All characters should eat like Warly

[mekane]

First off, what a great character this is.

My favorite parts of this character are his negative traits, that he can only eat crock pot meals, the diminishing returns they give for eating the same one twice, and his hunger going down faster.  It means you have to learn a lot of different recipes and makes hunger is a bigger challenge in the game.

I propose extending this to other characters.  Its way too easy to feed in general, I think all characters should have faster hunger drain, diminishing returns on eating the same items, and have to rely on crock pot item cooking.  Maybe they could just nerf eating some of the other food plain and give diminishing returns on eating a bunch of raw berries / jerky / honey etc. in a row.

[Ohan]

yeah maybe not outright only crockpot meals for everyone cuz warly actually spawns with a crockpot unlike the rest but this would certainly put back the entire 'dont starve' part of the game on the map haha. 

 

maybe this could be a mod tho or a difficulty setting cuz i know a lot of beginners struggle with hunger even if it seems silly to more veteran players 

[Daniel86268]

Tbh, I like it the way it is. Some characters have a harder time keeping up with the food (Wolfgang up to 3x hunger drain, wortox only gains 50% of the food, wes has a bit faster hunger drain, warly has to have a variety of foods) in exchange to have some strong powers.

Just extending a (well made) drawback mechanic of a character that fits this one character very well simply to all other characters kinda defeats the porpurse of the character and doesn't really feel right. Or just make the hunger drain faster really doesn't make sense to me either, and would probably scare away any new players immediately.

Feel free to use mods to drain all the characters of their hunger and starve a miserable death however you like though.

 

[Viktor234]

If every character except Wilson would behave like Warly, then half of the community would play as Wilson. Most of the other half would just keep starving to death because they don't know any other food sources besides Berries or Meatballs.

[Scrimbles]

I had this exact thought today, my least favorite part about the core Don't Starve experience is how LITTLE you need to think about the foods you're crafting.

By late game all the game becomes is meatballs by using eggs and monster meat that I have an infinite supply of, a dragonfruit farm and twigs for dragonpies when I want health, and... well, that's it actually.

 

While I DO want some crock pot recipes to be nerfed (seriously why are ice and sticks able to be a filler without ruining anything???), adding a small debuff like Warly's would make the game much more interesting.

It's pretty easy to mod too... I think I might just do that...

[Zeklo]

Honestly I kind of agree. It would definitely spike difficulty, and plenty would struggle at the start due to lack of food knowledge—but that lack of food knowledge stems from the very fact that knowing more than just 1-2 has never been very important.

I only like the sameness penalty though. Hunger rate & stomach size should be determined on a character to character basis, and Warly being only able to eat crockpot foods should remain a character-specific trait.

Pair this with an idea I heard not too long ago about each character having a favorite food, and finally introducing Gorge farming (even cooking tbh) mechanics, and suddenly we'll have a food system worthy enough of a game called Don't Starve.

[WoodieMain45684]

I would also like it if players had to rely on a larger variety of foods, but I think there would be a better way than just giving all the survivors warly's stomach and increased hunger drain.

If less food sources were available during certain seasons or time periods and crockpot recipes were more strictly defined (this means having less filler options), then players would naturally lean towards a pseudo-warly type diet because they would not always have access to a particular type of food all the time. A good example of this is to make it to where farm plots can only produce a certain rotation of foods during each season. Though changing this alone won't diversify diets in of itself.

[Zeklo]

Just now, WoodieMain45684 said:

A good example of this is to make it to where farm plots can only produce a certain rotation of foods during each season.

I like this idea as well.

[Guest]

I'd love to see Warly's variety food perk added to everyone. It would make the game's title a bit more relevant thats for sure. Shouldn't even be too hard to make a mod for it either, as Warly had all the code for this perk moved into a neat little component called "foodmemory", that should be easy enough to add to all the characters.

A favorite food system would make a great complement to this idea as well. Perhaps whatever this food is for the character could be used as an exception to variety, so if a character loved Meatballs they could eat that whenever without ever worrying about diminishing returns. Also if it worked this way it would fix the possible issue of Wortox becoming tired of souls, as if they were just made his favorite food you wouldn't have to worry about that problem coming up!

I do agree with Zeklo though that hunger drain should remain on a character to character basis, and that only eating crockpot food should remain a Warly thing. Variety for everyone should be hard enough, and definitely better encourage a good camp chef, rather then a guy who just converts your entire fridge into Meatballs.

[ButterStuffed]

Would be fun but the pickiness would have to be to a lesser degree compared to Warly. Maybe it would only go up to a 10-15% penalty. It would encourage variety without crippling new players.

[Zeklo]

1 minute ago, ButterStuffed said:

Would be fun but the pickiness would have to be to a lesser degree compared to Warly. Maybe it would only go up to a 10-15% penalty. It would encourage variety without crippling new players.

Could even make that another character to character specific stat, so certain characters are more picky than others—namely Warly of course.

[WoodieMain45684]

7 minutes ago, Portmanteau said:

A favorite food system would be a great idea as well. Perhaps whatever this food is for the character could be used as an exception to variety,

That would be really neat. and it could give some use for some lesser used foods like fish tacos and froggle bunwiches. Wilbur also kinda does something similar to this in single player with his added benefits from banana based items.

