EXPLOIT: Survival at 700 calories/day - please adjust!

[Magniff]

It's currently possible to regenerate HP as soon as none of the status bars are empty.
Therefore it's totally feasible to keep up an active lifestyle at only 700 - 800 calories per day.
[This is not about someone who's hibernating]

How?
(WARNING: Spoiler alert!)
............................................................................................................................................

Spoiler

Starve during the day and only eat shortly before you go to bed.
By consuming around 700 calories, you'll usually get enough regeneration time to entirely regain all HP you've previously lost by starving.

............................................................................................................................................

This methode turns food into an abundantly available ressource (one can easily feed for 3 - 4 days on a single wolf).
It significantly lowers the games survival feeling and almost entirely removes a big part of TLD's core gameplay.

Here are two alternative suggestions to counter this exploit:

1.) Only permit HP regeneration if none of the status bars is below 1/3 of it's maximum value (i.e. deep red).
This would approximately double the required calories per day, if someone is actually utilizing this methode. Therefore raising the required amount of calories/day to a way more plausible level.
I'm also quite sure this won't be to harsh, in case a player needs to recover HP while he's affected by a negative affliction.

2.) Rais the HP loss per hour caused by starving (WARNING: Contains spoilers).
At least one hour of sleeping while being feed should be necesarry, to compensate for the HP loss caused by starving for one hour.
Currently one hour of sleeping is offseting roughly three hours of starving.

Best regards
Magniff

[Magniff]

This exploit has allready been addressed by 3rdbrother in the feedback section.

A third alternative, involving negative afflictions, has also been suggested there.

Thread link for reference:
Efficient Gameplay with 0 calories

[Dirmagnos]

Devs could just nerf condition gain from sleeping. Its way 2 easy to maintain good condition, since player regains 10% of it per hour regardless of other stats.

Reduce it to 3% per hour, with further penalties if one or several of statuses are at 0 and if player is sick(like decreasing by 0.5% per status). Would fix a ton of exploits that make life in LD extremely easy.

[vancopower]

2 hours ago, Magniff said:

It's currently possible to regenerate HP as soon as none of the status bars are empty.
Therefore it's totally feasible to keep up an active lifestyle at only 700 - 800 calories per day.
[This is not about someone who's hibernating]

 

Here are two alternative suggestions to counter this exploit:

1.) Only permit HP regeneration if none of the status bars is below 1/3 of it's maximum value (i.e. deep red).
This would approximately double the required calories per day, if someone is actually utilizing this methode. Therefore raising the required amount of calories/day to a way more plausible level.
I'm also quite sure this won't be to harsh, in case a player needs to recover HP while he's affected by a negative affliction.

2.) Rais the HP loss per hour caused by starving (WARNING: Contains spoilers).
At least one hour of sleeping while being feed should be necesarry, to compensate for the HP loss caused by starving for one hour.
Currently one hour of sleeping is offseting roughly three hours of starving.

Best regards
Magniff

We should be considerate other players too, people that are just discovering the game don't know how to get food I read many topics people dying from starvation. They need this mech to get the feel of TLD however I agree that this could be considered an exploit so I suggested many times prolonged use of this mechanics should be penalized for example adding malnutrition sickness appearing if the survivor is starving for a day or two, with great penalty to fatigue and can only be cured if the survivor stays fed more than 24 hours something like that I'm sure Devs will balance it out more efficiently, so yes when you are starting you will rely on this exploit  but for long-term it will cause more harm than good. Similar to hypothermia in the previous versions people ware using their condition to gather as much wood as they can then go to the base rest eat up refill to 100 and again I still have the old saves where I have almost 1000 fir firewood so yea instead of nerfing down the "exploit" this would be more creative and fun too.

[Schneidox]

Maybe it can just be included in stalker mode so those who want such a difficult game can have it. Just a thought as a comprise for those just starting and those looking for more. 

[swissheart]

I think it should be adjusted. You can't eat 500 calories, burn 2000+ and still be strong and healthy.

