POLL: Would you like to see food spoilage added?

[ZombieSurvivor]

How will this work actually? What if I have a bacon and eggs I made today and I stack it with one I made yesterday? How will it know which one is older? What if other people make food and put it all in the chest together?

 

Are you going to stop food from stacking?

 

This all sounds like much more trouble than it's worth for what it will bring to the game. (I don't mean your idea, I mean food spoilage in general)

 

I don't care one way or the other, I can work with any system. Just seems a waste of time.

 

hmmm Damn very good points.... I did not think of it that way...hmmmm I have no clue lol. I'll post something if I can figure out good answers. Thanks this gives me a lot more to think about.

 

EDIT: just thought of 1 one way to stop stacking. Just a fast thought. No more stacking of food instead you can craft a bag or find a better bag with more space that you put in your inventory..kinda how those new bundles work. you can place food in those bags and those bags only take up one slot in the inventory.

[HungryZombie]

hmmm Damn very good points.... I did not think of it that way...hmmmm I have no clue lol. I'll post something if I can figure out good answers. Thanks this gives me a lot more to think about.

 

EDIT: just thought of 1 one way to stop stacking. Just a fast thought. No more stacking of food instead you can craft a bag or find a better bag with more space that you put in your inventory..kinda how those new bundles work. you can place food in those bags and those bags only take up one slot in the inventory.

 

Don't we already have larger capacity containers in game? Plus inventory management is an obstacle the game makers seem to want to be a part of the game experience. Making plenty of storage for all the foods in various stages of decomposition still doesn't seem like it will add to that game experience that keeps me coming back.

 

The only game I played with food spoilage was Subnautica and they didn't let the fishes stack but they had way less items in game so you didn't really feel the inventory crunch. Plus they had a fish tank where the live fish never spoiled. You just pulled them out as needed.

 

Perhaps if the game let you farm and raise livestock that would never spoil until picked or slaughtered and I could then cook then as needed I'd be more comfortable with it.

[ZombieSurvivor]

Don't we already have larger capacity containers in game? Plus inventory management is an obstacle the game makers seem to want to be a part of the game experience. Making plenty of storage for all the foods in various stages of decomposition still doesn't seem like it will add to that game experience that keeps me coming back.

 

The only game I played with food spoilage was Subnautica and they didn't let the fishes stack but they had way less items in game so you didn't really feel the inventory crunch. Plus they had a fish tank where the live fish never spoiled. You just pulled them out as needed.

 

Perhaps if the game let you farm and raise livestock that would never spoil until picked or slaughtered and I could then cook then as needed I'd be more comfortable with it.

 

Oh i see. Lots of games do food spoiladge. most i do not like, a few I do. I have no idea how it can be used in this game nor do i have really any ideas for it. I've read some really good ideas from others but I rather not post what they have already said.

[Viktoriusiii]

1. guess I was wrong. Guess it IS a devicive feature. Still think they are wrong/lack creativity/imagination, but I do retract the statement of everyone would like it.

 

 

How will this work actually? What if I have a bacon and eggs I made today and I stack it with one I made yesterday? How will it know which one is older? What if other people make food and put it all in the chest together?

 

Are you going to stop food from stacking?

 

This all sounds like much more trouble than it's worth for what it will bring to the game. (I don't mean your idea, I mean food spoilage in general)

 

I don't care one way or the other, I can work with any system. Just seems a waste of time.

 

Super easy: Take the median and make spoilage % based.

1x40min timer + 1x20min timer = 2x30min timer

Every 30 minute 10-20% will spoil (numbers may need to be tweaked) this way stacking is beneficial but having 300 meat stews doesnt mean you will never run out, because you lose 30,27,25,23... every time.

 

I can't see how this is hard at all to implement.

[ZombieSurvivor]

1. guess I was wrong. Guess it IS a devicive feature. Still think they are wrong/lack creativity/imagination, but I do retract the statement of everyone would like it.

 

 

 

 

Super easy: Take the median and make spoilage % based.

1x40min timer + 1x20min timer = 2x30min timer

Every 30 minute 10-20% will spoil (numbers may need to be tweaked) this way stacking is beneficial but having 300 meat stews doesnt mean you will never run out, because you lose 30,27,25,23... every time.

 

I can't see how this is hard at all to implement.

