Revamp the FEP system

[Potjeh]

I wouldn't level Con with pumpkin pie alone, as it doesn't give all that much FEPs. Con is probably the best example of why mixed food is superior, since it has no single food that gives lots of FEPs. So my Con comes from a mixture of salads, seafood, pies and pumpkin bread.

[sabinati]

Diversification bonus? Is it some sort of buff? Well if I find out what it is and what it does I might change my views on that comment.

You disqualified yourself for any further discussion on this topic with that single sentence. How can you propose new mechanics when you do not have the slightest grasp on how the current mechanics work?

oh yeah i meant to address that as well. the amount needed to fill the FEP bar is reduced by eating different foods. for example if you have your highest stat at 100, the first food you eat will reduce the amount of FEP needed to fill the bar by 6.3 (2 * square root(highest stat/10)), so you will only need to eat 93.7 FEP to gain a stat. if you continue eating that same type of food there will be no further bonus. if you eat a different type of food, you will get another fep reduction. if you eat a third type it is reduced further, etc.

you should really, really read the announcement forum. this has been around since the beginning of world 3, and it's changed a couple times so it's been brought up again. there is currently a thread discussing it further. viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9383

[sabinati]

I wouldn't level Con with pumpkin pie alone, as it doesn't give all that much FEPs. Con is probably the best example of why mixed food is superior, since it has no single food that gives lots of FEPs. So my Con comes from a mixture of salads, seafood, pies and pumpkin bread.

pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread is easy to make if you plant a ton of pumpkins by your cooking area. con has been pretty easy for me to level (my highest stat right now, in fact), what with pumpkin pie, pea pie, pumpkin bread, bark bread, piroz, and occasionally pumpkin flesh, boar baloney, roasted beef, cow chorizo, and now fishsticks and onion rings. variety is the spice of life.

[Zamte]

How about a new hemlock forageable, which can be used to make a special "weakness brew" that permanently reduces a stat of your choice by X points? This allows those who "did it wrong" to fix it, but at the cost of a lot of stat points, and gets rid of the whole "permanently high FEP cost" thing. However is in all other cases most definitely a drawback. Thus the people who are smart about it never have to use these, and get ahead, while those who do not are now not stuck with their bad choices, but can only fix them by paying heavily for it.

Edit: Actually, you could even just add it as a new recipe for Blood Stern.

[loftar]

stat decay is bad because it would cause unnecessary grind to keep your stats at the same level, and at some point would make it impossible to have stats over a certain threshold.

It should be admitted, that, to some extent at least, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It would, more or less, make the stats of a character reflect the environment that he's living in (in terms of quantity, quality and diversity of resources that he has access to). Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it would just be tedious upkeep to keep your stats up, but a stat system that shares the former property while doing away, subjectively, with the tedium might not be a bad thing, if it exists.

[Zamte]

stat decay is bad because it would cause unnecessary grind to keep your stats at the same level, and at some point would make it impossible to have stats over a certain threshold.

It should be admitted, that, to some extent at least, that is not necessarily a bad thing. It would, more or less, make the stats of a character reflect the environment that he's living in (in terms of quantity, quality and diversity of resources that he has access to). Of course, that doesn't change the fact that it would just be tedious upkeep to keep your stats up, but a stat system that shares the former property while doing away, subjectively, with the tedium might not be a bad thing, if it exists.

You could accomplish this with new buffs that work sort of like tea does. When you gain a stat, any FEP in the bar of a different type would contribute to a temporary buff that boosts it's stat type. The number of points boosted would depend entirely on how many total FEP points were in the bar, and the duration on what percentage of the bar it was.

So for instance, say you ate a full bar of q10 piros, to make it simple. Your highest stat is 40. Ignoring the reduction for sake of simplicity, this would mean after eating five piros, you'd gain a stat. The bar would be half dex and half con. Say we gain a con point. Now because the bar was half full you'd gain half of the total period of time the buff could last. I imagine an in game day would work best, as it's short enough that people can't keep buffs going of food that isn't consistantly eaten, but long enough to matter and be useful, as well as to last until the next hunger point. The total dex FEPs were 20, so you'd gain the square root of that in dex points from the buff, which comes out to 4 dex, rounding down.

People with higher stats would gain more, and due to how the percentage of the bar determines the duration, you'd not be able to abuse the system to gain large portions of every stat. It'd only benefit those who consistantly eat multiple-stat foods, and generally go for the same types of stats. This means if you're shooting for dex and con, as in the example, you will always get a permanent stat of one, and a temporary boost to the other. Rather than decaying stats, and making it tedious, we're actually letting stats bleed over, making it a bonus, and something challenging and interesting to work towards.

[Atherman]

I think FEPs should go towards stats individually instead of being all lumped together in one bar. It would solve so many problems and make the system so much more likable. You could even decrease the amount of FEPs a food gives to make stat raising a little more difficult, because it seems Loftar likes players having a challenge. The higher a stat is, the more FEPs you need to raise it. Specialization will occur. Pointless patch-proof balance grinding will be removed. An almost perfect system will become perfect.

