Eating and drinking system - Please, just give it up.

[KingOfTime 267]

I've starved exactly twice in the SA. Once, months ago on a full server when loot respawning was first implemented, and once today(.50 experimental). Today I swam out to the island off of Kamishovo and found a ton of loot there, but only one can of beans. Lost it all when I swam back save what was in my pants/my axe...starved in Kamishovo. It took me quite a long time to die considering I swam all the way out there, explored the radio tower and the deer stand, then the small village near the lighthouse, then stalking a zombie I thought was another suicidal bastard, before deciding to head back to the mainland. Generally finding food isn't hard at all. Even "fully looted" towns usually have some food in houses that are already looted, as a lot of players don't bother to pick up sodas/vegetables. Honestly, barring some extremely bad luck, you really have to try to starve to death in this game.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

The game is already to easy for noobs. It isn't some kind of family simulator, it is supposed to be hard, the market is filled with easy games where even people with down syndrome can easily play and not die. DayZ isn't such game, from the very beginning developers said it is hardcore game. Fiding food is too easy. The biggest problem is that all these noobs fill their inventory with useless fruits and vegetables and do not look for real food, like beans, rice, spaghetti or powdered milk. Even damn pipsi cola is many times better than a shitty fruit. Instead of spending time picking up a damn fruit from a ground spend that time looking for normal food, maybe then you won't die. Fruits and vegetables has very little caloric value. It is practically non-existent.

 

Look for food values http://dayz.gamepedia.com/Food_and_Drink and stop picking up damn fruits.

Wow, this is really bad advice.  People are complaining about finding the stuff you mentioned and in order for them to get going they need to pick the "silly" fruit to sustain themselves until they can find actual food.  Yes, look for food while your starving by skipping past berry bushes and apples trees.  Winning here.

Edited October 18, 2014 by Caboose187

[blazinone 72]

Wow, this is really bad advice.  People are complaining about finding the stuff you mentioned and in order for them to get going they need to pick the "silly" fruit to sustain themselves until they can find actual food.  Yes, look for food while your starving by skipping past berry bushes and apples trees.  Winning here.

 

I'm glad you said something so I didn't have to. I have no problem battling a bit with you or Odin Lowe (or others who make good arguments) but this guy is something else. I was ready to rip into him but it's just not worth it. Doubt he even read the thread.

[Gth 18]

I think the real issue is that we start out hungry from the spawn, which does lead to quite a few bambis dying from starvation if their spawn doesn't put them in reach of at least some kind of sustenance to keep them going to the next town or two.  Now, this isn't all bad, as being hungry from the start does also give you an objective from the start (Which helps bambis out), but its still a double edged sword.

 

A good compromise might be setting hunger to the same level as thirst (Or at the same percentage, if they use different scales), so that way you can go a bit longer before you absolutely have to find food or die.

 

But that being said, dying from starvation in the game's current state (or even simply having to constantly eat) is more on the player than the game itself.  The method I've come to find as the most efficient is to just eat and drink every piece of food and drink you can find until you get at least the two green bars.  After that, you should only have to eat every hour or so to maintain the bars presuming you don't lose any blood.  (if you lose blood, I've noticed that your hunger and thirst tend to go down almost immediately afterwards)  And considering the scale of the game and the commonality of loot (generally), that shouldn't be that hard unless you're purposely avoiding loot spawns.  An hour in-game can get me from Svetlo to Balota and half way back just plain running.

[Caboose187 (DayZ) 3036]

I'm glad you said something so I didn't have to. I have no problem battling a bit with you or Odin Lowe (or others who make good arguments) but this guy is something else. I was ready to rip into him but it's just not worth it. Doubt he even read the thread.

It's really hard on the internet to show good composure to those who don't put forth any reasonable or well thought out posts.  Most are plainly ignorant an or just stupid.  I personally have no issues battling with people about stuff but know your shit before spewing garbage :D

[Judopunch 523]

IMO, I view in-game time as being "compressed" AKA 4ish hours of daylight and 4ish hours of night is an in-game "day". It makes sense concerning the distances we are travelling.

OP will be really happy when we cant sprint at 30kph anymore.

[Dagwood 680]

If surviving as a fresh spawn was nearly guaranteed, why even incorporate it into the game at all? Why not just spawn us with matches and a splitting axe and a pistol? And if that is the experience you are looking for, I would suggest trying arma 3 breaking point. I played it recently and it's a lot of fun. But, it is not the "anti-game" that Rocket promised us.

Think about it: if every asshole that was confronted with zombies and life after electricity could cope and equip himself to survive long term, why the fuck did chernarus or even the rest of society collapse?

