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boomervoncannon

In defense of cooking and the vitamin system: an editorial

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So I took a break for a bit owing mostly to rl and recently returned to check out what's new with Atlas. I haven't had a chance to really dive into some of the newer stuff yet, but I did notice something I found disapointing: the removal of individual debuff effects from vitamin deficiencies in place of more mundane taking damage when any one gets too low. I'm aware this was almost certainly done out of player dislike for the system and complaints it imposed too much of a burden. I'm also aware that many find the vitamin system unappealing in it's entirety and want it eliminated. For what it's worth my two doubloons are contrary to this view and here's why:

The vitamin system adds to and enhances the survival genre and seems a natural step to differentiate it from other games that just have health and stamina. Many people put forward an initial complaint that it was overly punitive and unrealistically required micro management of eating and drinking. I will conceed that the system in its initial form lacked polish and needed tweaking, but many people pointed out that vitamins don't drop that fast irl. You also can't build an entire building or a massive ship in a single day, so I think it's safe to say things in Atlas can occur faster relative to real world time frames. Stil, many players were unhappy with initial tweaks to make vitamin consumption less punitive. I strongly suspect many objected while at the same time being unwilling to put points into the skills that mitigate vitamin drain, or invest points and effort into cooking.

I think cooking holds a lot of potential for Atlas as providing a reason to gather far flung mats and to maintain land based operations as well as ships. However, vitamins have now been nerfed to the point that cooking is at best a flavor option, rather than a strong means to mitigate vitamin loss and manage it and the food meter more effectively. I think a balance needs to be struck where cooking isn't necessary, but is highly useful for both buffs and managing vitamins. To the degree vitamins become increasingly easy to manage on their own, this serves as a form of nerf to the cooking tree. I would encourage the devs to cointinue to add depth to cooking by adding more recipes, giving most recipes a distinct use or advantage, either a buff or a good combination of vitamin heals for more commonly found ingredients. Right now it's a good start but needs work, and is somewhat dependant on vitamins for it's viability.

Combined with the crafting system which requires an increasing variety of mats for better and better gear, cooking could be one of the core things to spur trade and exploration, as players fan across the map to locate ingredients for all sorts of recipes. For this to have a meaningful risk:reward ratio, the devs must carefully consider how good a food buff needs to be to make finding or trading for it's ingredients worthwhile. If they can find this balance, I think it could be a significant step towards helping Atlas develop a vibrant and engaging economy. At present I would say that most of the buffs are lackluster in comparison to the effort required to get them.

I also want to urge the devs not to listen only to players complaining about managing vitamins without considering whether those players have been willing to avail themselves of the available tools to manage vitamins better, or are just whining out of laziness. My personal experience so far with Atlas is that vitamins have always been manageable because I was willing to invest in the relevant survival skills and cooking.

That's just my two doubloons.

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vitamin system is cancer. Noone  plays the game and uses it its easyer to eat a turd and respawn and reset tota waste of processes.

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3 minutes ago, Megalithic said:

vitamin system is cancer. Noone  plays the game and uses it its easyer to eat a turd and respawn and reset tota waste of processes.

You have your opinion. I have mine. The beauty is we both get to have our say. I find vitamins to add depth to the game and differentiate it as a survival MMO, giving it a unique place. You mention it's easier to eat a turd. Doubtless it is, but if you are only playing games because they are easy, then the survival genre is probably not your best bet, as one of it's hallmarks is early difficulty out of the gate. To me it adds another layer of challenge to the game instead of just munching on whatever food I can get my hands on in bulk.

Making assertions about what no one does is not supportable because only a fool would believe you actually know what everyone who plays Atlas does or does not do.

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I couldn't care less about Cooking, but each to their own.  Too little reward for scouring for ingredients over several islands/zones and I view the majority of the skill tree as a waste of points. Once I train Water Storage and Preservatives I'm done.  (Believe it or not I have NEVER seen Maize yet, not the Wild Potatoes that give the seeds to grow Potatoes - maybe I have been unlucky, I grant you.)  Basic Fish, Meat, Veggies and Fruit keep me amply topped up, so I don't see the need the foods available in the Cooking skill tree.

