Food and drink - What level of impact should it have?

Intrepid want Food and Drink to be a component of the game.
https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Food_and_drink
I'm keen to see a valid business case for food and drink based businesses (Taverns, etc.) in Ashes as I believe it could add a vibrant dimension to the game if implemented well.

To what extent do you think food and drink should impact the game?

If you didn't eat and drink recently how disadvantaged should you be when compared to an equivalent character who has had 1) common food or 2) legendary food?

What should be affected? Movement speed? attack ability? resistances? hp reduction? other?

and what level of reduction? 10% 20% etc.? or some descriptive guidance for the devs?

Intrepid talk about buffs for the consumer, is this just "positive spin" semantics if the non-consumer is effectively de-buffed in comparison?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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Comments

Thulf

There's so much that can be done with this system.

The effects themselves shouldn't be the focus really because those can be changed on a fucking notepad... That'd be the lazy route. It'd be much harder to implement or adjust the mechanics and the system's depth. I think that's what the discussion should be about.

I have no idea what discussion has taken place prior to this, but I can imagine there are some hardcore tavern-only players wetting in their dream thinking about this system, so I bet there's plenty that has taken place. That said, there's probably nothing new I can add to this beyond expressing my concern with keeping the thought train on track.

Goalid

There was a really interesting post on Reddit that would up the complexity of the food economy by a lot, unfortunately never saw him post it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AshesofCreation/comments/thnm46/lets_talk_food/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

The post was essentially about making food regional, and letting food spoil over time. Then there would be a couple different ways to preserve your food, with preservation lowering the food buffs, and having fresh food give you better buffs.

What I would personally like to see with food, is having to see an actual chef to get something like a 5 hour food buff from, that way players will have to interact and go to taverns or wherever a chef sets up shop. Just more interaction with players.

Goalid

I think having dehydration and hunger in the game would make the game too "survival" for my tastes. At the end of the day it's just an annoyance for me to keep track of, but to each their own.

Tycan

Goalid wrote: »

I think having dehydration and hunger in the game would make the game too "survival" for my tastes. At the end of the day it's just an annoyance for me to keep track of, but to each their own.

Yeah I agree with this, I like the idea of having food and drink in-game. I'm especially behind the idea/concept of allowing players to find and craft new foods perhaps even possibly creating new recipes with new results, however if it goes down the route of dehydration and hunger that goes too much down the survival route imo.

tautau

I like the food and drink idea. Certainly, the impact should not be so overwhelming that the game revolves around it like weapons and armor. But the benefits should increase with the quality of the food and the expertise of the cook. Different food combos ought to have differing effects, like a couple of glasses of red wine increasing power against undead, sausage and sauerkraut making one's physical defense increase and a good seafood chowder increasing your fishing abilities.

As discussed before, too much beer, wine or spirits would decrease your abilities and perhaps make your screen go blurry.

Sylvanar

Is there really a system needed around food and stuff? Like how important is this compared to getting the design for every core aspect of the game hashed out and implemented. Sounds and feels gimmicky if we have to maintain each and everything like in real life we might as well do some real work in kitchen.

Happymeal2415

Sylvanar wrote: »

Is there really a system needed around food and stuff? Like how important is this compared to getting the design for every core aspect of the game hashed out and implemented. Sounds and feels gimmicky if we have to maintain each and everything like in real life we might as well do some real work in kitchen.

The point isn't for you to manage everything. The point is for the community to manage everything. Everyone needs to rely on everyone for a piece of the puzzle. And really we're clicking buttons on a screen how is that remotely like real work in the kitchen

Thulf

Sylvanar wrote: »

Is there really a system needed around food and stuff? Like how important is this compared to...

Same can be said about taming, building ships, gathering herbs, cutting down trees, mining, making armor/weapons, fishing, and the list goes on. Why bother with all that when we could work on combat and environment. Actually, scrap the environment - why bother when we could have a little arena for combat and call it a day? No1 likes to move around like they do in real life anyway.

What will be the point of fishing if there's no foods (that give buffs) to make out of the produce? Same with gathering herbs and all the rest of the mechanics aside from combat... what's the point in all that. And then we need to remove the trading system altogether because now we have nothing to trade. And what's the point of nodes now? No resources to fight over. Everything's available in 1 node (as in nothing at all because there is nothing apart from combat to begin with), there's absolutely 0 point going anywhere else now. The game dies because there will be nothing to do... Game turns into something worse than Rust, a totally mindless PvP hub... in that little arena. make it instanced, too, saves production costs further. A creative mode with a button to spawn in mobs in the arena. That should do it. And those skins you bought? Hah... .jpg files to store on your desktop.

Obviously I took it apart too much, but I'd like to think it gets the point across that much more effectively.

The way I see it, "food and stuff" is one of the core mechanics. You might be thinking too small. We might be getting an actual MMORPG for once.

Sylvanar

Thulf wrote: »

Same can be said about taming, building ships, gathering herbs, cutting down trees, mining, making armor/weapons, fishing, and the list goes on. Why bother with all that when we could work on combat and environment. Actually, scrap the environment - why bother when we could have a little arena for combat and call it a day?

1. "taming, building ships, gathering herbs, cutting down trees, mining, making armor/weapons, fishing, and the list goes on." All the things we dont do in real life or for fishing, not everyone does it in real life. Its a game, I dont wanna do the same things I could do in real life on screen, even if it just clicking buttons. I could have played farmville or whatever the name of that game is then.

