Thoughts on the new eating and drinking system?

[Killawife 599]

The matter of food

I have no problem with the food spawn rate. As it is now it is ok and it could even be lower. But it would be nice if the food you ate actually did something. Today i spawned in Cherno, immediately hungry and unable to find any food my status went to starving in five minutes. I found something to eat and got energized. A short while later while traveling towards Elektro I got starving again, found some food and made it to elektro. In Elektro I found a little food so i could continue my travels but wehn i got to Kamyshovo i was starving again. I searched every house but it was picked clean so I went to the town above Kamyshovo, Tulga. Since it was uphill it took some time and by the time I got there I was dying of starvation. I searched every house and there was nothing. So i did the honorable thing.

 

 I made a note of the food I ate during this time. Playtime was 2 hours and 5 minutes. I ate 2 cans of spaghetti(95% and 59%), One can of Tactical bacon (86%) and one canned tuna. I also ate one zucchini, one banana, three tomatoes, one apple and one packet of milk powder. 

 

Is it really resonable that you should have to eat so much food in so little time to stay alive? It just seems that all you do is eat, drink, eat, drink, eat , drink etc. I seem to remember that before when you got energized, you wouldn't have to eat for quite some time. it seems to have changed.

 

[Calvin Candie 189]

It is realistic. Because if you were running that much in real life...or if it was actually possible...you would need that much food.

[boneboys 7988]

I've merged Topics.

 

I'm all for drastically reducing ready to eat food spawn.

The fact that eating or the need to eat is exaggerated (this changes often in Exp builds) may be to gather data.

[Jex 1104]

And again you are missing my entire point.

 

Right now the outcome of eating 3 cans of food (again I'm making up numbers, but i think this is close) spaced over a few minutes by using the "eat" function instead of "eat all" is that you gain the energized status.  It probably takes less than a few minutes honestly, but the point is it takes only marginally longer than using "eat all."  But the outcomes of these 2 things are completely different.

 

Using eat all results in you becoming stuffed but not energized.  Using eat results in you becoming energized and stuffed.  It's the same amount of food in a minimal amount of difference in time.  What's that tell you?  To me it says that in all likelihood using eat all is resulting in eating only one actual portion and giving you the same amount of "stuffed."

 

This isn't trying to replicate digestion and if it is it's the worst fucking way to do it.  This doesn't encourage you to eat slowly over an extended period of time.  It encourages you to use one function over the other.  This is not a step in the right direction unless their goal is to simply cause annoyance.

 

If they wanted you to fill up and digest they could simply make it so you gain stuffed status which transforms into energized/hydrated.

 

What you're talking about sounds like a bug.

[Jex 1104]

The matter of food

I have no problem with the food spawn rate. As it is now it is ok and it could even be lower. But it would be nice if the food you ate actually did something. Today i spawned in Cherno, immediately hungry and unable to find any food my status went to starving in five minutes. I found something to eat and got energized. A short while later while traveling towards Elektro I got starving again, found some food and made it to elektro. In Elektro I found a little food so i could continue my travels but wehn i got to Kamyshovo i was starving again. I searched every house but it was picked clean so I went to the town above Kamyshovo, Tulga. Since it was uphill it took some time and by the time I got there I was dying of starvation. I searched every house and there was nothing. So i did the honorable thing.

 

 I made a note of the food I ate during this time. Playtime was 2 hours and 5 minutes. I ate 2 cans of spaghetti(95% and 59%), One can of Tactical bacon (86%) and one canned tuna. I also ate one zucchini, one banana, three tomatoes, one apple and one packet of milk powder. 

 

Is it really resonable that you should have to eat so much food in so little time to stay alive? It just seems that all you do is eat, drink, eat, drink, eat , drink etc. I seem to remember that before when you got energized, you wouldn't have to eat for quite some time. it seems to have changed.

 

 

Pro Tip:

 

Berry bushes and apple trees are your friend :)

[Munson_fry (DayZ) 312]

Except that again, the current system is not reflecting this idea at all.  So no, it is not a "step in the right direction."  A step in the right direction (assuming the goal is to replicate digestion) would be introducing a slow burn on food you consume, where you gain a stuffed status that shifts into an energized/hydrated status.