And if you're not finding adequate food and supplies to survive, learn from your mistakes!!! Don't just come to the forums and claim the game is in some way flawed.

"Failed the exam: science should be rewritten so I can pass the exam!"

I see this logic everyday on these forums and it saddens me that these whiny brats are our future. When confronted with a challenge, they expect the challenge to be removed. I pray to Rocket and the other gods that the development team is as disappointed in these whiners as I am, and that their demands for an easier game go unanswered.

[Judopunch 523]

I'll just say it. The hunger/thirst system is absurd. Nobody playing the mod was thinking "You know what this game is missing? An over the top, needlessly complicated, ridiculously overmodeled givestive system".  Certainly nobody was longing for a eating/drinking system that took up all of their attention while they're trying to play a zombie survival game, much less one that requres him to eat every few minutes or die of hunger.

 

Just stop. Give it up. The fixation with this eating/drinking system is ruining the game. With my last two characters, I fresh spawned and immidiately begain looking for food, and both times I died before I could find any. Where is the gameplay in that? Who do you think is going to want to play a game who's point is "Spawn, die of hunger. Spawn, die of hunger"? What was the point of this eating/drinking system anyway? Realism? What's realistic about a human having to eat every half an hour or die of starvation?

 

There was nothing wrong with the mod's hunger/thirst system. The function of hunger and thirst in a survival game is to force players to go about trying to feed themselves.  The mod's hunger/thirst system accomplished this. Overmodeling the system doens't add anything to gameplay except frustration. And hyper-fast hunger doens't accomplish anything but to make it all about finding and eating food. Fuck, pac-man ate less frequently than DayZ characters have to. DayZ was fun when food was something you had to do once in a while, not constantly. And if you were going to make it a constant eating simulator, the least you could have done was make the resources availible to accomplish that. Spawning, then immidiately dying of hunger despite your best efforts is just dumb. Nobody wants to play a game where you're going to die no matter what you do. What on earth made you think anyone would?

 

So seriously, just give it up. Either go back to a simple system, or slow the hunger/thirst down by like 100 times. Because right now, this game is all about your stomach, and that's destroying what the game should really be about, which is zombie survival, human interaction and adventure. Either that, or re-label the game accordingly.

 

 

Question. Do you believe this is the final iteration of the system? If not how would you make food and drink a gameplay driving factor, with the amount of depth that would reward hunting, farming, and foraging?

[grindstone50k 208]

Yeah, eating and drinking isn't needed at all in the game. They should take it out. Also, zeds are really broken, so take those out, too. The weather system is totally broken. Remove it and the need to find clothes. Weapons are too hard to find. We should just spawn fully loaded with weapons. And since there are no vehicles, the map is too big. They need to make much smaller, like 100 m². And it's too hard to find people. They should have a minimap that tracks everyone. And it's too hard to tell friendlies from bandits. There should be two teams. Also our kills should be tracked. And we should get rewards for every X number of kills, like helos come in and shoot people, or companion dogs that attack bandits automatically.

 

And they should change the name to Modern Warfare 12.

[Ham_Sandwich27 108]

All the guys saying "it's easy" to stay alive most likely have been walking around geared for a while and surely won't have much trouble "maintaining" their relatively Healthy state.

As a fresh spawn, it's a different story. I've suicided and re-spawned about a dozen times in 0.49 Stable and have died of hunger/environment 8 out of 12 times. Spawning anywhere near Electro on a server that sees regular traffic will have little to no food around. There isn't enough time to make it farther inland to find un-looted areas for food and forget finding a weapon to kill a deer.

I died several times with a can of food in my hand but no means to open it. And I died with a fire roaring in sight of 3 deer but no way to catch kill and skin them.

Anybody who says it's easy should really try spawning fresh again.

THANK you.

 

IMO, I view in-game time as being "compressed" AKA 4ish hours of daylight and 4ish hours of night is an in-game "day". It makes sense concerning the distances we are travelling.

Ok, well in that case, let me run and collect food at a correspondingly fast/compressed rate.

 

Your not playing the game right. Or you just dont have the patience. Cause its prob the easiest thing to understand. I never ever strave to death. Ever. Just get those three bars lit, and its easy to maintain after that. You will find to be much easier.

You're not reading what I posted. Two characters in a row, I spawed and immidiately began looking for food in all the structures in the nearest village, then the next nearest and so forth, and starved to death. Twice in a row. I don't care how good you think you are at DayZ, if there's no food within your starving radius, you're dead. That is a problem with the starvation radius (read - the distance you can go without food), the amount of food spawning, or both. That happening two spawns in a row is an issue. And no, it's not that I don't know how to look for food. And it's certainly not a question of "patience". I'm playing until I die of starvation.