Edited by Coggage

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I think the vitamin/food system is good, like you say it could use some tweaking. I was going to mention that there should be a cool down on re-spawn when when you suicide, but I figured it would just bring out the people crying about it. If you have to wait a minute or two to re-spawn maybe you would spend that time using the recipes.

23 minutes ago, Megalithic said:

vitamin system is cancer. Noone  plays the game and uses it its easyer to eat a turd and respawn and reset tota waste of processes.

Someone should smack your spelling teacher upside the head 👏

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25 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

You have your opinion. I have mine. The beauty is we both get to have our say. I find vitamins to add depth to the game and differentiate it as a survival MMO, giving it a unique place. You mention it's easier to eat a turd. Doubtless it is, but if you are only playing games because they are easy, then the survival genre is probably not your best bet, as one of it's hallmarks is early difficulty out of the gate. To me it adds another layer of challenge to the game instead of just munching on whatever food I can get my hands on in bulk.

Making assertions about what no one does is not supportable because only a fool would believe you actually know what everyone who plays Atlas does or does not do.

Right. but unless theres something like maybe a 1hr debuff to penalize this behavior. theres no point to having the vitamin system  its  just the little ginger kid noone whants to be freinds with.

Edited by Megalithic

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I went into cooking, I took all the recipes but I found the bubble and squeak and another only took 1 vitamin up, I was under the impression it took 2 colours up on the bar but that did not happen for me.

Not sure if it's bug or meant to be like that but I stopped using the recipes and just use the food I put out on the crop squares. I wanted to get into cooking as well but doesn't seem to work as well as I would like. Hopefully they change it as I don't find it useful for vitamins. 

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4 minutes ago, Megalithic said:

Right. but unless theres something like maybe a 1hr debuff to penalize this behavior. theres no point to having the vitamin system  its  just the little ginger kid noone whants to be freinds with.

that might be the way to go ,, timed  buffs and debuffs , would make shit eating pointless and also incentivize usage to that  part of the skilltree.

problem is a large portion of the potential playerbase is a selfentilteled  kids with zero willingness to put in any kind of effort into progression or achivement , want everything handed to them in the easiest and fastest manner,  ark's disease system got killed off by this same crowd before it could have been implemented properly, it had a great promise but was too much to handle for this histerical fortnite generation..   point is this aimed to be a survival game, not an invincible jack spaerro simulator..

 

 

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yea like lets say you kill yourself due to lack of vitamins or you just eat shit to get around low vitamins then you loos a level or loose XP or get a preformance Debuff on you or you give off a debuff to everyone in your perimeter all viable.

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27 minutes ago, DannyUK said:

I went into cooking, I took all the recipes but I found the bubble and squeak and another only took 1 vitamin up, I was under the impression it took 2 colours up on the bar but that did not happen for me.

Not sure if it's bug or meant to be like that but I stopped using the recipes and just use the food I put out on the crop squares. I wanted to get into cooking as well but doesn't seem to work as well as I would like. Hopefully they change it as I don't find it useful for vitamins. 

Some of the recipes add one of their vitamins slowly over time for no good reason I'm aware of. This gives the impression it's bugged and you're only getting one vitamin. Eat a Bubble and squeak and wait a few minutes before checking your vitamin levels.

 

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2 hours ago, Megalithic said:

yea like lets say you kill yourself due to lack of vitamins or you just eat shit to get around low vitamins then you loos a level or loose XP or get a preformance Debuff on you or you give off a debuff to everyone in your perimeter all viable.

I'd be in favor of that if the debuff or xp loss was appropriate.

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The only thing about  vits for me is they don't work in unison with the stomach/hunger which makes no sense to me,I can be full and still need to eat and gain small damage from doing so,doesn't seem right.the positioning of the icon isn't helpful either,sometimes I can barely see it.

