Food (again, again and again)

Everything about Illarion that fits nowhere else. / Alles über Illarion was inhaltlich in kein anderes Board passt.

Moderator: Gamemasters

Post Reply
User avatar
Llama
Posts: 7685
Joined: Sun May 29, 2005 7:02 pm
Location: The VBU is awesome
Contact:

Food (again, again and again)

Post by Llama »

Allright, brand new idea for food and eating.

Basically, food is given a less "Always critically there" importance, and a more underlying, yet very useful role.

Firstly, the food bar is replaced, and instead of it, you'll have a 'stamina bar'. It'll go down when the character hurts, uses mana or whatever, and goes up on its own, independantly of what you do, and slowly.

Now food instead is controlled using lstates.

Every 1/3rd of a day IG, you get the message "You feel hungry". You are free to ignore it (but it'll happily remind you every 30 minutes or so). If you eat, you only eat a single item, and that'll satisfy all your hunger. If you try to eat something else, you get an error, and can't.

Each food will have a 'bonus' modifier stuck to it. If you eat no food, the bonus is 0. If you eat good food, the bonus is higher.

The bonus effects two things.

1. The stamina bar. The higher the bonus, the faster the bar increases. At the BEST FOOD, you should gain stamina thrice as fast
2. Gives a bonus when crafting. At the BEST FOOD, you should gain the equivalent of 2 dex points.

This way.

1. You don't need a ton of food stockpiled somewhere -> Cooks become useful
2. Its more 'realistic' (hahahaha)
3. If you don't want to eat anything, you don't need to. If you want to pay money to cooks, then you get bonuses AT ONCE that everyone can enjoy :) -> Cooks become useful
4. Fighters no longer need to carry half a river of fish when hunting. They just need 'rations' just in case they get hungry during the fight, but they can carry GOOD FOOD instead of the free stuff everyone takes.


Diiiiiiiiiscus.
User avatar
Mr. Cromwell
Posts: 1876
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 6:20 pm
Location: All over the place.

Post by Mr. Cromwell »

I'd just like to point out that if the "three times as fast" means that normal gain/low bonus gain rate is slow (as you say!), you need to think again. When this means that those warriors who do not eat the best quality food have to loiter around waiting for the stamina to increase at a pitiful rate, then you may just as well print out the proposal, roll it up... after you've progressed this far, I'll give you the further archiving instructions for this particular proposal via PM. :wink: If this proposal increases downtime for noob warriors (or noob miners/lumberjacks/mages), then it would be a bad proposal.

Furthermore, the lack stat-bonuses for those guys who rely on stamina to do their basic job (warriors and mages) while giving stat bonuses to those guys for whom stamina is less crucial (crafters; I do know very well that stamina is important for characters who gather stuff) seems somewhat odd to me. What you're doing is forcing (even more so than now) characters to use uberfood just to get the job done (increasing stamina) instead of offering them a real benefit (stat bonuses). When this hurts the chars who need stamina the most, it's time to reconsider the approach.

If you address these issues, then I don't mind the suggestion.
User avatar
Llama
Posts: 7685
Joined: Sun May 29, 2005 7:02 pm
Location: The VBU is awesome
Contact:

Post by Llama »

How about we just leave stamina as it is (making it depend on constitution or something). Instead, eating food just gives you a bonus to all the skills you're working with.

That way, everyone will find it useful - and if you don't want to pay the cook, no worries, you don't have to. But if you want a bonus to your skills - then eat a lot.

This is the equivalent of the magic gem thingies, you don't NEED them, but they're nice to have if you like bonuses.
User avatar
Achae Eanstray
Posts: 4300
Joined: Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:03 am
Location: A field of dandelions
Contact:

Post by Achae Eanstray »

Having a char that always buys "good" food, IMO there is not enough player base to tie in stats/health/whatever to things bought from other chars unless there is some way to sell ig when the char is not there i.e. player shop or NPC buying at a decent price from the cook, then selling it to the other char for a small profit which can even be set up to sell apples someone picked in the winter months helping new chars also. In order not to be a money sink, tie the sale of food in with the buying, i.e. a char can't buy something unless a cook sells it to the NPC, then only a certain amount can be sold until more chars buy. Supply and demand situation if possible script-wise.

As far as the original proposal: Tying in food/stamina bar along with health sounds like dunning a char twice.


Simply from a figher char perspective:
Every 1/3rd of a day IG, you get the message "You feel hungry". You are free to ignore it (but it'll happily remind you every 30 minutes or so). If you eat, you only eat a single item
With your amended, it still increases the hunger time on fighter chars that already buy good food IF they want the bonus yet when they are done fighting and simply RPing they will still have the hunger lower significantly.... overall, this increases hunger more with all chars. Long term, I am not sure how helpful this will be for the cooking profession over what is set up at present and appears on the surface to add a negative value.
User avatar
Llama
Posts: 7685
Joined: Sun May 29, 2005 7:02 pm
Location: The VBU is awesome
Contact:

Post by Llama »

The main part of the suggestion is the 1/3rd of a day thing.

Let me put it this way.

If I decide to craft or fight, and I always want to eat good food, I will need to buy hundreds of dishes/meals.

The problem with the current food system is simply that there is too much need. So therefore, given the cooks can not satiate that - and nobody wants to buy 100s of dishes just to go hunting - people turn to cheaper foods.

If we make food more expensive, yet you only need 1 of it every 2 hours you spend IG, then yes, my character will buy good food, and keep the really expensive kind for when he really needs that bonus. Its far better IMHO, then him eating 50 fishes to craft a high-end armour. Who's goign to stay buying so many cooked meals?
User avatar
Estralis Seborian
Posts: 12308
Joined: Wed Nov 10, 2004 9:14 pm
Location: Sir Postalot
Contact:

Post by Estralis Seborian »

How about you simply lower the food consumption during crafting if THAT is the problem? Like, 100 points each action so a dish lasts ~300 actions? And lower the number of actions you need for producing items?

Less food consumed could mean that people become more willingly to buy dishes because a dish has a higher relative value. I doubt a new "system" will solve all problems if you leave the messed up systems untouched!
User avatar
Llama
Posts: 7685
Joined: Sun May 29, 2005 7:02 pm
Location: The VBU is awesome
Contact:

Post by Llama »

The main problem here is - with the current system

If I eat X bad food, it is TOTALLY EQUAL to me eating 1 good food.

And that means, there needs to be an encouraging reason for people to get the better food.

The fact that you need a ton is simply a catalyst, not really the main problem.

Currently, there is no reason at all for me to fork out for more expensive food. Having to eat less of it is no reason whatsoever. The 'bonus to constitution' system involves so much jumping through hoops and needing to get good food constantly, that its kinda obsolete.
Post Reply