Thirst effects

[Boneviolin]

Your body needs water, everyone knows that. And If you don't, the effects may be rathet serious and might last long.

One of The first signs of dehydration is headache. This effect is already in the game, so it would Be pretty easy to make. So once you get thirsty enough, you get applied with headache that lasts until you drink something. But it doesnt dissapear instantly. It lasts a bit after you have been hydrated. 

The longer term effects could Be something like this:

If you are too dehydrated for a long time, you get an effect that makes you weak and tired. It gets worse, the longer you are dehydrated, kinda like your Weight being reduces, the more tired you are. And it doesn't just go away by drinking water. You have to stay hydrated for a certain amount of Time, to recover from it. And the worse it has got the longer the recovery is.

 

This ain't a very big or important change, but it's a small and realistic addition, that i would like to have, to make the game a bit harder.

[Derek0311]

I agree that dehydration should be modeled as accurately as possible.  Along with your suggestion I also think that the character should get colder faster and have a greater risk of frostbite (despite wearing clothing).  This is a more drastic change but as dehydration progresses cold weather injuries are a greater risk as the blood thickens and becomes less effective at keeping the body functioning.  There by causing heat generation to decline.

[grey1600]

Uh, quick question to clarify: Do you mean you'd have to keep the hydration bar at 50% or higher (or some other number) to avoid it, or just don't let it go empty for longer than an hour or so?

Edited January 7, 2021 by grey1600

[Boneviolin]

I originally thougt that The headache would come at something like 30-40%, and the more serious effects would come at lower than 20%, in about one day without the percen changing much.

 

[grey1600]

55 minutes ago, Boneviolin said:

I originally thougt that The headache would come at something like 30-40%, and the more serious effects would come at lower than 20%, in about one day without the percen changing much.

 

That wouldn't particularly work with how the hydration bar fluctuates a fair amount rather regularly, meaning it'd never stay at the same level long enough for effects to kick in. Maybe something like an hour of it being in the red/empty zone for the light effects, three hours for the more serious stuff, something like that could work?

[odizzido]

It sounds fine, in concept.....but are you guys ever really in a situation where you have no water access unless it's on the first day or two in the game?

[Lexilogo]

On 1/7/2021 at 5:16 PM, odizzido said:

It sounds fine, in concept.....but are you guys ever really in a situation where you have no water access unless it's on the first day or two in the game?

This is definitely true. Game design wise it wouldn't change that much as Water's quite plentiful.

I'm not sure about outright tiredness debuffs as the OP describes, but I do think giving Hunger and Thirst more cascading negative effects for the player if they ignore them has legitimate merit. The other Needs already do this: Temperature comes with Hypothermia risks, Fatigue lowers your carryweight, and Hunger rewards you instead with the Well Fed buff if you can keep up with it.

I would probably suggest becoming Dehydrated causes something like your Fatigue to lower much faster instead. You don't just deal with slow and steady Condition loss, but you also risk another Need starting to run dry.

[wilsonaka]

Slowing your pace would make sense, since you're not actually "wanting" to go anywhere if you're that dehydrated. It would not only be a chore, but it would definitely have some regret attached to it, having to walk further than one's desire.

[Old Hermit]

On 1/7/2021 at 2:16 PM, odizzido said:

It sounds fine, in concept.....but are you guys ever really in a situation where you have no water access unless it's on the first day or two in the game?

During my second run into Ash Canyon, i forgot to take all my recycled cans when i had to clear my inventory to face a double rope climb (i always carry 2). When i noticed, i was kilometers away from them, and it almost kills me thirsty and by coffee abstinence =D

So, i think that a more severe dehydration system could give a "little push" to inattentive players ^^

[Lycrist]

I created an account just to upvote this.

Yes. Being dehydrated should definitly have some negative effects - a headache seems plausible because that's what you would get iRL as well.

However I suggest using a risk affliction that boils up once the thrist bar hits 0 - pretty much similar to hypothermia. Why? Simply - because when you sleep for 10 hours in interloper, you will be dehydrated when you wake up. This should not result in negative effects by default.

Headache resulting from dehydration should last for like 2ish (4*) hours and be curable which painkillers and rose hip tea. Obviously if dehydration is not treated the headache risk would build up again.

I also open for some kind of dehydration and dehydration risk affection that would build up over 24 (12*) hours and have some severe consequences if untreated.

