest materials, and buy stuff in general.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Potions are optional; so that's a poor analogy unless you're talking about food & drink providing a bonus rather than the lack of them causing a penalty.
Why do we need to suffer penalties in order to validate the virtual economic interests of those those who'd rather be playing Farmville? What if I'd rather train the Survival skill and hunt my own food?
All kinds of things are abstracted out of the game. Why is it okay to continually stuff yourself with food and drink while never reliving yourself of the byproducts?
You can't really learn without sleep, so getting a room at a tavern where you can sleep more easily than would be possible out in the countryside makes as much sense as requiring any other biological function, and it provides income for innkeepers.
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Goblin Squad Member
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While we're at it let's get rid of having to craft items, harvest materials, and buy stuff in general.What is fundementaly different between a "potion of constitution" and a "leg of mutton" other then the name?you said it: one is magic the other isn't
eat, drink, crap, piss - I don't need to play an MMO for that.
I guess they want to have as few RL problems to worry about as possible when playing a game.
yea, good point
since I'm for meaningful hunger and thirst mechanics, I'll leave it to others to ague against that.|
Goblin Squad Member
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Potions are optional; so it's a poor analogy unless you're talking about food & drink providing a bonus rather than the lack of them causing a penalty.
Why do we need to suffer penalties in order to validate the virtual economic interests of those those who'd rather be playing Farmville? What if I'd rather train the Survival skill and hunt my own food?
All kinds of things are abstracted out of the game. Why is it okay to continually stuff yourself with food and drink while never reliving yourself of the byproducts?
You can't really learn without sleep, so getting a room at a tavern where you can sleep more easily than would be possible out in the countryside makes as much sense as requiring any other biological function, and it provides income for innkeepers.
Food is optional too. Whether starving yourself gives you a penalty or fails to give you a bonus the end result is a weaker character. I'm fine with a bonus that goes away if you don't eat as in the end it's the same net result except they could actually allow you to choose the bonus as earlier mentioned.
Why do we need to suffer penalties in order to validate the virtual economic interests of the who would rather be playing Smithville, Jewlerville, Tailorville, Alchemistville, Fletcherville, or Carpenterville? (As if farming in PFO will be a damn thing like Farmville.)
Personally if you train survival enough you can use it to bypass the need to pack things like trail rations that is fine with me. I've even suggesting letting druids in animal form feed themselves by eating fresh kills raw or grazing depending on form. Most people won't be able to feed themselves in either of these fashions / be willing to invest the training to do so; so it's quite balanced and gives value to these skills.
So long as you have to eat every few hours and the easiest way to achieve it is player interaction, I am happy.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Tyveil
And all of that can be gotten without forcing hunger/thirst mechanics. If food provides a small long term buff, say several hours. that fills what you want without the idiocy of poisoning everyone and feeding them an antidote every could of hours (which is what a hunger/thirst mechanic does).
So lets talk about economy and hunger/thirst.
. Cooking, foraging, fishing, hunting, brewing, poison, alchemy, etc. A lot of these skills open up a great number of options for role-playing and add another tool for meaningful player interaction outside of combat.
there are two ways to get people to do this. The first is give people a penalty for not doing it, which is what you are suggesting. The second method is to provide a benefit (incentive) to do those activities.
So let look at the first option. eating/drinking gets rid of a penalty for not eating/drinking. What will end up happening? Well most people will not go to great lengths to create two dozen different types of food. What they will do if find whats easiest to make and just make that. So you end up with the vast majority of the population eating salmon because its the easiest to farm. Unless you do something totally random and have the system give you a random penalty then force you to eat specific foods to get rid of that, people will go with whats easiest.
Lets take a look at the second option. Food provides buffs instead of getting rid of a penalty. Now for this you need to have a niche for it. Since potions/scrolls provide short term buffs, people with the hunger/thirst mechanic dont want to eat/drink more than once every couple of hours, that leaves food with a nich for longer term but less powerful buffs. So lets say that food can last from 1 hour to 8 hours depending on the food (quality, type of food, heck even doing say a 3 course meal).
