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In defense of cooking and the vitamin system: an editorial

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On 7/5/2019 at 11:36 AM, 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.

I completely agree. I actually went to try the single player version of the game after not playing Atlas for about three months.

I only managed to play about an hour before I got disgusted with the game and remembered what made it not enjoyable for me:

1) The micromanaging of the food that is required to play. I looked for a mod, but it seems the few mods that removed this feature are no longer supported. I assume the mod author has stopped playing Atlas like 90% of the other players that had been playing about 4 - 6 months ago.

2) The crazy weather in the game. I was dying shortly after logging into the default location for single player. Took me a few minutes to realize I was too hot from "a heat wave" that was occuring. Why the heck does hot weather in a normal location of the map kill you? Seems reasonable at first, but no other game spawns you into an area that you can't survive in. 

When I first played the game shortly after it came out, these seemed like challenges that made the game interesting. Now that I've played a few other games and came back to this one, they seem just plain annoying.

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Wow, even the people who like the food/vitamin system think it needs to be changed.

The people that hate it just don't play  the game anymore so don't care 🙂

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God forbid you actually have to micromanage surviving in the survival genre 🙄

They tried to spice things up. Sure the execution was not perfect,but at least they tried to deviate from the standard copy/pasta HP/Stam & Food/Water that seems to define the genre. imo the concept is solid. Rates need to be balanced and Cooking needs to be adjusted in the process.

Edited by Nari

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30 minutes ago, Nari said:

God forbid you actually have to micromanage surviving in the survival genre 🙄

They tried to spice things up. Sure the execution was not perfect,but at least they tried to deviate from the standard copy/pasta HP/Stam & Food/Water that seems to define the genre. imo the concept is solid. Rates need to be balanced and Cooking needs to be adjusted in the process.

Ya, I get they are trying to make it more realistic. I've hiked in the wilderness before, never once did I worry if my vitamin balance was correct or die when it wasn't. I've been around a bit, and never died from heat stroke either in less than 5 minutes time. I really don't think they have achieved anything that feels even remotely realistic, just very annoying.

Yes, it is unique (at least for all of the survival games that I've played in the last few years), but not in a good way in my opinion.

Edited by wildbill

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It's not about realism, it's gamification.

The Vikings were basically only able to live where there did because of the local Cod supplementing the lack of vit D from sunlight. Without it your bones become softer over generations leading to all kinds of conditions you really don't want to deal with. If their goal was realism the teased legacy system would get very complicated, very fast for these reasons alone. The objective was to gamify vitamins because survival and honestly they're not far off from a system that resembles reality but fits within the genre.

It just needs some fine tuning along with Cooking.

Edited by Nari
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4 minutes ago, Nari said:

It's not about realism, it's gamification.

The Vikings were basically only able to live where there did because of the local Cod supplementing the lack of vit D from sunlight. Without it your bones become softer over generations leading to all kinds of conditions you really don't want to deal with. If their goal was realism the teased legacy system would get very complicated, very fast for these reasons alone. The objective was to gamify vitamins because survival and honestly they're not far off from a system that resembles reality but fits within the genre.

It just needs some fine tuning along with Cooking.

I used to agree with you (that it just needs tweaking). After a many month break from the game, I come back and find myself not wanting to deal with this annoying aspect of the game. There are some parts of the game I find fun, but not this. I've been having fun playing other games and I guess I'm going to stick with doing that instead of this game. And yes, all of the games I played when I was taking my "break" were survival games. None had anything that needs as much micromanaging as this.

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4 minutes ago, wildbill said:

After a many month break from the game, I come back and find myself not wanting to deal with this annoying aspect of the game. There are some parts of the game I find fun, but not this. *snip* all of the games I played when I was taking my "break" were survival games. None had anything that needs as much micromanaging as this.

It's really not that much micro but I'll digress.

Just to be clear, is it the systems design or the tedium of additional micromanagement that's the underlying issue in your opinion? Because one can be fixed and the other is your preference. Personally I'd prefer more features like this in my survival games.

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13 minutes ago, Nari said:

It's really not that much micro but I'll digress.

Just to be clear, is it the systems design or the tedium of additional micromanagement that's the underlying issue in your opinion? Because one can be fixed and the other is your preference. Personally I'd prefer more features like this in my survival games.

I'll start of with the word "gamification" you used earlier. I don't think it means what you think it means: "the process of adding games or gamelike elements to something (such as a task) so as to encourage participation". So it is adding fun game like elements to a real life task to make it less tedious and more fun. In this case, a real life aspect has been added to a game to make it more tedious, less fun, and results in discouraging some people from playing the game, which is really the opposite of what gamification means.

