PC How and why current food poisoning is bad design.
- Thread starter Alphado-Jaki
- Start date
Viktoriusiii
New member
Just gonna leave this here, because I am tired of it:
Good design:
Do "A" to "B" that might involve "C" that can lead to "D" or "E" which eventually can be overcome by "F".......
Bad design:
Do "A" which leads you to doing more of "A" again.
One is a gameplay circle that involves the player and his descision.
The other one is a diceroll simulator.
Good design:
Do "A" to "B" that might involve "C" that can lead to "D" or "E" which eventually can be overcome by "F".......
Bad design:
Do "A" which leads you to doing more of "A" again.
One is a gameplay circle that involves the player and his descision.
The other one is a diceroll simulator.
Viktoriusiii
New member
It is a simplyfied concept.Would be nice if great design was such a simple thing you can just substitute a few letters in. Which great games out there uses this design?
And EVERY GAME EVER uses this concept. Basicially, it is very hard to find a gameplay mechanic that is a challange and completely isolated by itself.
If you have a gamemechanic, it is connected to a lot of other mechanics.
I explained this plenty, so I won't give examples again that will be nitpicked because my base point is not understood, sorry.
RipClaw
Well-known member
You do not overcome food poisoning with canned food, vitamins or a perk, you avoid it. Big difference.
You overcome dysentery in the game by drinking goldrod tea and an infection with honey or antibiotics.
Food poisoning lasts less than a second in the game and after that your stomach is empty and you are hungry. Of course you overcome hunger by eating something, but that's exactly what you did a second before you got food poisoning.
Laz Man
Fun Pimps Staff
Well done...
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True, but his portrayal is actually a good high level of the current design...which ironically matches viks... lol
What your concerned with sounds like the affect of food poisoning and how it is cured after the fact....
What would be a good alternative that would be similar to how dysentery/infection is cured?
Edit: Here is what WebMD states. Now some of these are the same on how to help diarrhea get treated while others wouldnt be fun to translate in game....hrmmm
-Avoid food for the first few hours as your stomach settles down (this could turn into an exploit or be too punishing to the player, too much realism)
-Drink water, broth, or an electrolyte solution, which will replace the minerals that you lose with vomiting and diarrhea (in the current system, this is abstracted by drinking more fluids which is actually less punishing to the player if they dont have tea yet)
-Eat when you feel ready, but start with small amounts of bland, nonfatty foods such as toast, rice, and crackers
-Get plenty of rest
-Stay away from dairy, caffeine, alcohol, bubbly or fizzy drinks, or spicy and fatty foods -- they can just make everything worse
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You are supporting the OP.
The fact that the current system presents no real challenge or motivation is the problem - not that it is to difficult to overcome. Nowhere in the OP did I read he was upset because it was to challenging. The system as it stands now is simply pointless - might as well not have it at all.
There are some balance issues as well, cornbread gives 4 stamina and has a 4% chance of getting you sick. IOW, this food in almost universally a bad idea to eat - a food that requires a perk or recipe to even make. Those will get addressed though, the system itself has problems that I am less sure of.
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No. That wall of text was ideas how to make the system better. Iron gut is pointless to take because the underlying system itself is pointless. At no time is food poisoning really something that matters.
Not really.But it has other drawbacks. I assume to implement this, each meal needs custom stats... and that would then propably be like the weapons. Which means, you can't stack the meals anymore, not even that ones with equal values.
On the other hand, not being able to stack self cooked meals, might make handling a little bit more difficult and reduce the food overproduction.
You do not need to change the food - just add a resistance multiplier to the player. That is basically combining Master Chef with Iron Gut but as I see literally zero reason to ever perk into Iron Gut or even in Master Chef combining the two does not seem like a bad idea. Honestly, the way food poisoning works right now it negates any actual advantage of getting Master Chef anyway - by the time you have a need of cooking higher tier foods you have found a few recipes for them anyway. you only really need one decent recipe.
I'm not sure I agree with your logic; whether you avoid the risk / overcome the risk is a matter os semantics; Food poisoning, like a broken / sprained leg, hunger / thirst / infection / dysentery is a constant possibility. It can be avoided, and you can equip or perk yourself better to avoid it - but you never remove the possibility of it happening - it's just one of many small risks throughout the game that can skunner you to a lesser or greater extent.
Not trying to argue just for the sake of it, but in the excellent Terry Nation original show 'Survivors' they made lots of great points about actually surviving in a post apocalypse - from people dying of toothache and broken legs and minor infections; to insects and vermin running rampant, rabid dogs, cats, bats, badgers and sewage pipes bursting all over the place.