If you allow food to provide many many many different types of buffs (maybe more than one with high enough skill so that people will seek those folks out) that are low power, but helpful, you create a system where people will farm many different types of (different) resources based on what buff and duration of buff they want.
That system provides the basis of what you want with those 5 skills to drive the economy and provide and INCENTIVE not a penalty to do so.
I do not count the last two poison and alchemy in this system as there would already be a market for those things. Poison helps in combat and alchemy is a nice catch all for a bunch of gear to use.
So providing an incentive provides the economic reason to do so, it will also drive player interaction due to the farming of different resources, people not wanting to invest in a cooking skill...etc. it does everything the hunger/thirst mechanic without beating people in the head and saying "do this or else!"
as I said a hunger/thirst mechanic does nothing. you could very easily turn it into a you are poisoned you have to farm for an antidote and that only lasts every 4 hours. What is the difference between the two? nothing, not a single thing.
You need to provide people with incentives to do an activity not penalize them and force them to do it. If this was a survival game id agree that a hunger/thirst mechanic would be appropriate but this is not a survival game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Potions are optional; so it's a poor analogy unless you're talking about food & drink providing a bonus rather than the lack of them causing a penalty.
Why do we need to suffer penalties in order to validate the virtual economic interests of those those who'd rather be playing Farmville? What if I'd rather train the Survival skill and hunt my own food?
All kinds of things are abstracted out of the game. Why is it okay to continually stuff yourself with food and drink while never reliving yourself of the byproducts?
You can't really learn without sleep, so getting a room at a tavern where you can sleep more easily than would be possible out in the countryside makes as much sense as requiring any other biological function, and it provides income for innkeepers.
Keovar,
Lets, for the sake of arguement....say that food & drink mechanicaly function EXACTLY the same as Potions (because I believe that is mostly what has been discussed here)...no more or less "optional" by your judgement. Do we still have a problem with them? I still sense some resistance to them even under those conditions....which frankly, I'm having trouble understanding.
In Re: Abstractions...sure but we could abstract out potions or swords or spells or magic items or even combat itself. Just have a button that you pressed and rolled a die which said you won or lost.
I believe the thing which I believe some folks are trying to impress upon you is that having, supplies, lets term it genericaly ADDS game-play elements that simply wouldn't exist without them. There are MULTIPLE types of game-play going on within PFO...it's NOT just about Walk into Dungeon -> Bash Dragon on head with Sword -> Done. There IS an Economics Game going on here, there is a Grand Strategy Game, There is a Kingdom Building Game, There is a Tactical Combat Game, There is a Tactical Battles Game, There is an Exploration Game, There is a Social/Role-Playing Game. They kinda feed into each other and interface with each other in interesting ways.... or at least that's the way I understand the designers intent.
Heck even in Pathfinder PnP Games...potions and other consumables seem to play important functions in adventuring.... yet I find it odd that folks often even there find some objection to food, drink or rest playing some role...but change it's name from "mutton" to "magic elven waybread" and it's suddenly ok to play the exact same function that was objected to before....it just strikes me as a bit bizarre is all.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Tyveil
And all of that can be gotten without forcing hunger/thirst mechanics. If food provides a small long term buff, say several hours. that fills what you want without the idiocy of poisoning everyone and feeding them an antidote every could of hours (which is what a hunger/thirst mechanic does).
So lets talk about economy and hunger/thirst.
. Cooking, foraging, fishing, hunting, brewing, poison, alchemy, etc. A lot of these skills open up a great number of options for role-playing and add another tool for meaningful player interaction outside of combat.
there are two ways to get people to do this. The first is give people a penalty for not doing it, which is what you are suggesting. The second method is to provide a benefit (incentive) to do those activities.