 

I think the issue are the timers and the negative impact it will have. Thats why I suggested instead of a constant ticking clock used as a timer an index that is checked once a day would, I'm guessing here, be far less strain on system resources.

[Kalen]

1. guess I was wrong. Guess it IS a devicive feature. Still think they are wrong/lack creativity/imagination, but I do retract the statement of everyone would like it.

 

 

 

 

Super easy: Take the median and make spoilage % based.

1x40min timer + 1x20min timer = 2x30min timer

Every 30 minute 10-20% will spoil (numbers may need to be tweaked) this way stacking is beneficial but having 300 meat stews doesnt mean you will never run out, because you lose 30,27,25,23... every time.

 

I can't see how this is hard at all to implement.

 

ok, so say every 30 minutes 10% spoil. Thats fine if you have a stack of 300 or 30 or even 10. But what of stacks less than 10? Or single items?

[Viktoriusiii]

ok, so say every 30 minutes 10% spoil. Thats fine if you have a stack of 300 or 30 or even 10. But what of stacks less than 10? Or single items?

 

Why do I have to even state this? o_O Obviously 1 is the minimum amount. How... is that not obvious?

Sure you could do it with percentages... but that brings no benefit and makes it more rng (we have enough of that as is)

 

It should always be beneficial to stack it, otherwise you will have people trying to exploit and micromanage 240 stacks of meat stew in a freezer.

[Liesel Weppen]

Without arguing for a special way food spoilage, i think it should spoil.

 

In an apocalypse survival game food should be an issue. In 7d2d it is not at all (at least in the begining of a multiplayergame).

 

Since servertime stops when nobody is online in this game, food spoilage should also stop then. In relation to other games (ark, empyrion, ...) spoilage time can be much shorter.

 

There should be ways to slow down spoilage which of course cost effort to build them and keep them running.

[Kalen]

Why do I have to even state this? o_O Obviously 1 is the minimum amount. How... is that not obvious?

Sure you could do it with percentages... but that brings no benefit and makes it more rng (we have enough of that as is)

 

It should always be beneficial to stack it, otherwise you will have people trying to exploit and micromanage 240 stacks of meat stew in a freezer.

 

So minimum of one.... so if you have a stack of 1, in 30 minutes you'd lose it? But if you have a stack of 10 in 30 minutes you'd lose only 1? Is that what you're saying?

[Ghostlight]

I stopped reading after "Can you explain why it would be good?" you seem to be very very arguementative and I do not have time for that. I'm not here to debate. I'm more interested in reading peoples opinions and if something they say strikes an interest...I might debate then. have a nice day.

 

Go back and read what I've already said about how I feel regarding food spoiladge.

 

You seem to not care. If I am arguing it's because the poll is verging on meaningless. People will answer based on their experiences with food. So people playing solo on short days will likely have experienced only chests overflowing with food and will thus vote yes add spoilage because they perceive food is too easy. People on long days and feeding a dozen others will have a very different view. Without the context being supplied, the final result is not going to tell you anything useful.

 

I suspect - and this is pure gut feeling (ha!) - that most people play solo on default settings, so your final result will slightly favour adding spoiling. Would that make me think (as a dev) that adding it is a good idea and will please my playerbase? Hell no.

 

Hopefully the thread will serve as an indicator as to how complex adding this would be. And how many knock-on effects it will have that need to be carefully considered and how many existing game systems might need changed as a result - not to mention how unfun a food spoilage mini-game can become as several other survival games can testify. Then you need to test all that with every permutation of player set-up. Huge effort required (to do it right). And for what? To add something that will in all likelihood reduce people's enjoyment of the game (again gut feeling here from past experience in other games, spoiling foods adds nothing but frustration. ARK is the perhaps the only exception as spoiled food is very useful but food is also super easy to come by in that game to balance the spoiling). Even if they made it a setting, all that effort is still burnt up.

 

This is why I just sighed at the idea. Do people want that much dev effort spend on food spoiling when we still have laughably bad melee combat, an RWG algorithm that is ropey at best, and no end-game? Seriously?

 

The best result I could see from adding food spoilage is people are forced to spend more time (or dukes) gathering food. That's it. Best possible result. Regardless of how much effort a given player puts into gathering food now, spoilage will simply mean he has to do it more.

