Note: Expansive thoughts, but also thoughts about how "Food" functions in Pillars of Eternity. Its easy, simple, and doesn't need to be anything more than it is, but it could be an interesting "value" that matters.

In Fallout: New Vegas, Skyrim, Don't Starve, The Forest, Project Zomboid, Dead State and so on and forth, "Starving" is a really great feature. Although, those games are kind of built around "Survival", I don't think it is entirely excluded from any IE or PoE game, "Survival" fits into everything (Even Call of Duty).

 

It adds a sense of "reality" to the characters, and as a bonus a great message to all gamers "You need to eat"

 

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What do you think about food in Pillars of Eternity? (Dengler sells it, Dracogen Inn)

Do you use it? How? Is it clarified? Is it interesting?

Personally, I use food on Hard and Path of the Damned, I don't think "too much" about what they do but I merely grab a bite that I think fits a character's personality (abstraction/Roleplaying) and what type of class they are.

Mostly it is "This should help make my characters stronger for a bit". I started a post here, and it got me thinking about food that gives resistance to poisons, in particular, which sparked this thread.

 

This is my idea:
- Food could have several states, "Fed" (-10% Action Speed* for X minutes), "Energized" (+10% Action Speed* for X minutes), "Digested" (+15% Action Speed* for X minutes)

- Fed (Recently eaten food, "heavier", well fed and jolly)
- Energized (whilst digesting, getting more energy) - Depletes faster in combat
- Digested (spent all energy/nourishment biologically)

- Hungry (begins to get hungry again)
- Starving (penalties)

In essence, depending on when you eat the food you'd have better resistance against poison, or against mind magic, will defense or sturdiness, or no care in the world being drunk and berserkering. A type of food, root, medicine, herb or whatever it is you're digesting, giving benefits over time.

Difficulty ties into this too as Easy-Normal doesn't need to rely on food whatsoever (don't need to eat at all), but on Path of the Damned, being out in the wilds for too long and you starve to death if you don't have food with you. Hm, even be able to go "Fishing", there are a lot of rivers in the Dyrford after all. "Cooking" food could be an action that takes 1 camping supply as well.

This gets me thinking about "Morale" as well. Camping or Cooking in the wild could lower "Morale", and give a penalty after a while, and also constantly draining at a low rate, and Combat too affecting "Morale" and depending on who, why, where. And going to an Inn, Bar or Tavern and drinking "Beer" in the inn could trigger a "Scripted Event" a la Darklands with conversations with the group, or similar and raise Morale, of course. Sleeping at an Inn raising Morale as well.

It could make the "Survival" Skill much more appealing as well, as it could decrease the rate of which the "DoT" Morale meter is degenerating at.

What do you think? And do you have any ideas that you think would make food more interesting? (Crafting/Trading/Eating/When/How/Where/Cooking)

The simplest method would be to simply have some foods that benefit certain "resistances", flat-out, into the current system. Should be easy to implement as well. Beer/Wine adding resistance against cold, for instance.

* Action Speed is an example.

I, too, like the added survival aspect. Frostfall and Realistic Needs & Diseases are must have mods for Skyrim for me, and I played on hardcore mode for F:NV for every playthrough except my very first. I think it just adds so much to the game. One must plan before venturing out!

 

I doubt it's a feature they can add in now that they're mostly focusing on bugs and balance. I would absolutely LOVE to see this as a play option for the expansion and/or sequel.

I would've loved to see a Radiatedfalls for New Vegas, based off of the Frostfall mod in Skyrim. And even add in like, dynamic Radiation Winds that sweep across the land, and your Geiger counter will warn you and you'll have to take cover (STALKER does something like this, but it'd be much cooler in a Fallout game). I seriously hope Fallout 4 has some Survival mechanics in it.

Make the world more terrifying and threatening, this is mostly a feature that is omitted or abstracted from most games. In Dishonored you can find food items that regenerate health, it goes all the way back to Wolfenstein. Albeit, those games go with a more mission-based food supply. It'd be odd in Dishonored to sit down and start cooking (it's based a lot on how the levels are designed). Survival mechanics = The world is a threat, not just the enemies on screen.

In Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: Original Sin, Divine Divinity, Beyond Divinity, Wasteland & Wasteland 2, food items and a "Hunger" mechanic would add so much. Darklands too, and I'm not 100% sure, but you might have to eat stuff or you starve in Darklands... no?

Regardless, it'd be awesome.

For those that have checked out the game files and assets more in-depth than me, what sort of triggers/scripts are there? Could it be possible to create a Food Mod?

There's a weather mod for F:NV that adds random radiation storms. They're very lethal if you don't seek cover quickly!

I have not played on hard so can't respond directly to that.  I wish normal had included the need for food feature if it is done non-intrusively.  I have added mods to games in order to get the need to eat, drink, rest but if in the middle of a battle I keep getting messages that I need to eat I disable that function.  Fantasy games are not realistic but they should feel realistic according to the world in which they are set.  For me it just is not realistic for someone threatened with death to ant to eat.  Adrenaline sets in and who is going to stop to eat when something is attacking you.

 

I do think food should be important even when playing on easy or normal.  This is a magic world and food can have magic properties albeit low.   So it could help with resistances and since food takes time to digest it could be used as a buff.  However I don't think OE is going to add features at this point nor do I think they should.  If they keep trying to add things we players woulddd like we will never get the game.  Maybe they will consider it as a DLC which would also make it optional for people.

Sounds like it could be annoying. Keep it mod territory.

Sounds like it could be annoying. Keep it mod territory.

Fair. I know there are just as many people that love it as hate it. I like how they did it in F:NV where it was a toggle option that could be completely ignored if one so chose. 

I like having food in the game and having it provide bonuses (/ flavour   )

But I dislike having the need to eat to have my characters not drop dead.  If I'm playing a survival game, then that's part of the point.  If I'm playing a fantasy rpg like this, I'd prefer to leave it abstract as 'they eat enough to keep going when they make camp to rest' (it's not like I should need to tell each character to eat).

The various states suggested in the OP sounds too much for this game (but again would work well in a game focussed on survival)

 

Edit: The morale idea is better, when not taken too far - so having a small morale bonus (resistance to 'panic' spells/effect or whatever) for staying in inns, or eating/drinking as a team (perhaps providing a synergy bonus) is ok.

But then why not have a 'toughness' bonus for camping a lot (and a 'softness' penalty for staying in too many luxury inns) - but that's taking it too far for this kind of game IMO.

I want to adventure, not play sims.

If it's a mod, I might give it a try for  the umpteenth playthrough.

Edited December 27, 201411 yr by Silent Winter

I like having food in the game and having it provide bonuses (/ flavour   )

But I dislike having the need to eat to have my characters not drop dead.  If I'm playing a survival game, then that's part of the point.  If I'm playing a fantasy rpg like this, I'd prefer to leave it abstract as 'they eat enough to keep going when they make camp to rest' (it's not like I should need to tell each character to eat).

The various states suggested in the OP sounds too much for this game (but again would work well in a game focussed on survival)

Agreed. Survival mechanics work in the Fallout setting since its one of the series' constant themes. This doesn't apply here.

Survivalism could work but maybe not in a game going for IE feels/audience. Still, I was a big fan of Realms of Arkania's (not the new one, the old ones) Oregon Trail like mechanics. I would love to see OE make a game like that some day using this engine.

Edited December 27, 201411 yr by Shevek

One suspects that survival in any time period other than the modern one in the first world was a struggle, and worthy of concentrating upon obviously. I suspect that Eora will not be a land of frolicking peasants with full guts, happily working the fields in some manner of non existent rural paradise, because it's Obsidian. I'd rather have a world brimming with verisimilitude, internally consistent and logical, rather than a modern setting with a thin veneer of renaissance fayre flavour.

 

Personally i'd rather have as many features and as much content as possible, we have enough games which have degraded into alternate combat and conversation simulators, usually in corridors. Personally i'd argue against more and more content being abstracted, I can certainly handle more elements than I am currently tasked with by most games.

 

Personally i'd love an RPG one day to have a survival system similar to "This War of Mine."

I play games like these to escape reality.  I get truly annoyed when I am faced with finding water, shelter and sustenance in a game.  I'd much rather see this as a checkbox on the start up screen than a 'feature' of the game.