Yes, I have a problem with a game adding something to make the game more tedious. Because there is really nothing all that challenging about it. Once you figure out how it works, then it is simply a formula of repeating the same actions over and over to maintain the vitamins and food. I think most here agree, the way the food/vitamin system is designed could use improvement. Like how you balance them or how they go up and down differently than the food. Ya, that is just a bit off and slightly annoying. The very fact that the game has a vitamin stat, one that must be constantly monitored and adjusted, I find that tedious and annoying. Not remotely fun after playing the game for months.

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14 minutes ago, wildbill said:

I'll start of with the word "gamification" you used earlier. I don't think it means what you think it means: 

Yes, I have a problem with a game adding something to make the game more tedious. Because there is really nothing all that challenging about it. Once you figure out how it works, then it is simply a formula of repeating the same actions over and over to maintain the vitamins and food. I think most here agree, the way the food/vitamin system is designed could use improvement. Like how you balance them or how they go up and down differently than the food. Ya, that is just a bit off and slightly annoying. The very fact that the game has a vitamin stat, one that must be constantly monitored and adjusted, I find that tedious and annoying. Not remotely fun after playing the game for months.

I know the definition and in this case it applies. You know what a really big flaw with the simplified, gameified, version of eating/drinking meat and water to survive is? It's easier to just kys and ignore the "survival" mechanics entirely. Vitamins incentivize participation with buffs. Equilibrium is not a negligible buff. My use of the word tedium was my way of leveling with you as the question was mostly rhetorical, I knew the answer. I do not find the micro tedious in the slightest. Subjective preferences.

Edited by Nari
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C'mon people in a pirate game that now has a dragon,a giant tame crab,a submarine and torpedoes,can we come up with better arguments about things that should or shouldn't be changed than because it would take away from the realism?The vits are a problem when people basically let their character die cos it's easier than bothering to eat.Even if they just slowed it down a bit  i'm sure more people would be on board with it.

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2 minutes ago, wildbill said:

The very fact that the game has a vitamin stat, one that must be constantly monitored and adjusted, I find that tedious and annoying. Not remotely fun after playing the game for months

There are three easy ways to manage it,  and if you find its not even remotely easy to manage then you need either help or find another game. Over dramatizing isnt "fixing" anything it just shows how you are unwilling to even consider an aspect of the game.

Why worry about food when you can just eat poop I guess...

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1 hour ago, Nutcutt3r said:

There are three easy ways to manage it,  and if you find its not even remotely easy to manage then you need either help or find another game. Over dramatizing isnt "fixing" anything it just shows how you are unwilling to even consider an aspect of the game.

Why worry about food when you can just eat poop I guess...

Never did I say it wasn't easy, just "tedious and annoying". Sure it is easy. But if the game required you to hop up and down three times every minute or you die, would that be hard to do, or maybe just tedious and annoying?

Also I'm not eating poop, that was the first reply to the OP that said that, not me. I'm just not going to play Atlas at all.

Also I don't think I'm dramatizing this. I honestly am not going to play Atlas because of this feature (plus a few other things that make this game not fun for me).

Edited by wildbill

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1 hour ago, Whitehawk said:

C'mon people in a pirate game that now has a dragon,a giant tame crab,a submarine and torpedoes,can we come up with better arguments about things that should or shouldn't be changed than because it would take away from the realism?The vits are a problem when people basically let their character die cos it's easier than bothering to eat.Even if they just slowed it down a bit  i'm sure more people would be on board with it.

I'd be into slowing it down, but I think you can only slow the hunger down easily with ini settings or options. I don't know of an option to slow down the vitamin drain also. Has that been exposed yet? Or a way to turn it off? If there is a way to turn off vitamin drain, I might play the game single player.

I was on a server that slowed down food consumption, but in some ways, that makes it even harder to keep the vitamins up.

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haven't read through the whole thread but my 2 cents.  I am meh about the current vitamin buff, however, spending a wee bit of time to cook up even the basics, fish and chips and pork pie, are great for keeping you fed and vitamins just fine.  Yes, it takes a bit of time while you digest the food for all vitamins to raise up.   Now the real reason I spend a bit of time to do it.  If you have multiple ships that are anchored across the map, the food made last sooo damn long it's worth it to me to cook it up.  You don't have to worry about your spread out crew on a daily basis.