 

This is actually a "mimimi can't feed myself plz nerf hunger" topic. Try to focus on getting food, drinks and keeping/getting warm (because being cold drains energy). You want bright green energized, bright green hydrated, healthy and 36.7°C. Then you want to keep it this way. Which is only the focus for the very first phase of the game - then you usually have the tools to deal with your demands. Nothing wrong here unless you want to skip this phase and go straight for the 1337-5n!p!n9 - but then don't dare to speak of survival.

Once again, re-read the OP. Getting fed is a little difficult when there's literally no food within distance at which you can search before starving.

 

wait till poopin is added..

POOP-sim 2016... must have game of the year, haahahahahaahh NOT !!!

Oh, that'll be nice. They'll surely make it so you have to poop once every half an hour. And they'll make it so you have to use a toilet to do it, but not put any toilets around. Then when you find that one toilet after 20 spawns, there will be no shit paper and you'll die anyway.

 

Yeah, eating and drinking isn't needed at all in the game. They should take it out. Also, zeds are really broken, so take those out, too. The weather system is totally broken. Remove it and the need to find clothes. Weapons are too hard to find. We should just spawn fully loaded with weapons. And since there are no vehicles, the map is too big. They need to make much smaller, like 100 m². And it's too hard to find people. They should have a minimap that tracks everyone. And it's too hard to tell friendlies from bandits. There should be two teams. Also our kills should be tracked. And we should get rewards for every X number of kills, like helos come in and shoot people, or companion dogs that attack bandits automatically.

And they should change the name to Modern Warfare 12.

Why don't you actually try reading the OP, not just healdine. From the length of you post, it's clear that you can write past ten words. One would therefore assume that you can read past ten words. Unless of course you had your mom type that dribble out for you, which I guess is entirely possible. Edited October 18, 2014 by Ham_Sandwich27

[Mor (DayZ) 57]

OP will be really happy when we cant sprint at 30kph anymore.

Of course, pretty much everyone will. With the exception of few who enjoy game like sim farm/truck where you get to realistically get to drive a tractor/truck for hours, or time filler games like farmvile (i'd rather have a zombie chew on my balls)

But then again you just trolling trying to get a rise. I doubt that such change will happen in vacuum, there will be more things todo in any given place e.g. better zombies/hunting/shelters, there will be more players on the servers, loot will be balanced, vehicles will be added etc...

Like I said before basically its matter of balance. The current issues are almost certainly due to the game being still WIP and or the gave testing new mechanics in extreme conditions. However, I 100% support the sentiment in OP against excessive realism.

[Ham_Sandwich27 108]

Like I said before basically its matter of balance. The current issues are almost certainly due to the game being still WIP and or the gave testing new mechanics in extreme conditions.

Yet many seem to be arguing that there's no issue at all.

[evil koala 22]

According to a Runners World calorie calculator, your DayZ avatar would require at most about 3217 calories per hour in addition to your base metabolic rate. This assumes your avatar weighs 90 kg plus 45 kg of gear running at 23 kph non-stop.

 

Its no wonder we starve to death in 15 minutes.

[pillock 850]

Yet many seem to be arguing that there's no issue at all.

 

I don't think there is an issue.

 

It'll be tweaked later in development. Hunger might be a bit too fast right now, but so what? DayZ isn't a game yet. You know that.

[odin_lowe 3686]

Yet many seem to be arguing that there's no issue at all.

Yes, there's no need to argue, or have issues with something that we are 90% sure it's gonna change. Make it better or not will be, in the end, still a matter of personal choice as it's impossible to "balance" the game to make everyone love the game and think it's perfect.

 

Not matter what happens in the end, and during process, some will still hate the hunger system for whatever reason they see fit.

[Karmaterror 982]

Personally I love that its a struggle to SURVIVE as a fresh spawn...ya know.... in this survival game :)

 

I died about 4 times last time I played, either to cold or hunger...wasn't shot once. It was awesome!, finding food should be your main focus of play when you spawn, and warm cloths. Then once your equipped to survive you can start looking for "!toys".

[pilgrim* 3514]

1 ) At the moment in Standard you can eat as much as you like without getting Stuffed. Try it. Eat everything you find.

You can drink water until you're Stuffed and still Starve to death. Stuffed and Starving. Then Dead.

But the overeating doesn't work.

