Jump to content

Cooking has now become obsolete


General Dexter

Recommended Posts

Having mechanisms in game that cause disruption in players' plans is a good thing, it creates challenge. But the food poisoning mechanic in game right now is boring, simplistic, and easily circumvented in multiple different ways.

 

The mechanic, as it is right now (sudden loss of a chunk of food bar), is only anxiety provoking and disruptive to plans in early game, when food is scarce. Once food isn't an issue you just pound down a few more meat or veggie straws and go about your business.

 

Vitamins are basically useless in mid to late game when you have a stack of stews.

 

If the mechanic was more like dysentery it would have more impact in mid to late game, and would be less punishing in early game.

 

The problem with this game is that its difficulty curve is weighted to the early game, with the mid to late game getting easier.

 

I completely agree with this. with level 4 iron gut i had crates of food. With an understanding of food poisoning a new player will just avoid eating cooked food(which they do anyway because they can't cook) until they are ready.

 

Maybe a delay with the mechanic? You don't get the results until 2 in game hours? Also why stick to just food poisoning? why not other illnesses? Instead of losing stamina an illness will cause a debuff until you either recover from it or take medicine. These can be caught not just from eating but from zombie damage, trap damage, and from animals.

 

The issue with the food is that they want to add a risk to it. You have all these players talking about how easy the game is with hyper bullet sponge zombies, but the moment they get a small chance to vomit they spaz out. You have better odds with some of the scratch lotto tickets then you do with the getting food poisoning in this game. Spoilage won't impact this because players will simply not harvest their crops until they are ready to eat. like in emperyon.

 

So how do we balance this out for end game? How do we balance this out for mid game? I hate to say it, but they might need to nerf canned food. Either that or tone down it's abundance in the world. I guess one way to do it that would not destroy low level players is to add a negative water percentage to most canned food. You eat canned food? well you better drink a lot of water.

 

Another nastier method is a diminishing return for eating too much of the same food over a period of time. This forces you to eat other things. Make canned food count as the same so the more you eat the less benefit you get. This makes farming and cooking important.

 

Then again maybe food poisoning is meant to be more of an early game challenge?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

TFP is very happy with the game's recent 94% approval rating on Steam and to add a feature that they know will result in angering a good portion of the player base is going to be a hard sell.

 

I'm going to skip the bashing for once and just gonna say: I have not seen ANYONE in this thread say they disliked food spoilage.

Maybe I overread it... but even though I'm to lazy to check, its probably 10:1 or higher.

 

THIS would be a nice idea for a poll.

 

"I want food spoilage!"

"I want food spoilage , but not like *insert game here* (I only know arks version of the top of my head)"

"I want food spoilage , but not like *insert game here* (I only know arks version of the top of my head)"

"I don't want food spoilage!"

 

And four more options after (seperate)

"I want both food spoilage and food poisoning!"

"I want only food spoilage!"

"I want only food poisoning!"

"I don't want any. Remove it please!"

 

 

 

Because I am pretty sure, that it would be overwhelmingly pro spoilage and disproportionate (60+%) anti poisoning.

Would you do that? :)

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Having mechanisms in game that cause disruption in players' plans is a good thing, it creates challenge. But the food poisoning mechanic in game right now is boring, simplistic, and easily circumvented in multiple different ways.

 

The mechanic, as it is right now (sudden loss of a chunk of food bar), is only anxiety provoking and disruptive to plans in early game, when food is scarce. Once food isn't an issue you just pound down a few more meat or veggie straws and go about your business.

 

Vitamins are basically useless in mid to late game when you have a stack of stews.

 

If the mechanic was more like dysentery it would have more impact in mid to late game, and would be less punishing in early game.

 

The problem with this game is that its difficulty curve is weighted to the early game, with the mid to late game getting easier.

 

+1 from me, perfectly recapped

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Having mechanisms in game that cause disruption in players' plans is a good thing, it creates challenge. But the food poisoning mechanic in game right now is boring, simplistic, and easily circumvented in multiple different ways.

 

The mechanic, as it is right now (sudden loss of a chunk of food bar), is only anxiety provoking and disruptive to plans in early game, when food is scarce. Once food isn't an issue you just pound down a few more meat or veggie straws and go about your business.

 

Vitamins are basically useless in mid to late game when you have a stack of stews.

 

If the mechanic was more like dysentery it would have more impact in mid to late game, and would be less punishing in early game.

 

The problem with this game is that its difficulty curve is weighted to the early game, with the mid to late game getting easier.

 

Wholely disagree. The reason early game is difficult is because you have nothing. Late game is 'easier' because of the diligent work put in to stock enough food in the first place.

 

I would grudgingly say that loot is slightly unbalanced, but not make the mistake that late game you can now rush through larger POI vs early game taking it careful through even small POIs.