So let look at the first option. eating/drinking gets rid of a penalty for not eating/drinking. What will end up happening? Well most people will not go to great lengths to create two dozen different types of food. What they will do if find whats easiest to make and just make that. So you end up with the vast majority of the population eating salmon because its the easiest to farm. Unless you do something totally random and have the system give you a random penalty then force you to eat specific foods to get rid of that, people will go with whats easiest.
Lets take a look at the second option. Food provides buffs instead of getting rid of a penalty. Now for this you need to have a niche for it. Since potions/scrolls provide short term buffs, people with the hunger/thirst mechanic dont want to eat/drink more than once every couple of hours, that leaves food with a nich for longer term but less powerful buffs. So lets say that food can last from 1 hour to 8 hours depending on the food (quality, type of food, heck even doing say a 3 course meal).
If you allow food to provide many many many different types of buffs (maybe more than one with high enough skill so that people will seek those folks out) that are low...
The difference is that if it provides a boost, I won't bother. If it inflicts a penalty, I'll get food.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@grumpymel
Potions provide a role in games, they provide a benefit in an encounter (either combat or non combat). If you do not consume a potion there are no penalties, you just dont gain a benefit.
With hunger/thirst mechanics you HAVE to consume or you get a penalty. Hunger/thirst mechanics are poor because they force people to do something or you get a penalty, for no darn reason at all.
Especially in a sandbox game you want to provide incentives for players to do something (sure there are some penalties but they exist to add to the game).
So what does a hunger/thirst mechanic add to the game? Economics? not really you can do that by what I outlined above, where you provide players with an incentive to do it and dont kick them in the shins when they dont. in fact a straight hunger/thirst mechanic would probably work less that what people hope for. I mean what do you think will happen? Will people honestly farm up massive amounts of goods and craft them for a hunger mechanic, OR will they find the easiest one to farm and basically only use that?
realism? not needed in this game (not at that level at least).
So why not have this be you are poisoned and require and antidote? Why not require people to use out houses? Why not require people to sleep?
All in all a hunger/thirst mechanic adds nothing to the gameplay. It fills no roll that could not be filled better in another manner where players are given incentives to do a task.
@Drakhan Valane
exactly you have a CHOICE to do it or not. You do not see the value in doing it. others will. thats the point of it. Make it a player's choice to do it or not.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@leperkhan,
I've already stated that I support "bonuses", simply because it's an "easier sell" for many people. Functionaly though, in my book, 95 - 1 = 93 + 1. For some reason though, people will seem to fight tooth and nail against the former and happily smile about the latter. Guess it's good I went into engineering rather then marketing. But anyway, it's not worth me even debating, the "bonus" route is just as good as any sort of "penalty" route...because ultimately it's achieving the same sort of desired gameplay functions.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The difference is that if it provides a boost, I won't bother. If it inflicts a penalty, I'll get food.Even if they're stat identical?
Absolutely. I'm losing something if I don't get rid of a penalty. I can't be bothered to get some optional boost unless it's big. And if it is big, it's the same as being penalized and not optional anymore. Penalties create a bigger demand than boosts. On Guild Wars 2 I don't bother with sharpening stones or food. I would if I was being punished for not using them.
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Goblin Squad Member
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There IS a difference guys, the game is mechanically balanced to the character's natural state without food. In PvP it might be the same thing to have everyone buffed except you v.s. you debuffed and everyone else normal, but in PVE it's not. In PVE a debuff is a penalty against what you should be able to do.
I'm not completly against a debuff system, as long as it's not a hassle and really only comes into play during deep exploration/prolonged combat.
The benefit of having FOOD/DRINK etc is that it gives the crafters something to do. The negative is that it creates a hassel for players who have to consume them.
Why not simply have these farmers/chefs etc.. funnel into supporting settlements? By this I mean that a settlement of X level needs certain resources every time period. The bigger the settlement the more resources needed. When these are not provided then the settlement degrades in some way.
