Sceeth Posted March 22, 2025 Report Posted March 22, 2025 Today I approach the topic that I don't fear food. I believe that when approaching mushrooms we have too much information, we know how bad they will hurt us, how much they will help us, and in the end whether or not to avoid them without any experimentation. To combat this, I come up with the idea of procedurally generated edible items that change from seed to seed for each world. This would require players to approach food items with caution through open tools or systems for food experimentation to understand them (i.e. force-feeding food to animals).
Thorfinn Posted March 22, 2025 Report Posted March 22, 2025 Makes the first day virtually impossible to survive if you aren't fiendishly lucky. Which makes permadeath unplayable., 1
Sceeth Posted March 22, 2025 Author Report Posted March 22, 2025 3 minutes ago, Thorfinn said: Makes the first day virtually impossible to survive if you aren't fiendishly lucky. Which makes permadeath unplayable., I feel like we could find some work arounds, I created this idea with it being open ended for the rest of the community and also the developers to think about. I see the problem you're citing though. Spear fishing fish is really easy so imagine just grabbing a fish with your hands and force feeding it berries and keeping it in something like a 2 by 2 water source and waiting a bit for the effects (depending, considering mushrooms effect you instantly).
Thorfinn Posted March 22, 2025 Report Posted March 22, 2025 Why would a fish react the same as a seraph? In real life, just because birds eat berries does not mean they are safe for you. Dogs are unaffected by poison ivy. At some point, you are making an assumption about what is safe for a seraph. Either the game knowledge that a given plant or animal is safe to eat, or that a given animal has a similar enough physiology to use as a test dummy. Or you are just taking a blind chance, hoping you don't draw the short straw. I would just try a few things around spawn that very first morning until I find one of every nutrition bar, and monoculture those handful of things, never trying anything else unless things got dire. Dairy would be sheer madness -- you have so much time invested in the game at that point that the extra 2.5 HP are not worth taking the chance of dying because the kind of goats you captured have toxic milk. People are already rage-quitting after 10 minutes for getting taken down by hostiles or falling in holes. Add "death by turnip" to the mix and see what happens. BTW, welcome to the forums, @Sceeth. It's not that I think it's a bad idea. Just that it's not the right kind of game for that idea. Not when speedruns are probably 50 real-life hours, even with only Chapter 2 in place. I'm pretty sure Chapter 1 can be done in the first 3-4 days if you are lucky, but Chapter 2, I have not spent enough time and tried enough things to know how much that can be streamlined. But as an idea for a mod? Hey, sounds good! Chaos isn't exactly my kind of game, but I know people would would love it. 2
Sceeth Posted March 22, 2025 Author Report Posted March 22, 2025 I know all your words come from a good place. Thank you for your consultation, I have enjoyed it, and I now see the error in the idea.
LadyWYT Posted March 23, 2025 Report Posted March 23, 2025 I would also say it's a great idea for a goofy challenge mod, but not a great idea for the base game in terms of either difficulty or realism. The better approach would probably be to just hide the poison information for mushrooms/other poisonous wild food until the player decides to be brave enough to sample it. That being said, it's still likely to end up more frustrating than fun, I think, even if it is somewhat fair. As for the system we already have...sure, it's easy to tell what's good to eat and what's not just by reading the tooltip or handbook entry. However, that also requires the player to do the critical task of taking a moment to actually read that information rather than just hork down whatever bit of food they foraged. And given what I've seen from working with the general public...there are several people who just don't stop to read. Plus some players place entirely too much trust in their friends and eat offered stew without question...only to figure out said stew had a secret ingredient. I've done that to my friend before, though I did make sure the stew wasn't going to kill his character. TL;DR: The system we have currently is fine, and will still catch unobservant players off-guard. 2
Never Jhonsen Posted March 23, 2025 Report Posted March 23, 2025 10 hours ago, LadyWYT said: Plus some players place entirely too much trust in their friends and eat offered stew without question...only to figure out said stew had a secret ingredient. I've done that to my friend before As a dare I made a meat and Death Cap stew, and successfully (but painfully) ate a bowl without dying. Great fun 17 hours ago, Sceeth said: I come up with the idea of procedurally generated edible items that change from seed to seed for each world. I've played rouge-like games that had this feature, and it was a lot of fun But like the others here have said, I also don't see it fitting the vibe of vanilla Vintage Story But it would be a fun mod nonetheless
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