 

Not eating the same exact amount of food in two different speeds that are literally the difference between minutes having incredibly different outcomes.

 

Have you guys actually played with this patch.  Here is the scenario once again (I'm going to make up numbers here):

1) you are "hungry" status and use "eat all" on 3 cans of food and lose your hungry status (not gaining energized) while gaining a yellow stuffed status

or

2) you are "hungry" status and use "eat" on 3 cans of food and gain energized status while not gaining stuffed status.  This takes only a few minutes more than using the eat all option.

 

It is insanity to think this is a step in the right direction or a good representation of what it's like to spread out meals over a day.  The devs up to this point have implemented complex mechanics for multiple systems, why would you think they would half ass such a shitty system now?

YES, we guys actually played this game and i can assure u that the current system is a lot better than the one we had before.

ok it may need some tweeking but this is a lot better than the eat 2 pck. rice and then hit the welll and ur done for the day .

 

so to say it in ur rather rude style :

 

L2P

[pale1776 375]

Cant dissagree more, drinking 3 handfulls of water is no where near your daily water needs. Healthy water intake is around 2 liters, think of how much water you would actually drink from a handfull taking into consideration spillage ext. Drinking more than 2 liters would not make you vomit, there is a difference between players caring about hydration and food than it simply being unrealistic and annoying.

If you hold true to your name (if so, thank you for your service) then surely you remember the threat of overhydration. In Iraq anyway, on a somewhat routine schedule guys in my dads old company would drink so much water that they got sick, to the point that they were actually throwing up. That was mostly due to the fact that it was a hundred and hell in the shade, and gulping water seems to cool you off.

The 3-4 handfuls every now and then makes sense, its what most people do. I drink in moderation, cup by cup. I don't sit and gulp down a liter all at once, that's how you get sick. Moderation is key, 3-4 handfuls every couple hours should be the end goal.

Its all bein reworked, so just give it time

[Jex 1104]

If you hold true to your name (if so, thank you for your service) then surely you remember the threat of overhydration. In Iraq anyway, on a somewhat routine schedule guys in my dads old company would drink so much water that they got sick, to the point that they were actually throwing up. That was mostly due to the fact that it was a hundred and hell in the shade, and gulping water seems to cool you off.

The 3-4 handfuls every now and then makes sense, its what most people do. I drink in moderation, cup by cup. I don't sit and gulp down a liter all at once, that's how you get sick. Moderation is key, 3-4 handfuls every couple hours should be the end goal.

Its all bein reworked, so just give it time

 

You can kill yourself by drinking too much water - I think it drowns your liver but to do it you'd need to drink around 6 litres or more over a very short period.

[battlerhd 116]

You can kill yourself by drinking too much water - I think it drowns your liver but to do it you'd need to drink around 6 litres or more over a very short period.

Yes, over drinking can be just as bad as not drinking at all but this is a game with mechanics that needs the eating and drinking system to be balanced, the main reason being is you regain blood and screen colour when you are bright green enegized and hydrated and at the moment I think its impossible to balence the them without throwing up, meaning the only way you can regain colour is with the Saline bag IV. They are not hard to find but when playing on servers that have mostly been looted then you have no way of getting colour back and for me playing black and white is horrible.

[HarryPotter (DayZ) 172]

A box of ceareal and a few cans of soda seems to do the trick for me. I got stuffed then that went away after a while and I ate a fruit and peaches and drank a few more soda then hydrated energised and healthy. Then just topped up on fesh water after that. No propblem really. Yeah the system changed. Adapt or die mofos it's the zombie appocolyps :)

[smoq2 221]

The system doesn't work as it should since it's not designed accurately according to human physiology.

 

hungry -> energized

thirsty -> hydration

 

This is wrong and confusing.

