[4.2.1] How to figure out why am I slow?

[DavidMedley]

Why do we bother with things like confusion and blindness preventing the player from reading the infinite supply and incredibly cheap Phase Door scrolls? Let's just remove them from the game and map the p key to an innate Phase ability that every character has.

[Grotug]

What about elevensies?

I suggest that Hobbits have an innate ability to resist gorging. Let them eat second breakfast, elevensies and afternoon tea to their hearts' content.

[Adam]

Food can be more relevant in iron man games.
Otherwise I also don't bother with it much (or better to say "not at all").
I don't know how it could be made more interesting... it if was more rare and some of it had race dependent behaviour? Like half orc can't eat elven bread (or eating it would mean salt water effect with x% chance or drain str/con with y% etc).

[licker]

I found it somewhat interesting. The lower my satiation when I went down to the dungeon, the likelier it was that I'd have to abandon a level prematurely because I got hungry (or take up a precious inventory slot with some food). The higher my satiation, the likelier it was I was going to be gorged at an inopportune moment. Balancing that was moderately interesting, but on the whole it wasn't a big part of the game by any means. It didn't bother me, but I can see how it would bother other people.

That being said, if the choice was between "making food more interesting" and "removing it entirely" I'd probably lean towards "remove entirely." I just don't see how you make it interesting in a game with infinite resources like Angband. I mean, I guess food could give you buffs, but we already have potions, scrolls and mushrooms for that (and honestly I mostly ignore mushrooms).

Food isn't a wasted slot though, unless you don't have any empty slots when you go into the dungeon.

Sure, you technically have some in a slot, but as soon as you need a free slot to carry whatever you are bringing out with you, you just drop it. At least that's what I do. But I also play with no selling, and frankly, I never care about carrying anything other than what I can use immediately (or what I'm stocking for deeper levels).

Why do we bother with things like confusion and blindness preventing the player from reading the infinite supply and incredibly cheap Phase Door scrolls? Let's just remove them from the game and map the p key to an innate Phase ability that every character has.

Fine. Give me a resist food ego item so that I never starve and we can call it the same thing. Oh, but slow digestion? Nope, not the same at all. Otherwise you might enjoy playing some kind of hunger simulator game, I don't know why a hunger mini game which has no impact on anything else in the game (once you understand it) is anything anyone wants, but if pointless micromanagement is your thing then fair enough.

[Nick]

What is the reason why this change to food was made?

It's one of the things I find most irritating about the game now. I'd be happier to just remove food entirely honestly because it always feels incredibly pointless to me, but at least in older versions you just carried a pile of sat hunger (or used the spell) and didn't really care about it.

I'm guessing it was to actually make food items have 'value' but frankly, the better solution would have been to just remove a mechanic that's only there to be annoying. (my opinion of course)

The change was made because food had become silly - every class except warriors had a Satisfy Hunger spell, so it was just another inventory tax on warriors. On the other hand, there was a certain amount of support for keeping food in the game for flavor (!) reasons, and because even in this vestigial form it occasionally led to interesting gameplay decisions.

So the current system was developed (with considerable player input) and implemented. It's probably worth listing the main features of it:

• Full status (90% fed and above) slows the player by one point of speed for each 1%;
• Hungry status (and weak, etc) has progressive effects the hungrier the player gets - worse to-hit, to-dam, device skill, disarm skill, and so on;
• Regeneration is improved the better fed the player is;
• Only a small number of classes get hunger removal spells, which only feed the player to 50%;
• There are more interesting types of food available, some of which have secondary effects;
• Big healing potions no longer have food value.

I'm not going to provide a rehash of the entire debate; just look at the list of forum threads and aim for the longer ones

[tangar]

What is the reason why this change to food was made?

It's one of the things I find most irritating about the game now. I'd be happier to just remove food entirely honestly because it always feels incredibly pointless to me, but at least in older versions you just carried a pile of sat hunger (or used the spell) and didn't really care about it.

I'm guessing it was to actually make food items have 'value' but frankly, the better solution would have been to just remove a mechanic that's only there to be annoying. (my opinion of course)

The change was made because food had become silly - every class except warriors had a Satisfy Hunger spell, so it was just another inventory tax on warriors. On the other hand, there was a certain amount of support for keeping food in the game for flavor (!) reasons, and because even in this vestigial form it occasionally led to interesting gameplay decisions.

So the current system was developed (with considerable player input) and implemented. It's probably worth listing the main features of it:

• Full status (90% fed and above) slows the player by one point of speed for each 1%;
• Hungry status (and weak, etc) has progressive effects the hungrier the player gets - worse to-hit, to-dam, device skill, disarm skill, and so on;
• Regeneration is improved the better fed the player is;
• Only a small number of classes get hunger removal spells, which only feed the player to 50%;
• There are more interesting types of food available, some of which have secondary effects;
• Big healing potions no longer have food value.