They can't put all of this into the game - but are trying to find ways of adding to the complexity and keeping it from being a simple case of 'I have built a farm, gg'.
RipClaw
Well-known member
An alternative would be to gradually lose food and water and not all at once. First you feel uncomfortable without direct effects, then you start losing food and water in multiple steps. You could interpret it as vomiting every time you lose water and food. A real food poisoning is also not that you only vomit once and then you are well again.
The player should have the chance to take countermeasures before becoming completely incapacitated. In the early game, when you get food poisoning far away from the base, such a loss of stamina usually means death.
Liesel Weppen
New member
Multiplayer!!! I as a master chef lvl5 cook a meal which should therefore have food poisoning chance of 0%. My mate eats it without having any skills in master chef (or iron gut) and he should also have 0% food poisoning chance, because I cooked it, not he!
It's like saying one player can craft a level 5 shotgun but another player can't use it, because he doesn't have the skills.
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Which would have a stacking problem that most players would see as a bug (because they can't stack what should be stackable). But if you give food the same quality levels weapons have, everybody would see immediately that only specific food of the same color can be stacked.
But that is more complexity for a small benefit. Not sure it would be worth it.
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Liesel Weppen
New member
Read my initial post about that again. That was exactly my suggestion, but that would (as far as i understand the game internals) causes the non-stackable problem.
A stack doesn't hold 20 instances of item X. A stack is just 20 times type of item X. A type can not have individual values for each item.
The weapons have individual stats for each instance. And that's basically why they are not stackable (maybe intended to, but that's the technical reason why they are not). Basically every item-crafting game i know works like this.
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Viktoriusiii
New member
Nono... you do not know what a gamemechanic is
Basicially food poisoning is a cheap addon to food. But it doesn't add anything that wouldn't be fixed by reducing food availability.
Lets compare hunger and food poisoning:
"Hunger" is one gaming system. It needs balancing (since food is still too abundant mid-late), but it is exactly what you describe. It implements stamina, it forces exploring or gardening/hunting, it needs recipes or skills.
And other way round: mining needs more food, so more mining, more farming/exploring.
Its a cycle.
You need ressources to build your base ->
mine -> needs food -> needs to go exploring for food or growing it
loot for materials and tools -> fight zombies -> lose hp -> lose stamina -> need food
grow it -> rotten meat (from some zombie animals or corpseblocks that you need to find)
"Food poisoning" only has one cycle:
"eat food, roll dice, have a 1/25 chance to eat more" It is an enclosed system. A tag on to the hunger/food system that doesn't add anything but a % chance to need more of it. Which could be more easily done by decreasing loottables for food/increasing recipes and so on.
I don't dislike it because it is hard. It is not. It is annoying system that has no place in the game.
It has only downsides, with the ONLY "upside" that vitamins have a use and the perk "iron gut" is mandetory if oyu can't be bothered. That is not good gamedesign.
Decreasing food lootables is NOT equivalent to food poisoning. It is if we compare just your belongings. But there are psychological differences and actual gameplay differences:Nono... you do not know what a gamemechanic is
Basicially food poisoning is a cheap addon to food. But it doesn't add anything that wouldn't be fixed by reducing food availability.
Lets compare hunger and food poisoning:
"Hunger" is one gaming system. It needs balancing (since food is still too abundant mid-late), but it is exactly what you describe. It implements stamina, it forces exploring or gardening/hunting, it needs recipes or skills.
And other way round: mining needs more food, so more mining, more farming/exploring.
Its a cycle.
You need ressources to build your base ->
mine -> needs food -> needs to go exploring for food or growing it
loot for materials and tools -> fight zombies -> lose hp -> lose stamina -> need food
grow it -> rotten meat (from some zombie animals or corpseblocks that you need to find)
"Food poisoning" only has one cycle:
"eat food, roll dice, have a 1/25 chance to eat more" It is an enclosed system. A tag on to the hunger/food system that doesn't add anything but a % chance to need more of it. Which could be more easily done by decreasing loottables for food/increasing recipes and so on.
I don't dislike it because it is hard. It is not. It is annoying system that has no place in the game.
It has only downsides, with the ONLY "upside" that vitamins have a use and the perk "iron gut" is mandetory if oyu can't be bothered. That is not good gamedesign.
