More Realistic Starvation and Thirst

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Hunger in this game could be more realistic, as could be starvation. Right now, you scarf food when your hunger reaches critical, and then it's not an issue for awhile. If you don't have food, you are dead in TEN MINUTES. Dealing with hunger becomes mechanical, like finding a health buff in any game. You find a can, you eat it, you're at 100% for now. Get low, eat another can, 100%.

This is not realistic. Starving to death is a much slower process - both starving and fixing the situation. I propose the hunger/thirst system be revamped for realism.

Food items should have caloric value, and you should have to consume a realistic number of calories (say 2000) per day in order to keep your strength up. The number of calories you need could and should be influenced by the number of calories you burn - people who run around a lot would burn more calories and need more food than people who camp.

Instead of dying potentially 40 minutes after your last meal, your character should grow weaker if he/she doesn't eat enough. Damage of hatchet swings could grow lesser. Chance of bone-break by zombie attack increased. Walking/running spead decreased. Stability of aim for firearms lessened. As starvation advances, your character could randomly pass out from hunger. Eventually, your character would pass out and die. This process would take days - possibly weeks.

There would be no "quick fix" by just eating a can of beans and being at 100%. You should have to consume calories and build your strength back up.

Thirst and drinking could be more realistic as well, and not just another hunger meter with a canteen icon instead of knife/fork. A human can't go more than 2 or 3 days without water (not soda! water!). In a more realistic setup, water would be more valuable even than food. Water canteens should contain set volumes of water, multiple servings. Nobody just drinks an entire canteen in a sitting unless they are VERY thirsty. You drink a swig at a time, until it's empty. A canteen could contain "water ammo," say a canteen is 30 drinks. You drink periodically to keep yourself hydrated. A swig of water doesn't remove all thirst, but it hydrates you. If you hydrate enough over each day, you're healthy. If not, effects of dehydration should progress.

[boxman80 964]

Excellent proposal. Well done on a good post and good idea. It has been proposed a few times before that the food/water system needs to be revamped but that still doesnt detract from it being a good idea and you've put some great suggestions forward.

[LukeSkywalkers 31]

Food items should have caloric value, and you should have to consume a realistic number of calories (say 2000) per day in order to keep your strength up. The number of calories you need could and should be influenced by the number of calories you burn - people who run around a lot would burn more calories and need more food than people who camp.

First of all great idea!

But I don't like the idea that you have to consume 2000 calories per day. For example when you aren't on every day or just playing 2 hours per day.

I prefer your second suggestion that it should depend on what you do in DayZ. Also you should need more calories if you're shooting zombies/players and getting hit by them because of the adrenaline and stuff.

But drinking would also be tricky, because you always find lots of soda and water bottles are more rare and there aren't ponds everywhere.

Edited September 6, 2012 by Labargoth

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But I don't like the idea that you have to consume 2000 calories per day. For example when you aren't on every day or just playing 2 hours per day.

I prefer your second suggestion that it should depend on what you do in DayZ.

Hmmm. Agreed, consideration would have to be made for players who do not play often, or take breaks. Perhaps if you log in every day, the daily "wear" of life will apply to your calories burned (breathing and pumping blood burns calories slowly). But if you don't log in for a week, maybe it only applies one day worth. This way active players are "in the game" but people can get busy with school or life or whatever and not starve to death while idle. Players who take a break can come back, and just be quite hungry. That would be pretty fair.

But drinking would also be tricky, because you always find lots of soda and water bottles are more rare and there aren't ponds everywhere.

Perhaps disposable bottled-water could be a spawn along-with or instead-of soda cans. Also perhaps the ability to drink directly from water spigots could be added. To offset the added difficulty some. There could also be more water sources added to the map.

[00dlez 22]

I would like to see more variety in the food/water system than currently exists as well, on that much we agree. The calorie idea works, in the sense that certain foods are better or worse for you just as soda will not act like water to replenish thirst.

However, applying strict realism to any game is just impossible. Realistically I can't survive on soda for my thrist needs, but realistically I can't fly a helicopter either. It's a game and is using a mechanic to simulate a struggle and provide a challenge - not attempting to exactly simulate real life.

Again, I agree with some of your points to a degree, but this is so low on my laundry list of improvements/tweaks/inclusions that it is close to a non-issue.

[Lights Out 141]

I also agree food/water intake should on be based on playtime. Whether your logged off for 1 day or 1 week, both players come back with their hunger/thirst bars equally depleted.

To add to your post, I was on another post last week ( can't quite remember the OP) and he suggested delusions and hallucinations when your starvation/dehydration/blood loss got to a certain point. This would be in addition to random screen blurs as your character may get light headed. Basically once you hit this point you may start hearing things and or seeing things on the corner of you're screen and or in the distance. Thought it would be pretty realistic and it would make getting to that point of dehydration/starvation that much more terrible.

Would be funny if there was water in a loot pile that you can't click over to your inventory hahaha well that would be cruel but I'm kidding about this last part anyway.

[The Power Nap 21]

So basically like hardcore on Fallout?

Why not? It's a good system.

[rolfwar 5]

Great idea!

I think that we also need to make food a lot rarer than it currently is.

I would like to see more variety in the food/water system than currently exists as well, on that much we agree. The calorie idea works, in the sense that certain foods are better or worse for you just as soda will not act like water to replenish thirst.

Regarding the variety in food,and the calorie value of each food,i invite you all to have a look at the topic that i created weeks ago.

Let me know what you think about it!

[The_Dude (DayZ) 27]

Hunger in this game could be more realistic, as could be starvation. Right now, you scarf food when your hunger reaches critical, and then it's not an issue for awhile. If you don't have food, you are dead in TEN MINUTES. Dealing with hunger becomes mechanical, like finding a health buff in any game. You find a can, you eat it, you're at 100% for now. Get low, eat another can, 100%.

This is not realistic. Starving to death is a much slower process - both starving and fixing the situation. I propose the hunger/thirst system be revamped for realism.

Food items should have caloric value, and you should have to consume a realistic number of calories (say 2000) per day in order to keep your strength up. The number of calories you need could and should be influenced by the number of calories you burn - people who run around a lot would burn more calories and need more food than people who camp.

Instead of dying potentially 40 minutes after your last meal, your character should grow weaker if he/she doesn't eat enough. Damage of hatchet swings could grow lesser. Chance of bone-break by zombie attack increased. Walking/running spead decreased. Stability of aim for firearms lessened. As starvation advances, your character could randomly pass out from hunger. Eventually, your character would pass out and die. This process would take days - possibly weeks.

There would be no "quick fix" by just eating a can of beans and being at 100%. You should have to consume calories and build your strength back up.

Thirst and drinking could be more realistic as well, and not just another hunger meter with a canteen icon instead of knife/fork. A human can't go more than 2 or 3 days without water (not soda! water!). In a more realistic setup, water would be more valuable even than food. Water canteens should contain set volumes of water, multiple servings. Nobody just drinks an entire canteen in a sitting unless they are VERY thirsty. You drink a swig at a time, until it's empty. A canteen could contain "water ammo," say a canteen is 30 drinks. You drink periodically to keep yourself hydrated. A swig of water doesn't remove all thirst, but it hydrates you. If you hydrate enough over each day, you're healthy. If not, effects of dehydration should progress.

Great stuff!

[Brint 40]

One of the better ideas posted here recently.

+beans

[Gustav Mahler 40]

The suggestion for how to handle long periods of not playing was actually in game awhile back, 1.6ish maybe? I agree that is the way to go with that. Have the maximum penalty be the same whether its a day or a week