I'm not going to provide a rehash of the entire debate; just look at the list of forum threads and aim for the longer ones

In my variant I've removed food from the shops and rebalanced it's drop chances, so finding food is a challenge. It's become much more interesting - as sometimes (if you were unlucky in finding food) you have to play faster and roam levels for food.

But to implement it properly - there should be yet another addition - to forbid players 'grind' low dungeon lvls for food (in PWMA it's made by 'dungeon brackets' concept; yet another way - to make low lvl layers statics - won't give items drop or exp).. in Tangaria 'dungeon brackets' concept make the game something in between of Ironman and regular game... and it feel great

[moosferatu]

• Hungry status (and weak, etc) has progressive effects the hungrier the player gets - worse to-hit, to-dam, device skill, disarm skill, and so on;
• Regeneration is improved the better fed the player is;

I did not know this. I thought it only made me slow when I was above 90%. At what thresholds do these other effects kick in? When I was playing rangers I would always just use the satisfy hunger spell to keep my characters between 30%-50% feed, and completely ignored food. I assume that that range is low enough that I was negatively affected?

[Monkey Face]

Hungry status kicks in when you are below 15%. Weak kicks in sometime after that (I try to avoid weak so I don't know the number). Fainting kicks in around 1% (I only know that one from drinking salt water potions about once a game).

[Nick]

I did not know this. I thought it only made me slow when I was above 90%. At what thresholds do these other effects kick in? When I was playing rangers I would always just use the satisfy hunger spell to keep my characters between 30%-50% feed, and completely ignored food. I assume that that range is low enough that I was negatively affected?

As noted, hunger only affects you below 15%. Regen is multiplied by (100 + fed%/3) / 100, so is about 1/3 better at 99% fed than at 1% - not a huge effect.

[licker]

Thanks for the details Nick.

Maybe one day people will see the same light I see, but until then I'll just deal with it

[DavidMedley]

OK, serious suggestion: we could make Slow Digestion the best possible version of itself.

• You are always treated as if you are full (90%)
• Your food meter cannot go up or down
• When you remove this flag you return to whatever hunger level you had when you put it on

Change the name from Slow Digestion to Sustenance, maybe. Amulet of Sustenance, for example. Make this flag a little more pricey in value calculations.

[DavidMedley]

Not that I've ever had an objection to the food meter, which seems like a very easy part of the game to manage. I'm more interested to see what minutiae these people complain about next with a change like I suggested above.

[licker]

Not that I've ever had an objection to the food meter, which seems like a very easy part of the game to manage. I'm more interested to see what minutiae these people complain about next with a change like I suggested above.

Your suggestion above is fine, why would anyone complain about it?

The point about food isn't if it's easy or difficult to manage, it's that it serves no larger purpose. It is not an interesting choice, it is a trivial mechanic which requires only the most basic interaction with.

So why keep it?

Answers such as 'mushrooms! or food effects!' are completely beside the point. You can keep such effects in the game simply as alternatives to !?-_ if you like, but the meter in and of itself is simply not a very interesting, or dynamic system.

If it's there for 'immersion' or 'flavor' so be it. I'd still prefer a birth option to turn it off. But I'm not really pushing that as some sort of demand or anything, just expressing my opinion. I already live with it, most of the time I don't really care about it, but I still don't see a reason beyond 'immersion' for it to be in the game.

[DavidMedley]

I disagree with the premise above. Very few people complain, really, about having to eat some rations from time to time. People complain about not being able to keg stand 20 potions of cure X wounds. It *is* a meaningful limit on potions which have 0% fail rate and can be drunk in any enemy- imposed condition that I'm aware of, when you get a turn (so not paralysis or KO). When someone proposes any kind of alternative limiting factor on potions, that is worth listening to. The cool down idea, for example, would be a reasonable alternative.

[wobbly]

I'd argue that people can still keg down 20 potions if they hit R9999 before recalling from town & that's the kind of micro management that bugs some of us.

As a note, I've been pretty vocal about disliking this mechanic & I'm probably an outlier in that I play the game without the rest command 99% of the time. For me it is very much forcing me to play the game in a way I'd rather not, with little actual gain. If you aren't resting this mechanic is horrible. It's like being randomly struck with -x speed just for playing the game in the wrong fashion. I literally don't eat, & my food counter just goes up & up. & then I'm slowed forever, or at least till I drink salt water or press R9999 & apparently something was gained?

I don't mind food and eating, I've always defended it for flavour reasons, but the mechanic as is? in my opinion borked. old style gorged was less painful.