[ZombieSurvivor]

You seem to not care. If I am arguing it's because the poll is verging on meaningless. People will answer based on their experiences with food. So people playing solo on short days will likely have experienced only chests overflowing with food and will thus vote yes add spoilage because they perceive food is too easy. People on long days and feeding a dozen others will have a very different view. Without the context being supplied, the final result is not going to tell you anything useful.

 

I suspect - and this is pure gut feeling (ha!) - that most people play solo on default settings, so your final result will slightly favour adding spoiling. Would that make me think (as a dev) that adding it is a good idea and will please my playerbase? Hell no.

 

ok. I don't care lol... thats what I have said. I do not want to debate this. I just want to read what others think.

 

Please just go back and read. Here is the link for you...jesus dude

https://7daystodie.com/forums/showthread.php?136069-POLL-Would-you-like-to-see-food-spoilage-added&p=1070274&viewfull=1#post1070274

 

Dude grow up and get over the fact you do not like this poll and move on. Its getting annoying now.

I heard you the first time you don't think this is a good poll. Got it. ok... thats the end. Go to a thread that strikes your interest I really do not know what to tell you.

[Sjustus548]

I would rather see the devs put the effort in to developing more important aspects of the game, such as factions and bandits. I don't see food spoilage being that big of a problem in the game. Maybe if they made food a lot more scarce then it might start to be a problem. Currently with the amount of cans you find, which don't spoil, the addition of food spoilage would just push players more towards just using cans instead of cooked food.

[Viktoriusiii]

So minimum of one.... so if you have a stack of 1, in 30 minutes you'd lose it? But if you have a stack of 10 in 30 minutes you'd lose only 1? Is that what you're saying?

 

Yes. Yes that is exactly what I am saying

The exact number can be rebalanced, but there should be a benefit to bulk storage. And with coolers, refridgerators and freezers with limited storage (I think 6 per object) this would give you a meaningful descicion. Do I stack 15 stews and 5 chili dogs or 40 grilled meats and 60 baked potatoes. OR do I want to build another freezer that costs another 100 watts to store both, but will need way more gas?

These are all things that effect other parts of the game and is LEAGUES beyond "eat something to eat more based on a diceroll!" that we have right now.

[ZombieSurvivor]

I would rather see the devs put the effort in to developing more important aspects of the game, such as factions and bandits. I don't see food spoilage being that big of a problem in the game. Maybe if they made food a lot more scarce then it might start to be a problem. Currently with the amount of cans you find, which don't spoil, the addition of food spoilage would just push players more towards just using cans instead of cooked food.

 

Well lets say food spoiladge is the very last thing they worked on after they got all that you listed in. would you still feel the same?

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Yes. Yes that is exactly what I am saying

The exact number can be rebalanced, but there should be a benefit to bulk storage. And with coolers, refridgerators and freezers with limited storage (I think 6 per object) this would give you a meaningful descicion. Do I stack 15 stews and 5 chili dogs or 40 grilled meats and 60 baked potatoes. OR do I want to build another freezer that costs another 100 watts to store both, but will need way more gas?

These are all things that effect other parts of the game and is LEAGUES beyond "eat something to eat more based on a diceroll!" that we have right now.

 

Hmmmm intersting. I like these ideas a lot.

[Ghostlight]

ok. I don't care lol... thats what I have said. I do not want to debate this. I just want to read what others think.

 

Unless what they think does not suit your sensibilities it seems. I guess you're hackles went up just because I said I dislike the poll. I have given plenty of constructive feedback on why I said no to spoiling. Isn't that what you want?

 

I don't dislike the poll as such (other than my belief it is a waste of time as the result will depend purely on player setup and circumstances as I said, plus I prefer the devs to focus work on something we can all get behind like adding an actual end-game), but I find it dangerous and I greatly dislike the idea of food spoilage being add to the game. Many players are going to be be greatly annoyed and setback by it while others will see little impact. I fall into the former camp. We are always struggling for food and have little time to go get more. If I was playing on easy and solo, I wouldn't give a crap.

 

Either way, no one will see anything other than a bottom line of having to collect or buy more food than normal. I can't see that being positive.

[ZombieSurvivor]

Unless what they think does not suit your sensibilities it seems.

