feature request: remove food from stores

[Huntington]

Instead of eliminating food, what if we changed the way magic spells work? The spells say "satisfy hunger" not "magically make a pot roast appear in your stomach"... meaning we could take that as the spells do exactly as written: they satisfy your hunger. However, the next time you're hungry, it'll skip the "hungry" status and go right to "weak" - as you've only masked the hunger pains, nothing more.

If there was some way to have subsequent casts of Satisfy Hunger keep you full for shorter and shorter durations, this would fit well, and with each cast the effects when it wears off becomes more drastic.... both of which are reset back to normal once you actually eat something.

[PowerDiver]

Anyway, doesn't recall have the same problem as food? It only takes a slot and occassional restocking for warriors, all the other classes get it with a spellbook they'd want to carry anyway (and that has powers a warriors has to fill more slots with scrolls to duplicate)

It's not the same at all in my games. Recall is sufficiently expensive and sufficiently high failure rate it is not a freebie until very late in my games. I often prefer to carry a stack of ?recall [or a rod if I am lucky] instead of Mordenkainens, or in addition to Ethereal Openings.

E.g. my "tales of the bold rogue" char was still carrying ?recall past DL90.

I don't really have a clue when it changes for people who dive at a typical pace, but I figure it has to be a whole lot deeper than when they stop carrying food.

[Donald Jonker]

How about allowing Warriors to have an ability to satiate their hunger?

Doesn't this achieve the same purpose as removing hunger?

Anyway, doesn't recall have the same problem as food?

Not quite. Recall is expensive in the early game, the spell is dungeon-book only, and very high level at that. In other words, all classes plays the recall game, unlike the food game. Whether the recall game itself should have some spicing up is the subject for another thread.

[pampl]

If people really feel that way, we should remove the satisfy hunger spell from the spellbooks. Let everyone enjoy that strategic element if it really improves the game.

I am opposed to hunger because it really only affects warriors. If it affected all mage-casters too, affecting more than half of the classes, then I would withdraw my objection.

How about allowing Warriors to have an ability to satiate their hunger? You could say they've spent long enough in the field they've learned how to live off of dungeon rats and other small game. That way they'd still have to choose when to stop and satisfy their hunger and not put themselves in a situation where they could be bloated.

Anyway, doesn't recall have the same problem as food? It only takes a slot and occassional restocking for warriors, all the other classes get it with a spellbook they'd want to carry anyway (and that has powers a warriors has to fill more slots with scrolls to duplicate)

[PowerDiver]

Removing hunger alltogether just feels like your removing a strategic element of the game, which is sometimes important..

If people really feel that way, we should remove the satisfy hunger spell from the spellbooks. Let everyone enjoy that strategic element if it really improves the game.

I am opposed to hunger because it really only affects warriors. If it affected all mage-casters too, affecting more than half of the classes, then I would withdraw my objection.

[takkaria]

Right now we have a store who's stock is primarily food. 10 or so different items that all accomplish the same thing, are worthless, are readily available in the dungeon, and have spells that mimic their effects.

3.1.0+ only has the one food item available in the general store, FWIW.

[Schroeder]

I don't really understand the appeal of removing either hunger or food from the shops.
Having food in shops helps to balance the fact that all the other classes except warriors get satisfy hunger. You'd probably have to make food drop more commonly, which is kinda just annoying. And you wouldn't have the option of dropping food in favor of nice drops, since food is so precious.
And beyond all of that...removing food from shops would just...feel wrong...I don't know how else I can put that.

Removing hunger alltogether just feels like your removing a strategic element of the game, which is sometimes important...
The poor, low lvl half troll warrior, who never seems to get enough food...
The foolish, higher lvl character who just quaffed a few too many ccw pots after casting satisfy hunger, while fighting a tough monster...
And in ironman, the feel from rogue of needing to go deeper before you run out of food.
I believe that these are all good reasons to keep hunger in the game.

I guess a good way to surmise my feelings on this is that a lot of changes like these don't necessarily make the gameplay any better, and help angband to lose its classic, vanilla feel.
Every time you make changes like these, you lessen the good, nostalgic feeling people will get in the future, when they decide to look at angband again. And with a game with as much of a history as this one, I believe this is important.

[buzzkill]

Imo, you shouldn't try to shake up and do new, crazy things with angband.

Crazy idea? I think not. There's plenty of food available in the dungeon. If no food was sold in town (and you started with a few in the home), I doubt that the starvation rate would rise much, maybe from .5% to 1%.

Right now we have a store who's stock is primarily food. 10 or so different items that all accomplish the same thing, are worthless, are readily available in the dungeon, and have spells that mimic their effects.

IMO hunger is a necessary mechanic, but food need not be sold in stores. It provides flavor for some, but nothing more.

[Mondkalb]

Even the name suggests there should be food involved.

So add ice cream to the store supplies. ^^

[takkaria]

Imo, you shouldn't try to shake up and do new, crazy things with angband.
Its called Vanilla for a reason. Lets keep it that way.

Even the name suggests there should be food involved.

[Schroeder]

Imo, you shouldn't try to shake up and do new, crazy things with angband.
Its called Vanilla for a reason. Lets keep it that way.

[Donald Jonker]

how about ?WOR are not sold in town anymore - instead the starting inventory of ?WOR increases to 2 from 1.
<snip>
It is really not a very good idea.

I just wouldn't want to see food go away.

Believe it or not, I have advocated such measures elsewhere.

[Hariolor]

how about ?WOR are not sold in town anymore - instead the starting inventory of ?WOR increases to 2 from 1.

Thereby requiring a first dive to go deep enough to obtain more ?WOR, or to learn satisfy hunger. If you fail in this endeavor, you are only penalized by having to race down to the depth from which you last recalled.

This may require tweaking the frequency/level of ?WOR occurrence.

It also makes fire and acid more deadly.

It is really not a very good idea.

I just wouldn't want to see food go away.

[PowerDiver]

To clarify: I presume you mean that while food in other roguelikes encourages exploring deeper in the dungeon (in order to find more of it before starving), in Angband it actually forces you to go more slowly, by making you return to town to buy more. It's a strange paradox, which is why I think there is ample justification for reform, one way or the other.

I don't disagree with what you wrote, but that wasn't really my point.

Clearing a greater vault or dealing with a demon explosion is generally not feasible with the kind of food available in the original rogue. The choice to put such things into the game is a choice to make massive amounts of food necessary, *except* that everyone besides warriors gets unlimited food without costing an inventory slot, so it only matters to warriors.

Personally, my warriors eat until bloated in town and recall back when hungry. No precious slot is wasted. However, I doubt that would be satisfying for most players.

[Donald Jonker]

The point of the food mechanic in the original rogue was to force people not to spend a lot of time on a level. That's opposed to the current sentiment here.

To clarify: I presume you mean that while food in other roguelikes encourages exploring deeper in the dungeon (in order to find more of it before starving), in Angband it actually forces you to go more slowly, by making you return to town to buy more. It's a strange paradox, which is why I think there is ample justification for reform, one way or the other.

There are plenty of good reasons to return to town without hunger. There are plenty of reasons to dive besides needing food - but I'm not convinced any of these are very good reasons. Finding better loot faster is a good reason. Device fail rates and boredom aren't. Finding food in order to survive would be a splendid new reason. Due to non-persistent levels, however, you would have to rig things so that food would only be generated on new floors.

As Eddie says, food at present is merely an inventory nuisance, with no gameplay function. So you can either add a mechanic or remove some empty calories. Perhaps the sanest thing would be removal.

I hope this is a modest proposal.

As you know, Tuesday was Soylent Green day.