Food Spoilage and Its Effect on Game Play A17 and Beyond

[Ghostlight]

DIsagree. I dont think that food and water needs to be balanced for early+late.

Its fine that food and water are only a problem at the start. Later, we should have more important concerns, like improving our base, defending and finding good items.

We still need to eat ofc, but its fine if we have a big food stash, we arent the weaklings of the start of the game, we have more important things to do.

 

I completely agree. Once again, A16 got it MUCH better than this crap. Because in A16 the type of food you ate MATTERED. This was massively important. Meat Stew was the best food in the game because the wellness boost was superior than eating any equivalent amount of other foods, and it healed up a huge amount.

 

This automatically balanced late and early game food quite nicely, since early game you were eating ANYTHING just to not die. While late game you were cultivating crops and specifically going out your way to make the best food available in the game, so food did not become irrelevant.

 

But with the game becoming super-casual as it has in A17, they made all food equal. What a FUMBLE. You have to lol at the total lack of foresight. It doesn't matter a damn what you eat in A17 as long as it's enough. They created this problem themselves, once again through poor design choices, dumbing down the game, or lack of playtesting (pick one).

[Duffmeister77]

No. Just no. Can you imagine how much harder it would be in late game to repair/upgrade your base and replenish your weapon/ammo stock if you're also still having to hunt for new food every week and be unable to draw on previous weeks' surplus? It makes sense that food becomes less of a concern as time goes on, as you've had time to adapt to the new world.

[Ghostlight]

The game does not need food spoilage. Did A16 need spoilage? No, because it had decent mechanics wove about food usage.

 

You guys are only now talking about adding something as unfun as food spoilage BECAUSE the mechanics in A17 surrounding food and stamina are STUPID and VERY VERY POORLY DESIGNED.

 

Fix the core issue, I say, don't add another crap unfun mechanic like a bandage on top of it. It's festering!

[PoppaTot]

Even The Forest has a very rudimentary food spoilage system. Very simplistic. It's not a bad thing.

 

(FYI: those that play The Forest, if you have dried meat on your rack that turned black and would only give you roughly a 30% fill, just pick it up and put it in your inventory. It makes it so it's just normal dried meat again lol. Atleast it used to be that way unless the new patch corrected that.)

[orak]

It doesn't mean the difficulty would increase a lot (need a good balance), it would just add some depth to the survival part of the game.

[Spider]

Making a spoilage and anti nerdpoling system are the only reasons I'm digging into the .dll after stable. You can not have a survival game without some kind of spoilage system.

[Kattla]

This is like every other maintenance routine in the game. Those who actually like survival games will find it a fun mechanic and enjoy it for the added challenge, those who do not like survival games but still want to play this game will call it a grind and monotonous and will hate it claiming "it doesn't really add any challenge. It's just boring."

 

The game needs spoilage big time--whether it is a deep system or a shallow barely there and highly abstracted system the game needs something that brings entropy to food and water with our infinite gardens and our chests filled with stacks of snow and empty bottles.

 

Food spoilage makes the early game a daily struggle and the development of preservation tech a milestone in the game that is rewarding. Eventually you do want to reach a point when food and water are not an issue but you want that point achieved by the player's actions.

 

All of this will, of course, be incredibly boring and tedious and annoying to those who like to race to the endgame-- so buckle up for more tears if and when Joel decides to pull this trigger.

 

What endgame?

[jdifran]

Securing a reliable food and water supply should require more than just planting crops and endlessly harvesting them, but if I want to play Farming Simulator 2019 I'll buy that game.

 

I think food spoilage could have a few features:

-Canned goods and boiled water in jars never spoil, but also don't have buff effects besides satiation and healing. (Maybe boiled water in open cans evaporates?)

-Simple prepared foods (baked potatoes, corn on the cob, boiled eggs, etc.) can have modest buff effects and spoil slowly.

-Stews and more "advanced" prepared foods provide powerful buffs but also spoil quickly - unless you store them in a working refrigerator powered by a generator.

-At least one zombie type (hungry lady? fat tourist?) should target crops and "eat" (i.e., destroy) them.

 

I think this would add some interesting gameplay without making the early game too brutal. You have an incentive to secure a reliable source of food and water, and protect your farm, but the game doesn't become just a farming simulator.

