Food: Suggestions for improvement

[amazeing4art]

One area of the Pillars game that I didn't think worked as well as it could have was food. I have two suggestions to improve it.

 

First... would it be possible to have a separate 'food' slot for each character? So everyone would have his or her own slot (like for boots, or the main character's pet, etc) that could only hold food. You could eat your food from the main screen as usual, whatever is in this slot would appear on the character's action bar. The reason I ask... the mechanics of eating food in Pillars were horrible I thought. Basically every time you wanted to eat, you took some other item out of your quick slots (like a healing potion) then you went back to main screen and ate your food, then you went back to inventory and put the healing potion back. Over and over, for every character, every time you ate. It was incredibly cumbersome I thought, needlessly cumbersome. 

 

Second... I would really love for food to be more realistic and useful... right now it is a buff that lasts only 300 seconds, and you eat a giant chicken pie two seconds before fighting a dragon?? Seriously? Do you see boxers or UFC guys cramming themselves with three pounds of pot roast 30 seconds before a fight? Did Gandalf gorge on a giant plate of stew 30 seconds before fighting the Balrog? no... he didnt. That would be silly.... but more importantly, it seriously interferes with the flow of the adventure. We already have tons of quick slot items that can only be used in combat (potions, scrolls, summoning items, etc). The way food currently works it essentially means it is really the same thing -- its just another combat buff, because it does not last too long once combat ends. Maybe you get one more group of trash mobs with the buff. Or maybe not. So its really just another combat buff, but with cumbersome pre-fight buffing mechanics. 

 

So... why not make food buffs more long-lasting (and perhaps a little less strong). If you eat breakfast you feel better for 4 hours, right? We could have a four hour food buff that lasts all morning, wouldn't that be better in so many ways?

 

There could also be a negative buff from being hungry too and not eating for days, which might fit in well with the new idea of injuries being the mechanic that drives the party to need to rest. 'Hunger' (something like -2 all stats or whatever, if you have not eaten for 24 hours or something) could be another form of injury, a self-inflicted injury because you ran out of food  Perhaps survival skill could reduce the hunger penalty, because that character can forage just enough to help themselves. 

 

Those are my suggestions!

Edited February 7, 2017 by amazeing4art

[Aotrs Commander]

Food as a requirement resources brings the problem you always get with that sort of thing - like ammunition. In the end, it is either a) a nuisense (because you have to keep feeding the party every so often) or b) largely irrelevant if automatic, since then it becomes a case of "spam purchase button" (because if prevent the player from buying as much food as they want, you are basically putting a time limit on the game).

 

 

 

You are right about the food inventory problem, but let's not compound the problem by meaning you have to re-equip everyone with food (whether in a special slot or otherwise) every twenty minute half-hour of game play. That would be wrose than the current system, wherein at least I only have to care about food IF I remember to activate any potions or food before a boss fight (and /I virtually NEVER remember to do that anyway...)

 

 

 

As I suggested about ammo, if you were desparate to model rations, you'd be better to save the faff and just subtract [x] cash per day for standard of living. (That's all, basically, I care to model in a tabletop D&D game, 5 silver per day for meals/rations per PC and I consider that a little bit over-complicated; and even only that because I have downtime rules for the PCs so they can earn a trickle of money in between advnetures...)

 

 

 

As to better UI, I think a better option would be to do as the old IE games did and just have a "use/consume" button on food. And better yet, add a "all consume" button (which would function in the stash" which means everyone in current party eats one of that food (presumably greying out the option if there is less than 1 item per party memdbr). (Actually, this wouldn't hurt with potions, either.)

 

Making everyone individually eat dragon meat before the final fight doesn't make me want to do it any les, it just makes it tedious.

Edited February 8, 2017 by Aotrs Commander

[Osvir]

Battle Brothers does food in a simple & clear way.

 

A) It's an automatic resource that depletes over time

B) Food spoils

 

That's pretty much it.

 

You don't have to spam-buy, but rather you buy every now and then. And if you spam:

 

A) Half will probably spoil.

B) There's a cap of how much you can take with you at a time.

[mumbogumshoe]

I feel there are the kinds of game where having a requirement to eat and drink makes sense and there are games where it doesn't. Games like Fallout, where you're trying to invoke a survivalist feeling are among the former, heroic fantasy games are not. Afaik they're planning to make food only consumable while resting, maybe use it to add a bit more variety and depth to the resting bonuses. If so, that's a good idea. Food really didn't do much for PoE1.

