Proposal: Nerfing Passive Hunger Loss

[Tiktacy]

Am I the only one who gets that little feeling in the back of their head? That mild frustration that builds up over time from constantly having to cut up corpses just to keep yourself fed? Well, I for one think its just silly and am quite fed up with it. From what I can tell, these are the main functions of hunger:

- Creates an additional hoop the player must jump through to get past extended.
- Gives certain players(mummies, vampires, jiyva followers, ect.) a strategic advantage.
- Helps prevent scumming.
- Requires the player to venture further into the dungeon in search for food.
- Gives an additional cost for using powerful magic/abilities as well as a cost for battling in hand to hand.

Now, most of these functions other than spell/ability hunger don't really need to be in the game. Spell/ability hunger seems to be just fine, but I think hunger over time from exploration/resting needs to be changed. Here are a few reasons why I think this:

- Creates a lot of tedium having to constantly be looking for and cutting up clean corpses when hungry
- Makes inventory management more frustrating for weaker characters. I mean, constantly having to pick up and drop food can get annoying really fast.
- It has no real genuine purpose other than to make already fixed issues "more fixed". Scumming already spawns OoD monsters, and moving further into the dungeon is usually the best course of action anyway if you are running low on food.
- Makes poison/sickness/rotting/mutating/contamination even more annoying than it already is.
- It doesn't really make sense from a flavor standpoint to get hungry so quickly unless you are actually doing something(like fighting or casting spells).

Most of those things IMO serve as a good reason to nerf the effects of hunger over time. So here is my proposal:

- Change the effects of hunger over time to only kick in after X number of turns pass in which you are either exploring or resting. I would say 200~ turns would be enough to shake off things like poison and sickness and contamination.
- Keep spell/ability/combat hunger the same.
- Drastically reduce the weight of food(since it would mostly be used for low-strength casters)
- Possibly reduce the amount of food in the dungeon so it isn't overkill.
- Change the hunger mutation to effect spell/ability/combat hunger instead of hunger over time.

TL;DR:

Passive Hunger Loss should be nerfed to make the game less tedious. Do this by only having it take effect after resting/exploring for 200ish turns. Sorry if this is a little hard to read, organizing my thoughts in english has never been my strong-suit. I'm open to constructive criticism as always.

[Klown]

It's annoying, and is the reason ToME remains on my Hard Drive.

[Tiktacy]

It's annoying, and is the reason ToME remains on my Hard Drive.

ToME?

[reaver]

A very similar proposal from a month ago is similar to this but has already received some discussion, ironing out most of the problems. If we're going to discuss hunger reform it would be better to start from that. There's a few problems with your proposal (like "200 turns" encouraging sticking a rat in a corridor at both ends and whacking it with fruit every once in a while before luring it back in) that are solved by that proposal.

[Tiktacy]

A very similar proposal from a month ago is similar to this but has already received some discussion, ironing out most of the problems. If we're going to discuss hunger reform it would be better to start from that. There's a few problems with your proposal (like "200 turns" encouraging sticking a rat in a corridor at both ends and whacking it with fruit every once in a while before luring it back in) that are solved by that proposal.

The fact that a nearly identical proposal has already been made, in addition to the fact that it is already apparently getting some powerful support by the dev team, sort of makes me feel like I'm hitting a snorlax with a stick; I just need to wait for it to awaken.

Would you say that this idea is already set in motion? Has there been an official proposal? Because I would really like to see some changes to this in the near future.

[Laraso]

I only have two problems with the hunger system as it currently stands:

1) The time it takes to become hungry from a "satiated" level is nice. It doesn't seem too short, nor is it too long. However, once you become hungry, you start falling down satiation levels like crazy. When I see that "hungry" status appear when I don't already have a chunk in my inventory, I have to find a corpse ASAP or I'll starve. If you don't get a chunk by the time you're "very hungry", there's a pretty good chance that you'll end up eating a ration. In terms of the psychological tension you feel, "Hungry" feels like "Very Hungry", and "Very Hungry" feels like "Near Starving". It shouldn't be that way.

2) Food weighs WAAAY too much. Usually by the time I make my first stash, I'm nearly 'burdened', and half of all my weight comes from food alone.

