Deer meat portions need adjusting.

[Kyonshi]

Please stop with these complaints and use suspension of disbelief in a @%$#ing video game. There's always one, always lol.

 

Even the games who claim they're the most realistic ever have some features that don't make any sense. Gran Turismo is apparently the "real driving simulator" and couldn't have proper car damage effects for years.

 

Why do people don't just... think? Why do they want an exact replica of real life in their games? Some of them complain that 7DTD development takes too long... They would mostly go nuts if the goal was to integrate exactly and faithfully everything that happens in real life. This would take more than 10 years.

 

Meat portions from a deer should make sense? Alright then we should talk about vitamins and nutriments deprivation in the 7DTD universe and have their detrimental effects for real. Or maybe you break a leg? A cast won't magically help you like it does now: you will literally remain in your hideout without moving for weeks. And then you'll use crutches and move around like a slug. How will you hunt your deer meat now, huh? You want reality? There you go, enjoy!

[FA_Q2]

6 hours ago, Kyonshi said:

Please stop with these complaints and use suspension of disbelief in a @%$#ing video game. There's always one, always lol.

 

Even the games who claim they're the most realistic ever have some features that don't make any sense. Gran Turismo is apparently the "real driving simulator" and couldn't have proper car damage effects for years.

 

Why do people don't just... think? Why do they want an exact replica of real life in their games? Some of them complain that 7DTD development takes too long... They would mostly go nuts if the goal was to integrate exactly and faithfully everything that happens in real life. This would take more than 10 years.

 

Meat portions from a deer should make sense? Alright then we should talk about vitamins and nutriments deprivation in the 7DTD universe and have their detrimental effects for real. Or maybe you break a leg? A cast won't magically help you like it does now: you will literally remain in your hideout without moving for weeks. And then you'll use crutches and move around like a slug. How will you hunt your deer meat now, huh? You want reality? There you go, enjoy!

It's not 'reality' people are actually looking for even if they mention realism.  It is immersion.  And that does matter.  

 

I think that deer meat proportions are minor enough that it does not effect my immersion and there are plenty of other things that are much more of an issue in that arena but it does not mean that it does not effect others immersion.

[mgreg68]

On 1/3/2023 at 5:41 PM, Urban Blackbear said:

 

Decreasing the amount of meat you get maybe (IMO) needs to happen anyway in order to make Huntsman more viable. They changed farming so that LotL was more balanced and useful and I wonder how many people even put a single point into Huntsman?

I am usually the hunter/farmer/chef for the group I play with, so I generally will put a point into Huntsman and Animal Tracker, and then work on maxing LotL.  The point into Animal Tracker is probably "pointless", but I do enjoy sharpshooting a chicken in the dark with my bow at unreasonable distances! 🙂  I mostly ignore Huntsman after that first point, though, because by the time I have a farm up and running, we are already swimming in delicious meat.

[theFlu]

5 hours ago, mgreg68 said:

The point into Animal Tracker is probably "pointless", but I do enjoy sharpshooting a chicken in the dark with my bow at unreasonable distances!

That first point is great if you habitually crouch whenever you're not running. Too many free bunnies in the world to ever be hungry. Taking blind shots in the grass is a nice addition - but quick sprints usually do the job just as well

[Jinx_DG]

On 1/7/2023 at 7:47 PM, FA_Q2 said:

It's not 'reality' people are actually looking for even if they mention realism.  It is immersion.  And that does matter.  

 

I think that deer meat proportions are minor enough that it does not effect my immersion and there are plenty of other things that are much more of an issue in that arena but it does not mean that it does not effect others immersion.

I can agree that immersion does matter and while some posts may fall under this instead of realism, I'm thinking this post may not be not. I think the op was having difficulting with his food in general and getting so little from his last kill was the straw that broke it and when frustrations/feelings/emotions run high the need to vent is strong, hence this post. 

 

 

[zztong]

I dunno about the OP, but I saw deer as an effort/reward. I wanted deer to be harder to hunt, so I buffed them. Then I increased the yield of meat a little because now the little @%$#s see me coming and run. Now I have to sneak and take long range shots. I reasoned this was worthy of a similar reward as a wolf that will attack me if it sees me first. (No more killing deer with a club (w/o stealth) or a T1 primitive bow w/stealth.)

