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View Full Version : Food decay rate. Need your feedback here!



DigitallyFidget
15th April 2014, 21:59
My goal is to find a rate of decay that accommodates for a 24/7 server, where an MC day is 20min. of real time, which results in 72 MC days per 24 hours of real time. I also want to accommodate for players who only have a few hours every day, and are not on daily, so there may be days between their game play. They should not have to spend their time just hunting food every time they log in, they should be able to still have food, and be able to play.

I'm working with Bioxx as much as I can to try to get things more optimal for server-play. The biggest issue is with food decay rates. I need your feedback on the decay rate of food. The rate has been updated again since moving to 78.6, and I want to know what your thoughts are on it. Is it still too fast, is it too slow now, does it seem ideal?

Bear in mind, there's various factors that go into the calculation: Rainfall, Temperature, Item Decay Rate, Decay Rate Multiplier. I am only adjusting the Decay Rate Multiplier, I will ask Bioxx for more control over setting other variables if it appears needed.

So, over the coming day or two, think about it and let me know what you think. I can't be on the server as often as I'd like for testing all of this myself, so I need your help!

InsaneJ
15th April 2014, 22:30
In single player food won't decay if the level isn't loaded because no minecraft days pass right? On a server this doesn't apply and time passes 24/7 and thus all food decays rapidly for offline players.

So if you ask me, food should only decay VERY slowly when it's it non-loaded chunks or in an offline player's inventory. I'm talking several real days to a week at least.

Adding a "Is this is a server" check to the mod should help Bioxx balance the game for both single- and multi player more easily. Just be sure to ask him nicely if he'll test it on MCPC+ too.

There, I solved the problem :) (that's assuming my assumption is correct :B)

mdub
15th April 2014, 22:59
I think the default settings are WAY to fast. Bioxx and his team have claimed that TFC is an MP oriented mod, but time and time again, design decisions they have made contradict that statement. Food spoilage is no exception. I played on happydiggers last night. Killed a pig, and walked around for an hour or so (real time). I logged off for a few hours and came back, no food in my inventory. I assume this is due to decay. I suppose it could be a bug, but I would think someone would have reported it. This is entirely unreasonable, as like Katt says, each time I log in would be to gather food. I work 8 hours a day with a 1 hour commute one way. At the end of my 10 hour work day and errands, I'm lucky to get a few hours of time on the server. It would need to be several times slower than what it currently is to accommodate my schedule. I don't expect the server to do that, and if it did, I think it would all but completely mitigate the feature. All I can say with confidence is that food needs to decay slower. I don't have an answer for how much.

EDIT- Just as a note, it might not even be all that worth while to hammer this out really well. There's been talk on suggestions about food preservation. If such a feature is implemented, and can be controlled, I would be much more in favor of promoting the use of that feature by not adjusting the default decay rates of foods, and instead adjusting the effectiveness of food preservation mechanisms.

Gwtheyrn
16th April 2014, 04:00
The decay rate seems vastly improved. Maybe a little bit more scaled back would be great.




Yeah, forget I said that. I was gone for 4 hours and all my food decayed away despite being in a dark place.

DigitallyFidget
16th April 2014, 07:11
Adding a "Is this is a server" check to the mod should help Bioxx balance the game for both single- and multi player more easily. Just be sure to ask him nicely if he'll test it on MCPC+ too.


Well.. even with that, he needs a good variable to use for server use. That's what I'm trying to get for him.

DigitallyFidget
16th April 2014, 08:24
Adding a "Is this is a server" check to the mod should help Bioxx balance the game for both single- and multi player more easily. Just be sure to ask him nicely if he'll test it on MCPC+ too.


Well.. even with that, he needs a good variable to use for server use. That's what I'm trying to get for him.




I think the default settings are WAY to fast. This is entirely unreasonable, as like Katt says, each time I log in would be to gather food. I work 8 hours a day with a 1 hour commute one way. At the end of my 10 hour work day and errands, I'm lucky to get a few hours of time on the server.

EDIT- Just as a note, it might not even be all that worth while to hammer this out really well. There's been talk on suggestions about food preservation.

This is exactly what I am trying to help with, and there are already food preservation mechanics. I'm not aiming to bypass the use of that, but simply to avoid the logging in for a few hours every other day when you have time and then finding your food all gone.

As soon as I get get Bioxx's attention, I'll go over some more ideas I have with him about the server food decay.




The decay rate seems vastly improved. Maybe a little bit more scaled back would be great.
Yeah, forget I said that. I was gone for 4 hours and all my food decayed away despite being in a dark place.

I'll push it even lower, then. As-is, it's currently at x^24=y with the Y= 0.125. Default for that is Y=1.5, I'll simply reformulate the math and put in a totally new variable. The current math is:
finalDecay = ((decay * Global.FOOD_DECAY_RATE) / 24) * (thisDecayRate * (1f - (15f / (15f + temp))) * 2 + (rain / 16000)) * protMult;

The only variable I have direct access to, without making an injection hack to the server to modify others, is Global.FOOD_DECAY_RATE. So, I can't change how much the temperature or other environmental factors impact the rate of decay. I can only adjust the base rate of decay. So.. in a day or two, the server will be updated with a revision to the config to further slow down the rate of decay. I colour coded the math above to make it a bit easier to follow.
I hope this somewhat helps you understand better what I'm working with in order to adjust the decay rate.

Gwtheyrn
16th April 2014, 09:39
Yeah, I can see what you're working with there. It's not a very good system.

I really, really wish they'd thought about the food decay a lot more thoroughly before implementing it. the current iteration is nothing short of game-breakingly frustrating.


On a side note, can we reduce the rate at which the hunger bar depletes too? It seems to be moving much, much faster (the hunger bar seems to take one MC day to go from full to starvation death) and that might help mitigate some of the food issues as well.

