I’m lost as to how raising the morale duration of a book to 3 hours breaks books to be on the same level as that of food and alcohol. Could we have a little more elaboration on this front?
Or perhaps you have intentions for the morale system in the future which involves a rework of food in general?
I agree with the alcohol thing. Just because one thing’s broke, doesn’t mean everything else has to be. And I wasn’t putting words into your mouth. Replace the words “you don’t” with “do you not”. It was a question. Just my manner of speech.
Might take to saying do ye not thinketh? Once I create a churl or whatever they’re called.
The confusion stems from bringing up alcohol in the first place, as I said, its irrelevant.
The problem is you have no rationale stated for why books should be better. Your argument seems to be that since they exist and have a morale bonus, that bonus should be significant (i.e. worth using books for this purpose). You need to have a reality-based rationale for what the expected morale impact of book reading is, then we can sort out how to make them representative.
Personally I don’t think it’s a particularly fruitful feature to work on, since as has been pointed out, it’s very unlikely that a given player finds themselves in need of a morale boost and unable to achieve it with the existing resources.
contemplates how good reading a book would make me feel in the broader scope of things such as getting smashed by a hulk or eating mutated body parts hmm…yeah, books don’t typically have that meat to them.
The only rationale I have for why books should be better is for the diversity of gameplay. My argument revolves around my view that books whose sole function is morale should boost morale for a duration worth considering.
A reality-based rationale for what the expected morale impact of reading a book should then be based on research. As enjoyment itself (let alone the duration of enjoyment) is ultimately unquantifiable due to subjectivity, changes revolving around enjoyment/morale, in general, is a game balance and design choice.
In my opinion, books don’t necessarily need to give more morale, but the morale boost should absolutely last for much longer than it does. As has been stated already, I’m unlikely to even remember what I ate yesterday, no matter how good it was, but reading a book stays with me for days or even weeks. (As for alcohol, I’m more likely to feel like garbage the next morning rather than have any lasting morale boost - adding a hangover debuff that kicks in 6-8 hours after drinking might help a lot with that.) It doesn’t even have to be a “good” book - if you’re in a hellish situation, any kind of escape into a story world is going to provide a huge benefit, as long as you don’t hate reading.
As for re-reading, I find that (in real life) I often get a much higher boost from re-reading a book I’ve already read than from reading a new book. When I finish a book, and I have a choice between starting a new one or re-reading an old one, it’s about a 50-50 split which one I’ll choose. A new one might be amazing, but the old one is familiar and requires less effort to read since I’m already familiar with the story. Of course, I don’t re-read every book, but you might be surprised at the ones I choose to re-read - not necessarily favorite books, but just anything I didn’t actively hate the first time around. And sometimes even ones I did actively hate the first time around, to find proof of why it’s awful or try to remember what was wrong with it. This is not a rare thing. People will often gravitate to the familiar, and the idea that after a book has been read once, no one would ever want to read it again, strikes me as a little absurd. I might read the same book several times per year. If I only had three books I would greedily read them over and over again until I could recite them from memory, even if they were books I didn’t like. I wouldn’t read them once and then declare them useless and chop them up for scrap paper. In fact, if anything the morale value of a book would decrease for me slowly over repeated readings, rather than needing time to “recharge”. If I read it five times, it would give a very low boost for at least a month or two, just because it’s mostly memorized at that point.
Here’s an article exploring some reasons people repeatedly consume the same media.
I wouldn’t necessarily say that books need to give a higher morale boost, but I’d absolutely request that the boost last for longer. At the very least, even if books in general aren’t changed, I’d like to see the bookworm trait buffed so that book morale boosts last longer and books can be re-read, at the very least for reduced morale, at least once or twice. Right now there’s basically no value in taking the bookworm trait. And as a real-life bookworm, I can assure you that it is absolutely realistic for books to boost morale for long periods of time, and for repeated readings to have value (sometimes even more value than the initial reading), even without a break between readings. And as a real-life bookworm who has used books (even random books) to escape from and survive trauma, I hope that my experiences are seen as valid for the context of CDDA.
(Tangentially related, we should not be able to play an instrument while reading or crafting. That is an infinitely renewable morale source which doesn’t even use up time. Of course, I would guess that’s probably not an easy thing to fix, but I do hope it’s on the list if at all possible.)
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So your argument is just because it’s sole purpose is entertainment, it should have a higher morale buff? Not everything in life is intended to be adequately useful to any degree. So from a realistic standpoint I don’t see why books need to be more entertaining just because they’re meant for entertainment.
