Food Overhaul! Buff modifiers

Mechanically the idea is based on two basic principles. It would probably require a rework of buff architecture but I don't imagine it would be too difficult..

First, cap the total bonuses from food at around what the combined maximum of 2 obsidian food buffs.. to be exceeded only by top tier foods like dragon stew..

Reduce the number of food buffs to 1.. but rework it so that whenever you eat something, the benefit from that food is added to any existing food buff..

Secondly, the potency of the individual effect will decay based on timing remaining for the buff.

So here's an example...

If I eat an obsidian bear stew.. I get my regen and combat regen and stats same as before.. for the same duration in a single buff.. right? same as before.

Now let's say I eat a short bread loaf.. That's an additional focus buff.. but that gets added to the existing buff provided it doesn't exceed the cap.. since the buff is already at max duration, the duration of the bread loaf is possibly ignored.

But let's say we wait an hour to eat our bread loaf.. we'll still add the bonus but we'll add a little time to the duration as well.. in this case 3 minutes.. but the effectiveness of the original buff has had some time to diminish slightly.. how much? To be balanced..

Now let's say we eat something that provides an int bonus that lasts an hour. That int bonus getting tagged on to the same buff and the duration is extended..

Remember though that the effects are always diminishing.. albeit slowly.. and/or based on remaining time.. but still diminishing. So the food that added the int and duration isn't replenishing any of the other effects.

Now the rate of decay I think should be based on time remaining with it first being very slow if more than 50% of the total buff time remaining so you can prevent faster decay by continuing to eat.. but you can't stop it entirely.

What this does is give value to ALL food.. not just higher tier foods. Then you can simulate actual nutrition to an extend by the effects each food gives, players are encouraged to maintain their overall buff by eating every few hours.. and I'll finally have a use for all those bread loafs sitting in my pantry!

Meanwhile, there is no penalty for not eating same as it is now.. and with an upper limit on total buff effects food doesn't became any more powerful than it is now with some exception to the actual number of benefits which you ought to be able to have from eating well in the first place. A well rounded diet does a body good yes?

 

I think 95% of people use only the Obsidian versions and the normal version, say for strength +6 one and the +3 one etc. Everything else under this imo is basically useless. While your method might make use of these lower tier foods to keep someone topped up. If im reading it right.....basically by lowering the effects of the 'main' dish over time and having to snack on these others means that its going to be more work for the same benefit and just a method for using up waste foodstuffs...

Imo.....Food defiantly needs a overhaul but I'm wanting something a little more based on a cooks skill level and the ingredients used to make stronger and longer food item. This marries agriculture with cooking, hopefully specialising will come in and this can add to effects of produce grown/cooked as well, although i don't want the specialising part to be the only method to grow/make advanced foods, it needs to be already in and specialising adds to the effects....

 

well it all depends on how you balance it.. and what I was trying to imply but obviously was not clear about.. is that ALL effects would be additive. That is.. you ate 6 foods that gave +1 str each.. you'd end up with +6 str.. but not more than what's possible with top tier food. So you wouldn't need obsidian bear stew to achieve the same effect.. it would just be easier. Also, I imagined the decay would be on a curve.. very slow for most of the duration. Ideally you wouldn't need to eat every hour.. but obsidian food wears off after 4.. but also you shouldn't be able to sustain a str buff by eating non str foods either.

In truth, I would do very differently but I was trying to come up with something that would fit with the current design with less work.

I had also forgotten that I was originally going to post two ideas.. this one.. and how I REALLY wanted to do it.

Based on what @Lord British had described in the past about nutrition I came up with another idea of basically 3 nutrition stats for fats, proteins and sugars (I think that was it ) And it would act like 3 containers you'd fill up by eating certain kinds of foods.. and based on how full each one was would determine what your buff was. It would take several hours for those containers to empty but you'd get the full effect for say.. 4 hours after you filled up. So you wouldn't really need to eat any more than you do now, but all food could contribute.

Basically the same idea but different approach. I'm just using the buff as a sort of combined container.

Edit: All that said.. I also think strength and duration of the effect should be based on cooking skill. It's not an incompatible idea.

 

This is fascinating..as a cook, it's clear that very little other than Obsidian and above (dragon etc), is purchased and therefore used. When I get 'junk' food in drops I scrap it. It's not worth carrying or selling. So improvement is needed if lower tier foods have any value at all, other than initial levelling of your skills to get to the meat of it.

In some games food is level dependent doesn't really make sense but it ensures lower tier food is transacted. Having a system like in blacksmithing where foods can be improved (at some, cost or risk) would be neat, and could use an existing game mechanic.

I'm not sure whether SOTA food buffs are meant to be nutritional or magical. If it's about nutrition and food groups it needs working up from scratch, otherwise level restrictions and masterwork 'gourmet' dishes with additional costly components (olive oil? Truffles? Honey?) could be cool using existing systems.

 

Buffs are (or were originally meant to be) nutritional. @Lord British once went on at length about his ideas for food, which is one reason why the current implementation is so disappointing. There is very little variety in 3 meals.

My ideas from way back when were similar to how the rest of crafting is basically set up. You would have a generic recipe with variations.. only with a much more dynamic implementation (current crafting implementation appears very static). Take a pie for example.. the basic recipe (if they had used my idea) would have been pie crust + filling.. with virtually anything ultimately being able to be classified as filling. The resulting buff should be based on the overall ingredients and player skill. Then you also had "inactive" ingredients which could potentially modify the buff.. which would be things like spices or anything that doesn't "define" what the meal is.

It was all based on defining what a pie (or another particular meal) was, and then classifying what basic ingredients could go in it or in the case of a pie, what could be used to make a pie filling etc..

The crafting system as it is designed could still do it, depending how they actually implemented it, but I don't think Richard quite understood what I was getting at as he said recipes would blow out of proportion. I think it was envisioning a massive list of static recipes like we have now rather than flexible ones.

 

And food for pets! Loopy the Wolf gets very hungry and grumpy.

 

This is an interesting idea but might be hard to code and implement. They already have in place in the game the concept of component-based stats in crafting (adding Iron bindings vs Constantan binding), so it may be easier to implement something similar to what you've proposed but make it component-based on the food itself and still cap at 2 food buffs.

 

Perhaps. No idea survives the first iteration. I would expect devs to make changes as has been with every other idea I've seen put out that has been adopted. Honestly, if they had taken all my crafting ideas I threw out there back in the day, we'd have a hell of a crafting system but that's about all we'd have by now given their budget and team size.