Implemented The Constant Scarcity of Essentials

[Takyon3]

To put it bluntly, food, water and so on should be more scarce than on the initial release of Willard. A lot more.



First, I will present my argument for this, as well as how big the scarcity should be. And then I will address common arguments against this system, and explain why they are fallacies.

Explanation

First of all, the scarcity of food and water encourages role play and creates stories between characters. Imagine yourself as a typical citizen, who has just received their ration. Upon consuming its contents, it should fill up a mere one half of your bars. This sustenance, however, begins to drain quickly. Alarmed, you go and interact with others, or perhaps enter a store in order to purchase food. Maybe if the prices in these stores are too expensive for you, you would be more inclined to take part in a work-shift, or contact an in-character faction for employment, raising your salary. This is the very basis of this suggestion, and it is immediately clear why this would create role play. Not only that, but it would ensure the longevity of the food-related businesses on the server, who would have otherwise failed to make much money without an absence of food in the economy. AND it would make the stockpiling of credits mostly impossible, as food is an essential for every character on the server, human or otherwise.

Scarcity of food and water is less a matter of the dwindling fertility of Earth's environment, rather it is just another product of the Combine's control. In order to control the people, you simply drip feed them what they need to survive, and reward them with good behavior. This is the in-lore reason why food, and other items are scarce. It also creates the grimdark atmosphere that is otherwise absent, especially on C24 maps where the atmosphere is more cheery and clean.

Common Arguments

The most common argument against an increased scarcity of food items is that it would become annoying to maintain a couple bars on the top left of your screen. This argument is a fallacy, because as I've mentioned previously, the scarcity of items creates a market, and will "force" role play between characters as they barter for what they need to survive. Is it not "annoying" walking around, knowing that the economy is completely fake and is entirely based off of guns?

Surviving in a UU-Controlled urban center should be harsh, almost like a survival game every time you log in to play. People were forced into thievery, and even murder in 1940s occupied France because of their food shortages, now imagine a Combine occupied city, where this would presumably be ramped up to 11. People should be dying everyday on the server out of starvation, because they were not equipped enough as roleplayers to get what they wanted.

Implementation

I'm not very familiar with how cooking is supposed to function, and as it is, that side of things seems to see constant changes. So I'll leave that up to someone else.

But otherwise, the rate at which your hunger and thirst bars decrease should be sped up. In my opinion, if you can't eat a decent meal every 1.5 to 2 IC hours, then your character should die of starvation. Your attributes suffering would also be a nice touch, but whatever happens, characters must begin to die when those bars hit 0.

Food, especially ration food, should not be very nutritious, and should only fill out small portions of the bar. 1 ration should give you an hour of IC time at most without beginning to starve. Food bought from stores should typically be more nutritious than rations, and finally, rare and expensive foods (chocolate, meats, cheese etc.) should be very nutritious.

This scarcity should not apply to only citizens, but to loyalists, to CPs, to CWU, to everyone but the obviously high-status individuals in the CCA. Obviously, with varying degrees based on the faction. Personally, I'd like to see a major contrast of wealth on the server between the rich aristocrats and the poor workers, but such a system would require that both classes remain mostly separate from each other, otherwise food would go back to being plentiful within the economy.

 

[Sagsworth]

No, it is already inefficient and requires purchasing food and drink from shops. Forcing citizens to go "hey i want to buy coffee and a bagel" doesn't provide any real roleplay, just an economic transaction. You're not forcing roleplay, you're forcing an economy, conflating /y "hi i need food" with character development is beyond ridiculous.

 

[Deleted member 624]

The best experience I had on a hl2rp server was when my apartment roommates and I were starving. So we banded together and agreed to give all tokens to me as I would be the executive of our food syndicate.

I would sell rice and noodles, low nutritious foods between each other and sell at a profit to other apartment neighbours as an exploit, just to profit more food for me and my roomies so we could last out more days.

 

[Takyon3]

No, it is already inefficient and requires purchasing food and drink from shops.

