Problem with "gourm

[mechanicalmaniac]

The amulet of the gourmand seems like it goes against Crawl philosophy in a pretty big way. While it does confer a major advantage to the player, especially to a caster, it has a problem. It's a situationally useful passive ability that takes up a high-competition slot. This means that optimal use of the amulet entails putting it on and eating every edible corpse in sight until you either run out of corpses or become engorged, and then taking it off to open up your amulet slot until you want to use it again. That's a lot of equipment juggling.

I don't mind this at all, but the Dungeon Crawl Design Philosophy™ thinks otherwise. Just wanted to put this out there.

[triorph]

That's why you have to be wearing it for a certain amount of time before the food starts becoming edible.

[Wahaha]

Are you taking into account that it needs some time to become effective? If yes, your post is still technically correct. I don't think it's a big deal because I've never played a game where I really wanted to juggle gourmand. I have played games where I would not have had enough food without gourmand but I just wore gourmand all the time because the amulet slot isn't particularly important. But if we're talking about a theoretical perfect player then I guess they would juggle gourmand so this is a """problem""".

[tasonir]

Technically it's edible immediately, you just get extremely little nutrition from it until enough turns have passed - the nutrition gained raises gradually. This was done to fix the problem OP mentioned, and in my opinion, it is adequate.

If you feel like it isn't enough, check out the guidelines for GDD posts: viewtopic.php?f=8&t=7178. You should provide more detail and a proposed solution which has few/no undesirable side effects.

[tedric]

obligatory statement that in practice most characters with normal metabolism can eat literally every piece of permafood they come across and still end up with rations to spare, so the most "optimal" thing to do with gourmand is often to drop it

[Siegurt]

I suspect the OP is under the impression that "gourm is actually a much larger advantage than it is.

(It's mostly a minor convienience, and worth wearing until you find something to replace it and not one second longer)

[duvessa]

It's still a game design problem even if it's "only" a slight advantage.

[and into]

I tried to think of some fun thing you could do with food in Crawl instead of what "gourm currently does, and I have come to the conclusion that amulet of gourmand should just be removed.

[duvessa]

I guess you could solve the problem with amulet of the gourmand if taking it off set you to starving or something

[PleasingFungus]

I guess you could solve the problem with amulet of the gourmand if taking it off set you to starving or something

iirc there was a thread suggesting that a few months (?) ago

[bel]

Isn't the warm up period enough to handle this case? You lose the amulet slot for the time (400 turns?) for which the amulet is warming up. It doesn't matter whether you can remove the amulet when you are engorged, and put it back again after you burn off the food. Those 400 turns will need to be spent again if you want to do this.

[Siegurt]

TBH, every time I try on an amulet and it's gourmond, I'm like "well, crap"

The truth is though that I think there should be some medeocre items, IMHO for amulets it goes:

Inaccuracy
Gourmond
Stasis
Warding
Rage
Guardian Spirit
RMutation
rCorr
Regeneration
Clarity
Faith

For "what i would usually wear" with Clarity, rMut, rCorr and Stasis pre-empting the other choices for certain circumstances

"Warding" being the top of my personal "threshold of meh"

That being said, I don't think the "not as good" amulets should go, I kind of like that they exist and may show up in time to be around for a little while. Warding is a little better now that shadow traps exist, maybe gourmond would be more useful if there were more things that unexpectedly removed a chunk of satiation, although I'm not convinced it'd be interesting to make such a thing

[edgefigaro]

Occasionally gourm makes it out of garbage status. Mainly on summoners and zerkers. Still, plenty of permafood. Maybe demote to ring?

[duvessa]

I would rather find rage or spirit than rmut, rcorr, regen, or clarity any day.

Isn't the warm up period enough to handle this case? You lose the amulet slot for the time (400 turns?) for which the amulet is warming up. It doesn't matter whether you can remove the amulet when you are engorged, and put it back again after you burn off the food. Those 400 turns will need to be spent again if you want to do this.

Not really, since you can spend the warm-up time in advance and you're still above 3500 nutrition for hundreds of turns after you take it off.

[bel]

I would rather find rage or spirit than rmut, rcorr, regen, or clarity any day.

Isn't the warm up period enough to handle this case? You lose the amulet slot for the time (400 turns?) for which the amulet is warming up. It doesn't matter whether you can remove the amulet when you are engorged, and put it back again after you burn off the food. Those 400 turns will need to be spent again if you want to do this.

