Enjoyment variation (probably not feasible)

[redxlaser15]

–One of my problems with being too specific is that this could end up being incompatible very easily. Unless the new flags for various foods was mainstreamed, then it might end up completely broken/useless on most mods. They’d probably need a second mod - for those without this one - that actually includes those factors. Or at least some sort of addon to fix said errors.
–I much prefer a bit more randomness in it. Sure, it could end up super weird, but it could (potentially) be more compatible and various possibly easier to code in general. I also feel like there should be some sort of limit (a % amount) for how many foods change. Thus, not everything will be completely different from the base game. Since, as a general rule from what I’ve observed, some foods are simply more likely to enjoyed than others, and the same way with disliking them.
–The cravings idea might work on mods, but I really don’t know how that’d work. That’s not something I’ve really delved into thus far. Although I will say that I think that idea is pretty good.

[Aabbcc]

Mods and maintenance were one of my main concerns when thinking up the system, so I understand where you’re coming from.

This is the reason why while the ‘food categories’ would use item flags, but everything else is dynamically generated. At best, unsupported mod items will ‘inherit’ a food category from an item they’ll be using ‘copy-from’, at worst, the item belongs to no food category, but will still be part of the individual and ingredient-based food preference formula.

The other tag that a mod would need would be something like “never tires”, so things like water don’t tire out the player. There shouldn’t be many things that require such a tag.

The “only % food change” may not be needed to get the desired effect: if the ‘likes’ are adjusted with a bell curve, then most items will be ‘average’, differing from the base joy in the json by only a few percent (tho still subject to the character getting tired of that item or craving it), with some breaking above or below the rest.

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It might be a good idea to make items that are “consumable_type: DRINK” to be resistant to the player getting tired of them, since people are far more willing to drink something every day than to eat the same thing every day. Ditto for anything that is addictive, which is also easy enough to check.

Might also be a good idea to make items that are “consumable_type:MED” skip the modified joy system altogether. Many of those are pills, many others are injected.

[kuros]

I’m not aware of any meds that have an enjoyability rating. Though, again, I’m only familiar with the early game.

I’m really interested in the conversation about how we could make this theoretical mod maximally compatible with other mods that add food items.

[Aabbcc]

a lot of meds do, keep in mind that meds include drugs and chewing gums (regular, tobacco and caffeinated), as well as gummy vitamins (positive enjoyability) and mugwort oil (negative enjoyability).

Maximum compatibility would come from relying as much as possible on dynamically generating things based on attributes already there on the jsons, Consumable type (med, drink, food) and addictiveness are the ones that look promising to me.

[redxlaser15]

–You may have misunderstood me about what I mean by percents. I mean that a percent of all food in the game (including mods) will change, but the rest won’t. For example, you could have it so 80% of the food ingame changes, but the other 20% aren’t randomized; they have the default enjoyment stats.
–I could be wrong, and I just misunderstood what you said. Which would make me feel like a derp, but then again, I’m a derp all the time.

[Aabbcc]

No, no, I understood what you meant, what I mean to say is that most food wouldn’t change much.

Say, you have something with Joy of 20, and most items fall on the -20%~+20% personal enjoyment scale:
On most playthroughs (and barring cravings or being sick of that food), you’d see it have a joy of 18~22, with some rare times going down to 16 or as high as 24. Once in a blue moon, however, you might see it jump all the way up to 40, or down to -10~-15.

So on average, most foods would be pretty close to their base joy, a small group would be noticeably above or below, and a handful few would hit the extremes, so in practice, the effect would be close to your suggestion of only randomizing a small number of foods.

I prefer randomizing all and using a bell curve over randomizing a few but ensuring it’s extreme enough to be noticeable by the player because the system is already going to need a table for all the foods, in order to track flags and how much the character has been eating that food lately.

[kevin.granade]

I would prefer to start out with a much simpler system and add more features if it’s meaningful to do(in order of impact and ease of implimentation)

1. Random scaling of enjoyment for each morale source per character, I agree a normal distribution of adjustments sounds like a good idea.
2. Layer on a system for adjusting enjoyability based on past exposure. Most likely a simple system like, “if you eat the same thing too much your enjoyment starts to drop”.
3. Possibly tweak the above system based on initial preferences, perhaps favorite foods are tolerated for longer.
4. Apply random tweaks to enjoyability based on characteristics of foods, such as ingredients.

[redxlaser15]

I also feel like if a character has a trait relating to not eating a certain food, the mood debuff and such will be greatly increased. It makes sense that you wouldn’t enjoy eating a food that will probably make you throw up.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

I’d agree with you if the traits were simply aversions. A vegetarian wouldn’t be happy eating meat because they made a choice not to eat meat.

But they deal with these things as ‘intolerances’. I know plenty of lactose intolerant folks who still love cheese and icecream. I also know about a dozen people with shellfish allergies that love crab. My sister’s allergic to pineapples and she still likes the taste. Sure, nobody likes throwing up, but plenty of people are still happy to eat things their bodies don’t agree with.