Personally, I'd fix it by making the current "full" the new "satiated". Let people eat up until that point, and then use the leftover nutrition to space out "hungry", "very hungry", "and "near starving". Change the old "very full" to "full", and leave "engorged" where it is. You wouldn't have to eat chunks nearly as often, and you could actually afford to walk around "hungry" for a little while.

[red_kangaroo]

Actually I'm a bit sad that I haven't ever died of starvation. I wouldn't mind the hunger to become much greater issue, with a careless play food-wise bringing a risk of death to the player.

I'm even for strict ban of chunk eating for non-carnivorous characters, so they have to live on permafood. No increase in permafood spawn rate (or only very slight increase, if that proofs insurvivable), of couse.

Not that I'd expect anyone other sharing this opinion. Just for you to know.

[johlstei]

The best hunger system is the one used by djinni and mummies, I love playing djinni and food is certainly a component of that. I would rather have a discussion about how to balance rods/spells/berserk/elyvilon without food than one about how to change food without removing it.

[Volteccer_Jack]

I would rather have a discussion about how to balance rods/spells/berserk/elyvilon without food than one about how to change food without removing it.

Remove pacification from the game. There, done, everything is balanced, feel free to remove food.

Incidentally, I seem to be the only person who is happy with the current food system. Anyone who thinks it is 'tedious' or whatever can just automate it anyway, just like exploration (should we remove that too? ).

[Siegurt]

I'm also fine with the current food system.

[siprus]

I think food is important to limit how powerful spells you can use, though I'd rather love to see chunk eating automated. (or removed if it boils down to that) Make it part of auto-explore. You chop-down and eat all chunks you run into. I'd also give player ability to chose how many fresh chunks they keep in their inventory, and the auto explore would automatically pick up dat many fresh chunks.

[neil]

I think food is important to limit how powerful spells you can use, though I'd rather love to see chunk eating automated. (or removed if it boils down to that) Make it part of auto-explore. You chop-down and eat all chunks you run into. I'd also give player ability to chose how many fresh chunks they keep in their inventory, and the auto explore would automatically pick up dat many fresh chunks.

There are already options for part of that (but not auto-butchering):

  Code:

auto_eat_chunks = false
        Setting this option to true will allow you to automatically eat a chunk
        if you get hungry while you are travelling, auto-exploring or resting.
auto_drop_chunks = (never | rotten | yes)
        If you try to pick something up but cannot due to burden, this
        option will try dropping useless chunks to make room. Normally,
        dropping chunks is a waste of time (as the problem will soon rot
        away) so this is done only at pick up time. If set to "rotten", only
        spoiled chunks will be considered useless, and only if you are not
        a saprovore. If fully enabled, chunks that would spoil before you
        would need them will be dropped as well, ordered by quality and age.


[BlackSheep]

auto_drop_chunks = true needs a bug fix to handle cases where autoexplore will drop and pick up parts of a large stack of chunks in a loop until they rot. I looked into it, and thought I'd hit on the fix, but it doesn't seem to work perfectly.

How complicated would it be to adapt the autosacrifice code into an autobutcher function?
(also, where would I look for the autosacrifice code?)

[Kate]

auto_drop_chunks = true needs a bug fix to handle cases where autoexplore will drop and pick up parts of a large stack of chunks in a loop until they rot. I looked into it, and thought I'd hit on the fix, but it doesn't seem to work perfectly.

How complicated would it be to adapt the autosacrifice code into an autobutcher function?
(also, where would I look for the autosacrifice code?)

There's an old merge request with autobutcher functionality here. Unfortunately it came just before the existing autosacrifice code was refactored so it's not mergeable without a bunch of work, I tried a couple of times and gave up. Probably it could be untangled/refactored and used in theory though, it's definitely functionality that I would like (particularly the "explore_stop += greedy_butcherable" part, which just makes autoexplore travel to and stop on corpses even if you're not worshipping a blood god).

[Tiktacy]

Since when does one loaf of bread weigh as much as a freaking javelin? Also, chunks make rations suboptimal, I can count on 2 hands how many rations I eat in 90% of my games. I find it incredibly ironic that the food in the game has the worst flavor in the game.

Anyway, i have 7 proposals for solving this controversial issue:

1) make it require near starving to eat chunks for most species. Exceptions should be obvious(supravors and gourmands respectively).