*values for interloper

PS: Sorry for the somewhat necro-posting. But i didn't want to start a new topic for obvious reasons
PPS: I am not wolfbait. I has torch.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Lycrist

[UpUpAway95]

This sounds like forced micromanagement of a health stat to me.  The effect of becoming dehydrated in the game currently is lost health.  Let it go long enough and you'll die, which is a pretty long-lasting (i.e. permanent) effect.  The dehydration indicated by 0% on the meter is already an arbitrary limit... above that, you are hydrated and below that you are dehydrated.

Now you're asking that we pay attention to the 30% line to avoid getting a headache (which is a pretty benign effect in the game anyways).  I don't see the point.  What's next?  We have to watch for every 5% drop in any of the meters?  Carry weight drops by 1% with every 5% drop in the fatigue meter?  Shivering starts when the temperature bar reaches 50% and the effects last until you've stood by a fire for an hour in game, etc., etc.?  How "fussy" do we really want to make this game?  Drink too much water and the character has to stop for bathroom breaks?

Edited April 4, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[odizzido]

If you put negative effects on the thirst meter then the thirst meter needs to be triple or quadruple the buffer it is now. As someone already mentioned you can literally die of thirst when sleeping even if you drank as much as your character could just before going to bed...

[Lycrist]

6 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

Carry weight drops by 1% with every 5% drop in the fatigue meter?

That's actually a thing, you know?
Carry weight drops by x with every y% under 50%.

Anyways: I agree that effects should only start once the bar is competly empty.

Edited April 4, 2021 by Lycrist

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Lycrist said:

That's actually a thing, you know?
Carry weight drops by x with every y% under 50%.

Anyways: I agree that effects should only start once the bar is competly empty.

Above 50% it doesn't drop at all... what I was going on about would be changing it to drop 1% every 5% drop, period, so that people carrying close to the max would have to micromanage their loads in order to, say, climb a rope... even if they had just slept and started with the meter at 100%.  The thirst meter is at 0% when the game decides you are dehydrated and starts to penalize you by causing you to lose HP.  It's simple and it works.  The game just says you're just sufficiently hydrated right up until the moment in time when you become dehydrated.   I really don't see a point to introducing a minor effect (headache) into the mix just to force people to micromanage the meter at 50%-  IRL, we don't have to be constantly sucking on a straw to stay adequately hydrated.  We can go a couple of hours without taking a drink.  This would only make the player have the character drink small amounts of water more frequently instead of drinking larger amount when the meter gets close to or at 0%.  If that's what's wanted, do we introduce the bathroom breaks too?... or, shouldn't some aspects of realism just be skipped over in the interest of keeping the game moving along rather than making it a never-ending source of day-to-day tedium?

Edited April 4, 2021 by UpUpAway95

[Lycrist]

@UpUpAway95 yeah. Don't get me wrong. I do not agree with the OP that negative effects of thirst should start at x% above 0%. All I was saying is that carry weight-drop is dynamic (below 50%).

However I disagree with the rest of your argument: Yes, you do lose HP for having your thrist bar depleted. But you also lose HP for having an empty warmth bar - but hypotherima is still a thing Hypothermia. Having it empty for too long will have even more severe consequences. I don't see why there has to be a difference compared to thirst.
The bar is empty. Dehydration risk boils up. When it reaches 100% you get a headache.

[UpUpAway95]

34 minutes ago, Lycrist said:

@UpUpAway95 yeah. Don't get me wrong. I do not agree with the OP that negative effects of thirst should start at x% above 0%. All I was saying is that carry weight-drop is dynamic (below 50%).

However I disagree with the rest of your argument: Yes, you do lose HP for having your thrist bar depleted. But you also lose HP for having an empty warmth bar - but hypotherima is still a thing Hypothermia. Having it empty for too long will have even more severe consequences. I don't see why there has to be a difference compared to thirst.
The bar is empty. Dehydration risk boils up. When it reaches 100% you get a headache.

Hypothermia risk only kicks in after the warmth bar hits 0%.  It is also a major effect, not a minor one like headache.  You did misunderstand my statement about the fatigue bar.  Yes, it kicks in with an effect at 50%; however, it has more of a meaningful impact than a headache does because it can prevent a player from climbing a rope or from getting back onto a rope if they spent too long on a ledge without sleeping.  I would prefer, however, that it kick in at 0% rather than the 50% line so that players would not so compelled to micromanage their fatigue during the day while climbing.  However, making that adjustment would also make the game a lot easier overall, which is something that probably would not go over well at this point.

The overall point is that there should be an acceptable balance maintained here.  Do we really want a game where we are required to micormanage all of the character's bodily functions?  Does it make it really more challenging... or does it make it just more tedious and frustrating?

