I liked how EQ handled food, haven't really been as engaged with any other MMORPGs method of handling food. It really added tension to my travels, to make sure I had enough food to make it to where I was going or what I was doing. If I ran out, I had to make sure I could get some more and be careful to not get engaged in combat. Most games where the food is just a buff, I usually just forgot about it unless I was raiding. EQ made it so that I always had to make sure I was eating and drinking.
Its not about praising people or not praising people. Its about creating a penatly, no regen, for not having food. That means you will be required to have food no matter what content you're attempting. Solo'n, six man groups, raids, everything would require food. That doesn't make it a decission. That makes it a requirement tacked on for the sake of being a chore. It doesn't reward the player it penalizes them and yes the penatly is so easy to avoid the vast majority of people will just carry a stack or two of food and water so it then become a non issue. There is no decission, there is a requirement.
Food that rewards stat buffs, which EQ had, isn't required for solo or six man content normally. Unless you're pushing content and want that 1% increase in a specific stat, which isn't necessary in normal exp groups, it is not a requirement. I would carry 1 stack food with stat buffs and a couple stacks of food/water stacks that were the cheapest available. I'd buy food maybe once a month, I don't remember, but it was seldom. It was never "oh gee which type should I buy" it was always go buy X food and get my stacks back up and forget about it for X amount of weeks.
You never had to make sure you were eating or drinking in EQ. You left them in your inventory and it just consumed everything off the top of the stack. It was an extremely pointless game feature that did not add to the community, the immerission, or the challenge. Now... you can argue that it added to your immerission, I don't know you so I wont say it didn't. I will say that I never played with a single person who felt it added to their immerission.
This really feels like one of those features that EQ had so this MMO has to have. People want it because EQ had it.
I would rather see food tied into a crafting profession (player-made-only) and the player-driven economy than being viewed as a necessity for anything that requires HP/Mana. (As in ... there should be no boring water/rations that every player starts with ... the first time you acquire/use food should mean something.) Food shouldn't be something that just auto-consumes from your inventory -- that is brainless past the point of acquiring it. I agree with Eppe in saying that food should be more of a tactical decision. Group members should try to coordinate food/drink consumption together in order to maximize their values while working as a team. I have seen groups stick together for an extra half hour than what was planned after someone accidentally consumed a piece of high-quality food. Food should be a precious resource that offers a large array of benefits. I have played games where food was a complete afterthought and other games where it was something tactically prepared, used, and played around. It's actually a great thing for social gameplay since it encourages players to communicate and coordinate. Consuming food should be a limited duration investment -- there is a cost for using it and as such players will naturally want to be as efficient with their food buffs as possible. When players coordinate their investments it gives an extra incentive to stick around for as long as the buffs last, and that's great for a group-centric and player interdependent game, IMO.
Honestly it comes down to what benefits would hunger add to the game, what pit falls would it create, and what questions would arise if it was implemented.
Benefits:
1. Mages would be able to summon food and water for their party giving their class another functionality while within a group. It could also give mages a way to make money by selling their summoned food.
2. It would add battle preparedness. If you have to make sure your weapons are sharpened and your armor is repaired before battle, then why shouldn't you have to account for food needs on an adventue.
3. It would add to the economy and player driven professions. ( However I don't think that this is the only source that food should come from. I do think that higher "quality" food items should come primarily from professions, but I think that lower quailty food items should sold at vendors/ dropped off mobs.)
4. It adds to a sense of character immersion, and gives the player the sense that my chracter is a "real" living entity.
5. Death Penality- Hunger state would add another potiential way for players to die which helps to slow over all progression and keep content valuable for longer periods of time.
Potiential Major Pit Falls
1. It is another system that has to be designed.
Major questions that would have to be answered.
1. How would this system affect corpse runs. Would there be 12-24 hour buff which protects players from Hunger deacy up until the point they have looted their corpse?
2. Would hunger rate be tied to a players level, or their carry weight? ( Personally not a huge fan of it being tied to carry weight as it punishes classes that use heavier armor sets)
3. If food affects health regen and water affects mana regan, does water also affect stamina regen or is it affected by a combination of both food and water?
