After pretty much nailing down the energy/thirst mechanic.. Let's think long term:

[serenityrick 218]

So thanks to the poster Merino and his youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwNgTnj9hBE I can (along with many other people I'm sure) survive rather easily in the alpha. ALPHA being the keyword.. I obviously realize things will change such as values, mechanics and spawn rarity.. but I'm going to mention it anyway because.. well.. I'm an official Alpha tester *puffs out chest*

 

So once you realize how your stomach works and how water and food fill it up.. it's rather easy to stuff your face full of both and then never get another thirst/hunger message again.

 

Every new spawn after getting mercilessly killed by another player, I do the same thing; 

 

• Locate the nearest water well
• Loot houses for food
• Eat food first
• Then fill the rest of my stomach with water

 

As I find more food, I immediately open it up and eat it knowing that it would take forever to actually fill the hidden "energy/calorie" bar. Carry a full bottle of water just in case I happen to run off the excess and then run back into one of the MANY towns that have a free source of water should I run out or find it convenient.

 

So what's the problem? Well the problem, as a survival game it's rather easy to survive.. at least in terms of keeping your survivor well fed and hydrated. So basically this thread should be a discussion for how it can be balanced once the good stuff starts getting added like hunting and cooking. Because I imagine things HAVE to change in order for either of those to be worth doing. 

 

Certainly there are plenty of variables to make hunting or cooking better food worth it even if the current food/water mechanic isn't changed.. the biggest one being zombie threats. It will probably take twice, maybe three or four times as long to loot even a small town without aggroing (hopefully dangerous) zombies so you'll probably get hungry and thirsty faster due to the sheer amount of time it would take. So even IF food values remain the same, it may be worth it to start hunting even if cans by themselves are easier to grab (in theory)

 

But what about wells? There are many of them and all infinite. Some towns have more than one.. some even have 3! Should there be a limit on how many drinks a player can take from a well? Either a personal limit or a server limit? (so if a player had already come along and drained it, you get none?). Right now, I don't think many people get their water from a pond and that's without the whole disease element added in yet! I don't imagine that changing much once it get into beta if water wells continue to be a constant and rather easy source of water for a player. Should they be nixed completely? perhaps they should only exist on the coast where as a new player you can get water but as you travel inland, you'll have to take risks at the pond or purify/boil your own water?

 

Again, it's alpha. I'm sure surviving on food and water is only easy because zombies pose literally zero threat at the moment.. perhaps increasing their numbers and AI and overall threat would change that completely. 

The biggest thing for me is the water wells though. Even with an increased zombie threat, those things are pretty OP at the moment, no?

 

EDIT - on second thought, I suppose an easy "fix" for the wells would be the chance to contract a sickness from them, similar to still water ponds. That way you'd probably only use it to fill a water bottle to go back and boil or purify later rather than sit there and spam the "use" key on it and risk a waterborne illness. 

Edited January 1, 2014 by serenityrick

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

Sickness will (hopefully) balance all that out. Right now you can kneel by the well and spam the drink button. In the future this will most certainly make you sick. So you will need to fill the water bottle, purify it (boil or pills), drink it, repeat. That will be time consuming.

 

As for food, I believe the canned food will get you sick also unless you use the disinfectant spray on it.

 

Sickness and food/water will play a bigger imo once it is all in place.

[Ubernaut 297]

I think DevilDog covered it pretty well. Good that someone's thinking about this.

[MystoganXIX 78]

I like the thirst and hunger the way it is at the moment. It demands some of your attention early on, but the game doesn't revolve around you finding everything you can digest and shoving it down your throat. Sickness would definitely add an annoying, but challenging mechanic to this whenever it works.

 

The real problem I see with the game's difficulty is that zombies are pathetic. All die from 1 bullet or 1 swing of an axe it seems. Also you can pretty much run forever, meaning that even if their durability and numbers are dramatically increased... I can run through a city, aggro 150 zombies and laugh as they chase me for the next 40 miles down the road.

 

Note: I don't want the forever running issue dealt with until we have vehicles. Would be rather annoying to have to walk around the map like an elderly.

Edited January 1, 2014 by MystoganXIX

[ChangoSoup 0]

More/better Zombies will probably make these wells less OP. Maybe some kind of rare more dangerous zombies will tend to spawn around wells (zombie brute/hulk?)... Heck even something like the smoker from left 4 dead would be scary for some one drinking at a well and not paying attention and also make the gas mask useful.