[vancopower]

1 hour ago, swissheart said:

I think it should be adjusted. You can't eat 500 calories, burn 2000+ and still be strong and healthy.

You are right however human body can go on without food for a month in the first 3 days you will become even more healthy, many religions adopted this some priests even go on 40 days without any food, only water should I mention Matt Damon who ate potatoes for a whole year , I bet that he didn't even made the 500 daily calories intake. Also forget calories human body needs proteins to stay healthy which you get so it's fine actually. Human body is very adoptable all those wars, dark ages hardships are imprinted on our genes, however yes when you are not hungry it is easier to do hard work like lifting, chopping wood, on the other hand I find from my personal experience it is better to do aerobics on a empty stomach, 3 days ago I walked 15 km and run for 5 more and I didn't felt tired today I walked 10 KM but hardly I was catching my breath all the time the difference was today I ate full breakfast and 3 days ago I just went with 1 apple which for my standards is empty stomach   anyway to sum up not eating properly will have long term effect not short term so the mechanics works fine they just need to add the long term effect.

[Magniff]

Hey Guys,

just to keep you up to date. This is something I've just posted in the feedback section, concerning the same issue.
It's based on SteveP's suggestion on tracking the players body fat ratio in order to fix this exploit.
 

Implementation of body fat:
The players body fat ratio could be implemented as some kind of dynamic affliction. The actual effect of this affliction would depend on the current body fat ratio.

In general, body fat could also provide some degree of protection against HP loss from starvation. Instead of loosing condition, you would primarily lose body fat until your body fat ratio has dropped to zero.

Gain and loss of body fat:
As soon as a player is starving (empty hunger bar), his body fat would start to decrease at a certain rate.
It would be gained at the same rate, if the player is currently sleeping and not starving at the same time.
Therefore, if you want to keep yor body fat ratio constant, you'd need to sleep as many hours being feed as you you've previously been starving.

Consequences of a high body fat ratio:
A very high body fat ratio would provide a small warmth bonus, but also cause the player to be slower while he's moving on snow.

Consequences of a low body fat ratio:
A low body fat ratio could provide a small speed bonus on snow (shouldn't be faster than moving on a road) but also induce a warmth penalty.
As soon as the body fat ratio gets really low, wolfs would start to be more aggressive towards the player (since he resembles a weak prey, now).

Some mercy to fresh spawns:
Freshly spwaned players could be provided with a rather high body fat ratio, to keep the level of punishment low during the first few days.

[cekivi]

If you're talking about the Martian what they didn't make clear in the movie (mentioned off hand) was that he wasn't living on only a diet of only potatoes but also eating nutritional supplements so he wouldn't get ill. In real life a potato only diet would likely be very bad for you

[Vhalkyrie]

There are many topics about this, everyone pretty much agrees that no one likes the anorexics who starve themselves on a continuous basis on purpose.  I don't know what the right answer is because no matter what it will be abused in some way.  Let's say they add a starvation affliction that occurs after 3 days of not filling up on calories.  They will starve 2 days, then on the 3rd day eat 2 kilos of fish.  I'm more concerned about them adding a mechanic to address this that is harmful to the legit players.  If I'm stuck indoors due to a blizzard, sometimes I won't eat anything in the morning because I'm not doing any kind of activity other than cooking, boiling, or repairing clothes, which aren't very strenuous.  I don't want to get a "starvation" affliction because I skipped breakfast because I think food rationing is a valid mechanic.

Personally, I don't care that people are doing this.  The only part that bothers me about it is this is how people get to the top of the leaderboard this way.  I don't really care about leaderboards either, but the only thing I'd like to see is that they aren't rewarded for it.

[Scyzara]

9 hours ago, Vhalkyrie said:

 If I'm stuck indoors due to a blizzard, sometimes I won't eat anything in the morning because I'm not doing any kind of activity other than cooking, boiling, or repairing clothes, which aren't very strenuous.  I don't want to get a "starvation" affliction because I skipped breakfast because I think food rationing is a valid mechanic.