[GenomeSquirrel]

I disagree due to it not being logical or intuitive. I wouldn’t be opposed to changing hunger values or fillers though.

[Scrimbles]

2 minutes ago, GenomeSquirrel said:

I disagree due to it not being logical or intuitive. I wouldn’t be opposed to changing hunger values or fillers though.

You try eating the same crappily made food you made out in the wilderness every day and see how it effects you.

[-Variant]

I feel like eating the same thing and having penalties should apply to everyone.

If you can, why won't you eat more than meatballs? 

Otherwise I like the idea but it doesn't feel official.

[Bird Up]

just changing the ubiquity of berries, ice, and other fillers, while lowering/rebalancing various hunger values across the board would be better. The system works fine as is.

[GenomeSquirrel]

14 minutes ago, Ogrecakes said:

You try eating the same crappily made food you made out in the wilderness every day and see how it effects you.

Might get sick from disease, but I’m not magically getting less calories from the exact same type of food

[Pumking7]

I don't really like the idea of having characters dislike food more times they eat, especially for healing because if this dis benefit was to great, then honey poltice/salves would increase

My suggestion for if this becomes canon is reward players for collecting resources, as they collect them a "recipe book" will give them hints on how to use the crockpot correctly and not scramble directly to the wiki.

[AnitaCoffee]

Depending on what you ate, you'd become nutrient deficient, potentially have a host of stomach problems, gallstones, etc. Heck, knew a guy who lived off ramen for 2 months, he had very painful bathroom trips for months after. 

Not saying I want this, but in the real world, eating the same thing over and over can 'cause issues. Especially something like meatballs. 

[WoodieMain45684]

2 minutes ago, Pumkingthegreat said:

as they collect them a "recipe book" will give them hints on how to use the crockpot correctly and not scramble directly to the wiki.

Or just download the craft pot client mod.

[Pumking7]

Just now, WoodieMain45684 said:

Or just download the craft pot client mod.

It just feels less genuine and I dislike how the game gives you hints to unlock new recipes, but crockpot recipes are a total mystery

[ObsidianKing]

I like the idea provided it didn't affect Wigfrid.

[fimmatek]

I don't think it would work as proposed. The current meatball meta would turn into meaty stew + meatball meta, and there we go, noone will starve with those two dishes. It would also destroy healing food - currently you can make 10 pierogies for a boss fight and you're good to go. With Warly's pickiness most of those pierogies would give 12 health. To avoid that, the player would need like 10 different healing food - have fun memorising all the exact recipes, getting all the different ingredients and using up 10 inventory slots to have enough healing. Taffy would get also a lot less useful. It would be especially painful for maintaining Wolfgang's mightiness - tho honestly I wouldn't mind that one.

If the food system would be changed, it should encourage eating diversely rather than discouraging eating the same dish multiple times. 

Also please don't make non-crockpot food unedible. That would mean no more healing from butterflies, mushrooms; you couldn't eat (juicy) berries, cooked meat, raw veggies, lichen and such, not to mention bat wings and leafy meat; no more sanity management from mushrooms and glommers goop and jerkies were also a lot less worthy to make. 

[Ornge]

I mean people will just find a list of meta foods to go through (like meatballs) and survive. The game would become even harder for new players and give experienced players a slight annoyance at best

[TheKingDedede]

This balance proposal sounds good on paper, but would most likely be bad in execution due to the fact that most of the characters do not have a perk that would reasonably counter this downside, along with some other factors that spring to mind.

The reason Warly is saddled with such a downside is because his skill set that revolves around cooking justifies it, and the stuff he brings to the table as a character are fantastic which compliment the downside. It makes playing him really worth it and fun. He has fantastic synergies with the other characters and the buffs that he can give through his seasonings are great. He can cook dishes faster, which also (For lack of a better term) compliments having a 33% faster hunger rate and being a picky eater.

If we applied the same downside to a character like Wilson, what does he give in return as a character to the rest of the team? His beard can be shaved off every once in a while and if he doesn't shave during Summer, he heats up faster? He doesn't have any outstanding perks to justify giving him the downside of being able to eat only dishes made from Crock Pots, and even if he did, then it would be best to give him a perk and a suitable downside that fits the perk. Going off of characters that were reworked, Winona gets faster when she's at work, but she can build catapults and spotlights. Willow has fire immunity and a cool bear, but she now hates the cold even more and the bear requires going insane to use its most powerful form. Wormwood has a strange smorgasbord of perks and downsides, but being able to plant seeds pretty much wherever kind of justifies this. Kind of. There are characters like Wes and Woodie that stand out as anomalies in this way of thinking, but I'd argue seeing what their reworks bring for them before we can analyze them and what they can bring to the table.

I also imagine that this would make the game turn into some sort of Crock Pot rushing nightmare. Imagine players running in every direction quickly trying to find the materials to build Crock Pots, and if they're unable to do so, they'll just continuously pester the person (Or people) who picked Warly because he can cook food right off the bat. It would just devolve into this mad rush to constantly get ingredients that nobody could eat on their own and cooking them while justifying having more than one instance of Warly. Hypothetically, it would just slow everything down to a tedium early on and would just be annoying when everyone gets their bearings later on.

If a character is to receive a downside, let's instead think what they would receive or give back to the team, instead of applying a blanket disadvantage.