Add Walking Sticks

[Perdido Street]

Having a walking stick in your offhand for a slight movement boost (like 5-10%) would be both useful and really nice looking. Honestly, walking sticks would fit in so well with the feel of the game that I'm second guessing myself if they are already there and I'm just missing the obvious.

The crafting recipe could be as simple as two sticks and a knife. Maybe a later game version could be a hiking staff, adding leather/bone for a grip or a metal ferrule on the bottom. If they really want to lean into it then the more advanced staff could have space to attach trinkets or utility (gems, a shepherd's crook, or a lantern for example).

That second paragraph is just theory crafting on my part. All I'm really angling for is a walking stick for those long journeys on foot.

[Perdido Street]

For the record, I know there is now a mod for this (and I deeply appreciate their work), but it still feels like a missed opportunity in the base game.

[Thorfinn]

Currently anything in off-hand gives a hunger penalty. I take it a walking stick would be an exception? Even though things like a quill for writing gives a penalty?

I'm not saying I'm objecting, but rather that this will require a rethinking of what carrying in offhand entails.

[Rainbow Fresh]

2 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

Currently anything in off-hand gives a hunger penalty. I take it a walking stick would be an exception? Even though things like a quill for writing gives a penalty?

I'm not saying I'm objecting, but rather that this will require a rethinking of what carrying in offhand entails.

Carrying anything in your offhand giving a hunger penalty equal to basically a full set of metal chain armor is the stupidest thing to begin with. I get that it was probably done to balance the offhand so people don't just use it as a free extra inventory slot - but that falls very short if you put it into any logical perpective. On the realistic side, there is no logic here. On the game-realistic side, why can we carry thousands of tons of solid rock and metal in our inventory and be unaffected but holding a torch with your *le gasp* left hand make you instantly starve? From a balancing perspective - there are only, like, 3 items that can go into the left hand anyway. A shield, a light source or a hammer. Much "free inventory space" that needs balancing, for sure.

[Krakuntun]

Well, carrying in your offhand greatly enhances the utility of the items, it is not so much about the inventory space. Holding a torch in the one hand and a spear in the other for example greatly enhances your night-fighting prowess, compared to holding only either a torch (light but no way to defend yourself) or a spear (no light... at dark...).
Therefeore the hunger penalty absolutely makes sense from a game balancing perspective as utility is enhanced.

[Rainbow Fresh]

24 minutes ago, Krakuntun said:

Well, carrying in your offhand greatly enhances the utility of the items, it is not so much about the inventory space. Holding a torch in the one hand and a spear in the other for example greatly enhances your night-fighting prowess, compared to holding only either a torch (light but no way to defend yourself) or a spear (no light... at dark...).
Therefeore the hunger penalty absolutely makes sense from a game balancing perspective as utility is enhanced.

Yes but also no. It enhances your usability in a sense where there is no other utility for that scenario besides the use that is discouraged. Taking the example of a sudden night-time encounter with an enemy. You have the option of A: Holding only your torch. And... probably die. Cause a torch ain't a good weapon. B: Use only your weapon and... probably die. Cause you can't hit what you can't see while that never stopped no bear nor wold nor drifter chomping on your butt. Or finally option C : whereas you hold the lightsource in your offhand and fight off the threat with a weapon in your main hand to atleast try and survive. You probably get hit somewhat, losing health, which in turn is gonna tank your satiety anyway for healing purposes and on top of that the brief excursion of left-handedness tanked it even further. Why? To prevent you from holding that torch in the forbidden hand any frame longer than absolutely necessary? The only alternatives to this scenario that don't require using your off-hand briefly involve placing down alot of torches to light up the entire area to have enough arena to dodge in even without a lightsource in hand, or being late-game enough to wear NVGs. The former of which is not always viable, the latter of which a silly "root" of balancing decisions since the NVG also doesn't qualify for most armor sets, being a tradeoff.

Or let's take the hammer. You need to have the hammer in your offhand to use the chisel, no other way. Same for tongs. You need to use tongs in order to smith. Both actions (chiseling and smithing) do no inherently cost you satiety or penalize you in any other way. There is virtually no harm done running around holding tongs all day and virtually no reason to run around holding a hammer all day. Yet for both of these unavoidable interactions you get penalized with a 20% hunger rate debuff, not because you physical labor but because you use your left hand. Doesn't sound like good balancing to me.

Then there is the shield, which iirc also only works, in the first place, if used in the off-hand. Now this is the one and only scenario where I can see a reason to come up with this penalty system in the first place, especially since shield have passive block. Passive damage reduction just for holding your shield in your off-hand? Sounds OP, needs a counter-weight - boom, hunger penalty. But that is the extend to which it makes sense. And only for as long as we cling to passive blocking.