If you knew there was a severe and punishing starvation affliction, you would probably pay more attention to always keep your meat storages full all the time and never get into the position of having to skip breakfast in the first place. 

I personally don't worry at all about the Devs making starvation too punishing. Especially not if you only starve yourself for some hours by accident. I very much assume the Devs' fear to make starvation too punishing accidentally is the sole reason why they haven't addressed the whole issue yet albeit hundreds (if not even thousands) of players have been complaining about starvation-hibernation for the last two years.

None of the other afflictions currently found in the game is an immediate death sentence either, you always have plenty of time to deal with everything (food poisoning, infections, freezing, etc). I don't see even the slightest risk that the Devs might deal with starvation in a different way if they ever decide to create a starvation affliction.

I don't care about the leaderboards any more (for several reasons I explained in depth in the past), but I do care about choices. And deciding to starve yourself on purpose should be a choice that comes with massive downsides, because it also comes with massive benefits.

In my opinion, the core problem with the current game mechanics is that starving yourself has various benefits (less hunting trips -> less wolf danger -> less medicine needed, less ammunition needed, decreased wear of knife & hatchet because you harvest less wood & meat, decreased wear of clothes because you spend less time exposed to the wind, etc. etc.) but no downsides at all.

From an efficiency point of view, starvation-hibernation is by far the best playstyle to survive a given period of time with as little ressources as possible. That's the key problem I personally have with this exploit: It's unarguably not only the less risky, but also the easiest to perform AND the most ressource-efficient playstyle. 

TLD allows numerous different playstyles, most people would probably agree that this variability is one of the reasons why they love the game so much. Most of these playstyles are more or less just a matter of personal taste, they're not way superior or inferior compared to other playstyles. I only wish starvation-hibernation was just one of them, equal (and not ridiculously superior) to them in efficiency. 

 

 

[Vhalkyrie]

@Scyzara We'll agree to disagree.  I don't see a problem with short term calorie restriction for the purpose of less hunting trips, less resource use, etc.  Resource management is an integral part of the game.  Resource management only becomes necessary at Voyager and Stalker levels - at Pilgrim it's a non factor.  If you look at my game stats, you'll see that I am not in any way a hibernator, nor am I in any kind of long term starvation - my condition is never below 90%.  I do ration my food supply carefully, and my meat locker is never empty.  My normal activity is to eat 800 calories in the morning, around 400 mid afternoon, and 800-1000 in the evening, which is about 90% of my daily calorie use.  If I am travelling long distances, I eat to 100% full.  However, if I know that I'm going to be indoor for 12 hours due to a blizzard, there's no reason to unnecessarily eat down my food supply if I'm not going to be engaged outdoors.  If I sometimes skip breakfast in real life is not going to make me so weak and struggling to pick up a rifle either.  I'm playing my game as if I, the player, was actually in this situation.  If I were actually stuck in the Canadian wilderness with limited food and resources, I would eat fewer calories if I was stuck indoors during a blizzard.

The first 30 days is always the hardest for me in the early game, and I'm always fighting for that next day of survival.  At this point, I am pretty stable, and I'm happy with that.  What I see going on here is that some people want to always be on the edge of that feeling, which is cool.  However, at this point in my game, I'm happy with where I'm at.  I have different goals - which has nothing to do with leaderboards or achievements.  What I want is to see how long can I live, but I don't care about beating anyone else's stats.  I don't care if I live longer or less than anyone else.  I'm not competing against anyone but myself.  I want to see what mistakes I make, and what I can do better.  Did I spend too many resources early on?  Should I have done something different?  My game is just a personal story, and I don't compare myself to anyone else's game, whether they are doing better or worse than me.

What I suggest is that they tweak the Stalker setting so that you are always on the edge of fighting for that next day, but in my Voyager game, I'm doing just fine.  I don't want them to change it.  Or at least make these customizable settings so that I can set the experience that I want.

[Scyzara]

21 minutes ago, Vhalkyrie said:

@Scyzara We'll agree to disagree.  

 

If I interpret your post correctly, we're not even disagreeing - we're just talking about different things. 