[redxlaser15]

–Hmm. I guess you do have a good point there. Didn’t think about that. Of course, I’d never do that, because I understand when my tummy says I should no longer eat something. My tongue and my brain often don’t agree with each other, but my tummy and my brain do. Sometimes, it is like my stomach is a wise counselor in the topic of food, and almost always helps me to eat a good diet.
–Remember kids, you can trust a skinny chef! Because they love food soooo much they only eat the really good stuff, and thus they are skinnier! Really, you should trust a skinny chef more than a fat one, because the fat ones just shove a bunch of junk down their throats!
–You know what? Now I want to add the ‘skinny chef’ trait to ROA, which is better than that other food trait that starts with a ‘g’! The amount of food you need to eat is significantly lowered, but you are still able to eat more. The cooking skill also levels up twice as fast, and any and all food you eat tastes amazing! It’s not perfectly accurate to how I described the skinny chef easier, but VIDEO GAME LOGIC!

[darktoes]

All the mathematical permutation stuff sounds really neat, but I agree with Kevin that the system should be as simple as possible to start out with. Personally, I think the craving system would be really neat, but I also get that it would be a bit weird.

I think it’s also important to differentiate “preferences” and “favourites”. Obviously some people lean more or less towards different types of food, but the lean is going to be fairly weak. Some people like pasta more than others, some people like red meat more than others, etc. The categorical approach isn’t bad, but it should provide a fairly low morale bonus, since it’s pretty unlikely that pasta is going to be someone’s absolute favourite thing. It’s far more likely that a person’s favourite dish is going to be fairly specific, a specific type of noodle, sauce, and meat, cooking in a particular way. THAT would be the thing that should give a substantial morale bonus when eaten, and I think it would be a lot easier to implement.

My issue with randomly generated preferences is that it would be the very first per-character benefit/penalty that’s randomly generated as the only option. You can always make your character exactly the same every playthrough, and you have full control over every meaningful decision. The likes/dislikes would have to show up during character creation and be re-rollable at minimum, preferably also being kept with character templates.

Skinny chefs cook for the tongue, fat chefs cook for the soul.

[redxlaser15]

Hmm. Fair enough about the chef thing there. You’re probably right about that part. I hearted your comment for just that little bit

[darktoes]

It’s always bothered me that people put so much effort into making food taste “incredible” when you taste it for like 15 seconds and then it’s on it’s way to being poop. I’m far more concerned with good tasting food that’s satisfying.

[TheMurderUnicorn]

If you’re just looking for a proof of concept, rather than a complex system, why not implement a favoritism system for the food types that already exist in game?

IE: You already have fruit, vegetable, dairy, meat, and junkfood intolerant characters. Therefore many foods (or all? I don’t know) are already tagged to fit into those categories.

So, wouldn’t you start with those 5 archetypes of food and work from there?

[bostltch]

Well I mean each bite only lasts a few seconds but the whole meal can last a lot longer than that so you end up with a lot more than 15 seconds of enjoyment.

[darktoes]

Well that’s true, but even then it doesn’t compare to the amount of time you spend digesting it.

[kuros]

Sometimes food bonuses last overnight for my current character. I might have a trait that helps with that, no idea what their current traits are.

[TechyBen]

A lot of food is down to tradition/upbringing as well as genetics/personal taste.

So having a system that allows some “forced” food preferences could apply. The players character would start to like certain foods more, or get used to them, them more of it they eat. Likewise, some foods would become boring if eaten all the time.

I guess it would depend on the base moral gain in game, as to how much or how quickly it changes. Most people could eat chocolate or icecream all day, and only extreme overindulgence would put them off, and even then only temporarily.

It could easily be done in code AFAIK, some sort of multiplier or debuff when the same food is eaten again, depending on if it is a moral bonus or negative effect.

[Aabbcc]

There are problems with approaching ‘getting bored of food’ that way.

From a simulationist point of view, you aren’t likely to dislike having burger for dinner if you had it for lunch. Couple days in a row? A little tiring, a week straight? Pretty tiring, but repeating a food once shouldn’t have much, if any effect.

From a game point of view, you have the problem that there’s food that has a lot of nutrition, filling you a lot in one action, and there’s food that you need a several of in order to sate your hunger.
In real life, you’d just pile a bunch of the later in a plate and call it a single ‘meal’, but in game terms, if you implement an innocent ‘you ate this x time ago, so you’re bored of it’, then it is going to heavily penalize this kind of food.

Rendering things more complicated to automate, you can’t just adjust the formula with the item’s nutrition to account for this because many candies, deserts and the like also have low values of nutrition, so under that approach, you would never get tired of those unless you ate your fill several times in a row.
You can’t even use the “junk” material to filter them out and treat them separately, because there’s sweets that aren’t junk food, and there’s junk food that is actually meant to be a full meal.

This is why I was proposing to keep track of having eaten stuff for the last 2~3 days, and using that to tell if you’ve eaten something for a few days in a row and penalize the fun of the item.

[kevin.granade]

Sorry if that was unclear, the penalty for repeatedly eating the same food should accumulate rather slowly. If you do as much as alternating among a group of 5 or so foods and occasionally supplement with something else, you shouldn’t encounter significant penalties. If some if those foods as re “favorites”, it should be even more forgiving.