Video Suggestion on Food Rebalance

[Magheat2009]

 

[gigamoi]

I took a bit of time to listen to your video while doing something else.

I wont get into each point but I think there are a couple of things that do apply more or less everywhere in your video:

- We are talking about balance here, and difficulty is always, to some extent a matter of opinion. Many of the things you seem convinced about are not experienced the same way by other player. For instance, even though frost buns and gristle berry both came from farms, I find sleet wheat farms to be harder to set up than bristle berry farms. Also, ranches are harder than farms IMO.

- If you really want to play the game differently and offer the opportunity to experience it the way you intend to to others, you can mod it. Bringing your changes to base game would bring two issues: Some, including me, don't like them, and it would most likely break existing builds.

- You only took morale into consideration to evaluate how good or bad a food can be, but calorie production efficiency can also come into play. Morale is supposed to be how enjoyable it is for a dupe to eat a given food, so it is more or less pined by how enjoyable they are to humans in real life. For instance, you nerfed barbecue but, IRL, it is way better of a food than a bland omelette, let alone a piece of lettuce. So BBQ deserves to be +8 IMO. If you want to nerf it, you could just as well make critters drop less meat. It makes more sense that way.

[Magheat2009]

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

For instance, even though frost buns and gristle berry both came from farms, I find sleet wheat farms to be harder to set up than bristle berry farms.

As I mentioned, it is more or less situational. In many situations, bristle berries will be slightly easier. In some situations, sleat wheat will be much easier. That said, I will be ok with frost buns being +8. The problem is, then Tofu and Frost Buns end up in the same tier. No one will argue that sleat wheat is anywhere near as difficult as Nosh Beans.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

If you really want to play the game differently and offer the opportunity to experience it the way you intend to to others, you can mod it.

This would be a very good argument if programming was my field of specialization. I have looked into modding before, I do not think is it possible for me to mod this game with a reasonable amount of effort.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

Some, including me, don't like them

If you come from a place of "I don't like changes", I do not think we can have a meaningful conversation.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

Morale is supposed to be how enjoyable it is for a dupe to eat a given food, so it is more or less pined by how enjoyable they are to humans in real life.

Real life people don't also pee food poisoning germs?

 

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

it would most likely break existing builds.

There is update roll-back and usually there is a grace period if existing builds are going to break.

 

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

You only took morale into consideration to evaluate how good or bad a food can be, but calorie production efficiency can also come into play.

I did exactly this with BBQ and Omelette. 

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

Also, ranches are harder than farms IMO.

Hatch ranch is harder than Bristle Blossoms? Bristle Blossoms: Maintain temperature, atmospheric pressure, provide continuous light and water. Hatches: dig up some rocks. You cannot hide behind 'in my opinion' when being objectively wrong.

[Magheat2009]

On 8/10/2023 at 2:59 PM, gigamoi said:

If you want to nerf it, you could just as well make critters drop less meat. It makes more sense that way.

In case of BBQ, this could work. However, since hatches also give coal as by-product, it might still dominate the meta. Another option is to add salt as a requirement for BBQ. This will also balance it out, without causing any theme related issue.

[gigamoi]

10 hours ago, Magheat2009 said:

If you come from a place of "I don't like changes", I do not think we can have a meaningful conversation.

I said "YOUR changes". I don't mind changes but I strongly dislike the proposed revamp you are showing in your video. You missed my main point: "Many of the things you seem convinced about are not experienced the same way by other player". The general idea I was trying to convey to you in my last post, and the reason why I though ultimately meaningless to take the time to list every item of disagreement we may have, is that they nearly all originate from what we individually feel as more of less difficult in game, which is no matter of facts and therefor something that can't really be debated upon. Nobody is right or wrong here. Yet, judging from your post from the BBQ thread and your speech patterns in your video, you seem like a very opinionated person and quick to elevate your personal views as general truth. Just be aware that they are not.

 

10 hours ago, Magheat2009 said:

This would be a very good argument if programming was my field of specialization.

So you want the devs to code YOUR preferred customisation into being for you and push it on the rest of us? It so happens that I am a software developer and could code a mod for this game if I wanted to. Yet, you see, I never did. You know why? Because what I wanted was popular enough for someone else to get the same idea and code it before I did. I think you should take the fact that you can't find a mod that changes the game the way you like and you have to come here to ask for it to be implemented instead of just downloading something as a sign that what you are requesting is just not wanted by many people.

 

Also, a bit of a technicality but:

10 hours ago, Magheat2009 said:

Real life people don't also pee food poisoning germs?

Pee is indeed pretty sterile, but people sure do poop some nasty germs. That's how you get cholera to spread.

[Magheat2009]

17 hours ago, gigamoi said:

I don't mind changes but I strongly dislike the proposed revamp you are showing in your video.

You have replied with an angry rant instead of making an effort to explain why you dislike my suggestion. All you have offered so far is BBQ being equal to omelette is not thematic. I have explained why I was forced into that decision. You said difficulty is a personal opinion, I argue that no major change to difficulty of the game will actually take place. Your objections so far are either  probably irrelevant, incorrect or insignificant.