I don't mind at all if you (or somebody else) decides to spend some hours starving on purpose. I don't even care if that gives said person an advantage regarding the leaderboards (as I don't consider them to be a meaningful measure of success or skill under the current game conditions anyway). 

I'm just saying that - for my very own game and my very own decision making - I would enjoy it if I knew that starving myself on purpose for extended periods of time would have severe downsides (because it also has huge advantages). There's currently an imbalance regarding the advantages vs the disadvantages of the starvation-hibernation playstyle which becomes worse the longer somebody's starvation periods are. (Just to make things clear: I definitely don't consider your playstyle to be the classic hibernation playstyle as you don't starve yourself all the time in general but only for short periods occasionally).

You're probably not even noticing this imbalance because you're only starving yourself under special circumstances for a short period of time. It seems to be a conscious decision for you and I'm in no way suggesting to take this choice away from you by punishing short starvation periods with an extremely hard-to-cure (or otherwise punishing) debuff. I'm 100% convinced the Devs would never do that anyway as they don't want to punish inexperienced players who starve accidentally.

I'm just saying that in a game like TLD where choices are supposed to have a meaning, the choice to get the benefits of starvation permanently all the time shouldn't come without any downsides. Rationing your food and starving yourself on purpose should be a conscious decision (which it obviously is for you) and an option the player may make use of in certain special situations, but I personally very much dislike the fact that it's currently the most efficient way to go all the time in general.

 

[Vhalkyrie]

Just now, Scyzara said:

I'm just saying that in a game like TLD where choices are supposed to have a meaning, the choice to get the benefits of starvation permanently all the time shouldn't come without any downsides. Rationing your food and starving yourself on purpose should be a conscious decision (which it obviously is for you) and an option the player may make use of in certain special situations, but I personally very much dislike the fact that it's currently the most efficient way to go all the time in general.

Oh yeah - with that I am in 100% agreement!

[Dirmagnos]

23 hours ago, vancopower said:

You are right however human body can go on without food for a month in the first 3 days you will become even more healthy, many religions adopted this some priests even go on 40 days without any food, only water should I mention Matt Damon who ate potatoes for a whole year , I bet that he didn't even made the 500 daily calories intake. Also forget calories human body needs proteins to stay healthy which you get so it's fine actually. Human body is very adoptable all those wars, dark ages hardships are imprinted on our genes, however yes when you are not hungry it is easier to do hard work like lifting, chopping wood, on the other hand I find from my personal experience it is better to do aerobics on a empty stomach, 3 days ago I walked 15 km and run for 5 more and I didn't felt tired today I walked 10 KM but hardly I was catching my breath all the time the difference was today I ate full breakfast and 3 days ago I just went with 1 apple which for my standards is empty stomach   anyway to sum up not eating properly will have long term effect not short term so the mechanics works fine they just need to add the long term effect.

You do not become "more healthier" after a few days of starvation. Its more like a big red sign created by a body "time to pack up". You feel like youre lighter(because you are) and can do more and feel more vigorous because body shuts down non-functioning digestion system(and it is a big deal, since its an essential part of our organism and restarting it takes effort and energy - like the fact that after such events you cant eat 2 much 2 fast, or you will just puke everything out, since organism is not ready; not to mention point-of-no-return state, where person is still alive, but even when fed it wont matter, he will die, 2 much damage is done) and switches on "emergency reserves" stored in fat(that has its own plethora of hazards, like the fact that fat is the storage space not to just energy but also many toxins, that then get released into bloodstream as body burns fat, and with no external energy supply it puts even greater strain on already dwindling energy reserves) and later muscle. Its anything but healthy, unless organism is adapted to periodic prolonged starvation cycles(even then its just less harmful).

We are adoptable, thats how we are where we are, but we are not that adoptable. Its takes time, often generations, to get adopted to some severe changes in environment.