[Archaven]

We get rest bonuses in stronghold back in PoE1. I find it too much hassle to travel back to the stronghold just to rest. It would be great this time around if they make different category of food (maybe tiered?) so that you get better bonuses when you rest and consume your food?

[illathid]

I thought I remembered seeing something about food being tied to resting now.

[Silent Winter]

^Yeah, Josh has said that they've reworked food to tie to resting.  It's only eaten at camp and working something like the survival resting bonuses now (no details yet)

Edited February 9, 2017 by Silent Winter

[amazeing4art]

Food tied to resting now, ok that sounds great, sorry I missed that! Would deal with alll the issues I raised... thanks for the replies.

[Perzyn]

One area of the Pillars game that I didn't think worked as well as it could have was food. I have two suggestions to improve it.

 

First... would it be possible to have a separate 'food' slot for each character? So everyone would have his or her own slot (like for boots, or the main character's pet, etc) that could only hold food. You could eat your food from the main screen as usual, whatever is in this slot would appear on the character's action bar. The reason I ask... the mechanics of eating food in Pillars were horrible I thought. Basically every time you wanted to eat, you took some other item out of your quick slots (like a healing potion) then you went back to main screen and ate your food, then you went back to inventory and put the healing potion back. Over and over, for every character, every time you ate. It was incredibly cumbersome I thought, needlessly cumbersome. 

But... Why would you ever put food in the quickslot? As you described, it adds lots of unnecessary steps to the whole process. Since you don't use it combat anyway, but as a preparation I just dragged it directly onto the characters without ever leaving the menu. It is bit needleesly cumbersome, but not nearly as much as you describe.

[ruzen]

I didn't hear about food is going to tie to resting. At first, I was going to write about food & drinks should be only useable during camps or resting. I hope that is the case when you go camping screen you adjust who eats & drinks and get at least 8 hour bonus of that. With the combination of (improved) survival bonuses or even more! Of course, It's not going to be like Expeditions Conquistador's level but It could be fun to manage a party to some degree.

[Taurus]

 

One area of the Pillars game that I didn't think worked as well as it could have was food. I have two suggestions to improve it.

 

First... would it be possible to have a separate 'food' slot for each character? So everyone would have his or her own slot (like for boots, or the main character's pet, etc) that could only hold food. You could eat your food from the main screen as usual, whatever is in this slot would appear on the character's action bar. The reason I ask... the mechanics of eating food in Pillars were horrible I thought. Basically every time you wanted to eat, you took some other item out of your quick slots (like a healing potion) then you went back to main screen and ate your food, then you went back to inventory and put the healing potion back. Over and over, for every character, every time you ate. It was incredibly cumbersome I thought, needlessly cumbersome. 

But... Why would you ever put food in the quickslot? As you described, it adds lots of unnecessary steps to the whole process. Since you don't use it combat anyway, but as a preparation I just dragged it directly onto the characters without ever leaving the menu. It is bit needleesly cumbersome, but not nearly as much as you describe.

 

 

 

I just learned that on my 2nd playthrough, and I guess  A LOT of people don't know about that.

 

Tutorials should explain it better. All that time wasted and now I just drag food to all my characters easily.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Taurus

[Perzyn]

I didn't hear about food is going to tie to resting. At first, I was going to write about food & drinks should be only useable during camps or resting. I hope that is the case when you go camping screen you adjust who eats & drinks and get at least 8 hour bonus of that. With the combination of (improved) survival bonuses or even more! Of course, It's not going to be like Expeditions Conquistador's level but It could be fun to manage a party to some degree.

Hell, maybe we could get something like Darkest Dungeon camping skills? Each class getting access to some bonuses to use during camp, which somehow scale with Survival? Or the number of skills a character can use is determined by their Survival score.

 

And food as tied to camping could replace the current rest bonus from Survival and be the mobile "Inn" buff.

[ruzen]

 

I didn't hear about food is going to tie to resting. At first, I was going to write about food & drinks should be only useable during camps or resting. I hope that is the case when you go camping screen you adjust who eats & drinks and get at least 8 hour bonus of that. With the combination of (improved) survival bonuses or even more! Of course, It's not going to be like Expeditions Conquistador's level but It could be fun to manage a party to some degree.

Hell, maybe we could get something like Darkest Dungeon camping skills? Each class getting access to some bonuses to use during camp, which somehow scale with Survival? Or the number of skills a character can use is determined by their Survival score.

 

And food as tied to camping could replace the current rest bonus from Survival and be the mobile "Inn" buff.

 

I think Darkest Dungeon's camping skills fits perfectly. It's not complicated, class-based, creates more synergy with party members by offering gameplay and simple to do. I wish that is the case.