No hunger or thirst!

[Dongsmasher]

I might be alone here, but I see a lot of posts about hunger and thirst. Please, God of Kenshi, do not add this.

I feel that it would be too simulation-y. I know that sounds crazy - we're talking about a game where for several minutes, my entire being cried out to build a box to keep bricks in - but I really, really hate the idea that my intrepid band of warriors, explorers or traders might die, miles from home, simply because I didn't pack enough granola bars and juice boxes.

Realistic? Absolutely. Fun? If you ask me, hell no.

[Booter]

yeah im pretty much with you on this one. the one thing i would fear about the hunger and thirst part is that, like many games. your men would be affected by something that no npc in the game is afflicted by. so you would have dust bandits roaming free without concern for such things but you are limited by it. on the other hand if sieges became a thing hunger and thirst could be a very useful tool to help you win or if you were the besieged, force your hand. (so would catapulting diseased animals and corpses into the middle of town but we wont see that)

[Zuty Puty]

This is a terrible suggestion. This would be an incredibly horrible game without hunger and thirst. Not having those would break the game, only fixable by completely redesigning everything to make an entirely different game.

And who said NPCs wouldn't be affected by this? What kind of games have you been playing with game mechanics as terrible as Fallout?

[Dongsmasher]

This is a terrible suggestion. This would be an incredibly horrible game without hunger and thirst. Not having those would break the game, only fixable by completely redesigning everything to make an entirely different game.

Be a little more specific? Why would it make the game "incredibly horrible" and "broken"?

[Zuty Puty]

This is a terrible suggestion. This would be an incredibly horrible game without hunger and thirst. Not having those would break the game, only fixable by completely redesigning everything to make an entirely different game.

Be a little more specific? Why would it make the game "incredibly horrible" and "broken"?

It would take out a lot of the purpose. The main goal is survival. No food or hunger would make survival not even worth thinking about. It would become a game where you just mindlessly roam around killing things.

[Dongsmasher]

It would take out a lot of the purpose. The main goal is survival. No food or hunger would make survival not even worth thinking about. It would become a game where you just mindlessly roam around killing things.

What? How? The game right now, in its still-a-long-way-from-release phase, has way more to do than "mindlessly roaming around killing things", and it doesn't have hunger or thirst. You can make an empire, make a rich trading outpost, etc. Hunger and/or thirst doesn't really need to affect this in any way, aside from increasing the "welp, I died from something I really can't control, better reload that savegame" factor.

EDIT: Also, the "the goal is survival" thing is wrong, if you ask me. That's like saying the goal of a Mario game is to jump. Sure, but there's so much more.

[Clawdius Talonious]

Chris has already said what he thinks about food and drink. He said if he adds it he will only do it in a way that is fun and doesn't require a ton of micromanagement. For example you may require rations and water for a long trading journey, but you will automagically refill your canteens when you get near a water source, and people at your outposts will get more water from the wells and that sort of thing.

[Zuty Puty]

Except you can control it. All you have to do is not do something stupid like not bringing enough food/water. It restricts you, adding challenge, which in turn makes the game much more fun. Traveling would be boring if you didn't have to worry about supplies. And running out of supplies somehow would force you to try to find more before you die off any way possible; be looting bandits or attacking traders.

In short, it casualizes the game far too much. Maybe add an easy mode which doesn't have this, but it certainly shouldn't be removed.

[Booter]

"And who said NPCs wouldn't be affected by this? What kind of games have you been playing with game mechanics as terrible as Fallout?"

you actually see it a lot more than you think. games where enemies are repairing themselves yet when killed or destroyed have no armor repairer in their belongings, games where enemies never run out of ammo but you do.

[CalPal]

I'm with Zuty Puty on this. The entire game is structured to punish those who do not take the world seriously. it is a dangerous place, full of self-interested people seeking to avoid dying a painful or humiliating death. In short, it is a Hobbesian game of entertaining proportions.

As a game so dedicated to the idea that life can - and probably is - nasty, brutish and short for so many, it should emphasize that great care is needed to survive, if not thrive, in this world, and that means every aspect of what you do should focus on properly caring for yourself and being able to face this world head-on. That includes the idea of needing to constantly eat and drink in order to survive. Practice well enough to eat and fend for yourself if you wish to remain a lone wanderer; know when to fight and when to flee as a group; know who to attack and who to stand down to with entire armies and cities under your command. You cannot rely on the good nature of others - at least not at the very start of the game - so you need to do with your character/party what is necessary to survive.

This, I believe, encompasses the spirit of the game, and it needs to be preserved. I can handle the necessity to eat and drink in a game, as long as it makes the idea of eating and drinking an exciting process. For example:

Suppose I haven't been having great luck hunting for animals on my own to eat. After a few days, I'm getting hungry and I know I won't survive for too much longer; a day or two, at best. By chance, I come across a lone traveler on the ground; a runner that was hoping to get lots of food to a nearby settlement, but was attacked and left to die by bandits looking for better equipment.

What could I do? I could take food from him, but that would be considered theft and I would have to leave him to die - or kill him myself, if necessary. I could even take all the food and last for days without needing to hunt, though that might mean I'm potentially killing an entire village in the process. Or I could heal him, either letting him be on his way and going back to hunting, or follow him and hope I can get free food in the process. What would you do?