 

I did recently watch a twitch stream of newbs, one of which hunted deer with a pipe pistol and no sneaking. He had to chase the darn thing and shoot it a bunch of times. By the time he finally killed it he'd used so much ammo and run halfway to the next town I figured he probably should have had a bit more meat for his trouble. Alas, knowing how to hunt in game is its own reward, I guess.

 

I wouldn't mind buffing up the hunting skill/perk and then maybe knocking down the untrained amount you get when harvesting meat.

Edited January 9, 2023 by zztong (see edit history)

[Ramethzer0]

On 1/7/2023 at 12:59 PM, Kyonshi said:

Please stop with these complaints and use suspension of disbelief in a @%$#ing video game. There's always one, always lol.

 

 

I often chalk situations like this is as the result of neuro-divergence.  These kind of folks exist everywhere.  Try not to hassle them, because they have a hard time with lots of things that don't make sense to them because the world wasn't built for them.

[Vintorez]

7 Days doesn't aim to be a simulator, it's much more gamified, so yeah killing a single deer doesn't mean you're set on food for a month. As for why it takes 5 meat to do anything, that's to compensate for chef perks that reduce ingredients needed. If such bonuses didn't exist then deer would probably only drop 2-5 meat instead and only 1 or 2 would be needed for recipes.

Edited January 10, 2023 by Vintorez (see edit history)

[retrogamingdev]

Little late to this party, but I wanted to weigh in with my opinion. 

 

I do get the logic about newbie with crude tools getting less yield. It gives a lot of room for growth in hunting and gathering ability.

 

That all said, I do think it is ultimately very silly that I can kill a deer and barely get enough food to last one person only part of a day in game. 

 

I know there are a lot of factors, including the cooking process (charred meat is less nutritional). And I know it is largely setup in order to provide growth in cooking too. So, I am not trying to be uber critical. But, it would be nice if there was some middle ground in the balancing. Meat should give us a little more food. Even if that means something like we barely see deer in the beginning (we are noobs and loud, they scurry away before we even see them). I know this is skewing towards the "realism" argument, and I don't want to really go there (I also have a few tons of concrete in my pocket). I just think if I eat an entire deer to myself, even poorly prepared, my character should be full for at least a good portion of a day. (if I go from the realism standpoint, a deer should keep me full for a couple days I think)

Edited January 16, 2023 by retrogamingdev (see edit history)

[meganoth]

18 hours ago, retrogamingdev said:

Little late to this party, but I wanted to weigh in with my opinion. 

 

I do get the logic about newbie with crude tools getting less yield. It gives a lot of room for growth in hunting and gathering ability.

 

That all said, I do think it is ultimately very silly that I can kill a deer and barely get enough food to last one person only part of a day in game. 

 

I know there are a lot of factors, including the cooking process (charred meat is less nutritional). And I know it is largely setup in order to provide growth in cooking too. So, I am not trying to be uber critical. But, it would be nice if there was some middle ground in the balancing. Meat should give us a little more food. Even if that means something like we barely see deer in the beginning (we are noobs and loud, they scurry away before we even see them). I know this is skewing towards the "realism" argument, and I don't want to really go there (I also have a few tons of concrete in my pocket). I just think if I eat an entire deer to myself, even poorly prepared, my character should be full for at least a good portion of a day. (if I go from the realism standpoint, a deer should keep me full for a couple days I think)

 

By that last line you should be aware that even if TFP increases meat from a dear slightly like you suggested then next player on the forum will again protest that deers give less meat than expected. In other words a realistic value can not be reached anyway.

 

But lets look at the realism argument. We don't know at all how much of the meat of deers can be eaten at all. After all deers drink the water that seems so poluted we can't safely drink it. Maybe the hunter needs to throw away most of the meat that has some strange green or blue tint to it. Maybe the perk that gives you more meat out of animals is mostly giving you the knowledge which parts of the green meat is still digestible without killing you.

 

Regarding balance there is not only the food balance to consider. Making deer spawn less might be a partial solution but then anyone speccing into the two hunter perks will feel even less reason to spec into them.