As for my opinionated language, yes, I am quite convinced that such a change will be for the better. Your entire premise is "my opinion" without explaining why your opinion should be valued. Most people are not as charitable, but I do concede that there is more to the experience of game than what meets the eye. However, there are also lot of plainly stupid opinions floating around. It is difficult, but ultimately, it is up to you to articulate your experience.

I have spent tens of hours of thinking these suggestions through. They are backed with my knowledge of Psychology (my field of specialization) and also basic principles of game design.  You seem to have spent little time in typing frankly foolish responses. Also, rest assured, I do not own Tencent. I have no way to force Klei to implement these changes. I will only respond further if you actually present a better criticism of my suggestions.

 

[gigamoi]

Well, you seem angry to me and I have no interest in getting into a heated argument over a video game (or any heated argument in general) so I will just let you be. Take it as you will.

[sakura_sk]

The problem with opinions is that they need to state the facts first, otherwise no one will know what stays the same, what changed and what you actually suggest. I also don’t agree with the way you @Magheat2009 see food in ONI. You diminished a complex mechanic to some linear morale dependent one, based on your own experience of how the game is played. For me, food has several factors, one of which is morale. Some other factors are spoilage, calorie density, complexity of recipe and also complexity of producing the main ingredients. I will leave the complexity of producing the ingredients out of the equation just because it depends heavily on how experienced you are in the game (and also because it will get even more complex explaining than it already is). Yes, a hatch ranch may seem “easy” after you built it a million times over and over but it wasn’t easy when you first started the game and it needs a skilled dupe among other things. Growing bristle berries or mushrooms may seem easy but managing heat or germs was never easy from the get go. On the other hand, mush bars seemed such a great idea for a food source, until you run out of water and dupe labor to sustain food production. Meallice was great until the farm overheated or you ran out of dirt. That’s when the game pushes you to find other sources of sustainable food. 

So let’s say you can produce anything you want easily now and let’s take a look at the other 3 factors food has.

Spoilage
Early in the game you don’t have much infrastructure to maintain food without letting it spoil, so spoilage time is important. Later on, you can diminish this factor by making a freezer in a sterile atmosphere, sure, but are we talking only for the late game here or the general balance of food in the game? Because late game will always be unbalanced the way ONI is. Late game you can overproduce all the things you want and even set your own rules of what is or isn’t important. Even so you will need people to get to the late game somehow, right?

Calorie density
It may not seem as much but again, early on, you don’t have the advantage of rails, infinite food storage or any other option of maintaining food than a refrigerator. Some foods can take up too much space and start making it inconvenient to store, such as lettuce and meallice. And that’s why cooking some of these makes it handy. Turning meallice into pickled meal, may not give you any morale boost but it triples the food you can store and you can also store it for longer. Calorie density like spoilage may be irrelevant later on but it’s an incentive to seek other sources of food.

Complexity of recipe
You could eat ingredients raw or you can cook them. Eating them raw may be easier at the beginning, 5 mealwood per dupe can get you a long way, but the game again gives you the incentive to cook them. Cooking will give you more morale and better calorie density to food although cooking an ingredient makes it spoil quicker so at this point you may need to have powered fridges or a freezer. And making complex recipes is even worse for cooking time and food spoilage. You need to maintain the source ingredients, cook them, not let them spoil and then cook them again. If a recipe is complex but doesn’t give enough morale boost, it would surely prevent you from considering to make it in the first place. 

So here is all that in a table and how food currently is in ONI.

Do I find the current food mechanics balanced? Maybe not entirely but I certainly wouldn’t start shuffling food around depending only on morale. And you shuffled everything…

First of, I’m not sure why you skipped a tier and downgraded several food
In your suggestion you made Pacu Fillet and Raw Shellfish terrible quality like meat but who would try eating it raw in this case? It spoils too easily and it’s too much trouble making a pacu farm let alone a sanishell farm. There needs to be a reason to even consider it as a food source even before cooking it.
Plant Meat is already “processed” meat so why should it be right next to meat? 
Grubfruit is a single crop and so is lettuce. Don’t you think that these would make things too easy?
Upgrading starting food, like Nutrient Bar, Hexalent Fruit and Swamp Chard Heart, to better quality would make things too easy at the beginning and at the same time give no incentive to seek something better.
I also don’t understand downgrading “superb” food to +12 instead of +16 just because. Ambrosial is not just a +16 boost. It also has stress relief and athletics penalty.
And I don’t see the reason why Mushroom Wrap and Stuffed Berry are on different tiers.
 

My play style may be different but I certainly don’t depend on one kind of food. You said that hatches are “easy” but usually on my playthroughs I run out of rock before I have enough barbeque. And I still have never tamed a volcano in order to solve that issue. My preferred food for space missions is of course berry sludge because it can sit on the rocket and never spoil but you still need to manage making your non-astronaut dupes not eat it when given the chance.

I'm not sure if this will clarify why I think the current food system works the way it is and gives different players different options even if you don't like it that much. It may be a bit chaotic and not linear at all but isn't that how ONI is anyway?