[vancopower]

7 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

You do not become "more healthier" after a few days of starvation. Its more like a big red sign created by a body "time to pack up". You feel like youre lighter(because you are) and can do more and feel more vigorous because body shuts down non-functioning digestion system(and it is a big deal, since its an essential part of our organism and restarting it takes effort and energy - like the fact that after such events you cant eat 2 much 2 fast, or you will just puke everything out, since organism is not ready; not to mention point-of-no-return state, where person is still alive, but even when fed it wont matter, he will die, 2 much damage is done) and switches on "emergency reserves" stored in fat(that has its own plethora of hazards, like the fact that fat is the storage space not to just energy but also many toxins, that then get released into bloodstream as body burns fat, and with no external energy supply it puts even greater strain on already dwindling energy reserves) and later muscle. Its anything but healthy, unless organism is adapted to periodic prolonged starvation cycles(even then its just less harmful).

We are adoptable, thats how we are where we are, but we are not that adoptable. Its takes time, often generations, to get adopted to some severe changes in environment.

Oh yea?, I was kickboxing champion for 5 years straight all muscle and I still could go on for a week without a proper food what are you describing here is a nonsense, toxins? eating up muscle ? the tings you are describing only happen on prolonged starvation, first try it go  at least 1 day without food then get medical and ask the doctor to make you a blood test and compere results with previous test youll see your blood cells will be normal your sugar normal everything normal you might lack some mineral but that is not a big deal, as I said 2.000 years of tradition can't be wrong priests fast for 40 days only bread and water some of them drink only water and they experience nothing of what you describe here I guarantee it. The only pain and side effect of fasting for 1-2 days will be mental nothing else, the only part that gets "damaged" from starvation is the liver since it is trying to make glucose from lipids and that process takes energy. however the liver is the only organ in the human body that can actually regrow so even if you damage your liver badly like from alcohol and eating fat if you start living healthy the liver will regrow. The effect that you are describing here are more psychological  than physical point of no return ? whaat?

what does that mean your body shuts down digestion sysem? are you talking about a human body or some AI cyborg digestion system never shuts down your insulin levels go up because there is no carbs that insulin can transport in to the muscles. Again restarting? what like rebooting windows eating too fast ? look just try it don't eat food whole day drink some milk or yogurt before you go to bed it will be painful but in the morning you will have the best breakfast in your life and to your surprise you will not eat much since by then you'll get used to little food, come to think of it I might do that as well all those big meals I had during winter are sure anything but healthy

[Dirmagnos]

Yes, im referring to prolonged starvation and inability to properly restore body reserves afterwards.

One day is nothing, even a week is nothing. But if you do that often and/or for prolonged amounts of times, there will be serious side-effects. And when it comes to survival "all muscle" guys are the first ones to die from starvation.

And bread and water is not starvation, its fasting. Its a completely different thing. Not to mention that those people prepare themselfs for it, both physically and mentally and its always a choice. Most of that time they spend doing things like meditation, that require extremely low amount of energy.

Liver ? Even heard of liver cirrhosis ? Human organism has a lot of durability, but those reserves are not infinite and must be restored afterwards. Living only on minuscule amount of food can last only for so long, since eventually organism runs out of it reserves. But in LD you can eat once every 3 days and be completely ok, a month, three of six afterwards. There is no negative side-effects that would normally occur. When body do not get enough energy from external source, it turns to internal reserves, but since those are not infinite, eventually something has to give.

And yes, digestion system essentially shuts down during starvation. It shrinks and enzyme production gradually slows down. In addition, with prolonged starvation, as cells break down, it does, sometimes permanent, damage to all organs. Heart, lung and immune system are particularly affected. And as brain chemistry changes, so do our mental processing.

[hauteecolerider]

2 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

And yes, digestion system essentially shuts down during starvation. It shrinks and enzyme production gradually slows down. In addition, with prolonged starvation, as cells break down, it does, sometimes permanent, damage to all organs. Heart, lung and immune system are particularly affected. And as brain chemistry changes, so do our mental processing.

In vet medicine, we have to pay very close attention to alimentary nutrition (feeding by mouth), especially in cats, during chronic anorexia. Otherwise changes in the small intestine occur which result in loss of healthy mucosal cells (the cells responsible for digestion) as well as the gut microflora (which performs what is sometimes called pre-digestion - breaking down more complex molecules into simpler ones that can be absorbed by the gut lining). 