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Just now, Whitehawk said:

The only thing about  vits for me is they don't work in unison with the stomach/hunger which makes no sense to me,I can be full and still need to eat and gain small damage from doing so,doesn't seem right.the positioning of the icon isn't helpful either,sometimes I can barely see it.

One thing I've figured out that most people don't seem to realize is if you're using basic foods, not prepared recipes, you should eat up to your normal max food with meat only, either b or D, then once you are at normal max (typically 100), switch to A and C foods, veggies and berries respectively. These foods impact your food meter at a tiny rate when you are at or above your normal max, and there is typically plenty of cushion from that to overeating (120)

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well the only other option i've found if my vits are really low but stomach full is digging,it seems to empty the stomach faster than anything else i've tried. 

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Add a sattened Buff which last for 1 Hour or so where Food wont be drained And additional buffs which makes every Food Special. Maybe even add recipes that can be found to learn After unlocking the Cooking tree And let People be able to make higher Quality Food Either with int or better Grills And such. Might even add a new Stat to Armor that increases Cooking Quality. 

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6 hours ago, boomervoncannon said:

So I took a break for a bit owing mostly to rl and recently returned to check out what's new with Atlas. I haven't had a chance to really dive into some of the newer stuff yet, but I did notice something I found disapointing: the removal of individual debuff effects from vitamin deficiencies in place of more mundane taking damage when any one gets too low. I'm aware this was almost certainly done out of player dislike for the system and complaints it imposed too much of a burden. I'm also aware that many find the vitamin system unappealing in it's entirety and want it eliminated. For what it's worth my two doubloons are contrary to this view and here's why:

The vitamin system adds to and enhances the survival genre and seems a natural step to differentiate it from other games that just have health and stamina. Many people put forward an initial complaint that it was overly punitive and unrealistically required micro management of eating and drinking. I will conceed that the system in its initial form lacked polish and needed tweaking, but many people pointed out that vitamins don't drop that fast irl. You also can't build an entire building or a massive ship in a single day, so I think it's safe to say things in Atlas can occur faster relative to real world time frames. Stil, many players were unhappy with initial tweaks to make vitamin consumption less punitive. I strongly suspect many objected while at the same time being unwilling to put points into the skills that mitigate vitamin drain, or invest points and effort into cooking.

I think cooking holds a lot of potential for Atlas as providing a reason to gather far flung mats and to maintain land based operations as well as ships. However, vitamins have now been nerfed to the point that cooking is at best a flavor option, rather than a strong means to mitigate vitamin loss and manage it and the food meter more effectively. I think a balance needs to be struck where cooking isn't necessary, but is highly useful for both buffs and managing vitamins. To the degree vitamins become increasingly easy to manage on their own, this serves as a form of nerf to the cooking tree. I would encourage the devs to cointinue to add depth to cooking by adding more recipes, giving most recipes a distinct use or advantage, either a buff or a good combination of vitamin heals for more commonly found ingredients. Right now it's a good start but needs work, and is somewhat dependant on vitamins for it's viability.

Combined with the crafting system which requires an increasing variety of mats for better and better gear, cooking could be one of the core things to spur trade and exploration, as players fan across the map to locate ingredients for all sorts of recipes. For this to have a meaningful risk:reward ratio, the devs must carefully consider how good a food buff needs to be to make finding or trading for it's ingredients worthwhile. If they can find this balance, I think it could be a significant step towards helping Atlas develop a vibrant and engaging economy. At present I would say that most of the buffs are lackluster in comparison to the effort required to get them.

I also want to urge the devs not to listen only to players complaining about managing vitamins without considering whether those players have been willing to avail themselves of the available tools to manage vitamins better, or are just whining out of laziness. My personal experience so far with Atlas is that vitamins have always been manageable because I was willing to invest in the relevant survival skills and cooking.

That's just my two doubloons.