 

Being hungry and thirsty are nothing more than signals our bodies send to our conciousness that it's time to eat something (similar to an addiction urge), only slightly related to whether we are in a energized or hydrated state. The minute we would get "stuffed" in real life, the signal would shut down, and we would assume we're not hungry any more. When are low on energy, we actually don't feel hungry, but tired, sleepy and distracted instead. Many of us actually do that eating crappy food.

 

The system should look like this:

 

De-energized -> Energized (condition)

Dehydrated -> Hydrated (condition)

Hungry (signal strength)

Thirsty (signal strength)

Stuffed (condition)

 

Where having a hungry or thirsty statuses (or signals) would "pull" the respective condition towards lower values.

 

Next, energy value should rise slowly and drop slowly, depending on the amount and speed of movement you make and intervals between your meals. The longer you don't eat, the more severe your "hungry" signal is, the more energy you loose every minute (or game "tick", to be more technical). I guess several hours in game should be enough to reach the full energized status from de-energized, this includes eating quite a few times (assuming 1.5 can of beans would make you stuffed, as it should). There's a reason why people who suffered severe starvation can spend a couple of days in the hospital, and that's being served most of nutrition directly to their veins.

 

Hydration should rise quicker, and fall quicker, while running should increase the "thirsty" signal. A 3 kilometre jog should make you quite thirsty, but not necessarily make you dehydrated.

 

"Hungry" and "Thirsty" signals should have some minor negative effects, in order not to be ignored by players, as they are hard to ignore in reality, despite of your level of energy or hydration.

 

There is also the problem of the mixture you actually consume. Eating and drinking at the same time should have your stomach process it slowly, resulting in keeping the "stuffed" status longer, while having a stomach stuffed with just water shouldn't be a problem in a fairly short period of time. Food is also processed quite fast if your digestive acids are not thinned with water or other liquids.

 

Oh and the "Eat" and "Eat all" options are bugged. The latter does not provide the full nutritional value of the consumed item.

 

My advice is: Consult a doctor regarding the design. You'll have a complete system designed within minutes. Nature actually did a good job here. ;)

Edited March 3, 2015 by retro19

[JPWiser 251]

I like it, as gibonez said earlier it forces people to hydrate and eat gradually instead of spamming F until bright green.

It's not perfect no, but much better than the old system. I still haven't puked once and managed to get multiple characters to bright green statuses.

You also don't need as much food or water to get your status bars going it just takes more time management to do so. Once your good your good, a bottle of water and a can of food every now and then keeps you perfect.

Great step in the right direction just needs some tweaks.

Maybe different wording would help people.

Stuffed does not mean you are hydrated properly or fed properly. Its just a placeholder term to let you know you need to take a break from stuffing your face. Wait 10 mins and try again.

Also as stated in the post above hungry and thirsty are misleading in the game. It really should be dehydrated and malnourished or something along those lines.

Rocket science at its best.

Edited March 3, 2015 by JPWiser

[mercules 1290]

 ...and at the moment I think its impossible to balence the them without throwing up...

 

It's not, I haven't had an issue once since the new patch. Stop eating Tactical Bacon.

[Killawife 599]

I haven't had a problem with this before. You find food, eat and then you move on to more important business. But having to stop and eat every three minutes or so and still dying of starvation is just silly. It should take at least 24 hours in playtime to go from energized and hydrated to dying, not 20 minutes.

 I also know that there are berrybushes and apples to pick but its quite timeconsuming and by the rate I was going I was going to die before I had found two apples. Also those berries are nasty as you don't know which kind you will find.

 

 At least next time I find a dead Bambi I know better than to leave all that prime meat just lying around.

[Bororm 1156]

To the people saying it forces you to eat gradually, it doesn't.

 

All it does is make you use the "eat" function over the "eat all" function.  Seriously, play the game and test it yourself.  It's even easier now to be hydrated/energized than before as it takes less food/drink.  That second part isn't bad, it was stupid that you had to eat like 10 cans of food before.  The implementation is bad though because there is now no reason for the "eat all" and "drink all" functions.

 

It only takes like 1-2 cans of food and 1-2 water bottles now to be green hydrated/energized.  There's even less incentive now to carry extra food and water.

 

It would be nice if the devs would just tell us what their intention is, because overall it's a stupid change.