No shit.

Forcing citizens to go "hey i want to buy coffee and a bagel" doesn't provide any real roleplay, just an economic transaction.

It provides both, actually.

You're not forcing roleplay, you're forcing an economy, conflating /y "hi i need food" with character development is beyond ridiculous.

I'd be forcing both. You're looking at this suggestion from a very surface level. Characters bartering with one another will lead to friends, which might lead to alliances, which would lead to enemies. It's the very essence which stories are created from. Look at the history of humanity dude, it's a history of bartering with one another. It's how empires are formed.

 

[Deleted member 624]

The entire civilization derived from being farmers to make food, with its counter part being nomadic Hunter gatherers.

For instance,
Food was wealth since the neolithic revolution, where they stationed themselves to make farms.

It was common to raid other villages for securing their farms, gaining more food and slaves which were used for farms.

The fact they were stationary made it namely possible to have ownership of things since they were able to claim items or land for their use rather than only the loose things they had on them.

Roman empire relied primarily on food to run its economy, which was shipped as welfare to the capital from colonies which is how they got to live such a luxurious life.

So it would make sense to have food as a main necessity, otherwise you could alternatively walk around for hours end and occasionally find soda can like a Berry in the wild just to replenish.

This alternative only encourages a nomadic lifestyle, like a rebel who has no need to get rations or buying food from CWU, when you are meant to be a citizen.

 

[Atle]

Rations provide only a tiny amount of hunger/drink nourishment, so that's already set! Generally speaking our rations are designed to be kinda shite to encourage other ways of gaining income.

All our ration income / intervals are also flexible so those can be adjusted on the go plus our hunger / thirst timers are also fully flexible so with a bit of BETA data gathering I hope to gain a bit more insight here.

Food also now spoils after certain amount of time and if you don't eat your attributes will suffer greatly (thus your skills also go to shite), you wont die though as that'd piss a lot of people off

Anyway we hope to gain a lot of insight from the BETA including how players use food

 

[Takyon3]

you wont die though as that'd piss a lot of people off

Death should be a consequence of not being able to acquire food, otherwise there will be no drive to barter for it. The attributes dwindling is nice, but I don't think it will be enough.

 

[Equinox]

I feel this can work in certain situations. You are right in that this will create roleplay, but how much do we really want people to be dropping dead or suffering from dehydration and starving?

The main argument you bring up was properly excused, but you brought up the wrong argument. People don't say it's annoying "because I have to get food and water!" They bring it up because when you implement a system like this that can kill you in one session, that DOES get annoying. Why would my character, who potentially has weeks if not months of development, die because I decided for ONE DAY to not go for the "daily water/food grind"? That isn't realistic at all. People can survive without water for 3-5 days. Without food? 1-3 months. You can't just say "You haven't eaten for 24 hours? PK." It's far too cruel for far too little RP.

I've actually brought up a way to remedy this, and that is implementing a very long term "nutrition" system in which the hunger and thirst bar are just that, hunger and thirst. They aren't your bodies literal nutrition state, just what your body needs. If you spend time with 100 hunger (Very hungry. Haven't eaten at all within the day), a hidden value begins to decrease and is altered that is your "nutrition". At certain levels, it starts to apply penalties to your character such as reduced attributes and such. Have nutrition value be based on your height. Shorter people have a lower nutrition value. This means shorter people starve faster, but also regain nutrition faster.

Assuming 4 OOC hours is "one day" IC for the body (because people probably play an average of 4 hours a day), the following is how it goes. Do keep in mind that "time till death" will alter based on height. Taller people, vice versa.

Nutrition

Food should be a very long process to both recover from and fail at. We can shorten this to at least make it engaging, to about 20 "days" which is 80 hours. Keep in mind, this is until DEATH. So at 5 days, or 20 hours, you reach one lower tier of nutrition. This sounds like it might be easy to avoid, but keep in mind you need to constantly have at least a somewhat okay intake to maintain your nutrition. Keep doing this until after 3 or so tiers, in which a text line will remind you that you are on the brink of death, and eventually cause you to LITERALLY starve and die. The rate this decreases and increases is relative to how hungry or full you are. Constantly full? It recharges faster. Constantly hungry? Decreases faster. Constantly full with full nutrition? Your character will begin to improve in physicality and gain bonuses. Vice versa. Low hydration can also cause your HUNGER to go down faster.

