by earllohst » Wed Feb 24, 2016 7:21 pm 
Image CREDIT: markwoodcartoonistJust a random idea what if foods affect our character more than adding attributes, simplest application is on body/belly appearance.
If you keep eating meat and cheese and your diet is not balanced with eating berries or vegetables your character would develop fat bellies and eventually look obese.
We have a lot of selection of foods (a lot of existing content to build this on) maybe let some food increase "fat" parameter and some decreases it. Character models swap from thinnest to most fat one, maybe few types in between. But then wearables have to be redone to fit the new body models (if the 3d asset is not responsive) so thats prolly too much work and is not a priority at the moment...
Another idea is that we can have diet statistic, similar to previous idea but it doesn't affect visual, instead it gives boost or penalty to certain attributes or abilities. Character who kept eating cheese/meat/high fat stuff will develop negative diet status maybe add them to the health&wounds tab, says "obesity" that will put penalty on agility and stealth or etc (just pulling random stat for example). And maybe "Fit" status for those who have good diet giving boost to certain abilities or attributes.
This mechanic will punish players who force feed or have multiple characters or bots that fit certain roles only (as they only eat certain type of food for specific stat) they will have bad status/health diet. But it will encourage players to pay more attention to their character and help less alts player and soloist fare better in the game.
To avoid getting yelled upon botters or alters... The bonus and penalty status can be adjusted so that it doesn't hurt them so much, it can be set so that an "okay" diet can be balanced easily even tough the proportion of meat/cheese vs vegetables is let's say 100:1. (Personally don't think this will punish botters or force feeders that much because they usually lead the game and have enough variety and food to get good diet anyway.)
Overall I believe implementing diet to current health mechanic will give more meaning in the game, it gives player a satisfaction and certain achievement for getting their character healthy and all, it takes away robotic and stat/numbers based feeling and adds more immersion.
Since the game is now capped at 300, having even a little 5-10% boost from diet would affect game play and battles a lot. In an imaginary situation say; one char versus the other both with same base stat/abilities and equal HnH pvp clicking skill, with the only difference on their diet; one having good and the other bad, will tip the balance off and let the better player (who cares more about his/her character health and diet) win.
Anyway thanks for reading my random (prolly stupid or already suggested idea) let me know what do you think, pro or con?
To the devs, jorbtar; How much would this be a hassle or a pain to implement and might we be seeing something similar in this direction for future updates? Thanks!