4. How does they type (quality) of food/drink consumed affect the hunger levels, health/ mana regen values, and would higher quality food also have stat buffs or other buffs associated with it?
5. Would higher quailty resources required for higher quality recipies come off certain specific mobs, and how would player competition affect the crafting of these recipies.
6. What is the natural rate of deacy, and what are the bench marks at which regen levels would be affected.
7.. Should the consuming of food/ drink be an active or passive system. ( Personally I'm all for a passive system. I think that requireing a player to have the food/drink in their bag is enough responsibility placed on the player. I think that if the character is hungry then upon meditating if the character is also hungry they should automatically eat, and a message should be sent to the player stating " You have eaten/ drunk X(amount)_____________ your hunger/ thirst is now ______(sated)_______ or what ever value/level it is. Having the character preform the function themselves also makes that character seem like a real living entity. The player would then be responsible for monitoring their food/drink levels.
There might be other benefits, or questions that arise, but I currently can't think of any other major pitfall a hunger system could potientially create.
*** My personal view point on having hunger in Panthon is this. If you are willing to give death a meaning, then you have to be willing to give life a meaning. A hunger system not only adds meaning to a characters life, but it accents the death system by slowly killing a player when they haven't eaten/drank anything for a long period of time. I see people complaning about adding a survival aspect in an mmo... and my question is this: When a game is going so far as to create dynamic weather and zones that will kill a players for simply being in them, is it really that far of a stretch to see hunger being possibly added/implemented as a system?
Baldur said:Honestly it comes down to what benefits would hunger add to the game, what pit falls would it create, and what questions would arise if it was implemented.
Benefits:
1. It could also give mages a way to make money by selling their summoned food.
The purist in me thinks this should not be part of a player mindset and surgically removed if possible. Unless the summoned food has a balance to make it non-retainable, like it would poof when you camped or were afk for more than 15min.
Tanix said:EppE said:You could add any feature and say "its gameplay" that doesn't make it a good feature. Does using food require the player to make any form of tacitcal decission? If it's a required baseline item then the answer is no. Everyone will have to have food. That doesn't make the game more engaging.
Yes, it does...
For instance, if you have weight, limited bag space, and lacking food/water has a negative result, then yes... it has an effect on tactical decisions as it will reduce health and mana regen rates, it will cause the player to consider what they can carry based on space and weight. So yes, it does require the player to make a form of tactical decision and I have many times in EQ seen people who ignored carrying food beg and plead from other players to give them some because they no longer could regen in resting.
Exactly! Food/water should absolutely be a necessity.
EppE said:Raidil said: Weather people like it or not food is already slated for the game how it's used is a different matter use of it why I started this thread. So bring to light of making use of this to gain something like hunger to make player made stuff more usesfull as I hope other crafts will be useful. Food will be part of the trade skill of a provisioner so.. mute point on having to deal with it sorry guys you will have to but how game the game use this to generate an economic value and what could you gain and penalty be for not having
I'm for food that gives minor stat boosts. That requires the player to make a tactical decission as to what is best for their role or class. It also allows a market around people who make this type of food to develop. Do I want +stam food or +str food type thing. I would even be okay with food that gave more regen than normal.
I'm just 100% oppossed to a player not being able to regen HP/Stam/Mana without it.
Once again: just all the carrots on a plate with no stick! No, no, and no! Please! Not requiring food/water already exists in mainstream mmo’s (with declining subs). How about let’s just try to think outside of the box a little and have a game that does actually require things; food/water being one of them. No point in trying to be like the failing mainstream mmo market. Let Pantheon be different from all that! Seriously. Let’s MAKE SURE that food/water IS a requirement for hp/stam/mana regen.
And how about this: let’s stop it already with the whole Pantheon being like current mainstream. The whole point of this game is to NOT be like those crappy games. Cheers.
Syrif said:Once again: just all the carrots on a plate with no stick! No, no, and no! Please! Not requiring food/water already exists in mainstream mmo’s (with declining subs). How about let’s just try to think outside of the box a little and have a game that does actually require things; food/water being one of them. No point in trying to be like the failing mainstream mmo market. Let Pantheon be different from all that! Seriously. Let’s MAKE SURE that food/water IS a requirement for hp/stam/mana regen.