Not really, since you can spend the warm-up time in advance and you're still above 3500 nutrition for hundreds of turns after you take it off.

Clearly the solution is to make the amulet inert until you wear it and gain xp. Only half-kidding. But I never bothered too much with gourmand. I just either wear it all the time, or ditch it.

[and into]

Is the effect of gourmand actually fun at all, though? It may make the game slightly more convenient if you just wear it (because you have nothing better), since you can eat chunks up front rather than repeatedly (but with certain rc automation options, the difference is negligible), but then it makes the game a lot less convenient if you are swapping it around to eke out an advantage—a real advantage, even if a very small one. So really, what are we fighting to save, here? Rings of satiation and hunger are no more, and rightly so.

[edgefigaro]

I like gourm. I like trolls and felids and they have gourm. Even if we got rid of ammys of gourm, I'd like it to spawn on randarts.

[kuniqs]

Just remove the stupid amulet and chunk-eating already and slow down the hunger clock.

[KittenInMyCerealz]

That's a lot of equipment juggling..

Yeah no.
What would be a lot of equipment juggling, is if it worked like normal amulets.

[crate]

You get a benefit from gourmand even if you juggle it like a regular amulet, though (I'm pretty sure you get >3 nutrition from a chunk the turn after you put it on. I could be wrong though, I guess ... even in those cases it would technically be useful to juggle it sometimes since it would save a small amount of nutrition compared to just resting). Yes, it's not as much of a benefit. But it's still a benefit.

(The way gourmand works is actually probably worse from a "juggling is bad" perspective than if it had no charge-up: what you really want to do is put on the amulet, then chop a corpse, then rest up until the chunks are going to rot, then eat them (assuming you'd be resting anyway). So you're being encouraged to manually keep track of time to maximize your nutrition, which is a lot more finicky than "put on amulet for every corpse". Of course, no one does this, but that's because gourmand doesn't matter. If it did, this is something that I would probably do.

If you're not going to be resting, then you either just eat the chunks immediately (like the no-charge-time case) or you do the same thing but keep track of time as you walk around, which means no autoexplore because it might take too long.)

[Tamiore]

Ok, so how about replacing the amulet of gourmand with an amulet of "soul harvest"?

Same warm-up time as now, but it will just flat out give some nutrition every time a monster with a soul is killed within LOS when this amulet is ON?

As an ADDED bonus there can be a monster HD vs player HD check, so that you can no longer feed of weak monster souls effectively once you are waaay above their level.

[n1000]

You already get plenty of nutrition every time a monster is killed--without an amulet!

I think removing gourmand would be mostly inconsequential. The only games I recall where it's substantially benefited me were Sif Muna speedruns in which I relied a lot on channeling and cast high level spells relatively prematurely.

[jejorda2]

If I proposed your health only regenerated to 50% HP, but heal wounds could get you all the way to 100%, and every other enemy gave you heal-wounds-but-only-to-50%, I don't think it would be well received, even with an amulet that lets you regenerate all your hp by waiting.

The idea that you have two max satiation levels- one for chunks and one for other food, is just weird. If nobody but carnivores could eat chunks before starving, it would make more sense thematically. But then chunks would be a rarely used mechanic worthy of removal.

[Pereza0]

Is the effect of gourmand actually fun at all, though? It may make the game slightly more convenient if you just wear it (because you have nothing better), since you can eat chunks up front rather than repeatedly (but with certain rc automation options, the difference is negligible), but then it makes the game a lot less convenient if you are swapping it around to eke out an advantage—a real advantage, even if a very small one. So really, what are we fighting to save, here? Rings of satiation and hunger are no more, and rightly so.

Is resist corrosion, resist mutation, warding, or guardiant spirit fun? They are either situational or give you an advantage about on par with gourmand.

I think gourmand is fine, being able to spam higher level spells without starving midfight is quite nice. I dislike having to invest too much on spellcasting and gourmand is always a nice find for me

[Sar]

Guardian spirit is very good.

[and into]

Is the effect of gourmand actually fun at all, though? It may make the game slightly more convenient if you just wear it (because you have nothing better), since you can eat chunks up front rather than repeatedly (but with certain rc automation options, the difference is negligible), but then it makes the game a lot less convenient if you are swapping it around to eke out an advantage—a real advantage, even if a very small one. So really, what are we fighting to save, here? Rings of satiation and hunger are no more, and rightly so.