So sometimes when dealing with liver disease in a cat (one of the worst for anorexia and self-perpetuating cycle of liver destruction), we start a cat on tube feeding if they don't start eating on their own within 24-48 hours. 

Of course, these are much smaller animals with a much higher metabolic rate than humans, so the timescale in people is a little bit longer. But still, the principle is the same. 

[Sly]

On 4/3/2016 at 4:21 PM, Scyzara said:

I would enjoy it if I knew that starving myself on purpose for extended periods of time would have severe downsides (because it also has huge advantages). There's currently an imbalance regarding the advantages vs the disadvantages of the starvation-hibernation playstyle which becomes worse the longer somebody's starvation periods are.

That is why such affliction as malnutrition is very good to be implemented. I wonder why it was not done long ago... In my opinion long period of getting much less then minimal amount of energy for main metabolic processes (IRL near 24 kcal/kg per day for males and 10% less for females, may be much less in game) should be punished by malnutrition (may be even graded - light-mild-severe)  - affected (10-25-50%) speed/workspeed and stamina and tiredness and regeneration etc equal in time for restoring energy debt.

[Sly]

On 4/4/2016 at 5:31 PM, Dirmagnos said:

Yes, im referring to prolonged starvation and inability to properly restore body reserves afterwards.

One day is nothing, even a week is nothing. But if you do that often and/or for prolonged amounts of times, there will be serious side-effects. And when it comes to survival "all muscle" guys are the first ones to die from starvation.

And bread and water is not starvation, its fasting. Its a completely different thing. Not to mention that those people prepare themselfs for it, both physically and mentally and its always a choice. Most of that time they spend doing things like meditation, that require extremely low amount of energy.

Liver ? Even heard of liver cirrhosis ? Human organism has a lot of durability, but those reserves are not infinite and must be restored afterwards. Living only on minuscule amount of food can last only for so long, since eventually organism runs out of it reserves. But in LD you can eat once every 3 days and be completely ok, a month, three of six afterwards. There is no negative side-effects that would normally occur. When body do not get enough energy from external source, it turns to internal reserves, but since those are not infinite, eventually something has to give.

And yes, digestion system essentially shuts down during starvation. It shrinks and enzyme production gradually slows down. In addition, with prolonged starvation, as cells break down, it does, sometimes permanent, damage to all organs. Heart, lung and immune system are particularly affected. And as brain chemistry changes, so do our mental processing.

Right. Good point.

[miah999]

I haven't read everything in this thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating others...

I think character weight would be a good stat to base malnutrition mechanics off of. While in the real world there are issues of nutrition that don't effect weight, starvation can pretty quickly effect weight.

So thinking simply from a game design view as the weight stat decreases the negative modifiers (whatever would be appropriate) are increased. It may not be as detailed as life, but from a game play and design point of view, it gets the point across without being overly complex.

Also having a weight stat could allow for over-eating mechanics, obesity, and accompanying benefits and penalties there of. Imagine when the full season sandbox comes along and you can spend the good seasons, literally fattening up for winter, which has both advantages and drawbacks. It certainly something to think about.

[Sly]

On 7/21/2016 at 0:11 AM, Sly said:

On 7/21/2016 at 11:05 PM, miah999 said:

I think character weight would be a good stat to base malnutrition mechanics off of. While in the real world there are issues of nutrition that don't effect weight, starvation can pretty quickly effect weight.

So thinking simply from a game design view as the weight stat decreases the negative modifiers (whatever would be appropriate) are increased. It may not be as detailed as life, but from a game play and design point of view, it gets the point across without being overly complex.

Also having a weight stat could allow for over-eating mechanics, obesity, and accompanying benefits and penalties there of. Imagine when the full season sandbox comes along and you can spend the good seasons, literally fattening up for winter, which has both advantages and drawbacks. It certainly something to think about.

Good thought