Hydration

Water is the same but is instead called Hydration. Instead of height, it is based on your nutrition, as heavier people (lots of nutrients) need more water, while lighter people (not as much nutrients) need less, but this variation is relatively small. Hydration takes about 3 - 5 days until death, but we SHOULD increase this a little bit as "12 hours with no water = death" is a bit cruel. I propose 8 - 10 days until death, or "32 hours with no water = death" is good. Hydration lowers faster than nutrition obviously, but it also replenishes quickly. The effects of dehydration are much more acute. The first "penalized tier" may not seem like much, but once you are at 25-28 hours, your character can see some serious issues.

Roleplay Means

This brings about a much more expansive, and detailed starvation system. Getting food in the moment isn't a matter of life or death, just like it isn't in real life, but one still needs to make sure and maintain themselves. It's the best of both worlds. People still get to RP and get food/water, but it doesn't cause people to have to drop what they are doing because "sorry guys im about to starve in literally 8 hours after making a character. gotta stockpile!"

Development Means

It is an extra system to code, and I don't like to be the type to go around telling devs how much work they might do, but such a system, I imagine, shouldn't be too different from the "Xen Gas" system. Just numbers being influenced by other numbers. Most it should take is some tricky math, and that's it.




Mentioning @Atle and @Gr4Ss for the record.

 

[Deleted member 624]

Getting food in the moment isn't a matter of life or death, just like it isn't in real life, but one still needs to make sure and maintain themselves.

Getting no food is not a matter of life or death irl?

I beg your pardon...

Real life excuses can outdrag what you would experience in Willard.

If we bring to the basis of what a human can survive without food (based on a state where they are healthy into starving) is it only an excuse to not have food at all.

Your character consumes food slowly and the 20 other hours where you are not doing anything does not give an accurate picture of the state you are in as a character.

Imagine eating a Las Vegas buffets, going to sleep for 5 consecutive days and then still being full when you wake up.

With having to eat food every hour, atleast once. Your character is more human other than being the ultimate dietist who is in a strategical fasting.

 

[Equinox]

Getting no food is not a matter of life or death irl?

I beg your pardon...

Real life excuses can outdrag what you would experience in Willard.

If we bring to the basis of what a human can survive without food (based on a state where they are healthy into starving) is it only an excuse to not have food at all.

Your character consumes food slowly and the 20 other hours where you are not doing anything does not give an accurate picture of the state you are in as a character.

Imagine eating a Las Vegas buffets, going to sleep for 5 consecutive days and then still being full when you wake up.

With having to eat food every hour, atleast once. Your character is more human other than being the ultimate dietist who is in a strategical fasting.

This is taking what I said out of context. I said getting food IN THE MOMENT should not be life or death. Me not eating for one day should not mean I am close to dying. Far from it. You're also leaving out some very obvious mechanics that would be in this system, such as certain food only refilling part of your immediate hunger, not all of it, if it were empty. The "buffet" followed by "5 days of sleeping" isn't a thing because, in this system, it'd only fill your hunger to its max (assuming you had that much food to eat) and GRADUALLY begin to replenish nutrition, which would soon just start to stagnate as your hunger quickly goes back down, just like real life.

This means people still need to eat regularly (CONSISTENTLY), or else just "eating a ton of food at once" followed by not doing anything will still result in a net negative nutrition because you are failing to remain full more than you are starving.

This translates to people still going to get food regularly, without the shitty "YOU DIDN'T EAT FOOD IN 8 HOURS LOL TIME TO DIE" annoyance.