[DatOneGuy]

I think FEPs should go towards stats individually instead of being all lumped together in one bar. It would solve so many problems and make the system so much more likable. You could even decrease the amount of FEPs a food gives to make stat raising a little more difficult, because it seems Loftar likes players having a challenge. The higher a stat is, the more FEPs you need to raise it. Specialization will occur. Pointless patch-proof balance grinding will be removed. An almost perfect system will become perfect.

The idea is as bad as when it started. So unless you're thinking of something different and articulating it incorrectly, it just seems like a terrible idea.

Patch-proofing SHOULD be hard, you're playing the game to play it and accept that things may change dramatically, because this is an alpha.

Having a challenge is a good thing, this is something that doesn't require any solution by the game, but can be solved by you and your village, playing alone should be hard, that emulates best how real life is, someone who has to learn a little bit of everything won't and shouldn't be as good as the guy who's just been a carpenter his whole life. Jack of all trades, master of none...

[Zamte]

It's not just loftar. Real gamers enjoy challenge too. When it's real challenge. A lot of games in the last few years, MMOs in particular, have gotten grinditis. They think making something take forever makes it challenging. Making an item have a 0.2% drop chance and requiring we collect 300 of it for good measure does not make us feel challenged, it makes us feel bored. This phenomena has caused two major issues. A, challenging gameplay has been largely abandoned in MMOs in favor of grind to hold customers, and B, many players have grown accustomed to it, and now either want to grind simple crap, or want simple, linear, hand-holding stuff that requires no thought, essentially the grind only faster.

FEP is fun because it requires you to think, and it requires you to try to push the boundaries to get the most out of it. How much of other stats do I want to consume? How long will the diversity bonus be worth it? If I eat too many foods, while I lower the req, I also lower the chance I will get the stat I am shooting for. This can be lessened by trying for multiple stats simultaneously, but only to a point. Food is now a system to be mastered, and not just one to be ground. It's not simply a hunger bar that depletes, but a potential for character growth. The system as it stands needs expansion, to make it more interesting, not reduction to make it trivial. If you don't like it, why not suggest improvements that'd make it more interesting and challenging to you, rather than just asking that it be made straightforward and thoughtless?

No matter how you twist it, if each stat has it's own bar, all planning goes out the window. There's no reason to care what FEPs you're getting, because it's all food and it's all more stats, if the bars are separate. This removes all senses of planning from the system, requires no thought, and pretty much involves people acting like little rodents, squirreling food away to eat it en masse for stats. The most thought that'd have to be put into it then is how to best manage your hunger, and between the tables, bonfires, and how easy it is to reduce hunger between No Pain, No Gain on a rat/frog, and using water, this would simply be reduced to a grind as well.

[Atherman]

You guys need to let go of the misconception that trying to balance your stats because future patches might ruin you is how the game is supposed to be. It's not. Where has Loftar said he likes the fact people try to have all their stats balanced in case he introduces new content? No where. He wants specialization. His system is working against him. People don't specialize because this current system doesn't let them. The only thing our current system does is make balancing your stats difficult but required.


There is as much planning with each stat having their own bar as there is with the current system. If someone needs to raise the stats they need for their profession, they need to farm/hunt/collect that food in advance. No Zamte, players that understand the FEP system won't go around eating everything they find. They'd be gaining random stats that won't help the skills/crafting they use often. That's a foolish notion that you should dismiss. That's like saying with the current system people only eat random foods to keep their hunger bar up. It doesn't work like that.


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CURRENT SYSTEM
I need some Constitution. I collect some Constitution food. I realize I can't eat it without first raising my Perception, Intelligence, and PSY to keep my character perfectly balanced. I collect all this food for each of those stats, raise them all, and then finally eat my Constitution food.

REVAMPED SYSTEM
I need some Constitution. I collect some Constitution food. I don't really need Perception, Intelligence, or PSY right now. I eat my Constitution food.





CURRENT SYSTEM
I have really high Strength, Perception, and Constitution for PvP and PvE. Loftar releases a patch that adds Agility to combat. Since my FEP bar is so high, I'll never be able to get agility to catch up. I quit the game because my character is ruined.

REVAMPED SYSTEM
I have really high Strength, Perception, and Constitution for PvP and PvE. Loftar releases a patch that adds Agility to combat. I begin to collect Agility food and start to raise it since it's my weak point. The more Agility I have, the more challenging it becomes to raise.





CURRENT SYSTEM
My stats are all perfectly balanced and I have no specialization. My character is patch proof.

REVAMPED SYSTEM
I have stats in the areas I need them. I specialize in certain stats for certain skills and don't raise the ones I don't need. Some people dual-profession, but since stat raising is difficult, they are weaker at both.

I'm a strong warrior.
I'm a smart crafter.
I'm a charismatic leader.
Everyone isn't everything.