[Krougal]

Yeah, I believe Empyrion does it the same way... at least it used to be like that. I haven't played it in a year.

 

It does and it's horrible actually. Food spoilage is a major pain in the ass in Empyrion, and even though it's a survival game, it's more about futuristic high tech and building ships to me, so it detracts from the game. At least making survival rations can all be farmed now though, they simplified food production in general in A7 (tomato/pumpkin/durian have different growth time/output but all give generic veggie resource, etc)

 

For 7D it would be more sensible, even though I'm still not sure how much fun it adds. It would make the higher level cooking perk more worthwhile for sure, but I would still expect the ability to build and power up fridges/freezers as well, which would still allow us to largely circumvent it. Early game there are enough headaches already, and that is when it would hurt us the most.

[Krougal]

I completely agree. Once again, A16 got it MUCH better than this crap. Because in A16 the type of food you ate MATTERED. This was massively important. Meat Stew was the best food in the game because the wellness boost was superior than eating any equivalent amount of other foods, and it healed up a huge amount.

 

This automatically balanced late and early game food quite nicely, since early game you were eating ANYTHING just to not die. While late game you were cultivating crops and specifically going out your way to make the best food available in the game, so food did not become irrelevant.

 

But with the game becoming super-casual as it has in A17, they made all food equal. What a FUMBLE. You have to lol at the total lack of foresight. It doesn't matter a damn what you eat in A17 as long as it's enough. They created this problem themselves, once again through poor design choices, dumbing down the game, or lack of playtesting (pick one).

 

Oh bull♥♥♥♥, A16 was all about mass producing and choking down as much cornbread, goldenrod tea and painkillers as you possibly could to max your wellness, and then you lived on baked potato and plain water unless you had a wellness drop.

 

Alternately not caring about wellness at all and using suicide as a teleportation mechanic (see A17 death debuff discussions)

[sadpickle]

The game does not need food spoilage. Did A16 need spoilage? No, because it had decent mechanics wove about food usage.

 

You guys are only now talking about adding something as unfun as food spoilage BECAUSE the mechanics in A17 surrounding food and stamina are STUPID and VERY VERY POORLY DESIGNED.

 

Fix the core issue, I say, don't add another crap unfun mechanic like a bandage on top of it. It's festering!

 

I mostly agree with this. I don't think spoilage, or preservation, would make for a fun game. If you really want to find and preserve 100 different types of food, go play Cataclysm DDA. That is an example of a game with deep food mechanics and spoilage, and it is just not fun after a short while. Great on paper; in practice, preserving food is boring monotonous work and gives little benefit. It's also easy to stockpile massive amounts (another problem 7DTD has).

 

That said, A16's system wasn't very good either. But it was unobtrusive, which made it easier to play and enjoy the game. The current system makes you slavishly devoted to food, especially in early game, and I have better things to do with my free time than play a chore simulator.

[Frotus]

DIsagree. I dont think that food and water needs to be balanced for early+late.

Its fine that food and water are only a problem at the start. Later, we should have more important concerns, like improving our base, defending and finding good items.

We still need to eat ofc, but its fine if we have a big food stash, we arent the weaklings of the start of the game, we have more important things to do.

 

Water spoilage wouldn't make sense either, unless you just want players to re-boil water jars every 5 to 7 days or risk getting a cold.

[konrax]

Here is the best way to do this in my humble opinion that would work with the existing systems while making it more fun and challenging at the same time:

 

Use the existing system for weapon durability but on food items, so a Meat Stew would just be a single item, with a durability bar to reflect how many servings you have left. Food would not stack anymore, and it would spoil depending on its state and how it is stored. Food items would also need to become more expensive to craft, and would be rare when looting to balance it out (although having varying degrees of spoilage and servings).

 

Canned foods would be very valuable as they don't spoil when they are unopened (or very very slowly), once they are opened they begin to spoil at a normal rate, but can be consumed. Just to make it simple multiply everything by 10 and make a single food item 10 servings for the sake of simplicity for starting out, scale / adjust accordingly.

