Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Food and starvation in JADE

JADE will follow the tracks of ADOM in many respects, also when concerning food. You will find various food items throughout the game including monster corpses that might provide harmful or beneficial effects. During the past couple of days I finished the starvation system for JADE and it's different from ADOM. I personally like it much better. Here we go...

  • First of all starvation takes much longer than in ADOM. It's a process of many days so usually it will not be much of a problem in the dungeons.
  • It will be a problem in the wilderness as the PC has to travel vast distances and this takes many days.
  • Starvation is less of an all-or-nothing thing. The more hungry the PC becomes the more do his attributes degrade causing all kinds of trouble to him. The same is true BTW if you eat too much.
Attribute degradation takes has two effects:

  1. Attributes (and speed) are lowered temporarily for increasing hunger (and bloat). This reduction of attribute scores disappears as soon as you eat sufficiently.
  2. Attributes degrade permanently over time if you stay too long at a specific hunger level (again this is an effect of many days). The longer you stay at a certain level the more will your attributes degrade permanently (some of them) signifying the health problems you occur.
Hunger and starvation themselves do no kill the PC in JADE as they did in ADOM. The only way to die is to be killed by attribute degradation. Once an attribute drops below 1 you die (which BTW is true for any way of attribute reduction - except for attribute draining monsters like shadows which transform victims into beings of their kind when draining an attribute to less than 1 but that's a different story ;-) ).

So to sum it up: It will take much longer to die, the harmful effects come more slowly over time but they are there to stay.

I'm curious how people will find this system in play, personally I like it so far.

Read ya!

30 comments:

  1. So you can actually die from a charisma deficiency?

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  2. How about changing into a shadow vampire?

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  3. Death by attribute degradation sounds strange. While i can imaging dying while having zero health or streangth maybe, its hard to accept death from lack of other attributes.

    Also...

    I think that draining as a special efect (contrary to spells that drain) should be much harder (less probable) when the drained attribute is at a low level. (less then 5 maybe).

    For example shadows drain your "strength". But strength on a level 1-4 is IMHO describing rather a lack of strength then actual strength. Theres not really much to drain there :p

    well thats just my 2 cents ;>

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  4. No, you will not die to Cha loss, because logically, starvation will remove physical attributes, not the other ones.

    One could argue that you should lose Charisma because well, a skeletal, starving being is not "pretty", but even considering this, physical attributed would degrade faster.

    At least that's how I see it.

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  5. I don't think just any attribute dropping to 0 should cause death. Because then an orcish barbarian with a learning of 3 would be more prone to death than say a bard. Also like above I don't see how a lack of charisma can cause instant death.

    It would be better if you die only when your toughness reaches 0 since toughness is a measure of how enduring a body is. And generally tougher characters can starve for longer.

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  6. I agree to an extent with pustka. Dying when certain stats are drained to zero make perfect sense (becoming a vegetable with 0 learning, collapsing under your own weight with 0 strength, etc). But death by losing other stats makes no sense. I just find it hard to believe that someone can die of ugliness.

    What if the deaths related to having zero in a stat are caused more indirectly? Like, having zero charisma makes your character panic and run away from everything? Or zero appearance will make characters normally nonhostile NPCs to be hostile (shopkeepers, goodwives, etc)?

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  8. Good comments here. Perhaps you very easily contract a flu-like sickness when your toughness reaches 0 (your immune system effectively dies.) And this sickness will kill you in a short amount of time. Only suggestions.

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  9. Death by Charisma? Maybe a god decides you are too obnoxious or ugly and smites you out of pity or rage.

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  10. Well, it was nice being able to run around the world map without starving while I could :P

    Starvation death by attribute damage does sound strange, but I'm willing to try it out first.

    I do like the theory of 'food is more important travelling around the world map, not so much in dungeons/towns'.

    So constantly being hungry/bloated will mess up your stats, which makes sense... But on the flip side, if I go out of my way to eat a healthy diet, based around eating lots of different kinds, but generally equal portions of fresh meat, fruit, veg and herbs, I expect to get a 'healthy diet' bonus!