 

I don't dislike the poll as such (other than my belief it is a waste of time as the result will depend purely on player setup and circumstances as I said, plus I prefer the devs to focus work on something we can all get behind like adding an actual end-game), but I greatly dislike the idea of food spoilage being add to the game. Many players are going to be be greatly annoyed and setback by it while others will see little impact. I fall into the former camp. We are always struggling for food and have little time to go get more. If I was playing on easy and solo, I wouldn't give a crap.

 

Either way, no one will see anything other than a bottom line of having to collect or buy more food than normal. I can't see that being positive.

 

I dunno *shrugs*. I'm not advocating for food spoiladge. I wouldn't mind seeing it added if its implemented in a good way. Whats a good way, I have no idea. I'm more interested in how people view this subject. The ones that are pro or con. I want to get a complete understanding of both sides views and read some good ideas along the way. So far, on another post Roland has what I thought was the best idea for food spoiladge.

 

I'm not invested in this poll in any way shape or form, nor does it reflect how I feel.

I am pro food spoiladge enough to cast a vote but not care enough to really think about how it can be added or debate it.

[theFlu]

We are always struggling for food and have little time to go get more.

So, you're eating mostly everything you can find.

=> you don't have much of a stash that would spoil

=> you'd essentially be unaffected by most methods of "spoilage" I can imagine.

 

They'd all be based on the food you have stockpiled, not a daily increased consumption.

 

Spoilage in my mind would be another knob to turn to balance out the play modes that run rampant with stockpiles of food without affecting the ones that are scarce on it. When you don't have 100 meats in your boxes, you won't lose ten a day.

[AtomicUs5000]

So people playing solo on short days will likely have experienced only chests overflowing with food and will thus vote yes add spoilage because they perceive food is too easy. People on long days and feeding a dozen others will have a very different view. Without the context being supplied, the final result is not going to tell you anything useful.

 

I suppose if you bought all your food from traders and vending machines, then day length would matter because restock would happen more often. If someone was doing that though... why would they keep buying food to the point where it is overflowing? I thought crops grow in real time, or am I incorrect on that assumption? Not really seeing how day length could sway someone's thoughts on this subject.

 

I think the largest factors in food abundance is your loot percentage settings and whether or not you are playing MP. Nothing more. So the part of having a lot of mouths to feed I agree fully.

 

-------------------------

 

100% default loot on solo is easily managed. I can survive on cans alone if I wanted. I can survive on just bacon and eggs and not get food poisoning once because I use a vitamin and stuff myself every morning (and even that can hold me off until the next morning on 2 hour days). I don't play on 25% loot. Is food reasonable? If it is hard, but not impossible... then I would say food is fine at least in terms of SP.

Anything that is implemented for food should be first balanced for the lowest loot settings. If someone experienced can survive that setting with struggle, then call it balanced and scale up from there. Actually all loot should be done this way just to make sure the lowest setting are a real challenge but not impossible.

 

For multiplayer, they really need to add a variable to just about every system so that things can be scaled properly depending on the number of players. Don't you think it's about time this is done? Get SP on MP on the same page for once? They have only one thing that is different for MP and that's how gamestage is calculated... and even that isn't very good. Make the number of zombies throughout a horde more, but don't base the difficulty of the zombies (demolishers) on the sum of gamestages. It blows my mind that they thought it would be fine. Why they can't get 4 of their testers to play a full game together in MP to quickly realize this is beyond me. It should be mandatory for every build.

 

I also think the umbrella loot percentage is making things more difficult than they have to be for this game. There should be ammo %, food %, weapons %, tools %, and other %. They can't balance anything to do with loot quickly. In order to adjust, they have to mess with every loot group, add or remove loot groups, adjust POIs, adjust the random helpers, adjust all the XML, etc. It's crazy to me.

[ZombieSurvivor]

<clipped>

Spoilage in my mind would be another knob to turn to balance out the play modes that run rampant with stockpiles of food without affecting the ones that are scarce on it. When you don't have 100 meats in your boxes, you won't lose ten a day.

 

Oh snap, that is actually a really good view on it. I never thought of it like that. *strokes beard while thinking*

[Ghostlight]

So, you're eating mostly everything you can find.

=> you don't have much of a stash that would spoil

=> you'd essentially be unaffected by most methods of "spoilage" I can imagine.