If one insisted enforcing a hunger penalty for left-handed people, then atleast choose reasonably balanced (in relativity to other, existing mechanics) numbers. How about 5% for a light/crude and 10% for a heavy/metal shield? Cause it basically works like armor, so it should function (debuff-wise) like armor. Can still get rid of passive blocking imo, this RNG mechanic isn't that great and passive blocking, while trying to emulate realistic behavior, would be better suited for a Combat Overhaul-style physical damage model. Then we get a 2.5% for holding tools and a 1% debuff for light sources. Maybe even 2.5% for lanterns specifically to further incentivise the use of torches in the later game. Are these numbers potentially fully neglectibly low? Maybe. But better than a flat out 20% across the board. And there are situation where every % of hunger rate matters. Like a beginner starving through their first winter. Winter is boring enough when you cannot even leave the house without freezing and starving to death, so penalizing the warmth of a torch to combat the starvation in the cold by even faster starvation is bogus.

Edited May 7 by Rainbow Fresh
friggin emojis

[LadyWYT]

7 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

Carrying anything in your offhand giving a hunger penalty equal to basically a full set of metal chain armor is the stupidest thing to begin with.

Not really. I always have something in my off-hand in Minecraft simply because there's no reason not to. The 20% hunger penalty doesn't really bother me in VS either, but it's enough to make me think more carefully about what I'm doing, and that seems to hold true for the majority of players. So if that penalty were removed, a walking stick that allows the player to move faster would practically never be unequipped, because it gives benefits with no drawbacks.

 

10 hours ago, Perdido Street said:

For the record, I know there is now a mod for this (and I deeply appreciate their work), but it still feels like a missed opportunity in the base game.

Somewhat, but I'm not really sold on the idea either. I wouldn't mind seeing such an item give a bonus to movement speed in return for draining more hunger, as that seems an appropriate travel cost. But at the same time, I'm not sure that it adds that much to the game either.  At the very least, if such a thing were added, I'd rather see at least a handful of style options, or the ability to socket decorations like gems or metal caps onto the staff so I can be Vintage Gandalf.

 

2 hours ago, Rainbow Fresh said:

If one insisted enforcing a hunger penalty for left-handed people

In the case of left-handed people, it would be a penalty for holding/using item in the right hand slot, as the interface would be properly flipped. Which I mean, it'd be nice to have an option to flip the interface in the settings, but I doubt that's something we'll see anytime soon.

[Thorfinn]

Personally, the hunger thing is a tool to build HP faster. My standard start is knife then torch. And then food is soooo plentiful there's not much reason to ever not have something in offhand.

But gameplay wise, I'm firmly in @LadyWYT's camp. The mark of a good game is in weighing the tradeoffs of various options. Wouldn't have to be hunger, but it definitely serves the purpose of making people intentionally choose to equip something there.

[Rainbow Fresh]

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

Not really. I always have something in my off-hand in Minecraft simply because there's no reason not to. The 20% hunger penalty doesn't really bother me in VS either, but it's enough to make me think more carefully about what I'm doing, and that seems to hold true for the majority of players. So if that penalty were removed, a walking stick that allows the player to move faster would practically never be unequipped, because it gives benefits with no drawbacks.

While admittedly steering off-topic into another discussion about another suggestion/mechanic all-together, I did not include the prospect of a walking stick's balace in any of this. I solely stated my view on the currently available options and how they tie in, or not, with the current hunger penalty system. I also think that your point of "The hunger penalty doesn't really bother you" because food will readily get over-abundant in the mid to late game further proves how poorly chosen this approach to penalizing offhand use is. To the player that still cares who stops a moment to think about it, it feels like annoyingly oversteering a debuff that must not necessarily be, while to the advanced player it is utterly ineffective. Sure, it gets either of them to think about offhand use more than "I have slot, I use slot". Which is fair. But also achievable, if not already achieved, by other means already present in the game. Because again, it is not only penalizing overly abundant offhand use, it is also penalizing fully unavoidable offhand use.

Also specifically to your point about Minecraft: I, too, am always holding something my offhand. Which is the shield. Because aside from the occasional-odd situation where you want a block in there (for fast gravel shoveling or something), there is no reason to not have a shield equiped. Is that a sign that the shield would need better balance, or that the offhand would need to be discourage in general?

5 hours ago, LadyWYT said:

In the case of left-handed people, it would be a penalty for holding/using item in the right hand slot, as the interface would be properly flipped. Which I mean, it'd be nice to have an option to flip the interface in the settings, but I doubt that's something we'll see anytime soon.

Left hand support would be a nice touch. Though in this instance I merely said it as a mocking methaphor for the off-hand being the left hand.

3 hours ago, Thorfinn said:

The mark of a good game is in weighing the tradeoffs of various options. Wouldn't have to be hunger, but it definitely serves the purpose of making people intentionally choose to equip something there.

Exactly, it doesn't have to be a hunger penalty for holding anything in your offhand. The things that can go there are already limited to begin with. Two of which forcibly require the offhand to work at all. The rest could be balanced differently. Shield, as the prime culprit and as I mentioned before, could very well do with getting general armor penalties. No matter if main or offhand. It's a defensive tool, like armor, so it could have the same drawbacks as armor. Weighed based on tier of the shield, like armor. And lightsources? Do we really need a penalty for carrying and using lightsources? If you want, make torches last only 2 days no matter if placed or not. Nerf the thing giving you and advantage if that advantage is perceived to be too big, not the hand holding it.