And how about this: let’s stop it already with the whole Pantheon being like current mainstream. The whole point of this game is to NOT be like those crappy games. Cheers.
How about we don't ignore a feature simply because a current MMO used it. That is a ridiculous ideology. The current MMO market isn't failing because they don't require food. Those MMO's aren't crappy either, they may not be what you look for in a MMO but to out right label them as crappy will prevent you from looking at features that worked in them. Lets take a current game/developer that did that. During the development of Anthem the Bioware team was specifically told not to compare or look to Destiny for ideas. They wanted to be different. This resulted in a terrible game design choice as they were unable to learn from what worked and what didn't.
Requiring food to regen doesn't make the game harder. Forcing players to carry food around in no way carries any significant decission. The biggest choice is one stack, two stacks, or three. That's it. It's not a money sink or even an inventory issue late game. You'll likely have weight reduction large bags. Loot doesn't rain from the sky so bags wont fill up extremely fast.
This is one of those features that I believe is only advocated for because EQ had it. If EQ never had this requirment I don't think it would even be a discussion.
^ that is just the ignorance is bliss agruement. It is simply because people wouldn't think about it if they didn't experience it, which can be said about virtually any mechanic. I think it makes sense since you need food and water in real life. If you don't eat/drink you become weaker and eventually die. What EQ did wasn't even close to survival type of games where you would die. It was simply just hp and mana regen going to zero. I personally like rpg elements and this is one of the ones that brings that much more immersion. Also, if it isn't an issue late game then why are you so against it? If it doesn't bother you then who cares if it gets put in?
We could always go super anti-mainstream and invite Aloysius O'Hare from The Lorax. Instead of players being able to breathe freely they should have to maintain a constant supply of bottled air. I think it would also be interesting if there were legitimate diseases in-game that require costly vaccinations. New characters should have a really low mortality rate due to having increased exposure to rusty weapons and armor. Unfortunately, though, we all know that any obstacle that can be overcome with currency will suffer from rampant RMT exploitation ... so purchasing air and vaccines, that's probably a bit too casual. Maybe our characters should have a chance to develop diabetes based on a combination of RNG and eating habits. This would be an extra layer of challenge since it can't be vaccinated. Players would have to manage precious inventory space and decide whether they should carry insulin or the rusty sword they were hoping to sell. Insulin would probably make sense since they certainly wouldn't want to suffer from both diabetes and tetanus at the same time.
Beyond that, food should absolutely have an expiration date, and it should affect both players and NPC's. If someone eats expired food they should get sick and suffer a range of horrible effects that render their character unplayable for a realistic amount of time. (Food poisoning should probably last a few days.) Terminus should have it's very own FDA that occasionally fails to identify E. coli and whose employees may go on strike. If NPC's have too much of their food stock expire, there should be a chance for them to permanently go out of business. All married NPC's should have a conservative 30% divorce rate that can occur at any point in the game. This adds risk and realism to the world, especially if they happen to be a quest giver. Any NPC that gets divorced should lose half their stuff which could either leave them homeless or screw over half the players who may have been working on their quest. Male characters should be required to have prostate exams when they hit level 40, and due to the turbulent times in Terminus, it probably shouldn't be covered by insurance.
Seriously ... just think about the potential greatness of having to deal with the challenges of healthcare, crime, politics, and taxes. Going with this logic, random summons for jury duty would probably make sense as well. I think it would probably be interesting if there was a "morale" factor added to the game. There should be times where our characters just aren't in the mood to deal with the everyday issues of Terminus and suffer debuffs that make them think they are hungry when they actually aren't. If players eat under this hidden condition then they suffer from lethargy and weakness which reduces movement speed, strength, stamina, dexterity, constitution, and agility. When you think about all of this stuff, it's quite clear that none of it is mainstream. Since the whole point of Pantheon is to NOT be like mainstream games ... we should take virtually every crappy gaming idea/concept/implementation that we can think of and call them defining features. I guess it really depends on how far you want to go. When players purchase the game they should have a one-time-chance of answering an EQ-related trivia question that authenticates their account. If players get it wrong then they would have to buy another copy of the game (don't want mainstreamers anyway ... teach them hard and fast) -- if players get it right they should hear a resounding "Ding" that takes them to the character creation screen.