 

[retrogamingdev]

2 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

By that last line you should be aware that even if TFP increases meat from a dear slightly like you suggested then next player on the forum will again protest that deers give less meat than expected. In other words a realistic value can not be reached anyway.

 

But lets look at the realism argument. We don't know at all how much of the meat of deers can be eaten at all. After all deers drink the water that seems so poluted we can't safely drink it. Maybe the hunter needs to throw away most of the meat that has some strange green or blue tint to it. Maybe the perk that gives you more meat out of animals is mostly giving you the knowledge which parts of the green meat is still digestible without killing you.

 

Regarding balance there is not only the food balance to consider. Making deer spawn less might be a partial solution but then anyone speccing into the two hunter perks will feel even less reason to spec into them.

 

 

Totally, I get it - finding the right balance is tricky. And any and all of your solutions or reasoning could make sense. But, make it part of the game too. If some of the meat is spoiled, give less meat and add in rotten flesh. Basically, right now - I kill a deer, I get what looks like 15-20 nice looking steaks that I eat in 2-3 helpings after cooking and my character is hungry 3 hours later in game. Basically, hunger is super high and the amount of food you eat is ridiculous. My character eats like 20000 calories a day in game if it were the real world (and I am often still hungry). 

 

And honestly, we tweak our XML as it relates to food portions from cooking anyways to sort of address this. I just like to have the conversation that 'something' is out of whack overall. I don't know the best solution... 

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, retrogamingdev said:

 

Totally, I get it - finding the right balance is tricky. And any and all of your solutions or reasoning could make sense. But, make it part of the game too. If some of the meat is spoiled, give less meat and add in rotten flesh. Basically, right now - I kill a deer, I get what looks like 15-20 nice looking steaks that I eat in 2-3 helpings after cooking and my character is hungry 3 hours later in game. Basically, hunger is super high and the amount of food you eat is ridiculous. My character eats like 20000 calories a day in game if it were the real world (and I am often still hungry). 

 

And honestly, we tweak our XML as it relates to food portions from cooking anyways to sort of address this. I just like to have the conversation that 'something' is out of whack overall. I don't know the best solution... 

 

If you go by icon then your meat stew comes in a bowl and your plastic scrap has always 4 colours in stripes. Soon you will get water in bottles that are not there. Just saying, the icon is just for you to recognize what it is, it should not be viewed as an actual picture of what you have.

 

Adding rotten flesh to the mix is a good idea. Would probably only be 1 or 2 to get the hint as too much rotten flesh would imbalance farm plot production.

 

Cooking in general in this game is impossible to make realistic with the current idea of higher foods getting much higher food values. There is always something there not making sense. Why is sphagetti getting ~7 times the nutritional effect of a steak? Because it makes sense gameplay wise.

So I see so many logical holes there and your request would just plug one hole. And I don't see that TFP will ever try to plug all holes aka makes this a proper simulation. If you care for such stuff, a mod is the right solution

 

 

 

 

Edited January 17, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Adding rotten flesh to the mix is a good idea. Would probably only be 1 or 2 to get the hint as too much rotten flesh would imbalance farm plot production.

 

I take it you are more talking about early farm production and not mid / late game production?  My current playthrough I got at least 2 full stacks of flesh in storage and 9 farm plots supporting my food needs.  Gathering flesh right now is not very difficult (I think clay / nitrate have been my limiting factors for farm plots since they have other very important uses).

 

I agree with your comment about a mod might be best.  Meat can be very easy to obtain in the game so the counter was to limit its ability (especially early game) to feed a person or group at ease.  And everyone will have a different idea on how to tackle food.  zztong modded the game so deer are harder to take down early game while I overhauled the entire food system in my mod to try and force the player to use more than just bacon and egg for the majority of the game.  I am sure others have modded food drain over time and usage (right now set around 30/hour and stamina regeneration consumes it about half that rate - 15/hour).  Some people, based on this thread, want meat to be more beneficial to the player while others (like myself) want the player to struggle more (or really, have to make a decision to allocate time and resources) for food and drink.

[retrogamingdev]

I totally get it @meganoth. The icons don't actually represent what you are eating. There just needs to be some balancing overall, IMO. Gameplay wise, I understand how we got where we are. Early game food should provide less than the stuff that is harder to craft.