If you eat 4 whole bags of rice when you're already full green and healthy, the only effect is 'Dehydrated'

 

2 ) If you're ill for any food reason, drink until you vomit. Then eat again to get strength back. End of story. Forget antibiotics or charcoal tabs. That's all.

 

3 ) The meat from an animal kill is ridiculously low in food vale compared to cans.

Each steak only gives you max 60-70% because your knife is always worn out even if you keep sharpening it, you can't sharpen it (or your axe) better than Damaged - which is silly.

Instead of hunting, eat 2 cans of beanz. More food value, less effort and time,  easier.. and takes up a LOT LESS backpack space than hunting gear.

This hunting/meat nutrition needs much better balance.

 

4 ) AND knives, axes, machetes should sharpen back to WORN... not 'Damaged' Every time you cut a tree you have to sharpen, after 1 tree your axe goes from Badly Damaged to Ruined' so you must carry a stone all the time to sharpen back UP to Damaged before you start to cut wood. Silly. (1 tree ??).

Note - The stone is as big as your head (a real sharpening stone is rather small) and a good zombie hit can RUIN your stone (true!) so you can't sharpen any more. IMO that's unusual for large rocks IRL.

 

A bag of rice is enough food for a couple of days. 3 or 4 steaks should be at that level, or very close.

 

5 ) If you are a beginner alone on the coast it's hard to find food and harder to find something to open it with. This is probably one of the most interesting and difficult parts of the game. You die often.

 

xx pilgrim

Edited October 18, 2014 by pilgrim

[Rowdy (DayZ) 28]

perhaps do some research and learn about the system, I certainly do not have to eat constantly to keep myself alive. here is a helpful resource for you, changed the way I played when i learned it...

[Max Planck 7174]

Hey guys!

 

I've cleaned the off-topic squabbling out of the topic, please carry on (and on and on) without the personal insults.

[kitthegreat 43]

Hmm I don't see the problem, I mean one bag of rice and a can of peaches will take your freshie from hungry to stage 2 energised for hours of play. I've never starved to death in this game. Not trying to show off my 'leet dayz skillz' or anything.

But the reality is keeping well fed and hydrated is comically easy, I'd like to see a lot less food and a greater focus on hunting and foraging.

[kakysas666 191]

Wow, this is really bad advice.  People are complaining about finding the stuff you mentioned and in order for them to get going they need to pick the "silly" fruit to sustain themselves until they can find actual food.  Yes, look for food while your starving by skipping past berry bushes and apples trees.  Winning here.

 

if you took a second to check out the calorie values of fruits in DayZ you would understand maybe that it is a waste of time and inventory space to pick them up.

[Evil Minion 943]

1 ) At the moment in Standard you can eat as much as you like without getting Stuffed. Try it. Eat everything you find.

You can drink water until you're Stuffed and still Starve to death. Stuffed and Starving. Then Dead.

But the overeating doesn't work.

If you eat 4 whole bags of rice when you're already full green and healthy, the only effect is 'Dehydrated'

It works for me in both .49 Stable and .50 Experimental so its probably some kind of bug that happens under specific circumstances. Its noticable as it gives you some resistance to cold (which drains energy) allowing you to survive longer before you are able to warm up. The "Stuffed" state has nothing to do with overeating (which does not give you any further status after bright green energized) - its just the indicator of how full your stomach is. Eating/drinking too much leads to vomiting which drains some energy and water but also empties your stomach - in fact its worth doing at times at it might allow you to reach a certain status faster provided you can compensate for the loss.

2 ) If you're ill for any food reason, drink until you vomit. Then eat again to get strength back. End of story. Forget antibiotics or charcoal tabs. That's all.

Sickness can't be cured by vomiting - thats a myth (caused by an interface bug or misinterpretations of sickness progress). However vomiting will empty your stomach allowing you to eat/drink more which in turn allows for faster recovery. But if you cannot compensate its actually dangerous to vomit as you will lose valuable energy and water. Do not vomit if not stuffed and bright green energized/hydrated. Instead eat and drink to keep those.

Charcoal tabs will cure most sicknesses (not chemical sickness) skipping the ill effects. You can even abuse this by eating a greater amount of "bad food" (raw, burnt meat, rotten fruit, poisonous berries etc.) and then throw in Charcoal tabs to avoid getting sick - making them some kind of "food purification tabs".

3 ) The meat from an animal kill is ridiculously low in food vale compared to cans.

Hunting can sustain you and allows for more flexibility compared to canned food. But its rather opportunistic - if you are in the wilderness and feel like making camp/eating something with an animal nearby you can fill up your energy reserves. In general canned food is easier to get and works as prime food source but neclecting hunting for the sake of saving two inventory slots (you will carry a weapon and camp making gear anyways) is just less flexible and thus might put you in a disadvantage.

