Food, Hunger, and hunting ... oh my!

[cMeFragU 0]

Ok, so far this beta is going along great. Only died once from serious injuries I deserved for climbing ladders with a pistol out. my fault.

However, Today I logged in, had no food, was near plenty of buildings, some able to be entered, and there is no food. meanwhile I am hungry and go from 11,400 health to 2,000 health before I can find food or any animals to hunt, even though I don't have matches to make a fire to cook and eat the meat, So now I face dying, with a crap ton of awesome gear, packs, weapons, med supplies, yet I am going to die because there aren't enough animals or cans of spam around.

IN the REAL world, you can go for 2 weeks without food. I don't mind the need for water, that is an essential part of life, but you can go without food for a LONG time before you should be in a perilous condition, as you have programmed now. It's just not realistic, it's downright silly that I would be dying that fast due to lack of a meal. I once fasted and lived on water and broth for 3 weeks. I didnt black out, I didnt get all black and white, my body didn't shake.... My first meals were soft foods, but other than that I was just fine, AND I only lost around 15 lbs.

SO please please please consider fixing this issue with food killing you and losing blood at a rate akin to having a 4 inch deep gash in your leg... it is not realistic and honestly dying for lack of food that fast, before I can find any in 2 towns that were vacant, makes no sense.

ALso, Try to increase the number of animals in fields for hunting. Don't just put one in place randomly, Make a small flock of sheep, or a small herd of Cows, that is how they travel!! that is how they live. Thanks!

Great mod!

[griffinz 2816]

^ I have actually given thought to this. Food shouldn't be as necessary as water. The timer should be around 7x slower (2 days vs 14 days).

Wildlife should be more common. In cases of human absence, wildlife can make a pretty quick recovery eg. Chernobyl (although they are suffering from the radiation, they are plentiful).

Although in this case it would be pointless to increase food sources and decrease food need. A solution to go with teh wildlife increase could be to reduce cases of food spawns in canned form...should cut out about 100-200 random items found on the ground

[bodycount 83]

I have yet to ever die from starvation or thirst in DayZ.

[orbital 10]

I love the whole 'Hunt, gut and cook', more wild life would be very nice.

Never had a issue with low food supply my self though. I see people with bags full of ammo whereas one needs to balance it towards the journey planned, then you'll never fall a sleep on empty stomach.

I think the timer on food is a little longer than water already but the facts are correct, food isn't nearly as important as water.

All in all, not a major concern in my case.

[cordleztoaster 5]

I feel if you decrease the food and water timer it will not give people a reason to keep on moving and going from town to town.

The game already gives you enough choices, do you really need a ton of really good equipment? over some sprare food/water?.

Last i checked this game was not a zombie apocalypse simulator. From what i understand its meant to make you face some tough decisions.

I really feel people are making suggestions to make life easier for them in the game and more like an mmorpg, i really hope the game does not follow in this path because i like it in its current state.

[TheRiddick 0]

Bears and wolf attacks, along with maybe some cat variety. It be nice if you were stalked by a animal. I mean lets face it, if u go wandering in the wilderness alone or whatever your bound to bump into a predator animal that may cause you issues.

[Nutrify 0]

I think the current hunger rate while logged in is fine. It takes a couple hours before you are hungry but my only concern is while you are logged out. I feel that should be slowed but not taken out. It is a nice mechanic to have in this game.

[theblueyowie 0]

Unless it's changed since I asked Rocket about wildlife, they are currently uncommon to reduce lag.

[sgtsnug 26]

Simply put, if you log out with no food in your bag your gambling the chances of death by starvation.

I'm about to log in myself knowing I had no food on me, and to go on the hunt quickly to get something to eat.

I only blame myself really.

[m1st3r_pr0per 1]

^ I have actually given thought to this. Food shouldn't be as necessary as water. The timer should be around 7x slower (2 days vs 14 days).

Agree.

[Pale_Rider 2]

I like the blood gain from food (especially food you hunt and cook!) but I do agree that the starvation mechanism can be slower than thirst.

[Curry (DayZ) 1]

I agree with this recommendation.

In the real world...

Starvation takes quite a while to occur. Without water you can die within days and suffer many effects prior to death.

