Down with junk food and mono diets.

[BeardedRooster]

a lot of people have been saying fishing needs nerf, foraging needs nerf, farming needs nerf... and many people have their opinion on how it should be done. i have a few too but the main one that keeps popping up in my head is a re work of the nutrition. no human can survive off of one thing alone. you can not eat just meat (excluding organs) or nothing but a Potato a day, and certainly not a lollipop a day.players should have to eat a variety of things to "satisfy" hunger.

 

first hunger should be divided into 5 categories.

• carbohydrates - (potatoes and breads)
• (general) hunger - all foods
• plants - fruits and vegetables
• protein - meats and some plant stuff(peanut butter and tofu)
• junk food- candy, chips, soda.

the first four (carbohydrates, hunger, plants, and protein) all have positive effects to your health

1. players will gain a bonus to fitness when eating carbohydrates. the opposite occurs when they are lacking it in their diet.
2. players who are well fed get a mood boost, players who are hungry may get depressed.
3. players will gain a bonus to immunity and healing when eating plants. the opposite occurs when they are lacking it in their diet.
4. players will gain bonus to strength with a diet with a lot of protein. the opposite occurs when they are lacking it in their diet

the last category (junk food) only satisfies hunger, giving players a mood boost (junk food should do this the best over all other foods) at this.

 

players should not directly see which type of hunger they are facing. they should only see the hunger moodle pop up. the player will have to judge based off watching for lack of recent strength, easily exhausted or poor immunity. the hunger moodle will stay up and worsen until they meet the 4 requirements to stay alive (carbs, hunger, plants, protein). 

 

along with these changes will come with the following new traits.

• carnivorous (-4) - eats only animal based products. players can still eat plant based things but at higher risk of food poisoning.
• vegan (-4) - eats only plant based products. players can still eat meat but at higher risk of food poisoning.
• caveman (+6) - gains a slight bonus to immunity and healing and fitness when eating meat
• vegetarian (+6) - gains a slight bonus to strength when eating plants 

as for some other problems that need to be addressed. and i think is necessary.

 

Fishing- fishing should be limited. fish should act similar to zombie spawns. in each cell X amount of fish are available. once the players catches X amount of fish they can no longer get fish in that cell till they repopulate. this rate should be slow and the amounts should be low. this will keep people from being able to live off of just fish.

 

Farming- crops should deplete the ground nutrient every time you plant a new crop plant there the crop yield is reduced. to combat this players should have to spread fertilizer to refresh the soil. to help with this players can create a "compost pile to turn rotting food into fertilizer. a irrigation system will also reduce the amount of time players spend farming so they are not bogged down with watering every day. obviously players should still have to check on their crops to make sure no diseases have sprung up

 

foraging- berries and mushrooms should be perishable. berries and mushrooms should be a roll of the dice to see if they are poisonous. poisonous berries should only make you sick unless you eat to many of them. mushrooms should be a higher chance of poisoning and one bite should be deadly. higher foraging skill should reduce the chance of poisoning.

 

trapping- i would like to see more things to catch this also includes hunting (which i know has been asked for). i don't know much about it game wise.

 

imo late game will not be solved by npc or by migrating hoards but by the food. if players want to run from the hoard of zombies and live out in the wild they should be able to without being swarmed.they should instead have to work to just survive. and if its danger the wild people are wanting than maybe introduce wild animals(bears, wolfs, escaped lions from the zoo) so they have something else to watch out for.

 

[Mr_Sunshine]

Would kinda take the fun out of the game if not only did you have to find food, but prevent getting malnourished.

 

Maybe if it was as a 'hardcore mode'?

[AJ135]

I think all we would end up seeing would be people living off potatoes and fish since that diet has everything a human needs to live, just not in great quantities. Sure pre-famine, most Irish lived off potatoes and milk and as such lived healthier lives than those across the channel, depending on what sources you believe.

 

EDIT: Potatoes and wild eggs would also work.

