Food poisoning

[Tsayers1068]

        I've been playing (and enjoying) TLD for the better part of a year now.  Overall it is excellent, it's about time someone made a game like this.  That being said, there are a couple of things that bug me.  The first one to come to mind is food poisoning, which in it's current form just doesn't seem to be much of an incentive to watch what one is eating.  Pop an antibiotic and sleep for 10 hours?  Big deal.  I would be in favor of something more like this, at least for Stalker & Interloper:  Food poisoning would be miserable in the extreme, you would NOT sleep, being too busy voiding the contents of your stomach and doubling over in agony.  Also I don't think an antibiotic would do you much good as you could not keep it down.  You would have to "pass time" for the 10 hours, until you did so you could not eat anything, and would of course get no benefit from the food that made you sick.  You could drink, but would get only half benefit due to the constant stomach voiding.  As a result of these mechanics after this period you would be behind on your rest, hydration & food, possibly even losing health due to dehydration, starvation, exhaustion or any combination of the three and could possibly die, but that's to be expected.  Constant complaining from the character and perhaps even some gross sound effects would be icing on the cake.

 

There, that should get folks thinking about what they eat a little more carefully.  Should I really eat this piece of meat at 24% condition?

[cekivi]

Interesting notion if a little too severe. You don't always start puking with food poisoning. Sometimes it's mild. Other times.... well, far worse. I like the idea of condition with food mattering more especially if there are advanced cooking options implemented though to help mitigate the effects... provided you have time to cook your food

[Tsayers1068]

Well the numbers could always be tweaked a bit if it's too harsh, it wouldn't necessarily have to be 10 hours.  In fact if you wanted to introduce some randomness in severity you could make it, for example anywhere from 4-8 hours.

[Dirmagnos]

Original idea would be realistic, but would also result in player dying most of the times due to how survival in game is implemented. Lowering duration would be both unrealistic and pointless, so i prefer current system to that.

Food poisoning could use some reworking. Making it more severe but also harder to contract. Like dividing whole thing into stages, first few hours the worse and then gradually letting go for duration of 2-3 days. Poisoning could also be divided into 3 categories, from mild indigestion(reducing effect of consumed foods for duration) up to severe poisoning(current symptoms and more).

[cekivi]

8 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Poisoning could also be divided into 3 categories, from mild indigestion(reducing effect of consumed foods for duration) up to severe poisoning(current symptoms and more)

Personally, I think afflictions as a whole (sprains, burns, cuts, etc.) would greatly benefit from having tiers of severity.

[Tsayers1068]

9 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Original idea would be realistic, but would also result in player dying most of the times due to how survival in game is implemented. Lowering duration would be both unrealistic and pointless, so i prefer current system to that.

Food poisoning could use some reworking. Making it more severe but also harder to contract. Like dividing whole thing into stages, first few hours the worse and then gradually letting go for duration of 2-3 days. Poisoning could also be divided into 3 categories, from mild indigestion(reducing effect of consumed foods for duration) up to severe poisoning(current symptoms and more).

Yes, I agree it needs to be reworked.  But what would be some of the effects you would suffer during the different stages?

[cekivi]

Well, I would see it working as the following. Each tier also suffers all of the effects of the lower tiers.

• Mild: half calories from food. Treated with time.
• Moderate: double (triple?) water loss, double stamina loss. Treated with time
• Severe: Ecoli basically. Requires antibiotics to treat, water and stamina loss increases further. Treatment degrades to moderate. Further antibiotics (so two doses total) and rest cures food poisoning.

[Tsayers1068]

28 minutes ago, cekivi said:

Well, I would see it working as the following. Each tier also suffers all of the effects of the lower tiers.

• Mild: half calories from food. Treated with time.
• Moderate: double (triple?) water loss, double stamina loss. Treated with time
• Severe: Ecoli basically. Requires antibiotics to treat, water and stamina loss increases further. Treatment degrades to moderate. Further antibiotics (so two doses total) and rest cures food poisoning.

This I would be in favor of.

[Dirmagnos]

9 hours ago, cekivi said:

Well, I would see it working as the following. Each tier also suffers all of the effects of the lower tiers.

• Mild: half calories from food. Treated with time.
• Moderate: double (triple?) water loss, double stamina loss. Treated with time
• Severe: Ecoli basically. Requires antibiotics to treat, water and stamina loss increases further. Treatment degrades to moderate. Further antibiotics (so two doses total) and rest cures food poisoning.

Really nice. Severe could have some additional physical effects, but considering that player would be unable to do much anyway due to excessive loss of fluids and tiredness, there is simply no point to add anything since it wont change the outcome.

[cekivi]

10 hours ago, Dirmagnos said:

Really nice. Severe could have some additional physical effects, but considering that player would be unable to do much anyway due to excessive loss of fluids and tiredness, there is simply no point to add anything since it wont change the outcome.

Exactly

[vianegativa85]

This is interesting and I kind of agree with Tsayers1068 in some regards. There could be some way to make it a little more challenging or at least change how to resolve food poisoning. Having to pass time instead of just sleep is a good suggestion and maybe having to hydrate more or maybe only be able to consume liquids for the duration (i.e. soda, tea, water, etc.).

[cekivi]

Welcome to the forums @vianegativa85

[vianegativa85]

7 hours ago, cekivi said:

Welcome to the forums @vianegativa85

Thank you, sir!

Been playing The Long Dark since the very early days of the Steam Alpha release at the end of 2014. Glad to be a part of the community finally.

[Dirmagnos]

Normally food poisoning is not that severe as person being incapable to sleep. Granted, there will be a lot of vomiting and diarrhea in the beginning, but once digestive tract is empty, it will start to calm down(as irritant is gone and what has been absorbed is already in circulatory system) and with sufficient hydration person will be fairly ok, weak as a puppy, but ok, in 4-5 hours. By that time fatigue will hit hard and player would likely have no problems with sleeping, quite the opposite, as organism needs to recover.

[Mr.Zim]

On 2016-10-20 at 0:49 AM, cekivi said:

Well, I would see it working as the following. Each tier also suffers all of the effects of the lower tiers.

• Mild: half calories from food. Treated with time.
• Moderate: double (triple?) water loss, double stamina loss. Treated with time
• Severe: Ecoli basically. Requires antibiotics to treat, water and stamina loss increases further. Treatment degrades to moderate. Further antibiotics (so two doses total) and rest cures food poisoning.

I believe the calorie loss should be different between the three stages also. For example, on severe you get a -50% and for moderate -35% and mild -25% in calorie gain from food.