 

[Takyon3]

The main argument you bring up was properly excused, but you brought up the wrong argument. People don't say it's annoying "because I have to get food and water!" They bring it up because when you implement a system like this that can kill you in one session, that DOES get annoying. Why would my character, who potentially has weeks if not months of development, die because I decided for ONE DAY to not go for the "daily water/food grind"? That isn't realistic at all. People can survive without water for 3-5 days. Without food? 1-3 months. You can't just say "You haven't eaten for 24 hours? PK." It's far too cruel for far too little RP.

There is no satisfaction in developing a character for weeks or months if surviving is incredibly easy on the server, which it is right now provided you never get into conflict (which is also very easy). I've played entirely different round-based roleplay games, where I have witnessed more character development in 1-3 hours than in any HL2 character over the course of months. The challenges, and the struggle to stay alive, will add to the achievement of staying alive for "months" as you mentioned here. Cruel? Sure. But it's fun, and it makes people take the game more seriously, when real consequences are added.

I've actually brought up a way to remedy this, and that is implementing a very long term "nutrition" system in which the hunger and thirst bar are just that, hunger and thirst. They aren't your bodies literal nutrition state, just what your body needs. If you spend time with 100 hunger (Very hungry. Haven't eaten at all within the day), a hidden value begins to decrease and is altered that is your "nutrition". At certain levels, it starts to apply penalties to your character such as reduced attributes and such. Have nutrition value be based on your height. Shorter people have a lower nutrition value. This means shorter people starve faster, but also regain nutrition faster.

Assuming 4 OOC hours is "one day" IC for the body (because people probably play an average of 4 hours a day), the following is how it goes. Do keep in mind that "time till death" will alter based on height. Taller people, vice versa.

What you describe here is the typical hunger system, but with a hidden nutritional value that functions exactly how the regular bars function except you take height into account. It seems to me you're taking something which should be very simple, and adding extra steps to it which are not necessary.

Food should be a very long process to both recover from and fail at. We can shorten this to at least make it engaging, to about 20 "days" which is 80 hours. Keep in mind, this is until DEATH. So at 5 days, or 20 hours, you reach one lower tier of nutrition. This sounds like it might be easy to avoid, but keep in mind you need to constantly have at least a somewhat okay intake to maintain your nutrition. Keep doing this until after 3 or so tiers, in which a text line will remind you that you are on the brink of death, and eventually cause you to LITERALLY starve and die. The rate this decreases and increases is relative to how hungry or full you are. Constantly full? It recharges faster. Constantly hungry? Decreases faster. Constantly full with full nutrition? Your character will begin to improve in physicality and gain bonuses. Vice versa. Low hydration can also cause your HUNGER to go down faster.

80 hours to starve? Really? This will make food and water completely useless on the server. The nutritional states you describe are cool I guess, but it all just takes too long.

Water is the same but is instead called Hydration. Instead of height, it is based on your nutrition, as heavier people (lots of nutrients) need more water, while lighter people (not as much nutrients) need less, but this variation is relatively small. Hydration takes about 3 - 5 days until death, but we SHOULD increase this a little bit as "12 hours with no water = death" is a bit cruel. I propose 8 - 10 days until death, or "32 hours with no water = death" is good. Hydration lowers faster than nutrition obviously, but it also replenishes quickly. The effects of dehydration are much more acute. The first "penalized tier" may not seem like much, but once you are at 25-28 hours, your character can see some serious issues.

Same as before. The time is far too long to have any real effect.

This brings about a much more expansive, and detailed starvation system.

It's literally just the starvation system, but you're making it sound very deep and complicated.

Getting food in the moment isn't a matter of life or death, just like it isn't in real life, but one still needs to make sure and maintain themselves.

It's an occupied city where things are kept intentionally scarce, it's not comparable to real life. You should look into how real occupied cities IRL suffer from food shortages, and even then, probably wouldn't come close to the Combine's means of maintaining control and artificial scarcity.

