General Category > AVWW Brainstorming
Brainstorming Thread: Food System.
Teal_Blue:
:) As one who does advocate 'eating', i would like to quickly explain why, and how. :)
... on the personal character pov, yes, it probably does turn into a click this button every 20 minutes. :)
Which can be a pain.
But what if it is on a settlement scale... Our farms produce x amount of food for use by characters at x value for every x turn.
What this means is that food becomes a settlement enhancing or limiting factor. That bad guys can raid our caravans or our settlements and over run them. We can lose settlements, we can lose npc's, and we have the possibility of 'losing everything' if we lose all of our farms. Everything.
Like say, losing all our cruisers in AI War, when we are facing Starships, well... we have nothing to compete, we are moments or hours, away from losing the game.
For AVWW, what that cost may be, is we are back to square one. We lose our empire, we have gambled and lost every npc and settlement we had in the game, we have had our head handed to us and we are now back out in the wild fending for ourselves, trying to stay alive.
Some mechanic, ANY mechanic that makes it interesting to keep my character alive is something i think adds greatly to the game.
So,... i have to nurture my settlements, i have to choose carefully the kinds of settlements that i create and where i put them and how i recruit and who i recruit (is it possible i have recruited a spy?) :)
Anyway, 'food' fits that role, i have to have it to keep my settlements and my npc's and my characters viable, and functional and useable.
Its not a click this every 20 minutes mechanism, its a click this every once in a while for your character , or your settlements or you are going to die and NOT make it.
That it interesting.
What hoops do I have to jump through to make things worthwhile? What must i do to expand, or defend, or just maintain the status quo?
Food fits a lot of those circumstances.
And fits it very well.
Not in a boring way.
But in a do i 'castle before i move my pawn?' Or do i move my pawn first, and reap the consequences of not preparing beforehand? way.
Action can be quickly paced and intense and filled with on screen slaughter, but the preparing our loadout, building buildings and jobs and skill sets for my npc's, building new settlements and focusing on their specialties and what resources are used and where is all strategic and slower, and thoughtful pondering of the lay of the board, so to speak. Food and what it represents to continuing the survival of characters and settlements fits into that overview very easily i think.
That is my opinion,
I think it could work, and work well and bring some new and interesting twists to how things play out.
Whether or not it will, however, depends on what everyone else thinks.
:)
But a game that gives players 'different ways of playing the same game' make for a wider audience of players, and the game a multiple style kind of game.
Thank you for listening,
-Teal
Hearteater:
Consider one of the below totally separate ideas:
1) Combine this with the health tank idea. Somehow your health tanks get damaged and eating food repairs them. If health tanks get damaged easily enough, you'll want a good supply of food when exploring.
2) Food buffs you with a damage reducing benefit (-20% damage) that lasts until you take X damage. Scale damage so what we take now is what we take with the food buff, so not having it increases damage taken by about 20%. Optionally add a time duration to the buff as well. Optionally add a cooldown to eating, so heavy damage in a short period forces you to go without the damage reduction buff.
3) Exploring (entering) each new chunk costs you 1 food. Returning to town restores a small amount of food at minimum, but can be developed to supply more later. Some chunks might require more food to explore. The penalty for entering a chunk without food could be a large hit to health (but never fatal).
Martyn van Buren:
I'm pretty sure I'm against eating. It's either going to be just another item you have to click on, or something terrifying like Teal_Blue's suggestion of having to manage your economy well or starve to death --- that would be great in some game, but not one where the strategic map is supposed to be all-but-optional.
Basically, I don't think these are going to add anything if you just have to keep track of them and push a button once in a while --- if they're going to be there, they should be involved enough that you really have to think about them.
I could see sleeping, though. We were talking in the first brainstorming thread about "towers" and no-warp zones --- it seems like it could be an interesting challenge that would fit into the game well if you had to build yourself a little safe place in order to sleep. I don't think I'd want to have to do this regularly, but it would make sense if it gave you a short buff that you could use for a difficult fight, so you could get a bonus if you could make yourself safe for a few "hours" first.
Teal_Blue:
:) @Hearteater, :) I like your ideas, very nice, and well said.
@Martyn Van Buren, although i think eating can and should add depth and consequences to the game and not just be a clickfest, and has a place in a game, in this game as a mechanism that makes player decisions and choices interesting and different for different 'style' players, I also like your idea of sleep.
Having to build your own shelter out in the wilderness in order to stay alive when you have journeyed out more than several tiles distance from the settlement can be interesting, and adds consequences for going to far, or for getting caught out in dangerous territory. Which is in my mind more interesting than having the run of the map for whatever period of time without consequence.
I am beginning to realize that i play differently than many players here, but i hope that doesn't rule out the possibility that this game can be fun to play in many different ways. Not in a single way alone. But i'm not the one making this game. :) So i have to temper my requests with an understanding of what everyone else, and what Chris and company see as what is interesting for them. :)
That i can chip in my own two cents i am grateful for at all, so even though i am passionate! :) I still feel I am only one girls voice. But thank you for listening.
:)
-Teal
tigersfan:
I hate the idea of having to eat. I think that eating can have a place in the game (such as, sitting and eating will heal you, or eating will buff you in some way), but being required to eat will just add a degree of monotony, and likely add to the desire to farm, no pun intended. :-)
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