I would like it if they would actually implement real hunting (+) though:

• animals are shy and tougher (requires you to stalk and carefully aim your shots)
• animals might defend themselves in dire situations (just makes hunting more interesting and gives some additional values to player-side hunting skills)
• animals give more meat and meat amount is determined the damage they took (blowing up an animal with explosives would net you barely anything but a careful headshot would give you enough to sustain a group for quite some time)
• meat can be prepared in multiple ways to improve the food value (like cooking stew)
• meat should rot if not prepared (e.g. by using salt) making it a good but temporary food source

4 ) AND knives, axes, machetes should sharpen back to WORN... not 'Damaged' Every time you cut a tree you have to sharpen, after 1 tree your axe goes from Badly Damaged to Ruined' so you must carry a stone all the time to sharpen back UP to Damaged before you start to cut wood. Silly. (1 tree ??).

Note - The stone is as big as your head (a real sharpening stone is rather small) and a good zombie hit can RUIN your stone (true!) so you can't sharpen any more. IMO that's unusual for large rocks IRL.

I think most tools degrade too fast. This was toned down for can opening but otherwise items get ruined far too quickly. Now this is counterbalanced by the amount of loot and maintenace being a point&click instant feature but I think it would help gameplay a lot if tools would be more rare in general but degrade slower though still fast enough to acre about regular maintenace. I can see the Fireaxe being less durable than the Splitting Axe though. Stones might not sharped to worn but then there should be sharpening tools for this (also melee weapons in bad condition might deal less damage depending on type).

5 ) If you are a beginner alone on the coast it's hard to find food and harder to find something to open it with. This is probably one of the most interesting and difficult parts of the game. You die often.

I like it. The first phase is much more interesting right now as you struggle for basic supplies. And finally beating it feels much better - also adds value to your life as everyone has to go through this early game struggle again after death. And it is a phase where you can actually appreciate some help from other players. Thanks to the weather effects you have much less time now - making it a timed mission. Sure its somewhat luck-based but on the other side its the very first part of the game - if you fail you don't lose too much but if you succeed its quite a reward.

[Mukaparska 55]

Yeah. Take away the diseases as well, they are annoying. This is not any ebola simulator. Oh and the looting is waste of time, I think everyone should have a gun at the beginning. This new "cold" system sucks as well, it's not like a survival game should be about getting cold. It's annoying you lose your stuff every time you die, I think this should be like GTA where you only lose money when you die. 

 

And please, make the map smaller so we can shoot each others, it's ridiculous this world is all empty. And a ranking system is also a must.

[escobert 112]

 Thank you someone said it , This guy is a Tool , that he can't find a drink or an apple , I have zero problem ever finding food or being outta the green.  Instead of Racing to the Military base to get a gun to KOS , check a house or two.  I hope they tweak it even harder for him , will give a poor soul 10 more min to live while he has to eat before he goes shooting up the streets. 

HAHAHAHAHA I'm starving  , friggin moron

Have you been playing experimental?

 

It obvious you haven't. You can check every house in Novo, you'll find MAYBE one can of food. You have to run to NWAF and get a gun because there's no other way to get food in experimental right now ;)  so stop acting all tough and above the person you quoted if you don't even know wtf you're talking about. I have NEVER starved on stable and I starved in one life then froze in the next on experimental.

Edited October 18, 2014 by escobert

[Dagwood 680]

Several people here have claimed to have checked multiple villages and starved to death before finding the supplies they need. I'm curious as to whether these villages are strung along the east coast or are interior towns.

If they are the former, I think you deserve your early grave. Every newspawn starts on the coast and you think that you're going to be able to find anything there? Insane.

But, if in fact the interior towns are lacking in sufficient supplies on experimental (I know this is not the case on stable), there MIGHT be some need for tweaking before it hits stable.

If any of you played the mod around the 1.8 mark, you will remember when the infection rate was jacked way up (25% chance from bloody zombies). This, coupled with the low spawn rate of antibiotics, enraged players like the OP.

"What do you mean I have to struggle to survive until I find antibiotics!!!? Waah just let me roam and kill unhindered!!"

But, within a few short weeks, everyone learned how to cope and the whiners moved onto the next topic to whine about.

Food and warm clothing scarcity is one of those whiner buzz topics. It increases difficulty but doesn't give instant gratification like KOS does. I wouldn't get worked up over posts like this. Honestly the OP is just embarrassing himself by refusing to admit that he needs more practice and experience to become proficient at dayz.