Which Norrathian creature is most notorious for their kicking?
A) Kangaroo
B) Ostrich
C) Horse
D) Cow
E) Snake
Watemper said:^ that is just the ignorance is bliss agruement. It is simply because people wouldn't think about it if they didn't experience it, which can be said about virtually any mechanic. I think it makes sense since you need food and water in real life. If you don't eat/drink you become weaker and eventually die. What EQ did wasn't even close to survival type of games where you would die. It was simply just hp and mana regen going to zero. I personally like rpg elements and this is one of the ones that brings that much more immersion. Also, if it isn't an issue late game then why are you so against it? If it doesn't bother you then who cares if it gets put in?
That's not at all my stance. I believe the only reason people want it is because EQ had it and they are looking for a clone of EQ, not matter how they try to sugar coat it. They want to relive that EQ experience and any feature not in the original game risks them not being able to have that. I feel realism is sort of a weak argument on this topic too. I could say going to the rest room or bathing would add realism, that doesn't mean they would add value. Or I could say that you are required to camp/sleep after every X amount of hours in the game to be able to use your abilities; realistic and it holds true to classic D&D but that doesn't make it a good game mechanic.
RPG elements can be different things to different people. To me having to eat and drink isn't a RPG element, to you it is. I don't find buying a stack of food every week, two weeks, however long... to at all be immersive. It is a buy and forget feature.
If its not an issue late game why bother at all? That's my point exactly, it's is a feature that adds virtually nothing to the complexity or the community of the game. There is no decission on to buy or not to buy food, only how much. Food with variations in buffs or stats will add tactical and meaningful decissions including the decission to not buy food.
oneADseven said:Which Norrathian creature is most notorious for their kicking?
A) Kangaroo
B) Ostrich
C) Horse
D) Cow
E) Snake
E
Since you brought up the tired ’clone’ ^, one can just as easily say you want a ‘mainstream clone’ since you don’t want food/water to be a necessity like mainstream. BUT, see how absurd that also is?
And @adseven I will go with:
Z) FF/WOW are still terrible games.
This thread has been shared on official platforms as CM content to continue the discussion!
Hot Topic - Hunger! Should your character need to eat? If so, how often is too often? Should it be crafted/baked by a professional in-game cook or by anyone? Should it buff you? Join in on the discussion here: https://www.pantheonmmo.com/content/forums/topic/10504/hunger #MMORPG #communitymatters
Hunger shouldn't really exist. Food should have a purpose though and having a way to get additional buffs is a lot of fun. In EQ hunger boiled down to "get long lasting food so I don't have to click this as often". At the start of the game it was just a tedious process on top of a lot of other tedious mechanics. While the idea that having hunger could help immersion the end result was just a bunch of endless clicking that didn't need to be in the game.
If you truly need immersion and require items like food and drink then why not go full on and have to require going to the bathroom to remove the food and drink. Sleep cycle should be required as well where your character is just parked for 6-8hrs of game time or else you start taking stat hits and get a drunken view. There are all kinds of items that could be added to increase immersion but they need to be fun items that make the game more interesting to play, not hurdles that have to be overcome in the name of being hardcore.
I'm actually a fan of the EQII system, and I think it would work well in Pantheon - perhaps with a bit of evolution, of course!
I think this system fits Pantheon rather well. It brings a nice new layer of gameplay without being overwhelming, gives new craftables, encourages player choice, adds depth to areas that have dropped/found food, is familiar, and hopefully isn't too incredibly difficult to implement.
In the end, food & drink should add to gameplay, not make it frustrating or tedious. Survival mechanics can be fun, and have their place, but I'm afraid the systems that actually penalize with stat reduction may prove simply annoying to a large part of the player base. The above system encourages choice - and sure, if you aren't eating and drinking, you'll notice (and probably get called a noob) - but it wouldn't make your play session miserable. It would simply encourage you to participate in the feature.