 

Everyone considers late game 'easyness' with unbalanced game design. The whole point is to have goals and earn them. If you complain too much, next thing you know the devs start making recipes with items that cannot be harvested or crafted, and can only be found via RNG. And start filling POIs with glowing zeds. And to top it off, make a nuke zombie for horde night to destroy everything you built. All in the name of 'making seven days great again'.

 

Now, spoilage would not destroy the game. It would force the player to maintain a little discipline. Dont make 20 stews at once. Make one stew a day. That is a mechanic that doesnt punish early game, but lasts through to late game.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm going to skip the bashing for once and just gonna say: I have not seen ANYONE in this thread say they disliked food spoilage.

Maybe I overread it... but even though I'm to lazy to check, its probably 10:1 or higher.

 

THIS would be a nice idea for a poll.

 

"I want food spoilage!"

"I want food spoilage , but not like *insert game here* (I only know arks version of the top of my head)"

"I want food spoilage , but not like *insert game here* (I only know arks version of the top of my head)"

"I don't want food spoilage!"

 

And four more options after (seperate)

"I want both food spoilage and food poisoning!"

"I want only food spoilage!"

"I want only food poisoning!"

"I don't want any. Remove it please!"

 

 

 

Because I am pretty sure, that it would be overwhelmingly pro spoilage and disproportionate (60+%) anti poisoning.

Would you do that? :)

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

 

 

+1 from me, perfectly recapped

 

I made a poll. not exactly as you wanted but this should be interesting to see how the poll results turn out.

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?136069-POLL-Would-you-like-to-see-food-spoilage-added

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now, spoilage would not destroy the game. It would force the player to maintain a little discipline. Dont make 20 stews at once. Make one stew a day. That is a mechanic that doesnt punish early game, but lasts through to late game.

 

So you only make 1 stew a day. So that just means your raw ingredients are what spoils instead of your stack of stew. How is that any different or disciplined?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So you only make 1 stew a day. So that just means your raw ingredients are what spoils instead of your stack of stew. How is that any different or disciplined?

 

In a serious survival situation you'd think you'd want to preserve what food you can if you know it will spoil before you can make/consume it. Hence why it would make sense to add in the option to preserve food by drying/salting some raw ingredients (such as raw meat), and jaring/canning others. Eggs could be come pickled. Raw meat could become salted jerky. Fruit could be preserved, or turned into jams. Stews could be frozen if they added that as a feature for the Fridge? You could make a very dynamic food system that isn't just "oh now it's spoiled, turn it into fertilizer".

 

If they fixed water in the future and introduced fishing long term, you could set up worm boxes to harvest bait every few days out of composted food. Or make fish Jerky. There a lot of ways to go on this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The reason early game is difficult is because you have nothing. Late game is 'easier' because of the diligent work put in to stock enough food in the first place.

You know, this actually agrees with what I said and supports my statement that the current way food poisoning works is uninspired and only a burden/anxiety provoking in early game and doesn't even matter in mid to late game.

 

Example: I started a new game with a friend and got the food poisoning debuff around day 10. It was not "oh my God, what am I going to do", but rather "..... great....*goes to trader and buys more food*.... Okay, back to what I was doing".

 

I don't think about if I will or won't get food poisoning when I eat cooked food, because it doesn't matter.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You know, this actually agrees with what I said and supports my statement that the current way food poisoning works is uninspired and only a burden/anxiety provoking in early game and doesn't even matter in mid to late game.

 

I'm sorry to say that you don't need to be Einstein to realize: Early game isn't hard but a challenge.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was not "oh my God, what am I going to do", but rather "..... great....*goes to trader and buys more food*.... Okay, back to what I was doing". I don't think about if I will or won't get food poisoning when I eat cooked food, because it doesn't matter.

 

To the maximum extent possible I've been playing traderless. Being forced to _buy_ food feels like a loss, an admission, I can't hack survival. And reducing myself to some NPC's errand-boy? No Thank You. Then, by the time I've lost my RNG religion because my prayers have gone unanswered so long, a run to the trader restores my faith and rebalances my supply situation nicely because I'm getting well paid for what I produced, not for what he told me to play fetch-theres-a-nice-doggie with.