Is resist corrosion, resist mutation, warding, or guardiant spirit fun? They are either situational or give you an advantage about on par with gourmand.

More fun than gourmand, certainly. Not having to worry as much about corrosion, mutations, or draining, when they come up, is definitely more fun than an item whose sole purpose revolves around one of the least engaging aspects of Crawl (hunger). Regeneration keeps me playing with less resting, definitely increases enjoyment. Guardian spirit is actively fun/interesting to use. Ditto rage.

Outside of Sif channeling, gourmand is "about on par" with guardian spirit in much the same way that a whip is "about on par" with a demon whip.

[argonaut]

I guess you could solve the problem with amulet of the gourmand if taking it off set you to starving or something

https://crawl.develz.org/mantis/view.php?id=9374

[dpeg]

I guess it's only a matter of time until the amulet disappears. We did discuss this briefly back in the day, but the food game was really different back then and so it stayed. I still think the warm-up period was a necessary change (assuming the amulet does not get removed), because players actually did swap amulets all the time. Everyone did it, and it was bloody boring.

Perhaps someone will overcome inertia and eat Gourmand for the next version.

[wheals]

I guess you could solve the problem with amulet of the gourmand if taking it off set you to starving or something

iirc there was a thread suggesting that a few months (?) ago

A patch, in fact (it's on mantis)

e: maybe i should read to the end of the thread before posting

[Sandman25]

Make Gourmand always self-curse on equip.

[dpeg]

wheals: That's good. I guess we need to discuss it on ##crawl-dev or c-r-d -- did we ever (I cannot recall). Perhaps everyone's already converted?

[PleasingFungus]

wheals: That's good. I guess we need to discuss it on ##crawl-dev or c-r-d -- did we ever (I cannot recall). Perhaps everyone's already converted?

I have no interest in removing gourmand and am thoroughly unconvinced by the arguments in this thread in favor of removing it. It's quite useful for certain types of characters by allowing them to use higher-level spells earlier & more often (as n1000 hinted at), which makes a substantial qualitative difference to play. It's irrelevant to most primary-melee characters, of course, but so's the entire 'food game'...

The 'problematic benefits' for micromanaging gourmand, those discussed in this thread, seem extremely marginal to me - not even worth thinking about, honestly. If they needed to be weakened further, we could add a random factor to chunk rot times - this is something I actually have a standing TODO for, since it's "spoilerish" to have a fixed duration that we don't tell the player explicitly. I'm not convinced even that's necessary, though.

[crate]

The 'problematic benefits' for micromanaging gourmand, those discussed in this thread, seem extremely marginal to me

This doesn't mean there isn't a real problem. You can absolutely choose to not address the problem (I mean, you're the ones in charge of the code)--and I acknowledge that it's a small problem, and perhaps you would better spend your time on other things--but it's still there, so please don't try to pretend that it's not. The benefits are absolutely problematic, because they both fit the definition of grindy behaviour that crawl tries to avoid, and additionally gourmand has a charge time that ostensibly tries to avoid this specific problem although as I've said it doesn't actually fix anything.

Saying "I don't think it's worth my time to fix and I think gourmand existing has benefits" is okay, but I'd prefer if you actually just said that clearly.

If they needed to be weakened further, we could add a random factor to chunk rot times

Unless you make the minimum time 1 turn, this does nothing except move the window. I don't know how long chunks take to rot now; let's say it's 100 turns. If you make it 20-200 turns instead, then instead of waiting 99 turns before I eat (ok realistically more like 95 or something), I just wait 19 (15). Exact same behaviour. You can still randomize chunk rotting timers for other reasons, but it does nothing for gourmand.

---

Anyway I would support taking gourmand off setting you to (near) starving, since that does fix the problem, is pretty easy to do, and apparently already has a patch.

[dpeg]

[...] and additionally gourmand has a charge time that ostensibly tries to avoid this specific problem although as I've said it doesn't actually fix anything.

I see what you mean, but this is just wrong: people actually did swap Gourmand in and out for every single corpse in 0.1, now nobody does (or at least I am not aware of players doing this). I admit this is a very pragmatic way of looking at it, and I am fine with making Gourmand take away lots of nutrition when taken off. But I don't think you can say it doesn't fix anything.

