Water and Food for a few Days then Done

[StaceyMyers]

Absolutely love the game, 4307 hours played to date, please tweak Water and Food and add an end game. With my friends we play on lower difficulty, but if I play alone I play on insane, horde every 2 days and it sadly goes like this:
1. Zip through starter quest, get to first trader
*Must be near a town or move on, need mailboxes and kitchens
*Buy one level of healing to solve issue of eating/drinking bad food which injure you
*Buy animal tracking to hunt for meat and leather (or find 10 leather in a POI)
2. Build first combat and crafting base near the quest giver and near some water to wash off after eating
*Washing after eating completely removes that element except for digestion issues, see below
3. 3-5 days of water and food focus
*Find a cooking pot or 4 books to craft a forge and make a cooking pot because you can't boil water any other way (not logical)
*Golden rod tea solves digestion issues so now I can eat and drink whatever I find
4. Magazines to get to bacon and eggs and red tea
*When you are level 10 cooking, the game is basically over
5. Game is solved, I can survive forever, I could set it to every night and it would not matter.
*I farm but I have never bothered crafting higher food, the game is over by day 8. I live on bacon and eggs and red tea the entire game, never even bother
*I build small combat bases all over the map and draw the zombies out of the POI and smush them, eazy peezy
*Horde night I kill anything that comes in a simple base, building traps is not needed
6. I should mention electrical fences, they are super powerful, like broken powerful

Please address food and water, it is only interesting for a couple brutal days, and it is brutal
Please address end game, I skip all biomes and just go to the end biome as I have food and water solved
Please create survivors to save and add mouths to feed or something, has to be some mechanic that forces me to build a base
When the game first started horde nights were craziness, we had to fight super hard, now I only care about food and water for a couple days and it is over

 

[8_Hussars]

*Buy one level of healing to solve issue of eating/drinking bad food which injure you
*Buy animal tracking to hunt for meat and leather (or find 10 leather in a POI)

Unfortunately, Healing Factor uses food to replace HP. So if a player is struggling for food its a sub-optimal choice. There are animals everywhere (especially at night) Animal Tracking is not necessary.

Living on basic food and drinks is easily managagable but not optimun. Scrounging for eggs (or buying them) is not difficult but can be a chore for some players. Eating one high level meal and drink at the start of the day frees a player up (and inventory space) to do other things.

Consider putting those two points into Living off the Land for the harvest bonus (more potatoes, corn, yucca, etc) and lock picking for Forge Ahead magazines to rush the forge, and take the RNG out of cooking pots and grills. With three points into Lockpicking and serious looting (not quests) a player can can have a workbench unlocked and built in the first 24 hours (which really compromises early game)...

The survival challenge pyramid is there to direct players into meeting needs. They are designed to be essential and harder early on and then just become maintenance tasks. Physiological needs establish sustainable food and water. Safety Needs establish shelter and protection from danger. After that get fighting, building, looting, and questing.

 

[StaceyMyers]

Unfortunately, Healing Factor uses food to replace HP. So if a player is struggling for food its a sub-optimal choice. There are animals everywhere (especially at night) Animal Tracking is not necessary.

Living on basic food and drinks is easily manageable but not optimun. Scrounging for eggs (or buying them) is not difficult but can be a chore for some players. Eating one high level meal and drink at the start of the day frees a player up (and inventory space) to do other things.

Consider putting those two points into Living off the Land for the harvest bonus (more potatoes, corn, yucca, etc) and lock picking for Forge Ahead magazines to rush the forge, and take the RNG out of cooking pots and grills. With three points into Lockpicking and serious looting (not quests) a player can can have a workbench unlocked and built in the first 24 hours (which really compromises early game)...

The survival challenge pyramid is there to direct players into meeting needs. They are designed to be essential and harder early on and then just become maintenance tasks. Physiological needs establish sustainable food and water. Safety Needs establish shelter and protection from danger. After that get fighting, building, looting, and questing.

You may have completely missed the point, the game is only about water and food for a couple days then the game is basically over. There are no safety needs, even on insane difficulty. Getting a cooking pot is either you find one or you build a forge, which as I said is quick. Then you get to cooking level 10 and the game is over. 3-5 days, 8 if unlucky or bad start, and the game is over. I would like it to not be over so fast.

Your statement about eating at the start of the day is not accurate. If you go out playing the game you will burn far more than 50 food in a few game hours.

Happy to jump into a game with you and we can chop this up, but a few hours and it is all over.