Psychologically many players have a bigger aversion to loose food they already ingested versus eating more food. Especially if they also have a ( quite normal) aversion for puking and immerse themselves in the game
Also it is obvious that many players change their behaviour because of food poisoning to deal with it (quite rationally): They often don't eat smaller foods unless having eaten a vitamin before. And they eat cooked food at home preferably. And the danger to loose all food you have with you because of two food poisonings happening shortly after each other might be small but can't be dismissed.
The difference isn't big, but it is there.
Again, I think I see what you mean, but I don't agree;Nono... you do not know what a gamemechanic is
Basicially food poisoning is a cheap addon to food. But it doesn't add anything that wouldn't be fixed by reducing food availability.
Lets compare hunger and food poisoning:
"Hunger" is one gaming system. It needs balancing (since food is still too abundant mid-late), but it is exactly what you describe. It implements stamina, it forces exploring or gardening/hunting, it needs recipes or skills.
And other way round: mining needs more food, so more mining, more farming/exploring.
Its a cycle.
You need ressources to build your base ->
mine -> needs food -> needs to go exploring for food or growing it
loot for materials and tools -> fight zombies -> lose hp -> lose stamina -> need food
grow it -> rotten meat (from some zombie animals or corpseblocks that you need to find)
"Food poisoning" only has one cycle:
"eat food, roll dice, have a 1/25 chance to eat more" It is an enclosed system. A tag on to the hunger/food system that doesn't add anything but a % chance to need more of it. Which could be more easily done by decreasing loottables for food/increasing recipes and so on.
I don't dislike it because it is hard. It is not. It is annoying system that has no place in the game.
It has only downsides, with the ONLY "upside" that vitamins have a use and the perk "iron gut" is mandetory if oyu can't be bothered. That is not good gamedesign.
The game mechanic needs to balance out between SP, MP - PVP and PVE - so changing food availability is one solution, but one that has many possible issues - in a multiplayer servers, the more players there are the more a reduction in food becomes an issue - especially in early game.
So lets imagine you and your 7 buddies play a PVE Navesgane or pregen. I also start a SP. We have the same settings and start in the same area. The game needs to make keeping myself fed a challenge for 1 player. It also has to make it a challenge for you 8. There are the same POI's, the same number of traders / vending machines, and same number of animal spawns.
Either it gives us enough food for you 8 to survive, in which case SP has too much food - or it gives us enough food for me to survive; and 7 of your guys starve.
OR
It gives enough food for 8 to survive, but there is a risk that at any given time that could go wrong. In SP I can stick to the canned food; or if I don't and am unlucky I might die as a result. In PVE you can't stick to the cans, as there aren't enough for 8 - but it still remains a matter of luck (or RNG) whether or not any or every one of you has problems, and you're less likely to die as there are 7 of you able to help out any 1 low stamina player who is far from home.
Neither solution is perfect, but one is better than the other.
Sometimes the balance of the game and achieving an effect is more important than a satisfying mechanic - especially in a developing game; they'll try to find the right balance and THEN smooth out and perfect the mechanics.
At the minute the food poisoning isn't quite right, but it is comparable to the development of the infection mechanics. It makes combat extra risky, but it's never a guaranteed chance. If it does happen early, or you aren't ready then it can kill you. Later on in the game it's less of a problem as vehicles and medicine are acquired.
It makes eating risky, but is never a guaranteed chance. If it happens early or you aren't ready, it can kill you. Later on in the game it's less of a problem as you have vehicles and medicine to get you safely home.
I understand a lot of players hate it; but I don't see how it is 'bad design' or a 'closed system' any more than a leg break or infection.
HungryZombie
New member
Personally I think you are creating a distinction where none exists.
Liesel Weppen
New member
I can tell, with just 4 players food is a real issue in the begining. Assuming all 4 players do coop in a party, not looting on different edges of the map in parallel. It is doable, but in the first 14 days we constantly have been on low food and needed to go for food explizitely (search kitchens, buy from trader/vending machines, doing treasure quests). But i have to say it was fun anyway. There was a real need and it is by far not as easy as just getting wood, stone or stuff. You can not just go anywhere and be sure to find about 20 cans of food.
I guess with 8 players it would be really hard.
On the other hand, you can play faster with more players. Either 4 players could loot 4 different houses in parallel or loot one house together but faster. Or 1 player can go looting, while the other build the base, go for other ressources, and so on. But from my experience, it doesn't fully catch up.
I think it is no balanceable for SP AND MP with just one setting. If you want to do that, there needs to be a food-loot-multiplyer-per-player.