Wednesday, 23rd February 2011, 12:43 by vintermann
OK then, dpeg, some suggestions.
My overall vision: Remove most food sickness except from acts of desperation (which are still meaningful tactically, unlike most of today's food choices). Tweak herbivore/carnivore/saprovore to make differences more meaningful and interesting - herbivores should have to dip into permafood more often (instead of just grabbing all 5 yak chunks as today), and carnivore should not be instant gourmand.
Carnivore mutation should be changed to a real gradient: just because you can eat meat doesn't have to mean you can totally stuff yourself with raw meat. One level of carnivore could let you eat until full, two levels until very full, three levels until satiated (as a single level allows today). Herbivorous mutation could work the other way; one level eat only at very hungry or less, two levels at near starving and should always give sickness (act of desperation!), three levels no meat at all. To compensate, herbivores should get more nutrition from non-meat food (I know they get a little more currently, but they'd need a good deal more), and slower digestion - the current benefit from slow digestion mutation should be split between itself and herbivore. Otherwise they'll be practically as dependent on permafood as spriggans, and that's going too far.
Brown chunks should not cause sickness, but count as one worse on this scale (with no mutations, you could eat them at "very hungry" or worse). They should also give less nutrition.
Saprovore could work slightly differently: with no levels, can eat rotted chunks at -1 quality level, but rotted food always gives sickness and 1/3 regular nutrition. With one level, can eat rotted as brown meat, brown as regular.. With two levels, eat rotted and brown chunks like regular. With three levels, brown or rotted count as one better on the quality scale (but still only one better if it's both).
Corpses should produce fewer chunks on max. That will make no difference to most, but will make it slightly harder for carnivore casters to be perpetually stuffed to their limit.
This is how I envision the races under the new system:
* Orcs should have one saprovore like today (basically same digestive system as humans, but less picky!)
* Kobolds should have two carnivore and two saprovore (they'll eat anything a dog will eat, but they don't have all that big stomaches)
* Centaurs should get one level of herbivore instead of fast digestion. They have a horse's stomach, slow and efficient, but only their athrophied human stomach can handle meat at all (their spellcasting aptitude might be slightly increased for balance, as this change hurts food-hungering casters).
* Ogres should get back one level of carnivore (that they lost when they merged with Ogre Mages) but lose saprovore - like old Ogre Mages, Ogres are a little picky. They can keep their slightly fast digestion.
* Trolls and Spriggans should be as today: they're already at the far ends of the spectrum, we want to mess with their gameplay as little as possible. Maybe reduce troll hunger one point if corpses produce less chunks.
* Ghouls are still a special case: they have 3 saprovore, and technically 3 carnivore but since they never reach full, it makes little difference from one or two.
...Got to go now but would love feedback, and feel free to copy this to the wiki if it helps discussion.
Crazy Yiuf mutters: "Good: bonuses. Bad: Boni. Ugly: Bonii!"
- For this message the author vintermann has received thanks: 8
- danr, dolphin, dpeg, evktalo, pratamawirya, Stormfox, szanth, zasvid