 

Too bad the poll didn't have a "I don't know yet" option. I kinda like Roland's basic idea, all foods add 1% per day spoilage chance, combine stacks and I think the result should get the max-of-each chance on the one-bad-apple example. But in any game there have to be areas that are left as just raw stubs, stuff where there's no mechanic at all because it just never got to the top of the implement pile. Factorio doesn't do food at all. Warband has spoilage for some foods, not others. I kinda like the notion of salting meat and pickling vegetables and maybe even having cooked wet meals do really good things but spoil very very fast, but at some point you have to stop adding verisimilitude, there will always be a next step they could take and there'll always be plausible-sounding arguments that They Really Should Have Taken It. I mean, in a survival game shouldn't the goal be to make a world in which you can raise children? Why is there no sex and pregnancy and protect-the-children loop?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In a serious survival situation you'd think you'd want to preserve what food you can if you know it will spoil before you can make/consume it. Hence why it would make sense to add in the option to preserve food by drying/salting some raw ingredients (such as raw meat), and jaring/canning others. Eggs could be come pickled. Raw meat could become salted jerky. Fruit could be preserved, or turned into jams. Stews could be frozen if they added that as a feature for the Fridge? You could make a very dynamic food system that isn't just "oh now it's spoiled, turn it into fertilizer".

 

If they fixed water in the future and introduced fishing long term, you could set up worm boxes to harvest bait every few days out of composted food. Or make fish Jerky. There a lot of ways to go on this.

 

Well duh..... That however has absolutely nothing with what I responded to... Maybe you should go back and catch what the conversation between he and I was actually about? Or did you just not mean to quote and respond to me?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

To the maximum extent possible I've been playing traderless. Being forced to _buy_ food feels like a loss, an admission, I can't hack survival. And reducing myself to some NPC's errand-boy? No Thank You. Then, by the time I've lost my RNG religion because my prayers have gone unanswered so long, a run to the trader restores my faith and rebalances my supply situation nicely because I'm getting well paid for what I produced, not for what he told me to play fetch-theres-a-nice-doggie with.

 

Too bad the poll didn't have a "I don't know yet" option. I kinda like Roland's basic idea, all foods add 1% per day spoilage chance, combine stacks and I think the result should get the max-of-each chance on the one-bad-apple example. But in any game there have to be areas that are left as just raw stubs, stuff where there's no mechanic at all because it just never got to the top of the implement pile. Factorio doesn't do food at all. Warband has spoilage for some foods, not others. I kinda like the notion of salting meat and pickling vegetables and maybe even having cooked wet meals do really good things but spoil very very fast, but at some point you have to stop adding verisimilitude, there will always be a next step they could take and there'll always be plausible-sounding arguments that They Really Should Have Taken It. I mean, in a survival game shouldn't the goal be to make a world in which you can raise children? Why is there no sex and pregnancy and protect-the-children loop?

 

Nice that you found a playstyle that works for you. I like to utilize all resources available.

 

You also do know that food poisoning on cooked food is a newly implemented item, just in the last alpha or two, right? So they found the time to make that change, deemed it worthy....so why wouldn't it be worthy to make the experience of the food poisoning more worth while?

 

The whole reason they added it to cooked food anyway, and nerfed living off land, was to lead people more towards looting and spending dukes for food rather than becoming self sustaining in early to mid game.

 

Food poisoning is on cooked food to be a resource drain...nothing else.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Food poisoning is on cooked food to be a resource drain...nothing else.

 

C'mon, it's much more than that. Run the numbers or just try everything and pay attention, higher-quality cooked meals _dramatically_ cut the danger and loss. Which, I should have noticed, plain old spoilage would not do. A flat per-meal chance does: reduce the number of meals, reduce your losses-per-stamina-cap-point, even if you run minimum-stamina that'll only lower the cap you maintain, not how many meals you have to eat to reach it. Running minimum-stamina might let you live on charred meat and never risk much, I guess that might work for the gunzerkers.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Early on putting points into Iron Gut seems like a unlikely choice to bother with until you are level 80 or 100 and the early more beneficial skills are chosen, then that skill would make sense I guess.

 

I'd argue it makes no sense at all. Early on you cannot afford to spend point on stuff like iron gut and by the time you could think about it, you have so much food that you couldn't care less about vomiting once.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So you only make 1 stew a day. So that just means your raw ingredients are what spoils instead of your stack of stew. How is that any different or disciplined?

 

Not to mention that any food still unharvested in your farm should also spoil. I mean if our amazing Farm Plots can grow crops from seed to ripe in 2 days, then by rights they should spoil on day 3 if not harvested, right?

 

What a PITA spoiling would be if added to the game, huh? I reckon all it would do is push most players towards using canned food predominately (hence getting it from the trader first and foremost) and just skip farming / cooking altogether as they will just no be worth the hassle. That would be a shame.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i wished that some Foods gave better effects so you can go

 

 

Hey i could uses a HP boost! (eats Pumpkin pie)

 

 

so it gives you a reason to make complex recipes much like Sham Chowder and how it gives you a foruted boost

 

and im ok with the food poisoning now

but for me there's no reason to say cook meat stew , veg stew , pumpkin anything. aside from just having it! IMO

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to mention that any food still unharvested in your farm should also spoil. I mean if our amazing Farm Plots can grow crops from seed to ripe in 2 days, then by rights they should spoil on day 3 if not harvested, right?

