Food reform


Although the central place for design discussion is ##crawl-dev on freenode, some may find it helpful to discuss requests and suggestions here first.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Tuesday, 8th November 2011, 22:13

Re: Food reform

twelwe wrote:Speaking of unwanted behavior, I've had to tank creatures that drop white chunks while Nausea was active so they wouldn't die and start rotting before Nausea ended


It takes over a hundred turns for chunks to start rotting. Are you tanking those creatures that long? What kind of defensive powerhouse are you playing, to get away with that?

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 6393

Joined: Friday, 17th December 2010, 18:17

Post Wednesday, 9th November 2011, 00:35

Re: Food reform

Here's another concept, one that might be used either in conjunction with or in lieu of hunger level boni/mali:

Distinct benefits for each specific food type. We're halfway there already with royal jellies giving restore abilities and various chunks giving MUT, sickness and nausea. Extend that and have meat rations give say an immediate +15 MP, bread +15 HP, pizza temporary SInv, fruits temporary speed, and so on. Again, the overall idea is to adjust the cost/benefit menu to encourage using permafood and staying satiated.

cjo

Spider Stomper

Posts: 217

Joined: Tuesday, 20th September 2011, 02:03

Post Wednesday, 9th November 2011, 07:30

Re: Food reform

I mostly play stable, but I tried out a few characters in Trunk. My transmuters barely noticed the change (but I didn't get any of them into areas with no clean chunks). My kenku (now tengu) fire elementalist found it really painful, though, to the point where the game wasn't even fun. Different backgrounds and races vary dramatically in how much food they need, and the changes don't seem to account for that.

Conceptually I like the idea of nausea. I also like the idea of every stage of satiation having a meaning. When I was a new, unspoiled player I assumed this was the case. Finally, I like the idea of adding incentive to reach higher satiation levels in the hope that instead of a relatively large nerf to some race/class choices, we can get a smaller nerf to food-intensive choices, coupled with a boost to the classes that usually have food coming out their ears.

For example:
Normal races:
Starving: as is
Nearly starving: larger malus to attack and spellcasting
Very hungry: small malus to attack and spellcasting
Hungry: as is
Satiated: as is
Full: increased rate of hp regeneration
Very full: increased rate of hp regeneration + slow movement (synergises nicely with Chei piety)
Engorged: increased rate of hp regeneration + slow movement + minor malus to attack and spellcasting

Adjust difficulty by setting the probability of becoming nauseous and the duration of the effect. Penalizing "Very Hungry" and "Almost Starving" might mean we would need more permafood in the game.

Nausea stage one: lose any satiation bonus, gain small malus to attack and spellcasting (stacks with any malus from hunger), can only eat brown chunks if nearly starving
Nausea stage two: doubles the malus from stage one, can only eat brown chunks if starving

Gourmand / carnivore: Full, very full, and engorged are equal to Satiated (they immune to both the positive and negative aspects of extra nutrition)

I think something like this could be fun...though it does impinge a bit on vampire territory.

For this message the author cjo has received thanks:
greepish

Vaults Vanquisher

Posts: 470

Joined: Saturday, 5th November 2011, 01:17

Post Wednesday, 9th November 2011, 10:00

Re: Food reform

I haven't played the food reform, so I'm afraid I can't comment on it, however, I do have an idea that will

A) make food more interesting and
B) simplify it!

at the same time.

It's pretty simple. there's two parts:

Buffs: Anyone can eat any food at any time. Yes, even poison/rotting/mutagenic corpses will give satiation, and even when full or very full.

However, you also make satiation much more difficult.

Nerfs:

A) Chunk satiation is drastically reduced, according to herbivore/carnivore. Carnivores get slightly less than as of today, normal players get much less, herbivore get drastically less.
B)Sickness has no limit, and potion of healing doesn't CURE it, just reduces it (usually completely, but not if you ate a whole stone giant for example). Both saprovore and herbivore/carnivore affect amount of sickness.
C)Herbivore/carnivore don't affect when you can eat, they just affect sickness. Carnivores get little if any sickness, herbivores get sick from even eating clean meat
D)All early game food sources are reduced. Sustenance gives a single lower metabolism, gourmand only reduces sickness, Hive's food stash is drastically lowered (instead of ~30 combs, 20 jellys, perhaps 10 combs 4 jellies). Really, I enjoy OgFEs, supposed to suffer food problems from low int, but once I hit hive I'm saved from food problems for good, just have to hold out for necromutation without really worrying too much. That shouldn't happen.