To be honest I don’t need the game to know that I won’t like the idea of the vitamin system. That isn’t me saying I don’t respect your opinion because I always do respect it.

rather than argue about the vitamins, I would like to talk about something I do agree with you about. I like the idea of a complex matrix of cooking. The reason for this has nothing to do with vitamins however. I believe that cooking recipes is important to have certain buffs added to you. I definitely like that.

i personally think that the vitamin system was an under thought and over done mechanic to make the game “different”. They just tried too hard to be different and ignored a good chunk of what an mmorpg is.

i do have one serious question for you though and I will accept any answer you give. What if the devs said “hey, we can add a lot of cool mmo stuff but we would have to get rid of the vitamin system entirely”. What would be the decision you would make if you were given that power?

 

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47 minutes ago, Realist said:

To be honest I don’t need the game to know that I won’t like the idea of the vitamin system. That isn’t me saying I don’t respect your opinion because I always do respect it.

rather than argue about the vitamins, I would like to talk about something I do agree with you about. I like the idea of a complex matrix of cooking. The reason for this has nothing to do with vitamins however. I believe that cooking recipes is important to have certain buffs added to you. I definitely like that.

i personally think that the vitamin system was an under thought and over done mechanic to make the game “different”. They just tried too hard to be different and ignored a good chunk of what an mmorpg is.

i do have one serious question for you though and I will accept any answer you give. What if the devs said “hey, we can add a lot of cool mmo stuff but we would have to get rid of the vitamin system entirely”. What would be the decision you would make if you were given that power?

 

would kind of depend upon what the stuff was. I'm not married to the vitamin system, I just think it makes sense within the survival genre and people aren't really giving it a chance mostly, they're just deciding without putting any effort in that it's something they dont 'want to deal with. I also think that the way the game currently is designed, a  big chunk of the usefulness of cooking is in making managing vitamins a lot easier. If they nerf vitamins to make them super easy to deal with without cooking, that kinda nerfs cooking, which is a negative for developing a trade economy.

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5 hours ago, boomervoncannon said:

would kind of depend upon what the stuff was. I'm not married to the vitamin system, I just think it makes sense within the survival genre and people aren't really giving it a chance mostly, they're just deciding without putting any effort in that it's something they dont 'want to deal with. I also think that the way the game currently is designed, a  big chunk of the usefulness of cooking is in making managing vitamins a lot easier. If they nerf vitamins to make them super easy to deal with without cooking, that kinda nerfs cooking, which is a negative for developing a trade economy.

The thing is as far as survivals go, people have accepted food, water, temperature affects and normal survival. I don’t think the vitamin system was a good choice. It does mean more upkeep to a game where upkeep seems to be the main aspect of the game.

ark was cool in the survival aspect but if they try to keep that much upkeep it won’t end up being a good thing

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The vitamin/food system was never explained very well, so I think there are a lot of people who don't understand how it works.   The slow restore over time doesn't help that.  Some of it just works badly.  You should be able to restore your vitamins without overeating.  It helps now to have the ice/preservative bags to keep food longer, but it would help more to have a way to put food in shops without having it spoil.  Spoil times ought to be a lot longer on inventory-held prepared food as well.

I'd really like to see cooking expanded and become more important too, but Id rather not achieve that through punishments for not eating cooked food, like death penalties, and stronger debuffs.  That's been a common failing in this game so far - to encourage some game aspect not by rewarding for it, but by punishing players for not using it.

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i need to be able to grow more stuffs , as of now can only farm veggies and not cooking herds / medical herds / fruits / berry is bad .

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I'd like them to add more stuff to be planted but at the Same Time make stuff biom locked. So far there is almost Nothing which cant be grown in Most biomes And if they add certain stuff for recipes you still Need to travell And also are able to trade them with others

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The food system I like and I use it all the time.

My ships are fully stocked with cooked fish, milk, cooked foods, vegs like rice, olives and fruits.  Both Salted fruits, fish and meat as well as primes.

Usually I go for spicy rolls for the cold buff, since I'm in arctic alot and it's handy for wrecks there.  Even tho I have 60 fortitude now and a mw fur suit.  And the water fortitude as well.