[duvessa]

I see players swapping gourmand all the time, in fact I do it myself sometimes, since it very much is optimal even if it does very little.

It's quite useful for certain types of characters by allowing them to use higher-level spells earlier & more often (as n1000 hinted at), which makes a substantial qualitative difference to play.

I disagree.

[mechanicalmaniac]

It means you can just just pump your main school and not bother with spellcasting until you find more books and want to branch out.

[Siegurt]

I would say that optimizing a part of the game (and using non zero turns to do so) that doesn't matter for winning, it's actually sub optimal.

I would elaborate that wasting turns swapping gourm for corpse eating isn't worth the piety cost and additional Moster generation.

I suppose it might be optimal if one or both of those deficits for "just using up time" were removed (so, for instance dg and/or in the temple or something) fortunately, getting lots of chunks to eat while waiting around in the temple isn't something you can do ongoingly. Which I suppose leaves dg and the godless. (Fortunately being godless is also sub optimal, and if you do get a god, it will often precede you finding a better amulet)

However I would argue that swapping gourm falls into the same category as stashing.

[Pereza0]

Is the effect of gourmand actually fun at all, though? It may make the game slightly more convenient if you just wear it (because you have nothing better), since you can eat chunks up front rather than repeatedly (but with certain rc automation options, the difference is negligible), but then it makes the game a lot less convenient if you are swapping it around to eke out an advantage—a real advantage, even if a very small one. So really, what are we fighting to save, here? Rings of satiation and hunger are no more, and rightly so.

Is resist corrosion, resist mutation, warding, or guardiant spirit fun? They are either situational or give you an advantage about on par with gourmand.

More fun than gourmand, certainly. Not having to worry as much about corrosion, mutations, or draining, when they come up, is definitely more fun than an item whose sole purpose revolves around one of the least engaging aspects of Crawl (hunger). Regeneration keeps me playing with less resting, definitely increases enjoyment. Guardian spirit is actively fun/interesting to use. Ditto rage.

Outside of Sif channeling, gourmand is "about on par" with guardian spirit in much the same way that a whip is "about on par" with a demon whip.

I personally consider the ability to recklessly spam high level spells more "fun" than just wearing some resitance that I could swap to in a turn if I actually need it anyway.

Not that the others are bad, I would pick Spirit, Regen and Rage for melee oriented characters, and Regen if my spells are not making me hungry. But otherwise Gourmand as a perfectly fine option, and the alternative (constant staff of energy swapping) is *far* more bothersome.

And about amulet swapping... It does not really come up as much as ring swapping at all, and gourmand is not one of the amulets that encourages swapping the most (rCorr, rMut, Ward, Rage, Clarity are the ones that do)

[and into]

I personally consider the ability to recklessly spam high level spells more "fun" than just wearing some resitance that I could swap to in a turn if I actually need it anyway.

I find it fun to spam high level spells, too. Fortunately, gourmand is not required in order to do that. What gourmand can do, as you pointed out earlier, is let you be a (little) bit more min-maxey with spell casting training. But I don't find min-maxing my skills (in a way that locks the amulet slot, to boot) very fun. And even then, the advantage you get from undertraining spell casting is extremely small. You don't want to undertrain spell casting too much, even when you have enough spell levels and you got gourmand so hunger is effectively eliminated; due to how experience levels work, even at only 1/4 (IIRC) the benefit of a spell school, you eventually reach a point where the cost/benefit makes sense for training spell casting. Particularly if there are more than one spell school you would like to improve on at the moment, which is not exactly a rare case.

And about amulet swapping... It does not really come up as much as ring swapping at all, and gourmand is not one of the amulets that encourages swapping the most (rCorr, rMut, Ward, Rage, Clarity are the ones that do)

I also agree that I don't like jewelry/amulet swapping in general.

[Pereza0]

I personally consider the ability to recklessly spam high level spells more "fun" than just wearing some resitance that I could swap to in a turn if I actually need it anyway.