I could acccept your version... headache at 0% with a mounting risk of dehydration... but there would have to be a more meaningful impact on what you can and cannot do while you have a headache and a long-term impact for having actual dehydration.  Something like... perhaps... the health bar doesn't deplete, but you have no health recovery for a few days until you become properly rehydrated (which would take more than one drink)... i.e. then maintaining the thirst bar above 50% for 48 hours or more?

[ajb1978]

Personally not a fan of adding afflictions for the sake of adding afflictions. If you ask me, the condition loss from dehydration represents the situation sufficiently. The fact that you can get by on 0.66L of water per day is fairly unrealistic yes, but the general system of "lose condition if your needs aren't met, regain condition if they are" is good enough.

If you're going to add an affliction for abusing thirst, then you should add a reward for keeping well hydrated to balance it out. Otherwise you're just stomping on people's toes for no good reason. I seem to recall a survey somewhere polling people on what they disable in Custom games, and Cabin Fever was right at the top by a huge margin. Now say that spending a lot of time outdoors contributed a buff which you couldn't obtain if CF were disabled, people wouldn't be so quick to nix it. Likewise I could be bothered to always keep thirst above 0 if doing so earned a buff that, I dunno negates the hit to your thirst from eating foods like crackers or beans or something. Just a little pat on the head for taking care of yourself, similar to Well Fed.

[ManicManiac]

On 4/4/2021 at 3:45 PM, Lycrist said:

Being dehydrated should definitly have some negative effects

There are negative effects... it's the steady loss of condition due to dehydration at a rate of approximately 2% per hour, meaning if left untreated the character would die of thrust in about 2 days (and considering it's a game... that seems reasonable to me; especially with how easily we can acquire water in the game right now).

I think that dehydration/thrust works fine as it is currently... I just don't really see anything here for Hinterland to "fix."

Edited April 5, 2021 by ManicManiac

[Lycrist]

7 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

I could acccept your version... headache at 0% with a mounting risk of dehydration... but there would have to be a more meaningful impact on what you can and cannot do while you have a headache and a long-term impact for having actual dehydration.  Something like... perhaps... the health bar doesn't deplete, but you have no health recovery for a few days until you become properly rehydrated (which would take more than one drink)... i.e. then maintaining the thirst bar above 50% for 48 hours or more?

Yeah. I fully agree that there should be no more micromanagement on certain "thrist levels" like the OP suggested. Headache risk should only start when the bar is empty. I don't know and actually don't think if there should be some kind of dehydration affliction. If, it should probably work like the food poison affliction: quickly depletion of condition and fatigue till healed.

 

2 hours ago, ajb1978 said:

Personally not a fan of adding afflictions for the sake of adding afflictions. If you ask me, the condition loss from dehydration represents the situation sufficiently. The fact that you can get by on 0.66L of water per day is fairly unrealistic yes, but the general system of "lose condition if your needs aren't met, regain condition if they are" is good enough.

If you're going to add an affliction for abusing thirst, then you should add a reward for keeping well hydrated to balance it out. Otherwise you're just stomping on people's toes for no good reason. I seem to recall a survey somewhere polling people on what they disable in Custom games, and Cabin Fever was right at the top by a huge margin. Now say that spending a lot of time outdoors contributed a buff which you couldn't obtain if CF were disabled, people wouldn't be so quick to nix it. Likewise I could be bothered to always keep thirst above 0 if doing so earned a buff that, I dunno negates the hit to your thirst from eating foods like crackers or beans or something. Just a little pat on the head for taking care of yourself, similar to Well Fed.

Well. No problem since it would "add" an affliction but rather use one that's already in the game. Fun fact about the headache by the way: You can not get a headache in interloper.

Mh. I don't see why staying hydrated should reward you with a buff. There's not buff for stay warm for longer than the bar can fill up. There's no buff for sleeping longer (actually that's not even possible, or is it?). Also keep in mind that sleeping for 10 hours will result in an empty thirst bar on interloper.

 

2 hours ago, ManicManiac said:

There are negative effects... it's the steady loss of condition due to dehydration at a rate of approximately 2% per hour, meaning if left untreated the character would die of thrust in about 2 days (and considering it's a game... that seems reasonable to me; especially with how easily we can acquire water in the game right now).

I think that dehydration/thrust works fine as it is currently... I just don't really see anything here for Hinterland to "fix."

But are there? The condition loss is pretty neglectable and considering the fact that water is in fact very easy to acquire, being dehydrated should cause some actual issues.
Also keep in mind that staying hydrated either requires planing ahead or using a match - which is something you might wanna avoid because matches are limited.