[Highlander007 249]

Sickness will (hopefully) balance all that out. Right now you can kneel by the well and spam the drink button. In the future this will most certainly make you sick. So you will need to fill the water bottle, purify it (boil or pills), drink it, repeat. That will be time consuming.

 

As for food, I believe the canned food will get you sick also unless you use the disinfectant spray on it.

 

Sickness and food/water will play a bigger imo once it is all in place.

So, just spray my box of cereal with some Mr Muscolo and I'm gonna be disease free?

Edited January 1, 2014 by Highlander007

[Zogvarn 118]

So, just spray my box of cereal with some Mr Muscolo and I'm gonna be disease free?

Since most cereal is packaged in sealed plastic bags inside a cardboard box, makes sense to disinfect the outside given that pathogens would reside there if anywhere. Now a "damaged" cereal box might have holes in it thus increasing the chance the cereal itself is contaminated and increasing the chance of you getting sick from it. Disinfectant wouldn't really work now. So you put the cereal in some water and boil the whole thing to eliminate the pathogens. (Hint: This is where all that cooking equipment comes in). See how this works now?

 

OP: I like the general premise you have and believe this is where the devs are taking the game. I can see drinking from wells having a lesser chance of pathogens, but still having a chance. As such, purifying any water source will probably be needed to eliminate any chance of getting sick. Not to mention the increased infected amount later on along with the AI tweaking will balance the issue out. And lets not forget the human element. Wells will make for great camping spot for those nasty bandits :)

[DevilDog (DayZ) 455]

So, just spray my box of cereal with some Mr Muscolo and I'm gonna be disease free?

No idea. I am thinking it would make sense for the cans to need cleaning, not things like rice, cereal ect.

 

 

As for the infinite running thing, I still would love them to add packs of dogs. These dogs won't just attack on site when ever they see, but if they are threatened they will. Also if they see you running they will chase and attack you and they are faster than you sprinting. Would make the sprint away from zeds plan more dangerous.

Edited January 1, 2014 by DevilDog

[serenityrick 218]

I like the thirst and hunger the way it is at the moment. It demands some of your attention early on, but the game doesn't revolve around you finding everything you can digest and shoving it down your throat. Sickness would definitely add an annoying, but challenging mechanic to this whenever it works.

 

The real problem I see with the game's difficulty is that zombies are pathetic. All die from 1 bullet or 1 swing of an axe it seems. Also you can pretty much run forever, meaning that even if their durability and numbers are dramatically increased... I can run through a city, aggro 150 zombies and laugh as they chase me for the next 40 miles down the road.

 

Note: I don't want the forever running issue dealt with until we have vehicles. Would be rather annoying to have to walk around the map like an elderly.

 

And that's part of making zombies more of a threat. Once you can only sprint for say.. 60 seconds while fully healthy (even that may be a bit much), zombies SHOULD be faster than your jog.. and once 5+ aggro onto you which should basically be a minimum if you're being completely careless in a town/city (personally, I'm thinking 10+. The more the better), we won't be able to kill one at a time as you'll get swarmed and killed rather quickly.

 

Certainly once something like that is implemented, people will not only be more careful but hopefully more co-operative. Anything inside buildings will now be much more difficult to procure which will include food. And the longer it takes you to gather supplies, the more hungry and thirsty you get. You take a risk on getting this stuff faster by being more careless then you risk getting absolutely swarmed by zombies that are simply faster than you with no way to deal with multiple of them at a time.

 

For me *that's* the dream. I'm kind of hoping they implement that sort of stuff sooner rather than later so the near 700,000 people who bought the alpha aren't shell shocked by the sharp increase in difficulty and the drastically increased time it will (read: should) take to loot buildings thanks to terrifying and dangerous zombies

[Bakercompany86 347]

I really like the stomach/hydration/energy/blood/health system.  I don't really think it needs to be changed at all (I know you're not suggesting that).

 

 

As mentioned before, I think Zombies once fully implemented will be the biggest hurdle for players to deal with to get the "easy" water.  And it should definitely carry risk of infection/disease, albeit a much smaller one than ponds.  I also think applying alcohol tincture/disinfectant to the spigot should eliminate that risk entirely, and this effect should persist for about an hour.

 

Sounds legit to me.  Clear the Zeds.  Disinfect.  Chug it down until you're full.  Fill your canteens/bottles.  Good to go :)

 

Food, being that it's based on RNG, isn't always a sure thing.  I'll take whatever loot spawn balances BI wants to throw in there.  But eventually we're going to see hunting/gathering/cannibalism.  So we'll see how all that goes.

 

Otherwise I think the hidden meter system BI designed is excellent  :)