I understand that they do need a mechanism within the game to compel players to gather food. I also understand that blood loss is the only current method of determining your overall health. So I see why you "loose blood" from not eating over a long period of time.

The game currently will allow a player who has not eaten (and is flashing red) to go into black and white, start passing out after only about 45minutes of game time. (tracking from 12000 blood down to about 2000 blood)

This time should be extended.

I once had plenty of water (8 canteens filled) and 4 uncooked meat in my bag. I had matches but could not find a suitable place to light a fire (too hilly or objects near where it was flat) until I started going into black and white, when I finally found a spot to place my fire, I could not find it in the grass due to my poor vision (and its placement several meters away)

I logged out, starving to death with food in my possession that I could not use.

If I had another hour or so, I could have probably gotten it to work.

As far as more animals on the map. I could not agree more. I walked from the coast to the northern (Vybor) airfield, and came across 0 animals in the fields, mountains, woods, etc... I had binoculars and have hunted in real life for the past 35 years, I could not find anything to kill and eat.

I understand that there are not a lot of them so that they do not lag the servers, however without more of them, we are mostly confined to the shores for the "bean wars"

[Roshi (DayZ) 397]

I agree with the slower build up of need for food than water, but think some compromise between the real world and the game world is a good thing so that hunger is a motivator. If it took two days of game time before needing to eat...well i think that's too long. I'm a big fan of the general realism in DayZ (and ARMA in general) but hey, there are no zeds in real life so a little reality bending is ok by me as long as it doesn't involve f$&king zombie crows, etc. A shift towards more hunting, less beans, would be good in my books.

[xtm059 1]

In cases of human absence' date=' wildlife can make a pretty quick recovery eg. Chernobyl (although they are suffering from the radiation, they are plentiful).[/quote']

Theyre not actually suffering much. I just watched a documentary on the wolves there, in particular, and they're all doing really well. Back on topic, I agree with this post, but i think 7x slower is a bit drastic. maybe 3 or 4 times slower.

[TV-12 0]

Damn I just made this exact same thread... I agree the need for food comes on too quickly

[WhiteTigerShiro 25]

Ignoring the infinite stamina, your character is VERY active. Yes, you CAN survive for up to 2 weeks without any food, but not with the amount of activity your character engages in. Besides, food is too easy to come by as it is. Even at the current "too fast" rate of hunger I still have to leave behind large amounts of food because I already have more than enough to survive into the foreseeable future, and as soon as I eat a can it gets replaced very quickly. And this is WITH me being very picky about what I'll eat and drink, mind. ;P

[enforcer1975 1111]

It sucks to be you....in fact i was in the same position some time ago.

They could rethink the whole feeding drinking feature but because players don't play the game 24/7 it has to be done another way so looking for food or supplies doesn't become unimportant. If you only had to feed 3 times and 2L of water a day players would never need to do so and campers would never move from their bush.

And having a timer coutdown even when the player is offline would be bad because if you go on a vacation your character would be dead by the time you return. Wasn't there a feature in the earlier versions when you take a longer off time that you need to feed? The system seems to be a bit buggy anyway. I know i lost blood, was hungry and thursty the one day i was playing but when i played the next day everything was reset, on another day i kept my stats.

[liquidcactus 719]

I love the ideas of Bears and Wolves that would scare cactus to bits O_o..

but also the idea of having a system/option(s) of being able to eat food either raw or cooked(I would imagine this could only apply to hunted animal meats).. cooked MEATS is better for you etc(depending on what kind of meat it is would depend on how sick it makes you if eaten RAW) AND obviously you would only eat raw meat if you are starving and desperate where this could have potential to make you physically ill but you still get some food inya belly.. I would love to see this idea introduced especially if fish(ing) was placed in the game.. and raw fish would make you more sick than raw beef etc...

Raw chicken however !? NO THANX - haha.. >:-)

[wolfstriked 143]

Hunger goes down slower than thirst already.Two things can be done to make hunger less deadly.

When hunger icon is blinking you could have terrible stamina with no blood loss.

I think a better thing is to have it so that blood loss is very slow(right now it just drops rapidly which is silly)and you also get a lower stamina effect.