This adds some complexity to people who are running settlements (who would seeminly like that sort of stuff), gives a market for farmers and chefs, and relieves other players from the tedium of managing their food levels...
I mentioned this in another thread as a way for settlements to influence the worker NPCs and effect their morale.
It would help stimulate the economy, give agriculture and cooking a boost for sure, as well as resource gatherers.
But I see it as separate from the topic under discussion honestly.
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Goblin Squad Member
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| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
The benefit of having FOOD/DRINK etc is that it gives the crafters something to do. The negative is that it creates a hassel for players who have to consume them.
Well it's more then just that...
- It provides another form of input to the WEIGHT/INVENTORY MGMT game. That's an important aspect of play and of planning expiditions. The Designers have already stated that everything in the game (except coin) will have WEIGHT and characters will be limited in how much they can carry. They've also stated that weapons, armor and spells will ALL have some consumable components in order for the character to use them at peak efficiency and those components will all figure into your carried weight. Food/Drink will just be another type of input into that system which has game-play consequence.
- It's a character development game-play decision because it makes training in Survival or Cooking or learning spells to create Food and Water have some signifigance as a character development decision. Because that character can actualy reduce thier own (and thier parties) encumberances by not needing to pack as much food and therefore allowing more room for other gear. So instead of a training decision always being an obvious +1 to bonk with sword or magic blast variety #22. It's an actual more interesting game-play decision as in what to train in.
- It provides an interesting/important reason for characters to go visit INNS or spend a little downtime in camps, which can lead to greater human interaction.
- It makes the location of Inns somewhat important from a logistics standpoint.
- It also brings into gameplay (in the Mass Battles/Strategic perspective) the importance of food in Logistics in running extended millitary campaigns for players, and of course interdiction to counter those logistics. Again that'll already exist due to Weapon/Armor & Spell consumables being part of the mechanics of play. Food just adds another variety of item into that mix.
Again I want to make it clear that you will ALREADY need to apply CONSUMABLES to your Weapons, Armor and Spells to have them perform at peak performance. Adding food and drink simply adds a new input to that same consumable system...and raises the importance of INNS.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I do like the idea of food being a type of fuel for settlements. Not too unlike EVE's fuel requirements for Player Owned Stations (POS). It would be something your settlement can stock a month or so worth in their storage, but it would still need replenishing as part of Settlement upkeep (meaning a very long siege could start to cause penalties to your settlement if they can't get a shipment of food in).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Actualy I do want to reiterate the last point because some of you newer folks may not have been privy to some of the prior posts by the Developers about thier design intenets.
Weapons will require the application of a CONSUMABLE from your inventory in order for the weapon to perform at peak efficiency and that will wear off after a certain time/usage and need to be reapplied.
Armor will require the application of a CONSUMABLE from your inventory in order for the weapon to perform at peak efficiency and that will wear off after a certain time/usage and need to be reapplied.
Spells will likewise utilize CONSUMABLE items from a players inventory in order to power at full strength.
It will be expected that characters WILL be functioning with these consumables in place as the "norm". Although they can function without them at reduced capacity.
Please understand the suggestions for a "Food" consumable in that light. You will already be running your characters under a "non-food" CONSUMABLE system as a regular part of play, per GW last discussion of how the combat system would work and feed into the economic cycle of the game.
Actualy I do want to reiterate the last point because some of you newer folks may not have been privy to some of the prior posts by the Developers about thier design intenets.
Weapons will require the application of a CONSUMABLE from your inventory in order for the weapon to perform at peak efficiency and that will wear off after a certain time/usage and need to be reapplied.
Armor will require the application of a CONSUMABLE from your inventory in order for the weapon to perform at peak efficiency and that will wear off after a certain time/usage and need to be reapplied.
Spells will likewise utilize CONSUMABLE items from a players inventory in order to power at full strength.
