Nourishment System to Replace FEP System

[Vaku]

I make this proposal with the aim that character ability scores allow for greater balanced gameplay than that of the current system.

Current System for Attribute Growth

Character growth currently relies on the Food Event Point system (FEP system), which takes into account the certain attributes of food, that when consumed, fill the FEP bar located in the character sheet.

The moment the FEP bar is filled, (its size determined by the base of the character’s highest attribute,) an attribute of that character will rise by one point, dependent on the variance of FEP’s collected within the FEP bar. A particular attribute can rise indefinitely, which, as demonstrated in the past, can lead to incredible disparity characters of ALL ages (i.e. Day Old, Month Old, Year Old, etc.)

Due to the importance of food in raising stats, food has become central to fundamentally most avenues of gameplay (anything requiring competitive attribute scores), namely player conflict. This is not a bad thing, however the way in which the current system works, it dissuades individuals from fighting aggressively, or defensively by creating impossible disparity between new and old players, that cannot be overcome unless, ironically, older players lose interest in the game and begin to play less.

Weapon formulas help to reign in the way in which attributes will affect combat, but not terribly well.
You can check how strength affects different weapon types in my incomplete combat calculator (Just make a copy of the spreadsheet to your own google drive to fiddle around with).

Breakdown

For instance, 10 STR with low-end B12’s currently on the market allow for 931 pts of dmg, with a full set of low-end armors on the current market allowing for 1639 pts of absorption. (ALL beliefs left at normal).

100 STR, with the same setup, allows for 1655 pts of dmg, vs 1639 pts of absorption
200 STR, 1968 pts of dmg vs 1639 pts of absorption
300 STR, 2178 pts of dmg vs 1639 pts of absorption
500 STR, 2475 pts of dmg vs 1639 pts of absorption
Notice how it begins to taper... However, note how it can also increase indefinitely. The highest strength I recall hearing about from World 6 was at 5000. With current equipment that stat amount results in the following:
5000 STR, 4401 pts of dmg vs 1639 pts of absorption

Con Scaling equally with Strength looks like this (again, not adjusted for personal Beliefs):
10 CON, 100 MHP, and MHP added to absorption, 1739 pts to survive
100 CON, 316 MHP, 1955 pts to survive
200 CON, 447 MHP, 2086 pts to survive
300 CON, 547 MHP, 2186 pts to survive
500 CON, 707 MHP, 2346 pts to survive
5000 CON, 2236 MHP, 3875 pts to survive

Assuming an attacker connects with their B12 when his oppenent has 0 Defense, and both opponents have equal stats and gear, the breakdown looks like this:

Stats at 10 1739 pts to survive - 931 pts of dmg = Damage to Gear, Defender Survives
Stats at 100 1955 pts to survive - 1655 pts of dmg = Damage to Gear, Defender Survives
Stats at 200 2086 pts to survive - 1968 pts of dmg = Damage to Gear, Defender Survives
Stats at 300 2186 pts to survive - 2178 pts of dmg = Damage to Gear & SHP
Stats at 500 2346 pts to survive - 2475 pts of dmg = Damage to Gear & SHP
Stats at 5000 3875 pts to survive - 4401 pts of dmg = Damage to Gear & SHP

You can see that eventually Strength will overtake Consitution, and moreover, it is incredibly unrealistic for any one fighter to balance their CON with their STR and remain competitive on the battlefield against opponents that use fully strength. The above breakdown only touches the surface on the imbalance that faces attributes governed by the FEP system.

I propose the following:

All attributes be represented as 0% to 100% of a fixed number.

AND, the way in which this percentage is adjusted is via a new attribute of food, “Nourishment,” which affects the total nourishment of the character. Values of a character’s nourishment,close to 0% depict a “Malnourished” character, and values close to 100% represent a “Nourished” and well-fed character.

To maintain a feature of character customization, there ought to be different Nourishment Attributes to food, i.e. STR Nourishment, CON Nourishment, AGI, etc.

Nourishment ought to also fluctuate on the time ingame that a character spends eating and not eating, as well as doing activities and not doing activities.

An Example of the Nourishment System:

A character is created. All of his attributes rest at 35% nourishment. He begins his life subsisting on roasted rabbit meat. Over time, his AGI reaches a value of 45% of the fixed attribute this percentages is being multiplied to, while other stats like PSYCHE, CON, and PERC begin to fall to 20% nourishment.