 

EDIT: You can keep canned foods as stackable items since they don't degrade when they are closed, and to also play into the aspect that they have fewer servings, and can conveniently be stacked / piled together into small spaces. (Fluffy and fitting)

 

Storage of food items will help things degrade at a slower rate, so in order of worst to best storage solutions ---> Carrying (Worst), basic container (25% slower degradation), storage chest (50% slower degradation), unpowered fridge (75% slower degradation), actively powered fridge (90% slower degradation).

 

Do this with water as well but remove the ability for it to be spoiled, items like canteens, water bottles, flasks etc would be optional storage items for water / drinks. You can use the current jar system still as units of fluid, but make these containers have the equivalent stacking capacity of 15+ (or adjust jar stacks lower to balance / incentive storage containers).

 

Just my thoughts on this on what I would like to see, feel free to take my idea and adjust it accordingly.

[LuckyStar]

As much as it might not be popular, I LOVE this idea of food spoilage.

 

Once you've got electricity it's not a problem so mid game onward you're fine.

So long as eggs don't spoil. They shouldn't.

Also... early game would be fine with spoilage as long as we can still eat eggs and they remove some food poisoning from a couple items or at least nerf it a bit to balance things.

 

And I know some [ehem] think it's not coming....

 

... it probably is.

 

Madmole talked about it in a video AND a Q&A.

 

Sorry folks ... it's pretty likely we'll see it.

 

HOPEFULLY,

 

...TFP will have learned from the mistakes of A17e release and make it very light [at first] and then ease us into it.

 

For those who say it's going to be unfun .... how do you know till you try it.

[Did your Mom never read you Green Eggs and Ham where you were little?]

[Odetta]

As much as it might not be popular, I LOVE this idea of food spoilage.

 

Once you've got electricity it's not a problem so mid game onward you're fine.

So long as eggs don't spoil. They shouldn't.

Also... early game would be fine with spoilage as long as we can still eat eggs and they remove some food poisoning from a couple items or at least nerf it a bit to balance things.

 

And I know some [ehem] think it's not coming....

 

... it probably is.

 

Madmole talked about it in a video AND a Q&A.

 

Sorry folks ... it's pretty likely we'll see it.

 

HOPEFULLY,

 

...TFP will have learned from the mistakes of A17e release and make it very light [at first] and then ease us into it.

 

For those who say it's going to be unfun .... how do you know till you try it.

[Did you Mom never read you Green Eggs and Ham where you were little?]

 

Ya, I think it's time to pull that trigger. Also for those that will, "rage quit" I can guarantee within the first day or two there will be a modlet that takes food spoilage out.

 

People want fishing, trapping, raising livestock, etc. and food is trivial right now for most of the game. Can you imagine how unnecessary and redundant those systems would be if there was no food sink? You could feed an entire city right now at late game. If you had a server with a thousand players and only one high level person was to feed the entire server he could easily do it.

 

Imo that has got to change.

[Jugginator]

I dont get how people can think A16 had a perfect food system. It didn't even work with wellness. 1 meat stew kept you full for 4 in game days. Wellness being removed was a benefit. I mean, sure food can be difficult sometimes at the start of an 17 game, but Ive never had or played with people who ever complained about food. Everyone has chests full of food, eating it in mass because you may as well use it to get HP back after battle, since you have a decade's worth of food and raw meat massig the size of 10 elephants waiting to be cooked by day 14-21.

[Cadamier]

Well... I'll say that Starvation Mod for A16.4 has food spoilage and a tonne of other things! But Starvation is way way beyond what I think TFP will do here. You can still check out Starvation... IF YOU DARE! <EG>

[Jugginator]

No ty lol. I like food spoilage, but micromanaging various food intake because I'll get sick if I dont balance meals is way beyond my personal tastes for enjoyment. Not knocking it if other people like it.

[Roland]

The game does not need food spoilage. Did A16 need spoilage? No, because it had decent mechanics wove about food usage.

 

You guys are only now talking about adding something as unfun as food spoilage BECAUSE the mechanics in A17 surrounding food and stamina are STUPID and VERY VERY POORLY DESIGNED.

 

Fix the core issue, I say, don't add another crap unfun mechanic like a bandage on top of it. It's festering!

 

Everything you just said is wrong.

 

1) The game has always needed food spoilage because of the dynamics it creates in the progression of your character. It creates a whole additional progression line to follow from early game to late game. It makes you focus on frequent food gathering in the beginning which eats time away from preparing in other ways. It also provides new objectives as players seek to solve the problem of storage and preservation so that they can then focus their time on other activities. This process is a lot of fun for those who enjoy survival games (of which entropy is a staple).