It will be expected that characters WILL be functioning with these consumables in place as the "norm". Although they can function without them at reduced capacity.
Please understand the suggestions for a "Food" consumable in that light. You will already be running your characters under a "non-food" CONSUMABLE system as a regular part of play, per GW last discussion of how the combat system would work and feed into the economic cycle of the game.
Is that in a blogpost? Sorry, but I must have missed that. Honestly thought I had been through all the blog posts.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Adding food and drink ... raises the importance of INNS
some flexibility in the requirement would be good:
at the lowest end there are players with the odd one or hours every other day.
as long as they are in a settlement, I wouldn't bother requiring to actively eat and drink.
at the upper end are the aforementioned consumers of choclate coated coffee beans.
when you have time to run a character through the wilderness for 10 or more hours, it shouldn't be too much efford to spend a few minutes of that with eating and drinking.
Inns could provide a good mechanic as logout points:
check into the inn before you log off the game and your character can recharge max8 hours worth of continuus action (min time what you logged off for or stayed in the inn while logged on).
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Goblin Squad Member
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Inns could provide a good mechanic as logout points:
check into the inn before you log off the game and your character can recharge max8 hours worth of continuus action (min time what you logged off for or stayed in the inn while logged on).
The issue I have with that is that it's basically freeloading off an innkeeper. That innkeeper has to pay for his inn's operational upkeep.
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Goblin Squad Member
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having food and drink is fine. I hope they have food and drink, for RP and for mechanical reasons.
However there should not be a hunger/thirst system.
I dont remember needing consumables for weapons and armors. Now I hope there is a repair system which might be what you are talking about. However needing to use a consumable to repair your gear serves a purpose. It is used to facilitate people having to spend resources keeping the gear in top shape, thus providing crafters/merchants with more work. Hunger/thirst does not do that in a way that could not be done better.
So having to repair my armor either through a skill or with a player made repair kit is great and fine. i do think that if you invest in the crafting skills you should be able to repair related items yourself for less than you can make a repair kit (either through reduced resources or through increased amount repaired). That would facilitate people finding a crafter and having them do it. i do think that repair should come from players not NPCs either through crafted kits or by an actual PC.
I think inns would be a good place for bounty boards and such.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valandur,
I'm pretty sure it shows up elsewhere as well, but look for the post near the top of this page by, Ryan....
http://paizo.com/threads/rzs2oz1z&page=2?Looting-and-Salvaging-Intellig ent-and-Yes#54
There is alot of stuff that shows up within the meat of discussion threads on the boards rather then in blog posts. They could honestly use a Dev-Tracker here.
The reason I remember it was that I was participating in that discussion and trying to riff off what Ryan had suggested to get different varieties of consumables that had different effects rather then just a generic consumable.
having food and drink is fine. I hope they have food and drink, for RP and for mechanical reasons.
However there should not be a hunger/thirst system.
I dont remember needing consumables for weapons and armors. Now I hope there is a repair system which might be what you are talking about. However needing to use a consumable to repair your gear serves a purpose. It is used to facilitate people having to spend resources keeping the gear in top shape, thus providing crafters/merchants with more work. Hunger/thirst does not do that in a way that could not be done better.
So having to repair my armor either through a skill or with a player made repair kit is great and fine. i do think that if you invest in the crafting skills you should be able to repair related items yourself for less than you can make a repair kit (either through reduced resources or through increased amount repaired). That would facilitate people finding a crafter and having them do it. i do think that repair should come from players not NPCs either through crafted kits or by an actual PC.
I think inns would be a good place for bounty boards and such.
But isn't this just what GrumpyMel was saying above? If you have to use an item to keep your weapon or armor from degrading, that's exactly like having to eat to prevent a debuff. The only difference is where the negative effect is applied. To the player or his/her gear.