The player recognizes his character must have a balanced diet, the player participates in higher and higher-end food production. He decides his character will be a fighter and consumes plenty of STR Nourishing foods, and rests now at 99% STR Nourishment. After a few too many Midnight Blue Cheeses, he is now at 105% STR Nourishment, however has incurred a penalty, “Gout” for having eaten too many rich foods, and his AGI begins to suffer for it.

He decides to stay in the range of 95-100% for all of his stats.

One day, the character is exiled from his village, and now does not have access to the formerly rich produce. Over the course of a week, no longer eating nourishing foods, he has fallen to 70% Nourishment, and it continues to decline so long as he lives off of inferior foodstuffs.

From the above example, we learn that food would still possess a central role in day-to-day HnH activities, remaining as a still important industry for competitive play. However, at the same time, eating does not serve to create a disparity among the playerbase which is impossible to overcome as a newcomer, nor is it a system that incurs an eventual imbalance as we saw with the Breakdown of the FEP system between STR and CON. We also learn in the above example that eating 'recklessly' or consuming 'wrong' foods could have consequences as illustrated by "Gout."

Another feature the example shows is that player politics can actually effect the attributes of your very character, where being exiled from a place with good food could mean your character becoming malnourished.

A final note I want to end on is that the nourishment system as I present it allows for your character's attributes to be fundamentally governed by the food he or she eats and still remain dynamic. It would be possible for the character over the course of a few months become well nourished in Strength, though able still to eventually abandon Strength to perform better in Agility, Dexterity and so forth.

Thanks all for hearing out this proposal, and I hope that we might get a good discussion going.

[Bondle]

+1 Support

[windmaker]

im gonna take your concepts for my game, thanks for the calculus

[borka]

-snip - One day, the character is exiled from his village, and now does not have access to the formerly rich produce. -snip -

doing it again ...

[Vaku]

-snip - One day, the character is exiled from his village, and now does not have access to the formerly rich produce. -snip -

doing it again ...

Lol, it's unavoidable Borka. It cannot be ignored that there is a larger community, and these communities form naturally, and sometimes, sometimes they're called villages.

xD I could've also said "a raider comes and bashes the Hermit Character's shit, and so he his attributes suffer due to poor nourishment on account of his oven being broken," but exile serves to capture a more intriguing dynamic over the very usual raiding example, which in most current circumstances, results in the quitting of the party that was raided.

Look at the history of World 1 if it helps. People immediately set out to form neighborhoods, and they called their places towns. Yes, some broke off to be hermits in Mordor, but still within the "Civilized" area (name per the mechanic) near Brodgar, we find villages, eventually Jorb and Loftar saw it essential that they should implement village idols to represent the founding of a village and village borders. Anyways, this thread isn't a debate for village imposition. If you'd like to begin a thread, I'll enter in my opinion and so forth there. Become a mod again and chop this post for a different thread. We miss you Borka.

im gonna take your concepts for my game, thanks for the calculus

Noo, I should've kept it a secret! And you're welcome. If someone more math savvy could check if I did it right, I'd very much appreciate it.

[windmaker]

hehe for now xd the excel formula is good for me :p :p :p

[Lord_of_War]

To me it sounds too simple. There isn't enough difference between long term players and new players. At the present the gap is perhaps too wide but that does not necessitate it being closed entirely. The eating mechanic is broken but this is rather drastic. A good idea but more options need to be explored also. Perhaps a tweak to the current one limiting the intake of food. It would work by the emphasis being on the best quality food not the most quantity. It would slow start growth but not remove it entirely. A good idea though and I'll check back when it's further discussed. just my 2 cents

Time since meal * meal size = satiation. A sort of replacement for hunger bar. If you go over you suffer in stats permanently. The only way for it to go down is too wait. Some things would make it go down faster but only until a point, with diminishing returns. To shift focus to making q tables and q food not quantity.

[Xcom]

I think this idea is prone to abuse to another level altogether. People would just stockpile cheese and grind there combat toons back to max after death.

Remove the incentive to grind and people will waste no time fighting and dilute the pvp mechanics to a point where its no longer any rarity.

[LadyV]

Sorry but I do not like the idea. I have to agree with Xcom.

[Lord_of_War]

Sorry but I do not like the idea. I have to agree with Xcom.

At least he tried.