Result? Much easier on newbies AND more varied! Now food becomes a real issue, and if you're particularly suffering for food throughout the game you can make the choice of harmful effects if you have to. Newbies, and better players will have food become a problem, but the difference is less life and death so much as choosing between stat loss,rot and mutation (or if you're a very good player, none of the above), and using potions. Furthermore, since it's simple and you can eat any time you like, adding extra tiers (clean/yucky/contaminated/really contaminated/freaking gross), is perfectly fine without needing a tutorial.

Lastly, while some of you might think people would would sit at very full throughout the game under this system, you haven't thought it through. It's much better, with increased sickness, to try and wait until getting clean corpses, so it's still the game of risk of "how far to starving do I go before I give in to contaminted/permafood" and "should I waste heal potions on sickness"

Really the only major problem I see are a few areas with massive clean meat, like yaktaur packs. Smaller packs of clean food like blink frogs would be fine since chunks give less satiation. One other problem would be only carnivores would have an easy time as berserkers, but hey berserkers are too easy anyways. Also kobolds and high int caster species might be a lot stronger relatively. But again, since that tends to be their only strong suit, it's somewhat balanced already.

Anyways, that's just my thoughts on the matter.

Edit: This would fit perfectly with cjo's post as well.

Edit: And to increase strategy further, have food cost more at stores (needed anways), bee vaults give less food like the hive would (needed anyways), and have acquirement give MORE food (since rarely used).
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Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 5832

Joined: Thursday, 10th February 2011, 18:30

Post Wednesday, 14th December 2011, 21:17

Re: Food reform

snow wrote:While we're talking about butchering has anyone tried using a vampiric weapon that you can't butcher with? You take a hunger hit every time you try to unequip it to butcher... can you PLEASE just remove everything hunger related from the brand?


I agree, or at least add food satiation BACK to the brand, considering Food Reform.

Before the hunger satiation on attacking with Vampiric was removed, didn't Vampiric feed on EVERY attack?

I think if Vampiric Brands only provided satiation if you successfully attacked while at full HP, and satisfied based on damage done, a "watered-down" version of the original satiation, then that might help.

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Snake Sneak

Posts: 129

Joined: Saturday, 27th August 2011, 22:00

Post Saturday, 4th February 2012, 19:12

Re: Food reform

Contaminated chunks restrict caster's ability to spam their most powerful spells in places without lots of clean chunks. I reckon that is a decent reason for them to exist.

Right now, you can make the choice to use more higher-level spells by exchanging permafood for the privilege.

Dungeon Master

Posts: 3618

Joined: Thursday, 23rd December 2010, 12:43

Post Saturday, 4th February 2012, 20:08

Re: Food reform

minmay: This is only a function of the parameters: How long Nausea will take (on average)? How much/what can you eat at (Near) Starving?

It would clearly be possible to make scraping from one contaminated chunk to the next less reliable (and thus make permanent food a good idea, because it _saves_ resources in the long run). Other parameters are the chance for Nausea and the nutrition you get from emergency food at Starving.

Discussions about mechanics usually ignore the potential for change but that's not my problem anymore.

Ziggurat Zagger

Posts: 3037

Joined: Sunday, 2nd January 2011, 02:06

Post Saturday, 4th February 2012, 21:31

Re: Food reform

I find that I do end up needing permafood to deal with nausea in contamination-heavy areas, most particularly Orc. 5-10 piety worth of decay for sitting around waiting for nausea to wear off is not obviously preferable to the risk of having to eat one of my many available rations to pay for the nutrition required to deal with an unexpected orc knight.

Nausea doesn't have an intrusive and ever-present impact on the game, but I don't see why not having that is a problem.

Snake Sneak

Posts: 129

Joined: Saturday, 27th August 2011, 22:00

Post Saturday, 4th February 2012, 23:01

Re: Food reform

?????????????????
When you only have contaminated chunks available it means that you have to be more cognizant of the way you spend your satiation. Contaminated chunks being inedible would just make them.. inedible.

Orc and Elven Halls are good examples of this. Most of the enemies there have relatively low HP and die quickly to hunger-expensive AOE spells, you are restricted from steamrolling through with AOE unless you choose to spend permafood.
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