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Goblin Squad Member
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The issue I have with that is that it's basically freeloading off an innkeeper. That innkeeper has to pay for his inn's operational upkeep.Inns could provide a good mechanic as logout points:
check into the inn before you log off the game and your character can recharge max8 hours worth of continuus action (min time what you logged off for or stayed in the inn while logged on).
"checking in to an inn" = paying the inn keeper for food and lodging of cause
not bumming around in an inn
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Goblin Squad Member
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Pretty much what Tyviel said. It's an economic thing. It supports crafting professions that rely on consumables.
Most food systems give short duration buffs which I find highly irritating. I hate the food systems in WoW, LotRO, and Darkfall.
I am fine with any system that allows me to eat large meals at infrequent intervals and eating smaller portions can cap off my hunger bar or buff duration. So I enjoyed the hunger systems of Xsyon, Wurm, and Mortal.
Buff, de-buff, or hybrid, large intervals and creating an economic need for consumables is the key to winning my support.
I support this mechanic. Everyone should eat at least one significant meal a game day. Lighter meals are good additions, and specialty foods can be like nutritional supplements that actually work.
I'd be tempted to go even farther.
I'd consider it challenging that if you go hungry then you start losing endurance, then strength, and can ultimately weaken you badly, such as the desert crawl sort of bad. If you go thirsty this accelerates.
However I would also urge that if a prisoner dies of hunger or thirst in a prison he may trigger a contageous disease event.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really don't like the idea of having to pay a constant money sink to stop a debuff from happening. Hunger/Thirst mechanics have a place in pen and paper games, but in an MMO it is just tedium IMO. I like the idea of a Tavern as a social point for bounties and job boards, as well as quest givers for PvE content. While there players should be able to buy food and drink for temporary buffs to various attributes, most likely Out of Combat HP and or SP regeneration.
They should also be places where players can engage in Tavern Brawls; Non-letheal PVP were character can be knocked out without death penalties for friendly bouts without the risk of having your husk looted or being branded a criminal.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really don't like the idea of having to pay a constant money sink to stop a debuff from happening. Hunger/Thirst mechanics have a place in pen and paper games, but in an MMO it is just tedium IMO. I like the idea of a Tavern as a social point for bounties and job boards, as well as quest givers for PvE content. While there players should be able to buy food and drink for temporary buffs to various attributes, most likely Out of Combat HP and or SP regeneration.
Don't like it. Also you're removing the ability to have acheivements like "Starved for Adventure" where you complete a dungeon while suffering from hunger the whole time.
They should also be places where players can engage in Tavern Brawls; Non-letheal PVP were character can be knocked out without death penalties for friendly bouts without the risk of having your husk looted or being branded a criminal.
Sort of like they have in The Witcher? Would be interesting.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really don't like the idea of having to pay a constant money sink to stop a debuff from happening. Hunger/Thirst mechanics have a place in pen and paper games, but in an MMO it is just tedium IMO. I like the idea of a Tavern as a social point for bounties and job boards, as well as quest givers for PvE content. While there players should be able to buy food and drink for temporary buffs to various attributes, most likely Out of Combat HP and or SP regeneration.
They should also be places where players can engage in Tavern Brawls; Non-letheal PVP were character can be knocked out without death penalties for friendly bouts without the risk of having your husk looted or being branded a criminal.
and why pay for food and drink while chatting about quests and bounties? you can just as well hit a post in the ground and attach a label "gossip point" for free
what do you intend to do with all your loot?
by better weapons and buffs of cause, so why not have agood incentive spend a bit of it on food and drink in taverns
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Valandur
Its not. so basically the main goal of the degrading armor/weapons and hunger/thirst is an economic one (you cannot convince me from a gameplay perspective that hunger/thirst adds to a game like this).
The main reason is that in order to provide a game with a good player economy you have to have demand for goods. The only way to provide a demand for goods is to somehow have current goods become not functional, forcing the players to replace/fix that gear.