Thanks for reading. ^_^
EDIT: Looks like formatting isn't working for forum posts. I promise this is much prettier in the editor! Imagine the bulleted lists! :)
oneADseven said:... food should absolutely have an expiration date, and it should affect both players and NPC's...
Some top notch sarcasm there. Point well made ;^)
Baldir said: "If you have to make sure your weapons are sharpened and your armor is repaired before battle, then why shouldn't you have to account for food needs on an adventure"
Which is very pertinent, but not necessarily supportive of the idea. Do we want to be having to sharpen weapons or repair armor, never mind worry about food and drink? If we have food and drink do we have to take time to eat/drink or risk indigestion/hiccoughs interfering with our battle performance?
How much realism do we want in our fantasy game?
How much realism should be missed in order to make it more 'fun'?
How much realism should be included in order to make it more immersive?
How much does a particular realism add to tactical choice or challenge?
Food and drink has implications in health and wellbeing, buffs and debuffs, life and death, encumberance and storage, trading and economy, etc. It could have fundamental impact or it could be cosmetic fluff.
In Everquest, there were very few potions and very few 'buff' foods. Food was just a fundamental with little impact. It had limited effect on encumberance or bag space. For me, it was not very immersive - more of an irritation that you forgot about until you were told you were hungry/thirsty and eventually stopped regenerating health/mana. It simply meant an extra occasional trip to the vendor.
In my humble opinion, Pantheon should either make it *more* important than in EQ: Start impacting things *more* than just mana/health regen, like movement speed, combat ability and, yes, illness and death or Pantheon should make it *less* important than EQ: Remove it or just make it another non-bag-space inventory 'slot' that you can put an item with bonuses in like jewelery.
I'm undecided. It could be good if used to interest people in travelling to taverns/towns/vendors/crafters looking for 'good' food and drink, but if it's like EQ where it was little more than a bag-slot hog and an irritation if you forgot it, then not so good.
I'm not keen on *forcing* people to travel to hubs and trade - I don't see why foraging shouldn't be something every adventurer can do, except in some extreme zones - but, like most of these aspects we discuss, it *could* be made interesting, fun, immersive and worthwhile.
@disposalist
Yeah, I definetly can see food and water having more impact in the game. Would be cool to see what Pantheon would explore with it. I know in EQ at a certain level you could make this food, forgot its name, where it was very light. This was prime food monks, and even casters, bought all the time instead of the iron rations. It allowed them to carry more and be more flexible with their inventory. But yeah, people like discarding things all together because of inconvience. I am for Pantheon to see what else they can bring to the table with food and water being something sought after in game.
DMHarms said:I'm actually a fan of the EQII system, and I think it would work well in Pantheon - perhaps with a bit of evolution, of course!
- Food & Drink would be the main passive, out of combat regen items
- Player-made, with lots of differences so provisioners can tailor to specific needs
- Varying quality & customization factors:
- Regen speed (out of combat regen per tick)
- Duratioon (better food & drink wouldn't have to be consumed as often - perhaps 30 minutes for low-quality, up to 5 hours for high)
- Additional bonuses, such as small, but meaningful stat boosts
- Climate bonuses or resistances; again - small, but meaningful (hearty stews for cold, cool mint tea for hot, etc.)
- An auto-consume feature, so the choice of food & drink matters, but it doesn't become tedious
- Non-player-made food & drink could be found in the world or looted
- Specific, potentially powerful bonuses for the current area where they're found
- Could have a decay/spoil timer to encourage immediate use, discourage hoarding
I think this system fits Pantheon rather well. It brings a nice new layer of gameplay without being overwhelming, gives new craftables, encourages player choice, adds depth to areas that have dropped/found food, is familiar, and hopefully isn't too incredibly difficult to implement.