I find it fun to spam high level spells, too. Fortunately, gourmand is not required in order to do that. What gourmand can do, as you pointed out earlier, is let you be a (little) bit more min-maxey with spell casting training. But I don't find min-maxing my skills (in a way that locks the amulet slot, to boot) very fun. And even then, the advantage you get from undertraining spell casting is extremely small. You don't want to undertrain spell casting too much, even when you have enough spell levels and you got gourmand so hunger is effectively eliminated; due to how experience levels work, even at only 1/4 (IIRC) the benefit of a spell school, you eventually reach a point where the cost/benefit makes sense for training spell casting. Particularly if there are more than one spell school you would like to improve on at the moment, which is not exactly a rare case.

And about amulet swapping... It does not really come up as much as ring swapping at all, and gourmand is not one of the amulets that encourages swapping the most (rCorr, rMut, Ward, Rage, Clarity are the ones that do)

I also agree that I don't like jewelry/amulet swapping in general.

All the stuff you say is true. But I disagree with your conclusion.

First, you speak of "locking" yourself into an amulet with a build like it was a bad thing. Completely the opposite!

Having amulets define your character and make you build your character around it is a great thing, which is what makes Faith great (replace spamming high level spells with spamming god abilities and gifts) and Guardian Spirit, Rage and Regeneration cool. I would love to have more game changing amulets lije Faith in DCSS

Using Gourmand doesn't mean you should not train Spellcasting, only that MP and Spell Levels are the only things pushing you to do so. And it often happens (through Sif Muna or Wizardry) that you are casting things with higher level than you would otherwise be able to, and the risk of starving midfight is real.

Having amulets as swappable resistances or entry tickets into specific branches is what is boring, I think reworking this is a bigger priority than axing gourmand honeslty.

[Sandman25]

Having amulets as swappable resistances or entry tickets into specific branches is what is boring, I think reworking this is a bigger priority than axing gourmand honeslty.

Amulets help to have different experience in different games. Do you have rCorr? Think about getting Slime rune. No rCorr but there is rMut? Think about Abyss. Nothing useful? Get silver rune. I would prefer adding more amulets like this, for instance lack of rElec is extremely dangerous in Vaults 5 sometimes.

[Robotron]

Why not meld amulet of gourmand and amulet of regen into "amulet of hypermetabolism"? ^^

[duvessa]

It means you can just just pump your main school and not bother with spellcasting until you find more books and want to branch out.

I don't think I have ever even cared about spellcasting skill's effect on hunger, gourmand or not

[Sandman25]

I don't think I have ever even cared about spellcasting skill's effect on hunger, gourmand or not

I have just wanted to point at combos like SpWz and found that best score for the combo belongs to Yermak's SpWz of Trog (this is probably an argument for another thread where Trog is being discussed). So yes, it's possible for some players to never care about spell hunger.
I had several characters who were limited by spell hunger i.e. they had to stop casting due to starving status despite still having enough MP (it is very easy to achieve with Vehumet who provides both wizardry and MP).

[edgefigaro]

I'm not sure how gourm swapping matters. Gourm is a nice early game find on berserkers, certain spellcasters, and for gods that want corpses. There are better amulets, to be sure, not all amulets need to be amazing. It doesn't need a lategame application, and anyone who is gourm swapping is in very special circumstances. It doesn't warrent an inventory slot later on.

Realisticly, if you wear gourm a while and then ditch it, you can permafood engorged the rest of the game.

[kuniqs]

Make amulet of gourmad automatically devour slain foes. There's a chance of getting 'sick' if it stuffs you with a corpse when engorged.

[Tamiore]

Make amulet of gourmad automatically devour slain foes. There's a chance of getting 'sick' if it stuffs you with a corpse when engorged.

Orc mines will never be the same again.

[mechanicalmaniac]

It probably warrants a mention that for the longest time I did not know you had to warm up the amulet every time you put it back on; I thought you only needed to do that the first time. I'd recommend a) making it clearer that you need to do this every time you put the amulet back on and b) prompt before taking it off, just like the vamp brand.

Of course, this would make juggling the amulet even more of a nuisance, but it's not like suggestions cost anything.

[Pereza0]

The game tells you when you eat things right after putting it on that you are not gaining much from it.

I dont think there is a juggling problem with it, but if there was the player nutrition could be reduced to jus a bit below satiated (hungry) upon removing it. This would eliminate all the advantages of swapping, assuming there are any

[mechanicalmaniac]

The game tells you when you eat things right after putting it on that you are not gaining much from it.

Perhaps, but you still don't know that you have to warm it back up again until you've already taken it off and put it back on.