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  11. I'd suggest having Hurthlings be less affected by food problems - particularly bloat. I realize that "Hurthlings" and "Hobbits" aren't technically the same thing, but it seems reasonable to point out that Tolkien's Hobbits are accustomed to around a dozen meals a day, but also have incredible endurance in going without food.

    I'd also suggest that, when a player is starving, chatting with a non-hostile would have a chance that they would have pity and feed you.

    Also, how about different races having different food needs. Dark elves need to get their recommended daily allowance of spider guts. Dark Hurthlings can't eat Elven Bread. Maybe even follow Terry Pratchett's idea of Trolls eating rocks?

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  12. Rather than seeing this as 'death by charisma loss', interpret it as a symptom - i.e, the only way you can have 0 charisma is to be sickly and decrepit to the point of death. This is of course assuming that charisma loss even enters into it.

    Earlier Might and Magic games had a similar system iirc and i always liked the way it played out in those games.

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  13. The death of a thousand cuts. Me likey.

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  14. I've now changed "death by charisma / appearance loss" so that everyone (literally) in the world starts to hate and attack you - with a healthy bonus to damage! Should be more fun. All the others still end the game by instant death though.

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  15. Sounds goofy, actually. Bonus to damage? Where from? It should be very hard to lose all your Charisma and Appearance points then.

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  16. Nah, it's not too bad Silfir. It's probably the most realistic way to handle 0 charisma. When you think about the races that are most likely to be affected by this (Dark Elves, Trolls and Orcs), honestly, we're lucky that everyone in the world isn't attacking us anyway! Let's wait and see how it plays first.

    About why you get bonus damage... Something I've always thought (to make Charisma more useful) is that a high charisma should actually give you some protection against killing blows. If you have 20 charisma and 10 hps left, and you get hit by an attack that is going to do 12 damage, you take a charisma check (maybe measured against the enemy's Willpower, to represent their disipline?). If successful, the attack only does half damage (6 damage). This represents a hesitation an unwillingness to end this person's life - monsters are less inclined to want to destroy such a beautiful creature. And charisma also indicates social power and presence... do you really want to kill this creature? Have you thought through what will happen if you do kill them? They might have a lot of powerful friends! So the enemy hesitates, which is why you take less damage on a mortal blow.

    This represents that everyone has less qualms about killing a beautiful elf than they do an ugly troll. And also gives Charisma a (slight) use in battle.

    On the flip side, if you have 0 charisma, you are such a horrible, disgusting, unredeemable monster that everyone honestly believes the world will be a better place if you're not in it. Therefore they don't hold back, like they possibly were before. So yeah.

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  18. How would having 0 Mana or 0 Perception kill you -- directly, that is?

    @Lyle: "This represents a hesitation an unwillingness to end this person's life - monsters are less inclined to want to destroy such a beautiful creature. And charisma also indicates social power and presence... do you really want to kill this creature? Have you thought through what will happen if you do kill them? They might have a lot of powerful friends! So the enemy hesitates, which is why you take less damage on a mortal blow.

    This represents that everyone has less qualms about killing a beautiful elf than they do an ugly troll. And also gives Charisma a (slight) use in battle."

    I think this should be dependent on the type of monster involved. Some monsters may be just too cold or too alien for it to matter to them.

    "On the flip side, if you have 0 charisma, you are such a horrible, disgusting, unredeemable monster that everyone honestly believes the world will be a better place if you're not in it. Therefore they don't hold back, like they possibly were before. So yeah. "

    Hmm. So you can become truly *evil* simply by starving? Should there also be an alignment plunge then, too? And I think this too should depend on the kind of monster involved -- what if it's of a type that does not care about the wellbeing of the world and/or actively seeks its destruction and/or perversion (though such monsters would most likely be hostile anyway, but it _could_ be a factor in determining whether or not to grant them attack bonuses against you), or, as before, is simply too alien to even make sense of what the lack of "charisma" is doing and/or care about it?