Edited April 6, 2021 by Lycrist

[ManicManiac]

11 minutes ago, Lycrist said:

But are there?

Yes... that why I said:

11 minutes ago, Lycrist said:

it's the steady loss of condition due to dehydration at a rate of approximately 2% per hour, meaning if left untreated the character would die of thrust in about 2 days (and considering it's a game... that seems reasonable to me; especially with how easily we can acquire water in the game right now).

 

11 minutes ago, Lycrist said:

Also keep in mind that stay hydrated ... requires planing ahead

Which I think is kind of a core concept built into the game play.  As I've discussed previously:

On 12/14/2020 at 7:52 PM, ManicManiac said:

I think this is a game that requires players to pay attention to what they are doing.
It's a game that has real consequences for mistakes (and sometimes just misfortune).

  

I mean, to each their own... but I feel the current mechanics accomplish what they set out to do just fine.  Having said that, I just don't think there is anything here for Hinterland to "fix."

 

 

Edited April 6, 2021 by ManicManiac

[Lycrist]

16 minutes ago, ManicManiac said:

Yes... that why I said:

 

Which I think is kind of a core concept built into the game play.  As I've discussed previously:

  

I mean, to each their own... but I feel the current mechanics accomplish what they set out to do just fine.  Having said that, I just don't think there is anything here for Hinterland to "fix."

 

 

I read you post. But compare the 2% condition loss of dehydration to the 20% condition loss when freezing and tell me again that there are negative consequences.
There's a negative effect for not sleeping (carry weight reduction) and for not staying fed (good by well fed progress) but not for thirst/dehydration.

I find it very interesting that you come to a complete different conclusion with the very same information I got. Yes. Absolutly the game requires the player to plan ahead. Except when it comes to water/thirst because the consequences are neglectable.

 

[ManicManiac]

@Lycrist
I've stated my opinion, I'm not going to argue with you about it.


We don't agree, and that's okay...

[ajb1978]

52 minutes ago, Lycrist said:

Mh. I don't see why staying hydrated should reward you with a buff.

Me either. I'm just saying, if you're gonna add a debuff for exploiting hydration, you should add a buff for honoring it.

Or just do nothing and leave the whole thing alone.

[UpUpAway95]

1 hour ago, Lycrist said:

Yeah. I fully agree that there should be no more micromanagement on certain "thrist levels" like the OP suggested. Headache risk should only start when the bar is empty. I don't know and actually don't think if there should be some kind of dehydration affliction. If, it should probably work like the food poison affliction: quickly depletion of condition and fatigue till healed.

 

You're still not addressing the fact that getting a headache really doesn't add anything to the game.  It's even stated in the Wiki that it is meant to be merely "an annoyance."  So, again... why are we asking Hinterland to add more "annoyances" to the game?  Won't that just make the game more annoying rather than more challenging in a meaningful way?  They would have to add something more to the consequences of having a headache in the game... something that would cause the player to pause and have to reconsider their planned activities.  The current effect on the screen is really nothing more than momentarily annoying.  If that can't be done, then there is really no point to changing it away from the way it currently is IMO.  The current system IS simplified, but it works in game.  It sounds like you have more of an issue with how easily water is obtained.  This could be made more difficult simply by having each can of melted snow return only 15% of a can of water (which is more in line with the actual moisture content of snow).

[Lycrist]

5 hours ago, UpUpAway95 said:

You're still not addressing the fact that getting a headache really doesn't add anything to the game.  It's even stated in the Wiki that it is meant to be merely "an annoyance."  So, again... why are we asking Hinterland to add more "annoyances" to the game?  Won't that just make the game more annoying rather than more challenging in a meaningful way?  They would have to add something more to the consequences of having a headache in the game... something that would cause the player to pause and have to reconsider their planned activities.  The current effect on the screen is really nothing more than momentarily annoying.  If that can't be done, then there is really no point to changing it away from the way it currently is IMO.  The current system IS simplified, but it works in game.  It sounds like you have more of an issue with how easily water is obtained.  This could be made more difficult simply by having each can of melted snow return only 15% of a can of water (which is more in line with the actual moisture content of snow).

I actually suggested to have a headache which lasts for 2 hours which would prevent a player from reading research books. Yeah. That's only minor. So is pain. But you don't see anyone arguing to remove pain because it has no meaningful impact.

Headache would just add some cheap flavour to the gameplay. Nothing more than some unquality of life. Also keep in mind that a headache is on of the first signs of serious dehydration iRL.

I also said, that there could be a dehydration debuff (with a risk building up over time if the player stay dehydrated) which has more severe consequences but that would be more than just a flavour update.