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2 hours ago, wildbill said:

I'd be into slowing it down, but I think you can only slow the hunger down easily with ini settings or options. I don't know of an option to slow down the vitamin drain also. Has that been exposed yet? Or a way to turn it off? If there is a way to turn off vitamin drain, I might play the game single player.

I was on a server that slowed down food consumption, but in some ways, that makes it even harder to keep the vitamins up.

There are already have a passive skill which slow vitamin drain a lot! I don't see any annoying problems with it, and I don't spend a lot of time on it. To kill a simple animal or fish and cook it. It's a 2-minute action! And another minute to harvest some berries and vegetables. Who are these people for whom is so painfull and annoying? Let them go to Sea of Thieves and just sail around no content sea and no challenge shores.

Devs can make this system more interesting more logical and more rewarding! And about dragons, torpedos in the game... I'm ok with that, but I will really grateful if they make big animals untameable... I don't wanna play ARK with ships:) I want more ships, sword fights and more interesting quest and mechanics. Cause ride a bear to beat undead which defends masterpiece treasure (cause without animals is a real pain) is kind of sick...

Edited by Delnis of Ashai
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If there was any consequence for death at all I'd probably be singing a slightly different tune (or maybe the same tune just in a different key) but there isn't and because of this many find it easier to just die than deal with any of it. This is a problem. It's an issue in ARK as well as ANY other "survival" game using these kind of mechanics without any consequence for ignoring them.

Let me put it this way: They could have chosen to punish you for not micromanaging your food/water/vitamins, I mean really punish you for it, but they didn't. Instead they chose to reward those who do. Let that sink in for a sec... because one method provides agency to the player and the other forces the player to comply. There's literally is no downside to this system. You still don't have to give a shit about any of it if you don't want to, they even gave you the means to quickly reset, but those who do put in the minimal amount of effort get buffed. Win/Win if you ask me.

I have yet to read a better solution for this issue than the current implementation of Vitamins.

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After hating it, then getting used to it's illogic.... the vitamin thing isn't bad, it just needs a rethink with how it works.  Maybe instead of the bar graph a pie is shown with the 4 colors fading onto each other at the center where a dot is when nutrition is balanced.  Out of balance the dot moves in the direction of those needed nutrients.  When close to the edge you start to have issues.  No damage unless you are starving with an empty stomach.  Instead you lose stamina more quickly and regain it more slowly.  Health Regen is slower along with speed.  Your fortitude takes a debuff.  Something a little more logical than just taking damage when depleated.  Now with no damage there should be debuffs when depleated if not.

The recipes with buffs or debuffs I'll probably never like, unless they are logical instead of magical.  Being ea I'm sure we will see ongoing changes to these mechanics as they progress.  

 

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The problem with the vitamin system is that it is not balanced along with food.    A daily intake of 1 meat, 1 fish, 5 veggie, 5 fruits is actually a fairly healthy recommended diet for an active person IRL.   At worst you might need to double that with a hard days work.   The fact that it is also the ratios needed to keep your vitamins in balance shows the devs did do their research.

However cramming 5 meat and 5 fish and 25 veggie and 25 fruits and investing in overeating and vitamin skills just to survive every day is unrealistic.   Way too much food loss to refill stamina with way too fast vitamin drain.    The food system needs to be balanced so that one or two of these meals is enough to keep you full and also keeps your vitamins balanced.    I do not have a problem with a minigame for survival - but these systems should not impact your day to day experience more than they would IRL.   Survival should be about getting caught unprepared.

The vitamin rate should be much much slower longer time average - vitamins do not respond to individual meals they are a result of longer term diets.   Eat only meat for weeks and you will get the scurvy.   Eat only veggies for weeks and you will lack stamina.   Eat only fruits you will get the runs.   The vitamin loss itself should never kill you, although not being healthy could put you in a poor situation that results in your death.

Balance it to be realistic food consumption and vitamin drain, combined with removal of the vitamin refresh upon death (because the main reason people do no use the existing system is death offers the same reward for significantly less work)

Anyone know what single player settings to try so that you can get by with a daily diet of a meat steak and fish filet with a fruit and veggie salad that follows the 1:1:5:5 total amount?    I tried and died of vitamins in a single play session - why unrealistically gorge when death was easier?

Edited by krazmuze

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36 minutes ago, krazmuze said:

The problem with the vitamin system is that it is not balanced along with food.    A daily intake of 1 meat, 1 fish, 5 veggie, 5 fruits is actually a fairly healthy recommended diet for an active person IRL.   At worst you might need to double that with a hard days work.   The fact that it is also the ratios needed to keep your vitamins in balance shows the devs did do their research.