2) remove gourmand amulet, its even more powerful and game changing than faith, at least for casters. It can even be better than staff of energy depending on your situation. Also, it makes supravore/gourmand species less unique. Another option instead of removing it is that we make it so it makes hunger act like it does now. I like the latter idea better, but I don't know how difficult that is to code, and I don't think it should be too high on our priorities list.

3) make food weigh about 4 or 5 times less. Like, 1.5 aums or less for rations. This goes double for the weight of chunks, they should NOT weigh more than javelins, that doesn't even make sense.

4) add sickness for non-supravors/gourmands for eating too many chunks

5) MAYBE make chunks take much longer to rot(so we don't have to constantly be picking up new chunks). Not sure if this would help or not.

6) MAYBE nerf kobolds slightly by increasing hunger loss to make up for the innate-buff to flexibility.

7) MAYBE add an auto-consume code as default for species that don't have an additional use(like ghouls or players with SoB) for chunks.


Any combination of most of these suggestions would help, so maybe adding them one at a time into 0.14 trunk would make the change a little easier.

I personally like the chunk-choosing mini-game, it feels satisfying to crush your enemies and devour their hearts. But I think it needs to be more passive and less sub-optimal for non-supravors.

Edit: I've done a lot of editing and revising to this post so far, but I think I'm finished now for the most part. Sorry if it was confusing for anyone reading the original post.

[BlackSheep]

What exactly is the problem with food weighing what it does? You can drop it any time, and as you pointed out you don't need very much of it on hand.

[galehar]

(also, where would I look for the autosacrifice code?)

grep auto_sacrifice

[Tiktacy]

What exactly is the problem with food weighing what it does? You can drop it any time, and as you pointed out you don't need very much of it on hand.

It doesn't really make sense, it has no reason to be that way, it makes casters even slower than they already are, it's redundant, stashes are suboptimal, the list goes on.

I think the big reason it comes down to us the simple fact that it has no reason to be like that, so therefore if you can think of just one reason it shouldn't(and I can list several) then it should be changed.

[Tiktacy]

Also, can a mod split the thread from my 7 proposals and on? I think we have gotten a little off the topic of nerfing hunger loss.

[johlstei]

What if you just didn't die because you were starving? Instead, you don't regain MP ala vampires and HP. (Maybe you can't use rods while starving? I dunno, they have charges anyway.) This would remove the tedium for people not using those things, and food would explicitly only be for the things that need to be balanced around it. Considering how rare starvation is, I don't think it is all that interesting as a pure survival mechanic. You could get rid of or nerf passive hunger loss as well. I guess food is starting to sound like MP though when you put it like that.

[Sandman25]

What if you just didn't die because you were starving? Instead, you don't regain MP ala vampires and HP. (Maybe you can't use rods while starving? I dunno, they have charges anyway.) This would remove the tedium for people not using those things, and food would explicitly only be for the things that need to be balanced around it. Considering how rare starvation is, I don't think it is all that interesting as a pure survival mechanic. You could get rid of or nerf passive hunger loss as well. I guess food is starting to sound like MP though when you put it like that.

Or maybe just don't allow to melee/shoot/evoke when satiation level reached 0 (spells are disallowed at starving as far as I know). So you still can survive if you find some food while avoiding all monsters (you cannot damage them in any way).

[BlackSheep]

Removing death by starvation wouldn't change the game. People would still be annoyed by the little, yellow "Hungry" popping up over and over.

[Volteccer_Jack]

it has no reason to be that way

Yes, it does. It prevents you from carrying around large stacks of food (the same purpose it serves for javelins and large rocks).

Makes inventory management more frustrating for weaker characters. I mean, constantly having to pick up and drop food can get annoying really fast.

Fortunately you don't have to do that. If your inventory is full and you're not worshipping Jiyva or playing a Spriggan, I guarantee you are carrying crap you don't need.

and food would explicitly only be for the things that need to be balanced around it.

The only thing that "needs" to be balanced around hunger is Pacification. This is one of many problems with Pacification.

High level spells are already balanced by significantly higher MP costs and dramatically higher XP costs. Rods have strict limitations in how often they can be used that make any hunger limitations entirely redundant.