And saying the entertainment quantity is subjective and a game balance and design choice…well, they designed it this way…soo…
No, I think the well written argument is to at the very least give bookworm a LONGER morale buff at the same level, if not books themselves, and to make it so that at least bookworm can re-read books for enjoyment at some point.
Kevin was saying that the ability to stack different alcohol buffs should get fixed at some point, I wouldn’t be surprised if food/alcohol in general got nerfed a bit. Also don’t forget that the various mood buffs can be sequenced to give a STRONG zone of focus when its needed, and reading can be a part of that
What are the current bonuses for bookworm? + 50% mood bonus?
I can see a mood duration increase and bookworm able to re-read books for 1/2 morale being reasonable.
I really like stories, whatever the format, and being pretty scatterbrained and imaginative fellow…
Prattle
I do tend to think back on ideas I think clever, or relevant, to a random thought I’ve just thought. Trying not to make a scene as I enjoy whatever thinking out the hows, wheres, and what-fors of whatever action has caught my momentary attention, skipping/dancing it out (whever its does not have a coresponding action)to solidify in my mind how it would work.
Needless to say I would not consider myself to be a bell-curve worthy example, otherwise we’d need a perm euphoric mood boost character with random moral boosts for ‘space-cadeted.’ So don’t really have a strong opinion here.
On top of longer lasting morale bonuses, the reading times should be longer too, 15 or 20 minutes is far from being a reading session. I’d either raise them to 1 hour or so, or reduce the morale gained from books (aside from increasing chapter count).
I figured 15 to 20 minutes is a chapter. Most of the novels have like 10 or 20 of them.
I think expanding the length of the buff would make sense. As it stands now it’s probably one of the fastest degrading buffs.
I wasn’t relating them to actual chapters, but to the morale boost they’re supposed to give. Maybe its just me, but I fail to see how 15 minutes of reading will make an survivor’s day more enjoyable in any tangible way.
Yeah, especially considering the buffs gained from drugs, food, music, etc. Books can have an influence to be sure, but I’ve never felt like a book would get me pumped enough to face the horrors of the apocalypse, or refresh me as much as a well cooked meal to handle the constant melees.
I’m thinking morale could function like health, where some sources don’t give as much in the moment but gets you to gradually except your current situation, and drugs that give you short term happiness, though don’t do much in the long run. Books wouldn’t heavily impact your mood, but if you find time to read it a bit everyday, then you will get a minor but constant good feeling. This could also extend to meditation, games, music, crafting, and maybe even just eating soon after you get up.
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The ideal situation IMO would be something like that, one where common luxuries (food, books, comfyness, music) give that sort of constant buff, while still allowing for high peaks if you eat something truly tasty, read a great book or just spend half a day playing your guitar on slips and boxers. A basic step on that direction would be making mood harder to raise the higher it already is.
The problem is that while the morale system as a whole is quite a relevant part of the game, working on its separate components looks like a hell lot of nitpicking,
Now its starting to sound like an ‘expected comfort level’ is being brought into play when you say it like that, which, may be an interesting concept to explore if not implement.
Something where the overall moral scale moves when you stay to long above/below values long enough. I can’t figure out a way it would ACTUALLY work out as a net positive for the game, but it would be an interesting way to bring make late game require more moral bonuses, except that then it feels more like a punishment.
Starting to veer off subject there though since it doesn’t really relate directly to books.
pick cannibal, a 1 point trait
start with a book that gives you infinite renewable +100 morale forever in 15 minutes
Hmm yes, quite.
Cannibal morale only goes up to 75, and lasts only for 1 hour. If you’d like the time-loss and constant micromanagement of reading the book, then by all means.
Just because an infinite moral buff exists, does not mean it necessarily is supposed to, much less that it should be used as an example to make more.
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I think what he was getting at is more that food and drinks can give quite high morale bonuses and are completely renewable. It would be nice if the player got diminishing returns for eating the same thing every single day, but there’s also a limit to how complex/difficult you can make the whole system before it gets ridiculous.
For the record, my original suggestion wasn’t to keep books as they are but make them recharge, I was thinking more along the lines of making them IMO realistic. Namely, you get a medium to high morale bonus WHILE reading a good book, but then it quickly peters out to only a few points. In the low single digits. The lower bonus could last for a week or more, to simulate you thinking about the story/spiritual/whatever you enjoyed earlier. Once you finish a book, it could start a timer of a season or longer, after which you “forget” the book and it refills, although perhaps the morale bonus from it would be lower than the first time you read it.
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