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FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger clock

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 12:19
by lethediver
Disclaimer: I believe one could remove food/hunger entirely from the current iteration of crawl and be left with a better game (see: Hellcrawl). However, such an extreme step is unlikely in the near future. In lieu of such, simply removing chunks and the ability to eat them would be an improvement on what we have now.

Reasoning:

Having to stop and butcher/eat corpses is tedious, even with auto butcher and auto eat chunks, since you have to manually position yourself onto corpses.

Corpse eating leads to extremely game-y behaviors like leaving monsters on floors so you can kill them later and not become hungry en route to/from your stash, dipping into branches/floors simply to eat 1 monster, and so on.

Requiring the player to stop and eat corpses frequently provides very little tangible benefit which required occasional consumption of permafood does not already provide. One might argue that pushing the player to fight and kill monsters rather than simply explore and pick up items is beneficial, but the benefit seems miniscule compared to the benefit of significantly reducing overall tedium/complexity, especially considering those two activities seem to go hand in hand to begin with.

Reasoning in support of lengthening hunger clock as well:

Would retain the current balance of mandatory exploration vs. time be a less extreme change to the game, and therefore more within the current development philosophy.

Re: FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger cloc

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 17:59
by pedritolo
I'd agree with this, except for those lovely mutagenic chunks, so one may freely partake in the obscene mutation roulette.

I'd also only slightly increase the availability of perma food, if at all. IMO, being driven by a proper hunger clock (and not just a slight nudge as it presently stands) would make the game more interesting and avoid some of that supposedly tedious behavior people frequently harp on about.
This would penalize casters the most, so perhaps reduce spell hunger by a fixed % across the board?

Removing food altogether? I don't think so, it would take away interesting complexity.

Re: FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger cloc

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 18:36
by yesno
pedritolo wrote:I'd agree with this, except for those lovely mutagenic chunks, so one may freely partake in the obscene mutation roulette.


if this were important to the game you could just increase !mut spawn rate

Re: FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger cloc

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 18:56
by pedritolo
yesno wrote:
pedritolo wrote:I'd agree with this, except for those lovely mutagenic chunks, so one may freely partake in the obscene mutation roulette.


if this were important to the game you could just increase !mut spawn rate


Sure, as long as it gave the same overall amount as you'd get from chunks.

Re: FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger cloc

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 19:03
by pedritolo
Because of ghouls and perhaps trolls, I'd leave the meat chunks mechanic unchanged, just make them inedible unless you are carnivorous. It would also make sense from a flavor perspective (sorry for the pun).
As for vamps, I'd probably make blood potions permanent and purchasable in batches from food/general shops.

Re: FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger cloc

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 19:25
by Nekoatl
I actually like managing chunks. It does change the way I play, at times discouraging me from using certain spells and abilities, at times encouraging me to give up on trying to down a difficult unique or ghost sooner than I otherwise would, which makes those decisions a bit more interesting. The differences in how some species deal with hunger adds variety to the game and distinctiveness to those species. Hunger is very annoying when backtracking several dungeon levels to pick up an item or track down a skipped unique/ghost, but I consider that a small price to pay for upsides.

To the specific complaint of having to walk over to corpses, a way to configure autoexplore to walk over to a nearby corpse, chop it, eat as many chunks as possible, and then stop exploring would solve that, would it not?

Mutagenic chunks are distinct from potions of mutation. The chunks provide a more controlled approach to mutation roulette (as they yield only 1 random mutation), but can't be stockpiled until an especially appropriate time (e.g. after finding a Jiyva altar). Substituting more mutation potions for removed mutation chunks would make acquiring mutations both less interesting and less approachable. Considering how potentially interesting mutations can be and that there are already players who refuse to even touch them, making mutation acquisition less approachable seems like a bad idea.

Re: FR: Remove chunks, and (optionally) lengthen hunger cloc

PostPosted: Saturday, 14th January 2017, 22:03
by ker
I'm down with removing chunks(/food) but will I still be able to eat the flesh of my enemies? It's not about the nutrition - it's about sending a message.

I'm only 10% joking.