I'd like to see fruit trees added, as well as higher yield crop plots, with a massive increase in plant growth/fruit time, the current speed is just too fast.

I'd also like to see more simple combination meals, like puddings using milk, eggs etc with the more generic herbs. 

As well as maybe a drink using limes.

And more severe effects for alcohol.  Melting screens, spinning environments.

As for player death penalty, it needs to be added back into the game.. but not as slow as it was before.

They also need to add a very severe penalty for eating poo to suicide.  Maybe something like a Weakened effect for 15-20mins after suiciding, + reductions in harvesting, melee, ranged skills, like reloading cannons or gun speeds. 

Maybe a big reduction in fortitude ie - 50% of current fort.

Of course, people will find ways around this, like getting killed by animals etc.  Or by fellow company members.  So we need more severe death penalties for these deaths as well.

The original poisoning system was good, it was just too tedious.. and it made dying a very slow and boring period, the current system is a little better.  However being unable to jump etc due to a broken bone and thus unable to get to the food or medikits or onboard your ship because of buggy glitchy ladders etc.. isn't particularly helpful either. 

Overall tho.. food and cooking is good.  Great for game immersion, those who don't use it, I guess are just playing for the quick action console game.. which frankly, I find boring.

Thus I don't use gamma cheats, poo cheats etc unless I really have no choice.  ie When I get the sailing bug, where you don't get hungry and your vits drop to nil.. so when I get to 50% health, I'll eat poo then just to speed up the process.  I don't use gamma cheat at all, infact, I have gone the opposite way and dropped my gamma to 2.3 it makes nights alot darker, thus the game is alot more difficult to play.

Edited by Martyn

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The only problem with food is that u spawn with 100% HP and 50% vitamines. THis is neccesary in the beginning, because u can not survive for 5 min without eating as a lowlevel.

When u level your char, you should spawn with less and less food level, health and vitamines. Just prevent suicide for refreshment from like level 30 onwards.
Other survival games dont spawn you with high vitals eighter, you have to take care of them after a death.

The EQ buff is underrated, which i dont understand. I even value the suid q reward higher then most of the other rewards, it is so good.

The buff-food is to bad sadly, i switched to use normal cooked meat and potatos. I only like a Creme Brulee from time to time

When something is to good, it will get nerved for PVP (abuse) reasons (tripple Grog for farming anyone?).

 

I hope the cooking and vital system is still a place holder and will get altered/enabled in the future.

 

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On 7/6/2019 at 3:35 AM, boomervoncannon said:

would kind of depend upon what the stuff was. I'm not married to the vitamin system, I just think it makes sense within the survival genre and people aren't really giving it a chance mostly, they're just deciding without putting any effort in that it's something they dont 'want to deal with. I also think that the way the game currently is designed, a  big chunk of the usefulness of cooking is in making managing vitamins a lot easier. If they nerf vitamins to make them super easy to deal with without cooking, that kinda nerfs cooking, which is a negative for developing a trade economy.

Vitamins are super-easy to manage and because of that I've never bothered to learn any Cooking recipes at all.  As for a trade economy, the game has never really developed one in the way the Devs had (vaguely) hoped for, probably for several assorted reasons such as the tedium of travel, the randomness of finding someone selling what you want to buy and someone who wants to buy what you are selling, the failure of Freeports to become trading towns and maybe just lack of player interest in the whole concept, just to name a few.

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I'll be in favor of all cooked food giving a buff of some kind, ramping up with cooking tiers.

I only use the tier 1 - fish & chips / pork pies for food and all vitamins,  and use little else in the cooking tree.

If tier 1 gave no buff but there was a tier 2 & 3 fish & chips / pork pies that gave buffs i'd learn those tiers and make the better food, it' should not need harder to find ingredients the points spent on the skills should be enough of a cost.

At the moment the higher tier foods are harder to make due to ingredients being quite specific, making cooking harder the better you get just seems plain wrong. it should instead have similar foods to the lower teirs but use easier to get ingredients. a good cook can make a fine meal despite limited ingredients.

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