It's the best of both worlds. People still get to RP and get food/water, but it doesn't cause people to have to drop what they are doing because "sorry guys im about to starve in literally 8 hours after making a character. gotta stockpile!"

Yes, people have to go out of their way to get what they need to survive, just like real life.

It is an extra system to code, and I don't like to be the type to go around telling devs how much work they might do, but such a system, I imagine, shouldn't be too different from the "Xen Gas" system. Just numbers being influenced by other numbers. Most it should take is some tricky math, and that's it.

It's literally the hunger system with extra steps.

 

[Equinox]

There is no satisfaction in developing a character for weeks or months if surviving is incredibly easy on the server, which it is right now provided you never get into conflict (which is also very easy). I've played entirely different round-based roleplay games, where I have witnessed more character development in 1-3 hours than in any HL2 character over the course of months. The challenges, and the struggle to stay alive, will add to the achievement of staying alive for "months" as you mentioned here. Cruel? Sure. But it's fun, and it makes people take the game more seriously, when real consequences are added.

What you describe here is the typical hunger system, but with a hidden nutritional value that functions exactly how the regular bars function except you take height into account. It seems to me you're taking something which should be very simple, and adding extra steps to it which are not necessary.

80 hours to starve? Really? This will make food and water completely useless on the server. The nutritional states you describe are cool I guess, but it all just takes too long.

Same as before. The time is far too long to have any real effect.

It's literally just the starvation system, but you're making it sound very deep and complicated.

It's an occupied city where things are kept intentionally scarce, it's not comparable to real life. You should look into how real occupied cities IRL suffer from food shortages, and even then, probably wouldn't come close to the Combine's means of maintaining control and artificial scarcity.

Yes, people have to go out of their way to get what they need to survive, just like real life.

It's literally the hunger system with extra steps.

You're failing to consider the scope of this and the implications of such a system. Nutrition is not something you lose or gain quickly. It's a long process, and failing to constantly keep up on it is grounds for a suffering character. The system isn't any "easier" than the one we have now or what YOU recommended, but it's not unnecessarily difficult for the sake of "RP", especially when said development is going to be erased if you don't follow a system for one or two days.

It seems to me you're taking something which should be very simple, and adding extra steps to it which are not necessary.

Because hunger/hydration is more than just "You didn't eat for 8 hours. Die." This is why we DON'T kill for hunger reasons at the moment.

80 hours to starve? Really? This will make food and water completely useless on the server. The nutritional states you describe are cool I guess, but it all just takes too long.

Not at all. This implies that getting food or water once will save you from near starvation, or that a lack of food on the server WON'T result in starvation. 80 hours to starve seems like a long time, but it also takes a long time to starve in general. Instead of relegating starvation RP to 2 hours, make it drawn out. THe process to and from starvation should be a long and arduous one when you lack proper sustenance, which this system captures perfectly. Furthermore, it's not like you won't be suffering from additional penalties WITHIN those 80 hours, and even then, if you play the server regularly, it'd take only 20 four hour sessions to starve, which isn't really that long if you consider how long a server usually goes for. And note, that it also takes just as long to regain that nutrition. This leads to actual character development that takes place over time, and not one off starvation RP where you just completely ignore the fact that you were starving for a good moment after eating a few food scripts.

Again, getting food or water shouldn't be a "I didn't get it within 8 hours. Time to die!" type deal. That's unrealistic, annoying, super grindy, and doesn't bring as much RP as you think it does. These all can be improved to both bring the RP you want, while getting rid of the negatives, so long as proper coding development goes into it.

To literally bring about the "starvation RP" you want with the system I proposed, all you have to do is exactly what you described in your original post, which is limiting food or water. People need to eat 3 meals a day to stave off the inevitable decline of your nutrition and hydration, but even rations may only bring you to the "maintaining" part. The coding is complicated (not really if you compare it to big boy vidya game code), but the actual system in practice isn't. It's literally what every single human being in real life has to deal with on a constant.