 

What a PITA spoiling would be if added to the game, huh? I reckon all it would do is push most players towards using canned food predominately (hence getting it from the trader first and foremost) and just skip farming / cooking altogether as they will just no be worth the hassle. That would be a shame.

 

I'd like to see a little randomness to growth times etc with a "dead state" at the end of crop cycle. 1-2 days of time to harvest for optimal yield. Maybe even little randomness for the growth time, so one got ripe on day 3, the other on day 5. Would make farming a little more involved.

 

For the canned foods, you're basing your logic on keeping the canned food economy as is. That side of the equation should be tuned as well. How? Depends on the entirety of the system tbh.. rarity, expense, maybe have traders sell cheap food and the machines sell at high prices.. remove all vending machines, having people can their own chili or looting it from cupboards? Etc etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd like to see a little randomness to growth times etc with a "dead state" at the end of crop cycle. 1-2 days of time to harvest for optimal yield. Maybe even little randomness for the growth time, so one got ripe on day 3, the other on day 5. Would make farming a little more involved.

 

For the canned foods, you're basing your logic on keeping the canned food economy as is. That side of the equation should be tuned as well. How? Depends on the entirety of the system tbh.. rarity, expense, maybe have traders sell cheap food and the machines sell at high prices.. remove all vending machines, having people can their own chili or looting it from cupboards? Etc etc.

 

I hope you mean real time days and not game days.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I hope you mean real time days and not game days.

 

No, I meant game days, but right, you're referring to servers.. Thanks :) Most of my experience with the game is single-player or "a friend joins my game", which means game days go by exactly at the speed I'm playing. For that the "couple days to harvest" would work. It'd be a couple hours game time window.

 

Server populations didn't even cross my mind; I'll admit, it would make farming completely pointless on servers. I guess it should only tick when a chunk is loaded, although that would have its own host of issues... yeah no, not going to work like that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

No, I meant game days, but right, you're referring to servers.. Thanks :) Most of my experience with the game is single-player or "a friend joins my game", which means game days go by exactly at the speed I'm playing. For that the "couple days to harvest" would work. It'd be a couple hours game time window.

 

Server populations didn't even cross my mind; I'll admit, it would make farming completely pointless on servers. I guess it should only tick when a chunk is loaded, although that would have its own host of issues... yeah no, not going to work like that.

 

I was thinking about servers, but I was also thinking about the 10 min days as the current shortest day setting... and how growing opium poppies would then have to be added in order to do crack-level speed farming.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I was thinking about servers, but I was also thinking about the 10 min days as the current shortest day setting... and how growing opium poppies would then have to be added in order to do crack-level speed farming.

 

Just curious, as someone that plays exclusively 90 minute days... do crops grow based on real time or server time? In other words, does changing the day length affect the speed at which crops grow?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just curious, as someone that plays exclusively 90 minute days... do crops grow based on real time or server time? In other words, does changing the day length affect the speed at which crops grow?

 

I don't know for sure, but I would guess real time. I know on 2 hr days, I usually harvest every other day. I don't know the exact amount of time, but it's somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Let's just pretend it's 4 hours. If it wasn't real time growth, then crops would grow from seed in 20 real time minutes when the game is set to 10 minute days. I have a game going on 10 minute days and I could easily test it, but I won't be home for a few more hours.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not to mention that any food still unharvested in your farm should also spoil. I mean if our amazing Farm Plots can grow crops from seed to ripe in 2 days, then by rights they should spoil on day 3 if not harvested, right?

 

What a PITA spoiling would be if added to the game, huh? I reckon all it would do is push most players towards using canned food predominately (hence getting it from the trader first and foremost) and just skip farming / cooking altogether as they will just no be worth the hassle. That would be a shame.

 

I have no clue why you quoted me in that. I responded to a specific post about only making 1 meal a day being "disciplined". You go totally off that topic and onto farm spoilage. Maybe next time quote a post that's relevant to the topic you wish to talk about? I never once even commented on whether I am pro or con to spoilage in general (I'm pro btw)...... Go try and pick a fight with someone else please.

 

PS. carrots/potatoes/pumpkins/aloe can sit ripe on the plant for a pretty damn long time. Mushrooms I could get onboard with spoiling fast tho.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know for sure, but I would guess real time. I know on 2 hr days, I usually harvest every other day. I don't know the exact amount of time, but it's somewhere between 2 and 4 hours. Let's just pretend it's 4 hours. If it wasn't real time growth, then crops would grow from seed in 20 real time minutes when the game is set to 10 minute days. I have a game going on 10 minute days and I could easily test it, but I won't be home for a few more hours.

 

Yeah, that was sort of my thought as well... that it would be based on real time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...