For weapon/armor there are basically two ways to do this. item destruction/NPC looting to remove an item straight from the player without them being able to get it back and item degradation where the player needs to use resources to fix the item or replace the item once its totally degraded. By doing that you force a constant demand by the player base for those items, thus ensuring players will either trade or craft to get those.
So what happens if there is not item destruction/npc looting or degradation (which requires resources not just gold at an NPC). Gear never gets replaced over all. People hit a gear wall and stay there. After a while the economy stagnates because there is no longer a demand for those goods. The only real way around that is to introduce more powerful items, everyone goes out and gets it, hits another wall, rinse and repeat.
So for arms/armor and such using a sharpening kit to restore your sword makes perfect sense as it adds to gameplay through strengthening the economy, ensuring crafters have work, ensuring gatherers have work, merchants to sell the items, and forcing player interaction (due to amount of time to 'master' a skill line). Various items could require different types of kits to repair depending on how powerful the item is (say a +5 sword requires better sharpening kit than a steel sword, thus rarer or more resources. Or the material of the item requires special kits, like mithril) to make sure there is a variety of resources being gathered to support everyone.
is there another viable system that can add to the game play better or as good as that?
Now take a look at hunger/thirst. hunger/thirst requires you to eat in order to prevent a debuff of some kind. Now lets look at what this would add to the game. Food of some sort, drink of some sort. these would need to be gathered and crafted. So now we are dependent on the nature of the buff for hunger/thirst. If the debuff is static what happens is that everyone ends up using the most efficient food to gather/craft and ignore all the others as there would be no difference between eating one food or the other. Perhaps how long the goes away for but someone would eat two trail rations rather than cook an entire meal if trail rations are easier.
If the debuff is not static then you open up the field more. You force gathers and crafters to farm different things and craft different items. You also force players to carry food for basically every type of debuff or face having to run back to town every time it shows up.
So this supports the above economic idea, it gives people work. However is there a better way to do this? The answer is yes. If you have food provide some sort of buff you get all the economic benefits as the hunger/thirst mechanic. not only that but having food provide a long term lower power buff adds another aspect of the game for players, whereas the hunger/thirst mechanic does not. its eat drink or get weaker, not hmmm i can buff 40 different things, what buff would provide me the most benefit...I know im killing some mages so ill eat a +2 wis food so my will save is better.
Money sinks are necessary in a game that intends to have a fully living economy anyway. I think GrumpyMel is right in everything he's said it adds to the game.
Food also makes survival more challenging. It can dictate how habitable certain hexes are by how much food is readily available. It makes transferring food to these locations an extra thing to do - quest, guild task or whatever. It can act as a defense mechanism in this way as well, as maintaining a siege for any longer than the hunger limit will become increasingly difficult. People want immersive and realistic warfare and hunger is a massive part of that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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and why pay for food and drink while chatting about quests and bounties? you can just as well hit a post in the ground and attach a label "gossip point" for free
what do you intend to do with all your loot?
by better weapons and buffs of cause, so why not have agood incentive spend a bit of it on food and drink in taverns
Well, I don't object *too* much to spending the loot on food and drink, but what doesn't interest me is being forced into spending game time buying and eating the food and drink no not be debuffed. If it can be handled as a simple out of game maintenance of your character like learning skills, fine.
I just feel that if it becomes a requrement to go find a food cart/tavern/whatever every x ammount of game time it will be a chore and not fun to game.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So this supports the above economic idea, it gives people work. However is there a better way to do this? The answer is yes. If you have food provide some sort of buff you get all the economic benefits as the hunger/thirst mechanic. not only that but having food provide a long term lower power buff adds another aspect of the game for players, whereas the hunger/thirst mechanic does not. its eat drink or get weaker, not hmmm i can buff 40 different things, what buff would provide me the most benefit...I know im killing some mages so ill eat a +2 wis food so my will save is better.
Except you don't. Why should I bother getting food if it's just some optional buff?
There is very little difference between the weapon sharpening you're for and the hunger mechanic you're against.