 

[Takyon3]

t's a long process, and failing to constantly keep up on it is grounds for a suffering character. The system isn't any "easier" than the one we have now or what YOU recommended

It sounds very easy, literally just the hunger system but dragged out until it has no real meaning anymore.

but it's not unnecessarily difficult for the sake of "RP", especially when said development is going to be erased if you don't follow a system for one or two days.

Character development is never "erased". Your actions will always persist in some way through your interactions with other characters. Sometimes, dying is the most meaningful part of your character's development. No one said living for a long time was the goal in life.

Because hunger/hydration is more than just "You didn't eat for 8 hours. Die." This is why we DON'T kill for hunger reasons at the moment.

Hunger/hydration is more than dying of starvation, but not for the reasons you think. I have already explained this point previously.

Not at all. This implies that getting food or water once will save you from near starvation, or that a lack of food on the server WON'T result in starvation. 80 hours to starve seems like a long time, but it also takes a long time to starve in general.

IC time is generally sped up a lot more than IRL time for obvious reasons.

Instead of relegating starvation RP to 2 hours, make it drawn out. THe process to and from starvation should be a long and arduous one when you lack proper sustenance, which this system captures perfectly.

This removes the urgency I described earlier to find clever ways of securing sources of food and water, and the length of time will be too long. By the time someone is starving after multiple OOC days, they will most likely have lots of food and water items in their inventory, removing the scarcity.

Furthermore, it's not like you won't be suffering from additional penalties WITHIN those 80 hours

These additional penalties are not enough to make major differences like the one I described in the OP.

if you play the server regularly, it'd take only 20 four hour sessions to starve, which isn't really that long if you consider how long a server usually goes for.

That's clearly a long time, and it should be rare for characters to survive the entire length of the server like I mentioned previously.

And note, that it also takes just as long to regain that nutrition. This leads to actual character development that takes place over time, and not one off starvation RP where you just completely ignore the fact that you were starving for a good moment after eating a few food scripts.

How is slowly building up your nutrition character development? Also, saying starvation RP is a one off thing is completely ignoring the long-term benefits of such a system, benefits which I listed in the OP. And ignoring that you were starving is the player's choice.

Again, getting food or water shouldn't be a "I didn't get it within 8 hours. Time to die!" type deal. That's unrealistic, annoying, super grindy, and doesn't bring as much RP as you think it does. These all can be improved to both bring the RP you want, while getting rid of the negatives, so long as proper coding development goes into it.

Is it not "annoying" walking around, knowing that the economy is completely fake and is entirely based off of guns? And getting by on scraps in an occupied city is completely realistic. The system you propose does nothing for RP on the server, and only makes it less satisfying.

To literally bring about the "starvation RP" you want with the system I proposed, all you have to do is exactly what you described in your original post, which is limiting food or water. People need to eat 3 meals a day to stave off the inevitable decline of your nutrition and hydration, but even rations may only bring you to the "maintaining" part. The coding is complicated (not really if you compare it to big boy vidya game code), but the actual system in practice isn't. It's literally what every single human being in real life has to deal with on a constant.

The system you proposed will take, like you mentioned 80 hours to starve to death. A time limit most characters don't even reach upon creation. Limiting the food and water won't change this, because I still have so much time to completely ignore these items.

 

[Equinox]

It sounds very easy, literally just the hunger system but dragged out until it has no real meaning anymore.

Character development is never "erased". Your actions will always persist in some way through your interactions with other characters. Sometimes, dying is the most meaningful part of your character's development. No one said living for a long time was the goal in life.

Hunger/hydration is more than dying of starvation, but not for the reasons you think. I have already explained this point previously.

IC time is generally sped up a lot more than IRL time for obvious reasons.

This removes the urgency I described earlier to find clever ways of securing sources of food and water, and the length of time will be too long. By the time someone is starving after multiple OOC days, they will most likely have lots of food and water items in their inventory, removing the scarcity.

These additional penalties are not enough to make major differences like the one I described in the OP.

That's clearly a long time, and it should be rare for characters to survive the entire length of the server like I mentioned previously.

