Raw food and skill adjustments

[Arlequin]

All changes have always made getting food easier. People quite managed to live before harvesters and driers, you wouldn't say it was so bad then.

Now that almost nobody needs really to worry about food, some changes could be made so getting cooked food from skilled characters is more appealing.

I think raw potatoes and raw rice should be even less nutritious. Raw rice has tons of fiber per each grain (I live in a rice farming land and it always puzzled me that people could eat raw rice), and if you don't select or peel the potatoes you can be intoxicated by those that were exposed to light.

Then, unskilled characters should cook almost as fast as skilled characters, but have a random chance of spoiling part of the food they cook. The result is roughly the same -instead of taking more time, and daily meals, to make food, it takes the same time, but sometimes you get less food-, then the psychological effect is different. People doesn't grasp the concept of "losing time cooking awkardly", but they would get "loosing food cooking awkardly".

[Rossato]

Agreed!

[Doug R.]

Until spawning is recalculated so that there is no chance of a charrie spawning in the middle of nowhere, raw food should not be made less nutritious. The character I have now simply would have died had this been the case when he spawned.

Also, I wouldn't say it was bad then, but it was annoying to have to stop role-playing or working on my project and have to go outside to gather more carrots.

Making raw food less nourishing only makes the game harder for newspawns, and has no effect on established players, and it is the newspawns we are trying to keep.

[Arlequin]

Then fix the spawning AND fix food.
Not abuse the food RP to make a broken spawning work.

[Arlequin]

Boh, no, seriously. Playerbase grew when food was scarce. Playerbase decreases when there's plenty of food. Not causal, tho quite casual relationship.

Seesh, give the first five characters of an account a four years immunity against hunger if ya want. They'll be ok. After five characters you bet they should have someone spawned in a populated place. And any veteran shouldn't make much drama of losing a newspawn born in the wild.

[SekoETC]

Ever stopped to think that if a person spawns alone in a harsh environment, they're supposed to starve! Starting new communities is not supposed to be easy. I'd go as far to say that people should have a max limit of how much they can eat and things like raw potatoes would go over that limit, so you couldn't fill your stomach with those. MAYBE it would be so that they would keep you alive but not fix your previous hunger or would fix it more slowly.

[SekoETC]

I addition, hunger should be more like weight. And it should show. If you were eating the full amount every day, you should be plump. If someone wanted to be thin, they would have to eat less than the current amounts, or take some time fasting. People who are 50% "hungry" should be very thin and those who are about to starve to death should be skeletal. Maybe wearing clothes could blur it a bit. If you'd be wearing a shirt or a jacket and pants or a skirt or a dress and a robe, the hunger/weight meter would make you appear somewhat healthier than what you really are. Wearing a corset would make you look thinner but only up to the equivalent of 50% hunger, unless you had more hunger for real.

Hunger (rename to Weight)

100% plump
90% sturdy
80% in decent weight
70% slender
60% thin
50 % very thin
75% gaunt
90% skeletal

[sanchez]

Arlequin, we've tried to make recipes from a variety of ingredients so that chars in all regions have the ability to make prepared foods with reasonable nutrition benefit for the work that goes into them, as well as for the cooking infrastructure. However, as there will always be players who make decisions for their chars based on calculations in a spreadsheet, the choice for a more diverse diet needs to have RP motivation, at least somewhat. Short of changing the values for things like smoked and salted meat, there is little more we can do to drive customers to your restaurants in game. Helping newspawns in remote regions starve to death a little faster motivates nothing.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

I don't agree with this suggestion; I agree with Doug and Sanchez. They already made raw foods less nutritious (by double in some instances). Food has never been scarce in Cantr. I doubt the playerbase has much to do with the food in Cantr. There's no need to make the basic necessities even harder; it's already hard in some places. There are plenty of other things to focus on for more difficulty. I'll quote Sanchez for emphasis:

Helping newspawns in remote regions starve to death a little faster motivates nothing.

[Arlequin]

So where is exactly the harm in exchanging speed for output amount.

I had a newspawn that died because he couldn't cook fast enough the raw meat he hunted. Had he cooked it as fast as an expert, and got 90 grams of grilled meat instead of 100 -and a harmles 'you spoiled some food' message-, he would be still alive.

It greatly benefits new characters, which spend at least some days without food, and could survive two more days per each meal they can get ASAP. My newspawn didn't need 8 meals per day of work at awkard speed, he needed some food right then. It gets quickly worse for newspawns harmed by the local animals.

But nooo... that's horriblely wrong and my newspawns never died of a counterintuitive cooking skill.

And I couldn't care less about my tavern, which was closed long ago.

[sem]

Personally I quite like the suggestion - though I'd also tone down drying racks as well. As things stand agrarian towns probably have a harder time keeping characters than barren mountains do; there's no need to bother about trading food because it's too easily available, so these towns have nothing to offer.

[sanchez]

As things stand agrarian towns probably have a harder time keeping characters than barren mountains do; there's no need to bother about trading food because it's too easily available, so these towns have nothing to offer.

That is certainly not the case, though it may change some with the animal adjustments. Nobody wants to travel for food, and it's just not valuable enough to trade.

[T-shirt]

Until spawning is recalculated so that there is no chance of a charrie spawning in the middle of nowhere, raw food should not be made less nutritious. The character I have now simply would have died had this been the case when he spawned.

A character should likely starve in those circumstances. Why not your character? Why should newspawns be spared if they spawn in dangerous or hazardous environments?

[notsure]

And please don't forget other language islands, where technology can be primitive. I could have one charrie die in the wilderness from hunger and not shed a tear, but when all my charries spawn in low-populated and low-technology places, it's not fair to have them all die, just because I speak a certain language.

notsure

[sem]

Nobody wants to travel for food, and it's just not valuable enough to trade.

Err yes. That was rather my point.

When I first started playing food was a trade item. When the great die-off of animals occurred it became even more of one for a short while. Now, as you say, it's almost worthless in most places.