Let's get rid of hunger

[Sphara]

Originally Posted by Voovus

(does anyone remember bargaining for a price?)

I do and I also remember being thrown out of the shop.

And on the food topic again:
It's hard for me to understand what do people get out of this flavor. Unless an unfortunate Glutton G encounter, the game opening offers enough food to go by. There's no meaningful decision to be made with food unless its exactly what I do, not carry it when inventory starts to get full.

I CERTAINLY do not wanna rush the changes and campaign the game to be changed towards my preferences. I desire for the game that is good and enjoyable for everyone. It's just weird to me some people do defend a flavorful minigame that has no impact if you want it so (disregard Glutton G). Just a minigame that you want to conserve a inventory slot for.

Just my opinion: If hunger is just a clock that periodically says 'now press this button and continue', it needs to be changed if not removed.

[Carnivean]

Originally Posted by Sphara

It's hard for me to understand what do people get out of this flavor.

You aren't a beginner player and have forgotten what it is like when you first start the game. Your thoughts about the game are not about the atmosphere or the flavour. But a beginner to the game sees these things, they see that they have to buy food, they die stupid deaths to starvation early in the game. Those that don't quit in disgust love the game for it.

Once you get to a certain point in your understanding of the game it ceases to be an issue, and for you and others has become a chore to be eliminated. The game has solved the problem by over-supplying food.

But the flavour and the complexity of the game from a newbie perspective is why I started playing it, why I am still here despite the plethora of graphically superior games. Diablo looked much better and had an actual narrative, but has no depth.

If you remove the flavour, the initial complexity, then you might as well just pick the best dagger and descend 5 levels at a time.

If you remove the things that make beginners love the game then you'll stagnate and die as a game, as no one will join and offer a different perspective.

So, do I think that hunger is a great game mechanism? No. Do I think that hunger adds to the gameplay for experienced players? No. Could it be changed? Maybe. It's already essentially solved with unlimited food and sensible gameplay, so does it need to add more value?

[fph]

Another possible "fix" is making food found in the dungeon slightly more interesting on average. Less vanilla plain rations, more shrooms, fear-preventing booze and elvish waybread.

For instance, why doesn't booze appear in the dungeon? There must be a few orcs down there who like a sip to get through the working day...

[Moving Pictures]

Well, hopefully Nick will, er, digest all this input ... Chew things over, and cook up an option that we can all stomach.

[Huqhox]

Originally Posted by fph

Another possible "fix" is making food found in the dungeon slightly more interesting on average. Less vanilla plain rations, more shrooms, fear-preventing booze and elvish waybread.

For instance, why doesn't booze appear in the dungeon? There must be a few orcs down there who like a sip to get through the working day...

This could be worth testing. Reduce the availability (or get rid of completely) rations of food in the dungeon (still available from town) and make mushrooms more nutritious.

It may be this just ends up with an inventory nightmare using up slots on different mushrooms but it could be that the player gets an interesting choice of which mushrooms can be consumed when the player runs across them

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Huqhox

This could be worth testing. Reduce the availability (or get rid of completely) rations of food in the dungeon (still available from town) and make mushrooms more nutritious.

The town should *never* be a requirement for beating the game. If you need food to survive, it should be found in the dungeon in sufficient quantities. The town is there to give you some key items earlier than you probably would find them, (_Tele is the big one), give you infinite access to basic consumables (arrows, ?phase), provide a limited expanded inventory (home), and provide a secondary method of solving equipment problems.

I wouldn't mind more varied consumables (the game is missing stuff like temporary str/dex/int/wis buffs, which could be a good early/mid game consumable). But I still don't see the appeal of tying these to a hunger mechanic.

It's not clear to me what hunger specifically adds, or ever added, for angband. It's a holdover from games like Rogue where it's used to force you to descend and provide a cost for resting. I don't even like hunger in these games, but at least I can rationalize it from a gameplay perspective.

[Ingwe Ingweron]

Originally Posted by Carnivean

You aren't a beginner player and have forgotten what it is like when you first start the game. ....[T]he flavour and the complexity of the game from a newbie perspective is why I started playing it, why I am still here despite the plethora of graphically superior games.....

If you remove the flavour, the initial complexity,... you remove the things that make beginners love the game then you'll stagnate and die as a game, as no one will join and offer a different perspective.
....

+1 !!! This is my main concern over most of the current changes in contemplation. I reiterate and add my voice for call to be cautious with these changes.

[Nick]

So the maintainer's job here is to balance romantic idealism

Originally Posted by Carnivean

If you remove the things that make beginners love the game then you'll stagnate and die as a game, as no one will join and offer a different perspective.

with brutal rationalism

Originally Posted by fizzix

It's not clear to me what hunger specifically adds, or ever added, for angband. It's a holdover from games like Rogue where it's used to force you to descend and provide a cost for resting. I don't even like hunger in these games, but at least I can rationalize it from a gameplay perspective.

I lean toward the former (and I'm planning to post on that soon in preparation for reworking races), so I need people like fizzix for the purely functional perspective.

[Derakon]

I think my current vote for how to handle food would be to simply disable regeneration for as long as the player is weakened from hunger. Then do away with storebought food, or at minimum make it substantially more expensive. After all, getting supplies in to Mordor cannot be easy! And push the Satisfy Hunger spell/scrolls further back so that most characters are level 15+ at least before they can stop worrying about food. You could still replicate food to some extent with Cure Light Wounds potions, but they'd be inefficient/expensive.

The biggest problem with this proposal is that it hits mages hard, since they spend so much time resting, and have slow starts, and thus need more food than other classes. As an inelegant hack fix, we could start them with Rings of Slow Digestion.

[fizzix]

Originally Posted by Derakon

The biggest problem with this proposal is that it hits mages hard, since they spend so much time resting, and have slow starts, and thus need more food than other classes. As an inelegant hack fix, we could start them with Rings of Slow Digestion.

I've also been a fan of increase regen rates so that you don't have to wait so ridiculously long for SP when you don't have many of them. It doesn't make early game mages or priests much more difficult, but it does make them a lot more tedious.