This is a pretty exciting scenario, one I would more than love to encounter in the game. This scenario would not be possible if food and water meant nothing. It also sounds like an absolutely exciting scenario to force players to live with, to see how people would react to this and other scenarios that Chirs would probably like to have play out within the game.

[Zuty Puty]

@Booter

I guess you're right. I stand by what I said, but maybe I'm just tunnel-visioning too much while wishing for this to be a realistic, 3D Dwarf Fortress more focused on combat that micromanaging.

@CalPal

This is exactly what I was trying to say. Thank you for putting it better than I could.

[Dongsmasher]

which in turn makes the game much more fun

I think at this point all we can do is agree to disagree, as I think your definition of fun is a lot different from mine. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Dorf Fortress and I wouldn't consider myself a casual by any means, but this is overkill.

@CalPal

You're right, that is an exciting scenario. But outside of interesting wasteland dramas like that, what purpose would hunger and thirst serve? A pointless slider that, if neglected, leads to death. Nothing more. I cannot think of a scenario in my head where my thriving wasteland colony is growing and producing, bandits are being fought off, trade is flourishing and all in all things are going swimmingly and I think "Man, I sure am glad my guys get thirst and hungry and need to neglect their duties to go freshen up". It just seems like overkill. Why not add a scab meter where your wounds have a chance to scab up and become crisp and painful to move or something?

[Zuty Puty]

Yeah, and while you're at it, why not add an option to say "Please give me all of your stuff for free" to merchants? Using "please" can get you pretty far!

[Dongsmasher]

Yeah, and while you're at it, why not add an option to say "Please give me all of your stuff for free" to merchants? Using "please" can get you pretty far!

No need to be a prick about it.

[Zuty Puty]

I wasn't trying to be. Just pointing out that you are tunnel-visioning.

[xioxio]

I think that food and water should be added but optional. I think that feeding your guys or getting then to drink and them getting a short stat bonus would be cool. That soldiers that drink rum fight better temporarily. And guys will work harder if they are feed, people run faster when hydrated, etc. That way it could be an end-game goal would useful properties and not overkill. And towns would offer a source of water, but no food. It would also make the begging of the game easier because you could increase your fighting skill with some rum.

[Jake_j_a]

I was actually thinking nearly the opposite here. I partially agree with both sides, as Dongsmasher said, it would suck if you had to micro-manage to that degree or die, however the scenario CalPal provided as well as many others would rely on food and drink. Particularly when you build a nation and attempt to conquer others, logistics is supremely important in war, thus food and drink is no-longer an annoying stat to keep track of, figuring out HOW to supply your stupidly huge force is a worthy challenge.
What I was thinking as I read this post is "what if you don't die just because you didnt take enough food/water with you, what if your stats/skills started decreasing until you could remedy the situation"

All in all, I think we'll just have to trust Chris in this, he's stated that this will NOT be a micro-manage game and your characters will be able to fend for themselves to a degree. I'm confident he will not implementent this in a Sims-y manner.

[Edril]

Well first off let's take a few things into account.
In real life, a person can go 3 days without drinking, and 3 weeks without eating, probably less in a desert environment, but I'm pretty sure you'd at least survive a couple of days. Assuming those time limits are respected, you will always be able to get to a settlement in that time period. There are no distances so great currently that you can't get to a safe place to get this food and drink before dying.

Therefore the possibility of dying because of it is pretty unlikely unless you gambled and sent your party out without any food or drink, in which case, well, it's entirely your fault.

However what it does is force you to think logistically. In the early game, this food and drink will be a money sink because, if you are a lone adventurer, you will need to buy it to keep surviving. If you're a party looking to set out and make your own settlement, you will have to start with a well and a farm rather than a quarry and a stone processor. This means you'll have to spend money on more building materials early on.

Basically, the food/drink will be a small money sink, which will make the early game more challenging and last longer, which to me is a bonus, because the challenging early game is the most exciting part for me.

Having only an income and no expenses other than to improve your squad is not challenging in the slightest. If you have to be at least a little smart on the food stand point to start actually making money, that would be more interesting. And as someone mentioned, in the late game, supplying your army with sufficient food and water to keep fighting would be an interesting logistics aspect to handle. do you raid and loot the enemy faction's farms for food, damaging their infrastructure and your reputation in the process or do you plan ahead and have caravans of food going back and forth from your base to your army. How do you protect these caravans etc etc...

I think that for it to not become a huge time sink micro managing, there would needs to be a system that automates the eating/drinking process. When someone reaches a threshold of hunger, if they have access to some food, they would go get it and start eating before going back to whatever they were doing before.

[hypekillah]

I agree, this would cause to much micro mannagment. stay away from this pls. unless it is done in a proper way that increses the fun ..

[Jake_j_a]

Well first off let's take a few things into account.
In real life, a person can go 3 days without drinking, and 3 weeks without eating, probably less in a desert environment, but I'm pretty sure you'd at least survive a couple of days.

Indeed, to add more, in that time without you grow weaker and less coherent, thus stat/skill reduction over time would only make sense. As you stated, in a populated game world, death is unlikely due to starvation/dehydration, at least directly.

Basically, the food/drink will be a small money sink, which will make the early game more challenging and last longer, which to me is a bonus, because the challenging early game is the most exciting part for me.

Not only harder, but more strategic. As the game stands there is never a reason NOT to pick up the unskilled characters available when you have the funds, which is almost always. With the food/drink you would have pro's and con's to consider before recruiting new members. Even better, when and how many to recruit would be a consideration far beyond just the early game.