Balance it to be realistic food consumption and vitamin drain, combined with removal of the vitamin refresh upon death (because the main reason people do no use the existing system is death offers the same reward for significantly less work)

Anyone know what single player settings to try so that you can get by with a daily diet of a meat steak and fish filet with a fruit and veggie salad that follows the 1:1:5:5 total amount?    I tried and died of vitamins in a single play session - why unrealistically gorge when death was easier?

Exactly.  Balance the rates & Cooking and 90% of these threads will vanish overnight. While your comments about realism are valid time in game is... well let's just say they didn't do as much math in that regard. Aging is the dead giveaway.

Consensus is hunger set to 1.5 in SP for a more balanced experience btw.

Edited by Nari

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8 minutes ago, Nari said:

Exactly.  Balance the rates & Cooking and 90% of these threads will vanish overnight. While your comments about realism are valid time in game is... well let's just say they didn't do as much math in that regard. Aging is the dead giveaway.

Consensus is hunger set to 1.5 in SP for a more balanced experience btw.

To be fair you also can’t grab half a dozen friends, gather the materials and build a galleon in the space of a few days. It’s fair to say that for the sake of gameplay time is condensed in numerous ways. This a fairly typical aspect of gaming vs reality.

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4 minutes ago, boomervoncannon said:

To be fair you also can’t grab half a dozen friends, gather the materials and build a galleon in the space of a few days. It’s fair to say that for the sake of gameplay time is condensed in numerous ways. This a fairly typical aspect of gaming vs reality.

Aye, timescale is rarely if ever 1:1. For multiple legitimate reasons, my point was more they seem to be using multiple ratios independently for different mechanics. It has an uncanny effect imo.

Edited by Nari

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I had tried 2.0x but gathering fiber by hand was starving me if I did not snack after each burst because it uses a lot of stamina.

I will try hunger at 1.5x to better balance with vitamins and stop the overeating.   It is rather annoying that I have to eat an unrealistic amount per game day - as long as stamina is managed you only need to top off once a game day which is less than an hour - it is not the frequency that is bothersome - it is the amount..   I suppose one could pretend the increased amount of steaks and filet are just bites despite their art, but it is hard to pretend a chicken was just a few bites. 

I really wish someone  would attempt a mod to actually balance the system to make it realistically fair,  to show the devs there is a proper way to do it without ditching the system.   

1) make the time constant for vitamins game weeks like real life with the purpose to penalize those who do not eat balanced diets (a diet is not a single meal, it is many many meals) so as to reward those who engage with the farming, cooking and hunting game systems.     This can be done simply be slowing the vitamin tick rate.

2) Ditch the death refresh to eliminate the easier system bypass

3) Make game day food intake realistically balanced total 1:1:5:5 meat:fish:veggie:fruits with high stamina drain (scything/climbing/combat) at most doubling that, and low stamina drain (standing AFK) at most half that.   That should have no impact on vitamins if it is balanced - if you eat too much or not enough you should suffer stomach issues.  I think this can be done simply by increasing the amount of food in a serving and reducing the food requirements to refill stamina.

 

I am going to try SP player stats food 2.5x as a starting point, but I am not sure if that also increases the vitamin contribution or just the hunger.

 

 

 

Edited by krazmuze

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Your food-bar drains faster when you do heavy work and slower when you do light work or nothing. Same should apply to vitamins or they will get out of sync.

Its a really easy quick-fix that would make the system work, it cannot be balanced without.
Further improvements would be nice also but that fix could be released tomorrow.

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4 hours ago, krazmuze said:

I really wish someone  would attempt a mod to actually balance the system to make it realistically fair,  to show the devs there is a proper way to do it without ditching the system. 

There is at least one that does this much better: survival+ where cooked meals actually compensate both hunger and nutrients needs. It used to be a sponsored mod so they were in part inspiration for Atlas.

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13 hours ago, krazmuze said:

2) Ditch the death refresh to eliminate the easier system bypass

The problem with this suggestion is it outright forces players to play the Vitamin minigame. There are people who hate this system in every sense of the word and nothing short of removing it will change that. You can't please everyone but the current implementation at least allows for people to simply not give a shit. For a while anyway, you will die eventually and maybe that's the underlying problem. 

My suggestion? Keep the refresh but each Vit should have a statistical debuff if ignored. Be it speed, regen, increased hunger, you name it however dying should be voluntary by the provided method of eating shit. Why? cuz it fits 😄 but seriously because it's another layer of incentive.

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