How is slowly building up your nutrition character development? Also, saying starvation RP is a one off thing is completely ignoring the long-term benefits of such a system, benefits which I listed in the OP. And ignoring that you were starving is the player's choice.

Is it not "annoying" walking around, knowing that the economy is completely fake and is entirely based off of guns? And getting by on scraps in an occupied city is completely realistic. The system you propose does nothing for RP on the server, and only makes it less satisfying.

The system you proposed will take, like you mentioned 80 hours to starve to death. A time limit some characters don't even reach upon creation. Limiting the food and water won't change this, because I still have so much time to completely ignore these items.

A character who doesn't place themself in harm's way can easily survive MONTHS. I had a CP Unit who went through multiple gun fights on front line facing-the-enemy type shit and literally lasted the entire server iterations life time which was 4-6 months. DeNuke can personally attest to this.

Starvation + Death isn't a quick process. Basing the hunger system of what is meant to be a long term character RP off of a "survival game" as you put it isn't condusive to actual long term roleplay. Starvation is a slow, painful, and gradual process. It SHOULD take time. I brought up realism because this was the point I was trying to make. It takes much MUCH longer than 80 hours to starve to death IRL, often up to 1 - 3 months. The "hunger" isn't dragged out to meaninglessness. It's in fact the opposite. If you don't eat anything for 40 hours of play time, you have fourty hours to make up for, and that's food you need to be eating in surplus, not just shitty rations that barely fill you.

Hell you can even shorten it to 40 hours till death, and this would be better than "No Food in 8 hours = Death" type shit which reinforces the "grindy" nature of the original Willard server that people actively detested.

The system I proposed is how starvation actually happens, and doesn't simplify it to RUST tier mechanics, because Willard HL2RP isn't meant to be a "survival game" where you starve to death in literally no time at all. For the record, as I said, you still need to eat food and drink just as often as what your suggestion entails, it just doesn't punish you in 8 hours and actually adds states of starvation.

 

[Sagsworth]

I'd be forcing both. You're looking at this suggestion from a very surface level. Characters bartering with one another will lead to friends, which might lead to alliances, which would lead to enemies. It's the very essence which stories are created from. Look at the history of humanity dude, it's a history of bartering with one another. It's how empires are formed.

I don't care how empires are formed, I've got plenty of experience in HL2RP and every time someone adds an item grind for the sake of "creating roleplay" it only detracts from roleplay.

 

[Takyon3]

A character who doesn't place themself in harm's way can easily survive MONTHS. I had a CP Unit who went through multiple gun fights on front line facing-the-enemy type shit and literally lasted the entire server iterations life time which was 4-6 months. DeNuke can personally attest to this.

You have just proven one of my previous points:

There is no satisfaction in developing a character for weeks or months if surviving is incredibly easy on the server, which it is right now provided you never get into conflict (which is also very easy).

Starvation + Death isn't a quick process. Basing the hunger system of what is meant to be a long term character RP off of a "survival game" as you put it isn't condusive to actual long term roleplay.

I have already explained why long term roleplay is unsatisfactory in a server where living for a long time is not a challenge.

Starvation is a slow, painful, and gradual process. It SHOULD take time. I brought up realism because this was the point I was trying to make. It takes much MUCH longer than 80 hours to starve to death IRL, often up to 1 - 3 months.

In this particular suggestion, I am not taking realism into account, because it takes away from the potential fun to be had in the server. This also goes for all video games ever.

The "hunger" isn't dragged out to meaninglessness. It's in fact the opposite. If you don't eat anything for 40 hours of play time, you have fourty hours to make up for, and that's food you need to be eating in surplus, not just shitty rations that barely fill you.

Forty hours is a long time, too long to gain any of the benefits I described in the OP. Your made up nutritional system won't change this fact, because attribute penalties are not consequential enough to have any affect on people's motivations to acquire food, let alone a surplus of food.