[ToastedFishSandwich]

Personally I think that this sounds too complicated. I think that it'd be better to have just two values: how nutritious it is and how filling it is. Junk-food would be be filling and provide happiness but would not be very nutritious whereas fresh foods would be both filling and nutritious but decay much faster.

 

This would provide enough depth to encourage variety but not so much as to make something as simple as eating too confusing and micromanage-y.

[Footmuffin]

Love it! I think the carnivorous/vegan traits would be better if they just made survivors disgusted or process the food poorly when eating whatever is off-limits to them.

[EnigmaGrey]

A more complex nutrition system is something I've wanted for a long time. Personally, I don't think the current nutrition value in the game has enough depth to matter . . . I'm not even sure what it does, but that may just be because it's a placeholder at this point?

[SomeRandomGuy]

Personally I think that this sounds too complicated. I think that it'd be better to have just two values: how nutritious it is and how filling it is. Junk-food would be be filling and provide happiness but would not be very nutritious whereas fresh foods would be both filling and nutritious but decay much faster.

 

This would provide enough depth to encourage variety but not so much as to make something as simple as eating too confusing and micromanage-y.

 

That's about what I was thinking as well, that and eating nothing but junk food should reduce fitness and add weight over time unless you're also getting a lot of exercise, where fresh foods should have no negative effects unless you constantly overeat on them.

[Blasted_Taco]

When talking about food in PZ it always reminds me that scene of 24 Days Later, when the guy is about to pass out when going upstairs, he ate potato chips but he still is about to pass out, then the women tells him that he is an idiot and gives him vitamins because he hasn't eaten meat in some time now.

 

I would love to see some kind of stuff like that in PZ, right now my strategy is gathering as much potato chips possible and just hold up with them, no negative effects at all.

[BeardedRooster]

Love it! I think the carnivorous/vegan traits would be better if they just made survivors disgusted or process the food poorly when eating whatever is off-limits to them.

i thought of that but i said food poisoning as simply saying the toon has a hard time keeping it in his stomach (wants to vomit when eating meat or plant)

 

I think all we would end up seeing would be people living off potatoes and fish since that diet has everything a human needs to live, just not in great quantities. Sure pre-famine, most Irish lived off potatoes and milk and as such lived healthier lives than those across the channel, depending on what sources you believe.

 

EDIT: Potatoes and wild eggs would also work.

hence why i added the bit at the end. you could live off of these things and that's fine. but over cropping and over fishing will deplete that resource causing players to look for other sources of food. a constant need to look for food is a real struggle and living out in paradise should not be as good as it is.

 

also just a side note, if the water is bad to drink, wouldn't that make the fish bad to eat?

 

ps: sorry i like nerdy details such as protein and the what not. something as simple as nutrient level and filling level would be good enough for me. i just laugh every time i eat 1/4 of a peppermint candy and eat nothing else for the rest of the day.

[AJ135]

Until they add npcs there is no point in adding overfishing. It would take one person some serious dedication to overfish a river. Also for the over farming idea it would just mean that I would add a few empty tilled spots to my crop rotation without changing much else. I personally like the idea that you would get negative effects from living off junk food.

EDIT: No, bad water doesn't equal bad fish. Don't forget you cook the fish.

[BeardedRooster]

Until they add npcs there is no point in adding overfishing. It would take one person some serious dedication to overfish a river. Also for the over farming idea it would just mean that I would add a few empty tilled spots to my crop rotation without changing much else. I personally like the idea that you would get negative effects from living off junk food.

EDIT: No, bad water doesn't equal bad fish. Don't forget you cook the fish.

actually even cooked fish contain levels of mercury and other pollutants. pretty much what ever the fish is swimming in they are breathing it in through their gills. so if say zombie blood is in the water or the local water sanitation facility shut down and sewage overflowed into the water, you can bet you are eating that.

 

in small amounts these effects are not noticeable. but if you regularly consume it(every meal, every day) you will get poisoned.