Slime Squisher
Posts: 386
Joined: Thursday, 26th March 2015, 01:22
Food Matters
Food affects the way that I play in a reasonably high % of games. I play a lot of magic starts (on non-magic starts it often feels correct to basically just play a melee/ranged weapon character w/ heavy armor & strength whereas the skilling/character building problem feels more adaptive on magic-starts) and I care a reasonable amount about win %, so I often play carefully--a typical 3-rune game takes about 80-100k turns. If I am casting ~lv. 4-5 spells around lair branches (3/4 of which don't have an abundance of edible corpses) and I am regularly separating packs and retreating to other floors to heal, I tend to find myself short on rations.
Of course, I have basically never died by starvation, but the threat of starvation is often enough to compel me to play hastily (in an aut sense). "If I keep breaking up packs of nagas like this, and the dungeon is stingy w/ food drops, I could starve." This fear is more pronounced on underpowered characters, especially hybrids. Food aside, though, hybridizing often feels 'correct' on magic starts who do not take a magic god.
Most likely, I am more afraid of starvation than I ought to be. In most games enough food drops, and the abundance of xp means that even a hybrid character becomes powerful enough to take on packs of enemies w/o retreating by vaults. However, before it becomes clear that a character has way more food than needed, my play is affected by the food clock. I spend consumables to resolve situations w/o retreating, and I fight in suboptimal terrain or at less than full hp/mp rather than luring every enemy back to the stairs.