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  19. Well... if Perception is your senses, like touch/sight/taste/smell/hear, then 0 perception means that you can't do any of those at all. ...and if you can't perceive anything, then that means you're dead.

    And because Mana is a magic stat, you can basically make up any reason you want for it. You could say that all living beings must have at least 1 point of Mana to be alive, because Mana represents the soul. So having all of your Mana drained would make you a lifeless husk.

    But it's JADE, it's the sequel to ADOM, everything doesn't really need to make sense. I mean, in ADOM, why do ALL hurthlings start with a cursed ring (it's a LOTR reference I know, but what's the ingame reason?), or shopkeepers being high-level and uber-powerful, or the barbarian in the glade arbitarily teaching you courage if you kill 20 of the first creature you killed when entering the Drakor chain? Let's not worry too much about specifics!

    The other handy thing is that this will make a Sword of Charisma draining actually useful. Run through a pack of 1 charisma Trolls, slightly wounding all of them, and watch in amusement (horror?) as they all go crazy and attack each other, dealing extra damage!

    Actually, I'm a little suprised - I thought Appearance and Charisma were combined in JADE (so you just have a 'charisma' stat which is a combination of your good looks and influence). But they're both still in JADE. Ap and Cha were both fairly useless stats in ADOM, so I'm wondering what you have planned for them in JADE... for example, what benefits would a high-Appearance low-Charisma character get, as opposed to a low-Appearance high-Charisma character? Might make a good blog post?

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  20. I am enjoying the ideas related to death by attribute loss. Oh the death messages.

    "pc"'s muscles deteriorated to nothing.
    "pc" forgot how to walk and breathe.
    "pc"'s will to continue vanished.
    "pc" tripped and fell on his head.
    "pc" was wasted away by the common cold
    "pc" was unforgivingly slain by a *foo* (for both charisma and appearance)
    "pc" lost grasp of his very soul
    "pc" was killed before he noticed anything

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  21. Other people being hostile to you does not equal them getting a damage bonus, does it?

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  22. if something hates you it should be more determine to kill you and probably concentrate more force in blows since he really have reasons imo

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  23. I would make everyone hostile to 0-Ap characters, but I would make the definition of "hostile" a bit more complex than in ADOM.

    In real life, if an armed warrior is hostile to you, he will try to kill you. But if a little child is hostile to you (and *you* are an armed warrior!), he will just leg it... maybe insulting you if he's brave, but he will run away!

    Harmless creatures, such as children, goodwives, perhaps some workers, etc.; should flee from adventurers when they are hostile (be it from Ap loss or due to other reasons, such as the adventurer attacking them).

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  24. I'd say 0 perception should make you blind and deaf and cause all items to be unided. You will thus die fairly soon after, most likely. And of course it opens up the possibility of a cool challenge game...

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  25. Can anybody answer me, should it work on mac os?

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  26. @kurbatovalex: Yes, it should. I'm on Mac all the time with JADE. No problems from my side.

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  27. Ok, thanks for answer, Thomas, so i can tell what happens.
    When i am pressing "Launch" on this page - http://www.adom.de/jade/downloads/javawebstart/index.php

    i have redirecting on this page - http://java.com/en/download/apple_manual.jsp and it said that i have to refresh my java. But i dont know how to do it becasue there is nothing about Java in my mac Software Update menu

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  28. instead of dying from willpower lose you should slip into a severely depressed coma state and not want to move and get thirsty for potions of booze hahaha

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  29. Have you considered "starving meditation". I'm thinking about a monk that stays in a starving conditions by choice, so he could become more "hunger resistant". Every pc will have an "hunger resistance" the higher it is, more time is needed to shift from "Satiated" to "Hungry" to "Starving" the lower it is the faster you shift through them. And the cool thing is that it becomes higher if you keep starving and lower if you keep being "bloated" or "satiated". This because you endure well the hunger if you remain for a long time in that condition.

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