 

2) We guys have had repeated conversations about food spoilage for years. This is not the first conversation on this topic. Its not even just the 20th. This has come up repeatedly long before A17 or A16 or even A15.

 

3) The design around food and stamina and water is pure genius, in my opinion. It is new and requires balancing but food itself is already more complex than it was in A16. As of now there is a buff associated with food that can increase your chance for food poisoning. There are recipes that can give other benefits not present in A16 and you can overeat to keep your stamina bar pasted to the top for quite awhile which was also not possible in A16. Eating a meat stew at 90% fullness will keep you full for a nice while.

 

4) Not eveyone likes every feature or mechanic and I see you would probably label food spoilage as grindy, unfun, micromanaging, etc. BUT- there are plenty of people who do find such mechanics fun and natural as part of a survival genre game as evidenced by the fact that most every other survival game out there besides this one already has such a mechanic. Madmole has said in the past he is open to it so as always we will all talk about it until such time it happens and then we all will rage at the next level based on its implementation.

[Roland]

What endgame?

 

Day 5?

[Jugginator]

^^^ Yup. I think spoilage will be a good benefit.

[Roland]

DIsagree. I dont think that food and water needs to be balanced for early+late.

Its fine that food and water are only a problem at the start. Later, we should have more important concerns, like improving our base, defending and finding good items.

We still need to eat ofc, but its fine if we have a big food stash, we arent the weaklings of the start of the game, we have more important things to do.

 

I agree. But I believe that later when we have more important concerns and we shouldn't have to worry about food any longer it will be because we made it happen by crafting the tech that will preserve the food. So right now food can be stored indefinitely in any container as a free benefit. All food spoilage does is make a pathway for the player to follow to create that same basic status-- just not for free.

[iBane]

Everything you just said is wrong.

 

1) The game has always needed food spoilage because of the dynamics it creates in the progression of your character. It creates a whole additional progression line to follow from early game to late game. It makes you focus on frequent food gathering in the beginning which eats time away from preparing in other ways. It also provides new objectives as players seek to solve the problem of storage and preservation so that they can then focus their time on other activities. This process is a lot of fun for those who enjoy survival games (of which entropy is a staple).

 

2) We guys have had repeated conversations about food spoilage for years. This is not the first conversation on this topic. Its not even just the 20th. This has come up repeatedly long before A17 or A16 or even A15.

 

3) The design around food and stamina and water is pure genius, in my opinion. It is new and requires balancing but food itself is already more complex than it was in A16. As of now there is a buff associated with food that can increase your chance for food poisoning. There are recipes that can give other benefits not present in A16 and you can overeat to keep your stamina bar pasted to the top for quite awhile which was also not possible in A16. Eating a meat stew at 90% fullness will keep you full for a nice while.

 

4) Not eveyone likes every feature or mechanic and I see you would probably label food spoilage as grindy, unfun, micromanaging, etc. BUT- there are plenty of people who do find such mechanics fun and natural as part of a survival genre game as evidenced by the fact that most every other survival game out there besides this one already has such a mechanic. Madmole has said in the past he is open to it so as always we will all talk about it until such time it happens and then we all will rage at the next level based on its implementation.

 

Agree.

[Xtrakicking]

To be honest, at least in my experience, food is still not an issue at all.

 

My first playthrough was more of a test gameplay. I wanted to check how the game felt before diving into a serious full survival seed. I never had any issues with food. I wasn't even trying, I wasn't even looting much. Just walking around in the general area, killing zombies and checking some places from time to time.

 

I always had plenty of food. The new farms have more than enough to keep yourself fed for days, I didn't even need to hunt, really.

 

Oh yeah, and when it comes to water, after finding a pond and a pot, I had limitless clean water. Nothing new here, this has been the case for, I believe, all previous alphas.

 

So yeah, food and water aren't much of an issue this time around either. Maybe a tad more than in A16, but it's still not concerning at all. I've been praying for food spoilage since the days of the IRC chat, but we still don't know if the devs are even considering this feature.

[Jugginator]

Yeah, food and water is irrelevant no matter what situation I am in.