2. I dint say that food, their buffs and stuff shouldn't be there at all. My comment was regarding the maintenance and degradation wrt to time aspect of it. Why does it have to be so complex?

3. One guy proposed introducing dust and cleaning and maintenance of your freehold, housing, gear, etc as way of furthering the immersion. Do you really wanna do a maids job in the game too? Then why stop there and introduce janitoring as a job as well. My point is where does it stop?

AoC isnt an RPG exclusively. RPG is just an aspect whereas PvX is main focus of the game.

The cons of these things:
- Further needless complexity is introduced in the game.
- Every player would have to bother with these regardless of if they are interested in the RPG aspect or not if min-max is associated with maintenance.
- It will just worsen the learning curve of the game which is going to already be quite complex with how indepth the "important" professions are going to be and the dynamic nature of the world.
- All these needless features would end up delaying the release of the game by years if things like these keep getting inserted.

Thulf

Sylvanar wrote: »

Thulf wrote: »

Same can be said about...

2. I dint say that food, their buffs and stuff shouldn't be there at all. My comment was regarding the maintenance and degradation wrt to time aspect of it. Why does it have to be so complex?

Seems like I misunderstood you after all. My bad.

Sylvanar wrote: »

1. "taming, building ships, gathering herbs, cutting down trees, mining, making armor/weapons, fishing, and the list goes on." All the things we dont do in real life or for fishing, not everyone does it in real life. Its a game, I dont wanna do the same things I could do in real life on screen, even if it just clicking buttons. I could have played farmville or whatever the name of that game is then.

...

3. One guy proposed introducing dust and cleaning and maintenance of your freehold, housing, gear, etc as way of furthering the immersion. Do you really wanna do a maids job in the game too? Then why stop there and introduce janitoring as a job as well. My point is where does it stop?

Nah, yeah, the problem of taking things too far I can agree with. Though when it comes to the farmville analogy, given how popular it is, I can quite see some1 wanting to tend to a farm on their freehold... That'd be a worthwhile option, necessary even, though I myself would hate to be forced to do it. It would need alternative options to choose from, whatever they might be.

Caww

Since Food & Drink buffs are SOP for an mmo they can't really make it too complicated. The suggestion for the Tavern-based selling of food and drink could be done by only allowing crafters to sell their food & drinks thru a Tavern vendor and not the usual generic marketplace sellers.

Not sure if that adds any game play novelty since most players just want to stock up on foods and drinks before heading out, like a hundred of this and hundred of that - good to go.

AidanKD

Given that cooking will be one of the life skills you can specialise in, I personally would like to see it have as important a role in the economy as other skills. Not saying exact equality but it needs to be relevant.

I would like to think that in terms of buffs, a chef could offer combat and non-combat perks. I.e. movement speed, gathering buffs, reduced agro radius, life skill proficiency boost - plenty of options.

From a player's perspective, you'd have the choice of investing your resources on this, or something else it's just another outlet. But I think there does need to be a vertical element of progression to it i,e, it can make you stronger at something.

I always think of the vastness of the Guild Wars 2 in terms of the sheer quantity of recipes and detail that went into it. That is definitely a game I would be aspiring towards with my cooking I think the way they have done it would have some positive aspects to it.

BlackBrony

As long as food/fish decays, I'm good. So people won't be able to gamble on prices that much. you can farm all you want, but if it doesn't sell it loses potency or rottens.

Tycan

BlackBrony wrote: »

As long as food/fish decays, I'm good. So people won't be able to gamble on prices that much. you can farm all you want, but if it doesn't sell it loses potency or rottens.

I never considered that angle, I agree it'd definitely prevent certain scenarios if food didn't last indefinitely.

Thulf

Sylvanar wrote: »

...regarding the maintenance and degradation wrt to time aspect of it. Why does it have to be so complex?

BlackBrony wrote: »

As long as food/fish decays, I'm good. ...loses potency or rottens.

Damn... I don't like the idea either.

Now we need to add the decay mechanic to everything else as well for the sake of immersion and conformity or else it'd be out of place artificial gimmick serving an out of place game mechanic. How would you explain the decay mechanic on one thing but not the other?

Compromise would be a to make that timer super long, like weeks and months. It could be explained by the use of magic, for example.

Caww

OK, if you want foods that decay, I want canned goods as well...

AidanKD

Caww wrote: »

OK, if you want foods that decay, I want canned goods as well...

Compromise of canned goods being lower maximum attainable "buff" perhaps in exchange for the longevity? And of course you might save "time" or even money overall going for this alternative route.

Also why not just tins, can go with smoking, salting and pickling!

tautau

Weapons decay over time, or at least based on usage, right? Food should decay based on time.

Perhaps mounts, too? Give them a 10-year life, that ought to be adequate, though in years 8 & 9 they slow down.

Happymeal2415

Caww wrote: »

OK, if you want foods that decay, I want canned goods as well...

I'm in favour of food decay. But this is also a great idea. Like the poster said above. Give the fresh stuff a slightly higher buff. The canned one slightly less.

McMackMuck

Sylvanar wrote: »

Is there really a system needed around food and stuff? Like how important is this compared to getting the design for every core aspect of the game hashed out and implemented. Sounds and feels gimmicky if we have to maintain each and everything like in real life we might as well do some real work in kitchen.

For those that are pushing for every competitive edge I'm sure they would be interested in even a single 1% increase in a combat or movement related stat prior to a formal PvX event.

For more casual / less competitive players I'd like to think Food and Drink won't be a mandatory RL time and in game gold/resources sink.

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