PC POLL: Would you like to see food spoilage added?

[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.

 

[Ghostlight]

I have over several chests full of stacks of stews, meat and potatoes, all drinks, etc.

Did it magically appear, or did you earn it?

If you earned it, why did you bother getting so much when you plainly didn't need it? You could have spent time doing something more useful. I don't think you need spoilage added to the game, you just need to learn better time management?

 

[AtomicUs5000]

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?

We can mine any time of day and stamina use is the same no matter what settings you choose. You don't mine the same amount faster if you set the days to 10 minutes long. For instance, I stated before that I can fill up in the morning and will be fine until the next morning on 2 hour days. The exception is on horde night because I won't let my stamina drop on those nights. If I set it to 1 hour days, I could fill up once every other morning.

EDIT: Keeping in mind that I am speaking on average for a playthrough. Obviously the max stam on day 1 won't provide enough over-eating leverage to wait until the next morning to eat again on 2 hour days. Maybe 1 hour days. Point is, in terms of your stamina usage and the amount of food you eat, the numbers when you reach the end of day 1 on two hour days is the same as the values at the end of day 2 on one hour days.

 

[ZombieSurvivor]

Indeed those that play 120 min days vs those who play 60 min days will find they have a hard time hunting, lack of animals, due to how spawning is done in the game for animals and might feel a food shortage. A fix for this is to turn all friendlyanimals and enemyanimals up by 1 point in the xml for all biomes and reduce the length of time by half for the animals to respawn. <--for 120 min days in order to help balance things out since its all static numbers.

It would work better if animal spawning was dynamic and adjusted according to the length of day selected and not a static numbers based on days alone.

I never would have guessed this untill i went from 60 min days to 120 and had a look at the xml file after starting my server up a week ago. Doing the above stated fix is how I balanced it out on my server.

Granted it feels balanced for 60 minute days because...I'm guessing the game is balanced around the default settings. So turning up the length of days throws animals/food and stuff out of balance. Add a few more players to the mix on a server and it gets thrown further out of balance. A dynamic number would solve all of that.

 

[Laz Man]

Lots of interesting ideas/concerns so far in this thread but they all get muddy once balance discussions happen. Refrigeration, timers/minutes per day, stacking, bag space, skill trees vs schematics...

It is probably why it's not a priority for the devs as it exponentially complicates balance just for one mechanic which only a fraction of the player base would even appreciate.

 

[AtomicUs5000]

Indeed those that play 120 min days vs those who play 60 min days will find they have a hard time hunting, lack of animals, due to how spawning is done in the game for animals and might feel a food shortage. A fix for this is to turn all friendlyanimals and enemyanimals up by 1 point in the xml for all biomes and reduce the length of time by half for the animals to respawn. <--for longer than 60 min days in order to help balance things out since its all static numbers.It would work better if animal spawning was dynamic and adjusted according to the length of day selected and not a static numbers based on days alone.

I never would have guessed this untill i went from 60 min days to 120 and had a look at the xml file after starting my server up a week ago.

Granted it feels balanced for 60 minute days because...I'm guessing the game is balanced around the default settings. So turning up the length of days throws animals/food and stuff out of balance. Add a few more players to the mix on a server and it gets thrown further out of balance. A dynamic number would solve all of that.

Hmm... I've been playing 2 hour days almost all of A18 so far. There are some days where the animals are practically non-existent, but I have yet to run out of meat. I have wolf encounters at least three times a week regardless of the prey animals showing up. What I do almost run out of is eggs. I think what might be different about my games is that I tend to do most traveling on foot even if I have vehicles. I just use the vehicles for runs to distant traders. Quests take me 0.5 to 2 km in all directions, and I do those on foot too. The reason why I do these things on foot is because I am constantly whacking those little branchy plants for wood. On a quest, back and forth, I can get a few hundred wood without even thinking about it, plus a huge surplus of feathers. Also I'm constantly looking for stumps so I can craft the awesome sauce as much as possible.

EDIT: btw, in my current game, I was blessed with a dog horde of 8 on day 6. I also found that construction POI with the zombie bear. It is now day 10 and I already have over 20 farm plots from all the rotten flesh. Although I haven't cooked up any recipes from the crops yet, my food issues are really over with for the rest of the game.