I agree with this, all makes sense. To be honest though, I've not had too much of an issue with being gorged, I just make sure that going into big fights like Morgoth I'm no more than 50% full, leaving room for plenty of potions.

To be honest, I think the fact that we're now debating the hunger mechanic means the game is probably at its best ever, with great balance and entertainment. The monster upgrades and changes in 4.2 have successfully reversed the perception that the game was getting "easier", ever since version 3.0 was released (probably a true perception).

Thanks Nick for all the great changes you've made since you took over.

Totally concur; game is better than ever.

From my earlier post, I should have said that all potions should feed you the exact same amount (who wants to have to Inspect for this info?). And I kinda snuck in a name change reversion suggestion: Remove Hunger -> Satisfy Hunger.

Addendum: I also have not had too many problems with gorging. But it can be very punishing.

I agree that the hunger mechanic is better than its previous complete irrelevance. Hopeful that Nick's recent changes improve the hunger balance ever further. Still wish "Remove Hunger" (or "Satisfy Hunger") scrolls could set one to 50%. Just hate wasting a bunch of turns before the final fights for the sole purpose of burning off food so that healing potions won't cause problems.

I think I actually like Sphara's suggestion of making mushrooms of purging appear in the General Store.

Sounds good to me.

Question about the behavior upon reading an unknown scroll. Didn't it used to say "You see no more Scrolls titled IDENTIFIED" rather than what it does now, "You see no more Scrolls titled GOBLYGOOK"?

Remove/Satisfy Hunger doesn't have to go to exactly 50%, either. It always seemed low to me. Especially with the crazy calorie burning druid regen spell.

I think that's a side-effect of the fix to Rune of Protection. I'll have a look.

i too for having little played 4.2.0, find that the current food system is not-well-balanced but ultimately better.
Getting too full helps prevent the spamming of CCW (or, even ?Phase and CLW), however, i think that the gorged penalty should work like so:

1. food and other will top up your hunger meter for a certain amount up to 100%. You cannot gorge on food (if you are at 80% and eat a ration, you go to 100% - obviously IRL you would be in control how much food you eat)
2. the next step requires a soft cap. This means that it takes longer for the hunger meter to go from 100% to 99% than it does from 99% to 98%. In other words, conventional food and scrolls cap you at 100%.
3. drinking potions can put you over 100%; at this point you become gorged, severely gorged, sick, and catatonic. -2, -4, -6, -10. The higher you go over 100%, the longer it takes to come down.

The reasoning here is that you can eat normally until you are sated. Once you are sated, if you force to eat more because you need the HP, you are then punishing yourself with the excessive food, and get into the speed (and why not, combat as well) penalties.

i think this is the best solution and if you disagree you are a dumb poopityhead.

source: am a fatass.



EDIT: obviously Trolls should have a massive advantage here with the hunger meter being shifted up to 150% max cap.

Yes, as Nick suspected it's a side-effect of fix for Rune of Protection: a scroll or potion is removed before computing the effect and learning what the item does.
With the change, the charge from a wand or staff is also deducted before use which means that, for an unknown wand or staff, you won't get the message that was previously printed about the new number of charges.

Could tweak it so that stuff from the pack is handled the old way, but stuff from the floor is handled with special care since that's the case that triggers one of the reported problems with Rune of Protection.

The charges message does still happen, as it is coded following knowledge update.

I think the easiest fix for things that are consumed is to call *_object_for_use() with no message, and then print a specific message in use_aux() after knowledge is updated.