Hell you can even shorten it to 40 hours till death, and this would be better than "No Food in 8 hours = Death" type shit which reinforces the "grindy" nature of the original Willard server that people actively detested.

People detested the grindy nature of acquiring weapons or rebel type gear on the original release. Food and water wasn't a problem for anyone, and food-related businesses quickly went out of business because no one would go to them consistently to acquire food. Also 40 hours is still too long.

The system I proposed is how starvation actually happens, and doesn't simplify it to RUST tier mechanics, because Willard HL2RP isn't meant to be a "survival game" where you starve to death in literally no time at all.

Like I said, I am obviously not taking realism into account, because realism is not fun in this particular instance. And I have explained why short starvation times grant obvious benefits to the server.

For the record, as I said, you still need to eat food and drink just as often as what your suggestion entails, it just doesn't punish you in 8 hours and actually adds states of starvation.

And that's where your problem lies.

 

[Kamilisha Haijulikani]

didn't read, too long.
+ support

 

[Takyon3]

I don't care how empires are formed, I've got plenty of experience in HL2RP and every time someone adds an item grind for the sake of "creating roleplay" it only detracts from roleplay.

I know people who say differently, and I have years of experience too. I have already explained why such a scarcity will benefit the server. Please debate one of my points in future instead of detracting from my thread.

 

[Equinox]

-snip-

I have already explained why long term roleplay is unsatisfactory in a server where living for a long time is not a challenge.

Me bringing up a character who has been through tons of gunfights is inherently OPPOSITE of "easy survival" so I have no idea how I "proved" your point, nor have I ever disagreed with difficult survival being good for RP so long as it isn't done in a short-sighted and crappy manner.

Forty hours is a long time, too long to gain any of the benefits I described in the OP. Your made up nutritional system won't change this fact, because attribute penalties are not consequential enough to have any affect on people's motivations to acquire food, let alone a surplus of food.

Forty hours really isn't long. It's only 20 days, less than 3 weeks of 4 hour game sessions daily. The main purpose of the nutrition system is to place a difference between "what you've eaten recently" versus "how much you have eaten over time". In your suggestion, you could eat a ton in one day and be fine, and then the very next day you'll drop dead. This doesn't even require an allegory or metaphor because it's literally what would happen. The tiers in my system are simply meant to show the effects of hungers, which have an impact on practically everything that uses skills/attributes outside of RP, but they are secondary to what is meant to be a much longer process than 8 hours.

People detested the grindy nature of acquiring weapons or rebel type gear on the original release. Food and water wasn't a problem for anyone, and food-related businesses quickly went out of business because no one would go to them consistently to acquire food. Also 40 hours is still too long.

And you are trying to remedy that by implementing an extreme that will result in the grindy nature I am talking about. That's why I brought up grinding complaints in the first place. Why even bother roleplaying starvation when, in 3 hours, my character progress is about to come to a halt permanently? It's not a risk I would want to take, and it's going to result in people just dropping roleplay to run off to go click on scripts, assuming they didn't already have to go grinding for food scripts already.

Like I said, I am obviously not taking realism into account, because realism is not fun in this particular instance. And I have explained why short starvation times grant obvious benefits to the server.

Nor am I saying we should follow utter realism, or it'd be much longer than 40 or 80 hours. That's why I suggested shortening it for food and increasing it for water, so as to balance it out.

 

[Equinox]

As for the suggestion itself, it fails to consider the negatives of such a change. 2 hours to eat food before your health starts to drop is simply too short. It goes beyond a "difficulty" change and into an interruption of RP. People will either be grinding for food scripts, or dropping (what would be a constant state of near-death starvation RP) to run off and desperately scrounge up food scripts. It's far too similar to survival games like RUST and doesn't accomodate for what would be long term RP, especially when said RP usually comes in sessions that CAN last 2 hours.

Unless something is done to increase the time needed before starvation, and the actual process to starvation is made to be more than "eat two food items and refill all hunger", than this suggestion will remain too penalizing, too demanding, and too shallow in my eyes. It doesn't have my support.