 

Maybe the solution is to just add in an overall game option that controls how fast your food and water go down. That would allow someone like me to adjust how much food I need without modding XML files. Again, my hope is that I can eat what would generally appear to be about 2-3K worth of calories in a game day and not be absolutely starving still. 

[meganoth]

On 1/18/2023 at 12:31 AM, retrogamingdev said:

I totally get it @meganoth. The icons don't actually represent what you are eating. There just needs to be some balancing overall, IMO. Gameplay wise, I understand how we got where we are. Early game food should provide less than the stuff that is harder to craft.

 

Maybe the solution is to just add in an overall game option that controls how fast your food and water go down. That would allow someone like me to adjust how much food I need without modding XML files. Again, my hope is that I can eat what would generally appear to be about 2-3K worth of calories in a game day and not be absolutely starving still. 

 

Maybe they'll add an option. Though there is a perk that makes you get more out of food, there soon will be lots of perks to not waste as much stamina while doing stuff like running or fighting.

Meanwhile, you probably know how not to waste too much stamina in early game? i.e. not wearing heavy armor while working or running. Or simply not running. Getting a bicycle asap. Use bows for initial damage at least. Not digging at all for the first days. Drinking red tea before any stamina-heavy activity.

 

I have a friend who dislikes the primitive early game where survival is the main topic, similar to you. I know that even if one of the hints was unknown to you and really helps in the future, that survival part will never be to your liking. For me it is an indispensable part of the game as one can only feel success and acomplishment if starting from a place where everything is a chore. Simply as that. Not making that option you wish is for TFP a way to protect the average player from himself and his short term desires.

 

 

 

Edited January 19, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Roland]

On 1/17/2023 at 3:31 PM, retrogamingdev said:

I totally get it @meganoth. The icons don't actually represent what you are eating. There just needs to be some balancing overall, IMO. Gameplay wise, I understand how we got where we are. Early game food should provide less than the stuff that is harder to craft.

 

Maybe the solution is to just add in an overall game option that controls how fast your food and water go down. That would allow someone like me to adjust how much food I need without modding XML files. Again, my hope is that I can eat what would generally appear to be about 2-3K worth of calories in a game day and not be absolutely starving still. 

 

The problem here is that you aren't recognizing all the things that are unrealistically portrayed as "a day's worth" of whatever. You want the food you eat to accurately represent a day's worth of calories. Well what about how much you can mine or chop or build in a day's worth of time? Does it bother you that we are able to process as much wood and ore as we do in a single day? That would have to be majorly nerfed in order to realistically reflect a human being's actual abilities. What about building? Seems we can build much faster in the game than we could in real life. Transporting goods as well is a problem. In all these areas, a day's worth isn't properly simulated.

 

If you reduce the daylength option to 30 minute days then it gets closer. The amount you eat for a meal seems to last an appropriate portion of the day and you tend to have the same number of meals as we often do in a day's time period. At the same time, your ability to deforest an entire hillside with an axe within a day is reduced as well since night will come sooner. 

 

There isn't a perfect balanced fix. If you don't care about balance and just want to have to eat less often because you hate that activity then it shouldn't be hard to adjust how much fullness foods give you. You can "overeat" up to 300% I believe and so if you just increase all values that add to your fullness that should make it so you aren't eating all the time.

[retrogamingdev]

On 1/23/2023 at 2:46 PM, Roland said:

The problem here is that you aren't recognizing all the things that are unrealistically portrayed as "a day's worth" of whatever. You want the food you eat to accurately represent a day's worth of calories. Well what about how much you can mine or chop or build in a day's worth of time? Does it bother you that we are able to process as much wood and ore as we do in a single day? That would have to be majorly nerfed in order to realistically reflect a human being's actual abilities. What about building? Seems we can build much faster in the game than we could in real life. Transporting goods as well is a problem. In all these areas, a day's worth isn't properly simulated.

 

Good point, you aren't wrong at all. I guess I just get annoyed by the 'chore' part of the game more than anything. I still do think a food/water consumption slider in game settings would be nice still. 

 

Thanks for the better perspective, though! 

[ratepace]

I say this as a professional in the food service industry:   It's not as easy as you think it is and requires some education about spoilage, food preservation techniques, sanitation, proper tools, and proper working conditions.