 

 

YES, we guys actually played this game and i can assure u that the current system is a lot better than the one we had before.

ok it may need some tweeking but this is a lot better than the eat 2 pck. rice and then hit the welll and ur done for the day .

 

so to say it in ur rather rude style :

 

L2P

 

I think you need to L2P because you'd realize that as stated above, it takes even less effort now to get hydrated/energized and be "done for the day"

Edited March 4, 2015 by Bororm

[Jex 1104]

 

To the people saying it forces you to eat gradually, it doesn't.

 

All it does is make you use the "eat" function over the "eat all" function.  Seriously, play the game and test it yourself.  It's even easier now to be hydrated/energized than before as it takes less food/drink.  That second part isn't bad, it was stupid that you had to eat like 10 cans of food before.  The implementation is bad though because there is now no reason for the "eat all" and "drink all" functions.

 

It only takes like 1-2 cans of food and 1-2 water bottles now to be green hydrated/energized.  There's even less incentive now to carry extra food and water.

 

It would be nice if the devs would just tell us what their intention is, because overall it's a stupid change.

 

 

 

I think you need to L2P because you'd realize that as stated above, it takes even less effort now to get hydrated/energized and be "done for the day"

 

 

So is it a bug or what? Seems to me either way you eat or drink shouldn't matter overall.

[Bororm 1156]

So is it a bug or what? Seems to me either way you eat or drink shouldn't matter overall.

 

I personally think it's a bug, but who knows with out a dev telling us what their intention actually is.

[Finchtastic 50]

Yeah, they completely broke it.  You get stuffed at a faster rate than you get energized.  Without peaches, you're doomed to either steadily declining status or at best, you just maintain your status.  I took one sip of water and was stuffed, I almost died from starvation because of it.  Luckily I found some peaches and due to their potency in this game, was able to save myself once I was no longer stuffed.  They literally COMPLETELY broke the mechanic this patch.

[Finchtastic 50]

it is perfectly fine for now.

 

Really early work in progress but a step in the right direction especially if it now makes players actually care about hydration and food.

I'd like to know how you can barely make it from elektro to cherno from spawn without starving to death, but nobody cares about hydration and food?  Howcome EVERY SINGLE PERSON I've killed has food and drink in their inventory?   Do explain yourself. 

[irl-calibre 744]

bulimia simulator '15

[Finchtastic 50]

The new system is way better than the old one.. as others have said.. a step in the right direction. I do a lot of "survival" type gameplay.. not waging war on the coast or camping with tons o' rice & canteens.. thus, requiring a more realistic diet.. and the new system seems to do its job better than the old "chug a couple of canteens in one go" one.

 

That said, once you have a decent percentage of water & food in your stomach (energized, hydrated), your diet will feel more like a rl one.

Yeah, except this is ZOMBIE SURVIVAL... Not a Bear Grylls simulator.

[Finchtastic 50]

I've merged Topics.

 

I'm all for drastically reducing ready to eat food spawn.

The fact that eating or the need to eat is exaggerated (this changes often in Exp builds) may be to gather data.

Again, this is ZOMBIE SURVIVAL.  This is not Bear Grylls simulator 2015.

[gibonez 3633]

Again, this is ZOMBIE SURVIVAL.  This is not Bear Grylls simulator 2015.

 

What is the difference ?

[BadAsh (DayZ) 1513]

I haven't noticed anything specially strange with the current system. The "full" while either being thirsty or hungry issue has been in the game for quite some time, it doesn't seem to have changed much in this build. With the characters I have played in .54 I have been perfectly capable of getting light grean hydrated and energised with no problems regarding getting overfed. Of course the system needs tweaks, and will probably play out differently in beta/release, but for now it seems to be functional.

 

The only thing I have an issue with currently is that now that it plays the drinking animation with each sip from pools and fountains it takes forever to get hydrated, especially when you spawn, because the 20-30 drinks you need to get there has to play out separately.

[GaryWalnuts 1680]

What is the difference ?

 

Me kill zombie.  

Should not need eat.

/s