In the end, food & drink should add to gameplay, not make it frustrating or tedious. Survival mechanics can be fun, and have their place, but I'm afraid the systems that actually penalize with stat reduction may prove simply annoying to a large part of the player base. The above system encourages choice - and sure, if you aren't eating and drinking, you'll notice (and probably get called a noob) - but it wouldn't make your play session miserable. It would simply encourage you to participate in the feature.
Thanks for reading. ^_^
EDIT: Looks like formatting isn't working for forum posts. I promise this is much prettier in the editor! Imagine the bulleted lists! :)
Yes, I think Pantheon should explore a meaningful way to add food into the game and make it meaningful throughout leveling. Not just some stat boost in the late game along with the potions. I do like a good amount of what you said, but I would venture to enhance or even base line the food/water consuming with hp and mana regen rate. If no food/water than your regen rate would be reduced/slowed. For the whiny people I would still make hp and mana regen happen without food and water, just at a slower rate than people with food and water, so lazy people can still function in the game. A character who consumes food and drink should naturally feel more energy than someone who doesn't.
To me Hunger/thirst is a concept that fits in with bulk ammo tracking, spell reagents, and item decay. They are all forms of material maintenance and I would argue that the game should include all or none of them.
That being said there is still plenty of room for food and drink to be in a non material maintenance but like in SWG food and drink would give optional buffs or short term out of combat regenerative boosts. The biggest issue with buffs from food is that it becomes yet another source of bonuses that add to the overall effect of mudflattion especially over time. We already have spells, items and apparently buffs from sacrificing items, if we add in food buffs, drink buffs and alchemy buffs we are well on the way to WoW style stat stacking.
Should your character need to eat?
Yes
How often is too often?
More than twice an hour is too often (real time)
Should it be crafted/baked by a professional in-game cook or by anyone?
Buffs if made by the appropriate crafter, no buffs otherwise
Should it buff you?
Yes (see above)
Shyin said:I like the idea of needing to eat and drink, it seems more immersive when you consider how important the environment is going to be in Pantheon.
Hunger should play a vital role to your character.
Nice thoughts Shyin! You really drive the point home :) I think that’s just what several people (newer gamers?) fail to see regarding food/water; is that it is one of many small things that is immersive in this game’s environment. We have no control over an NPC - they have food equipped for all we know - though I imagine a specter or undead skelly do not eat ofc. What we do have control over is our character in an environment where immersion and community thrive. Food/water and hunger need to be a part of that.
The issue with making something required is that you must then also make it accessible. If we want food to be meaningful then it shouldn't be a mass-produced unspecialized commodity that can be purchased from NPC merchants. An argument could be made that food could indeed be specialized; there are countless variations of food that can provide stats, resists, buffs, or temporary acclimation bonuses. The big issue is when you merge the concepts of food being both a required commodity and a specialized product. I have no issue with food that grants increased health/mana regen, but that should be the specialization component of that particular dish rather than a baseline value shared by all of them. If you remove the baseline value then maintaining a stock of rations/water would no longer be viewed as a requirement and thus removed as a purchasable item from NPC merchants. A player-driven economy is key to Pantheon. I want food to be so valuable that "auto-consume" isn't even an option in this game. Whether it's harvesting tomatoes or looting a slab of bear ribs, these items should have a value that can never be undermined by commodity vendors.
When players think of food, they should be considering the unique benefits that separate each dish rather than satisfying a universal need. Food should be a niche product that is exclusively player-crafted rather than something that is universally accessible/consumed that also happens to provide an "extra bonus" if you purchase it from a real player. By offering food as a commodity that can be purchased from NPC's, it would instantly deflate the value of anything and everything associated with the provisioner profession. There would be a negative impact on the supply/demand of food-related harvests and drops every single time food is purchased directly from an NPC merchant. This means that all three spheres of content (Adventuring/Crafting/Harvesting) would suffer ... and for what? Because some people think it's cool to add a survival game mechanic to an MMO? What survival game allows you to purchase food/drink from convenient vendors? I'll take adventure/crafting/harvesting meaning and depth over "realism" all day every day and twice on Sunday. Consuming food should provide measurable benefit to players that go out of their way to obtain it and the idea of it being "required" should be an emergent social construct rather than an element of tedious game design.