 

We tend to have a stash of Meat that will get used when some of us bring home Eggs etc. Other than that we try to live on tinned goods. The small amount of Eggs that dribble in (since Nests got heavily nerfed) means we can do without as many tins. If that meat was spoiling we'd either have to go all out Egg hunting or use a ton more dukes on cans. Either result would distract us from "fun" stuff.

 

I agree though that I would not be massively affected by spoilage. I didn't answer no for my own purpose but trying to think of the impact on all players. The players most affected would be those who enjoy farming and hunting. I imagine spoilage will ruin their experience and push them hard towards cans (which I assume would not spoil). Any mechanic that pushes (or even forces) players away from a playstyle they enjoy to one they do not is bad in my book (Demolishers, I'm looking at you).

 

I suppose if you bought all your food from traders and vending machines, then day length would matter because restock would happen more often. If someone was doing that though... why would they keep buying food to the point where it is overflowing? I thought crops grow in real time, or am I incorrect on that assumption? Not really seeing how day length could sway someone's thoughts on this subject.

 

Also as far as day length goes. I assume players on 2 hour days could mine twice as long as those on 1 hour days and thus need twice as much food to replace lost stamina, bought from vending machines that restock half as often. So surely day length is a major factor here?

[ZombieSurvivor]

cans.... .....the search for cans is never ending. Where are all these canned food. Me and a friend has resorted to living off cornbread until the farm is up and running. caaaaaaans!!! please start spawning in great numbers for me.....

I'm not proud of this but...I'm buying out the vending machines now

[ZombieSurvivor]

Poem

 

Cans

Oh cans, oh cans how they speak of your glory.

Oh cans, oh cans why can't you be found in my story?

I run from zombies all day and mine all night.

I just want a full stomach once in my life.

There are cans that can be found and cans that cannot.

Every can I have in my game is a can I bought.

[Ghostlight]

Yup most cans come from Vending Machines. However, early game, you can also focus on Buried Supplies quests from your first trader if you are lucky enough to get some nearby. They typically reward a lot of cans. Not the quest reward but in the actual supplies chest when you find it. And of course then you can spend the dukes you got on more cans from the machines as well.

 

It's quite normal for us to spend the first few days flitting around the first trader amassing cans this way.

[Kalen]

Yes. Yes that is exactly what I am saying

 

Thought so, personally I think that is a horrible idea. Have a stack of 2 and the spoil rate is 50%, but a stack of 5 and it's 20%.... a stack of 10-1000 is 10%. And you said you wanted to avoid micromanagement?

[PPanda0421]

Well i don't know/can't imagine any other way to implement spoilage system.

Just because *you* don't know or can't imagine any other way to implement the spoilage system doesn't mean someone else can't. There are lots of people out there with great ideas and can come up with good designs.

Just, if someone really accept it in "starvation" - he wouldn't use the exploit. If i like game mechanics, i bypass exploits so as not to mess my experience.

 

Wrong again. People generally use exploit to make things easier for them. They can still accept the mechanics/system and still use the exploit just because they can. But in the case of starvation mod, it is only an exploit if you make it out to be or use it explicitly. I played starvation mod for over a few hundred hours so know a little about how the spoilage works in the game. I guess the 'exploit' you spoke of in Starvation was food didn't spoil in the campfire output. Think about it. If food could spoil in the campfire's output box you'd be forced to babysit each and every individual perishable food created at the campfire. Stacks of food especially high level ones could take a long time to make. Do you really want to sit there and wait for them to finish? If you enable spoilage in campfires if you leave and come back any newly crafted food would spoil. It's also possible the mod's developers didn't know to make spoilage work with campfire outputs as well. Now explicitly placing/storing food in there just because it doesn't spoil is another thing but it is up the user if they want to do that.

 

Also Starvation mod spoilage system was configurable. You could change spoilage settings in one or more .XML files and can disable food spoilage if you wanted. Anyone who didn't like spoilage in starvation could easily disable it.

 

I liked their system. Food spoiled which in turn could be converted into fertilizer (back when fertilizer was used for farming). To slow down spoilage you could use the icebox or create a fridge (powered by electricity) to store your goods.

 

Spoilage does add challenge to survival games and I for one hope TFP will someday implement this feature in their game. In my current A18 game, I have over several chests full of stacks of stews, meat and potatoes, all drinks, etc.