Besides that, it's also annoying to have to stop whatever you're working on every few minutes to go hunt down some food.

subwayatrain
17th April 2014, 19:49
Looks like in 78.7 they have a way to adjust the rate at which things decay or turn it off altogether.

Gwtheyrn
17th April 2014, 22:18
They've also removed rainfall as a factor in decay, which should greatly slow decay in most situations as well. In theory.

DigitallyFidget
18th April 2014, 20:36
Without me recompiling the mod to adjust some variable math that's not configurable from the tfc config file, there's not all that much that I can do. I really haven't been able to get into b78 at all, because of all the changes made to make the game easier and more tedious, instead of harder and more realistic as well as fun. The fun I used to have with the mod has largely been killed by it seeming too much like work and a job to take care of and micromanage the food system with the nutrients. If that can all be fully disabled in a future version, I will be doing that for sure. I know many others aren't thrilled by the design and implementation of it either.

I personally wanna play TFC and feel like I am playing it, not just doing tedious stuff I don't want to have to deal with. I think if it were introduced one piece at a time, I would have adapted, but two extreme game changing things at once with the food was a little bit too much IMO. If a newb joins the server, they're going to be limited on food options, even if they ask for some and get some, it's not going to last them too long, they'll need more again within a day or two. Assuming they find some animals, or wild crops to grow for themselves, they're at one nutrient type. There's five. With one nutrient type only, they'll have under 300HP. Probably arround 200-250. At that range, a skeleton will kill them within two shots. As we're already aware from 77, the monsters are lethal and more or less completely unbalanced. So, this causes a bit of a problem. I also agree that it appears food depletes quicker. Even from a meal, food drains rather quickly it seems.

The easy side seems to be that with the change of veins and metals being rich, the reduced max size of a vein still yields a tremendous amount of ore from it. Also it takes simply one vein of kaolonite and graphite to be setup with a whole stock of crucibles now, making it even easier and quicker to reach steel & coloured steel. I'll have to load up a world and view it in an external program to look at the new ore generation, but I'm willing to bet there's way more ore veins than there was before.

However this all simply my take. As a person who has more to do than play TFC all day long, someone who is actually impacted by the unbalanced changes. If you're on all the time, then you're the exact target of the changes as they were designed largely with single player world being the testing grounds (assuming they even tested their ideas thoughtfully at all). Also, the high population on the server also shows that things are doing quite well and people are rather enjoying it still. So it's likely that TFC is just on a different path from the TFC I became a huge fan of years ago and it's no longer a mod for me, since it doesn't fit the challenge and difficulty I wanted. Though, the large server population may also simply be due to us being the largest TFC server, and people wanna try out the new version after hibernating from 77. So it's possible that I'm pushing this idea too much because of my own personal feelings.

InsaneJ
18th April 2014, 22:31
Version 0.78.7
New Features

Added a Global Decay multiplier. This multiplies against the entire decay algorithm. Setting this multiplier to 0 will effectively turn off decay.


How about we turn it off then? :)

Ithildae
21st April 2014, 14:02
Version 0.78.7
New Features

Added a Global Decay multiplier. This multiplies against the entire decay algorithm. Setting this multiplier to 0 will effectively turn off decay.


How about we turn it off then? :)

Depends how we feel about freezer outposts. If it's considered silly that most towns have an outpost at ~18k then sure, decay does little more than force odd teleports. On the other hand, you have had to make the long journey once, and being able to freeze your food is the reward. Furthermore- we want to encourage trade between players. I have witnessed food being used at trade-good at several occasions.

Personally I'd like to keep decay at some degree, because it let's assures food will always be a priority. As it should be.

Sanifu
21st April 2014, 14:33
How about we turn it off then? :)


I'm a rather casual player on your server, i don't mind logging in without food. Gives me a reason to breed chickens and plant crops in the right seasons. For me decay can stay as it is. Stockpiles and stockpiles of food are just a little silly, TFC is not about easy mode its about planning for me.

DigitallyFidget
23rd April 2014, 23:30
Over the next week or so, I will be tweaking the food variables some more, so keep an eye out for any drastic changes if you notice them and please let me get some continued feedback. If I get things right, there shouldn't be any noticeable changes over the course of the days.

DOM
24th April 2014, 01:40
Thx Katt! You are the bestest admin evr!

But, no, seriously, you rock!

Ithildae
24th April 2014, 15:23
If I get things right, there shouldn't be any noticeable changes.

You just described my job!

wcorbett
25th April 2014, 06:31
my 2 cents (probably all its really worth).

Food decay should be itemizable. not all food spoils/rots at the same rate. If I pick a tomato and leave it on my windoesill to 'ripen' it can last days! A glass of milk on the other hand will taste nasty if left out for 24 hours. For meat, I believe a jerky option should be instituted as, after all, that's what early pioneers and settlers lasted on. I understand there is a salted meat option so my jerky thought may be moot. Also, the hunger bar depletes way too quickly. IRL a person can last for 2-3 weeks with no food depending on weight, body fat, etc.... TFC is supposed to be more like RL so starving in 1 minecraft day is a bit absurd! I have loved TFC since playing release 75 but this new TFC has become a game of food/water micromanagement and less about building and exploration and overall fun. A 'game' should be fun, not tedious and frustrating. Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.

DigitallyFidget
27th April 2014, 20:25
my 2 cents (probably all its really worth).

Food decay should be itemizable. not all food spoils/rots at the same rate. If I pick a tomato and leave it on my windoesill to 'ripen' it can last days! A glass of milk on the other hand will taste nasty if left out for 24 hours. For meat, I believe a jerky option should be instituted as, after all, that's what early pioneers and settlers lasted on. I understand there is a salted meat option so my jerky thought may be moot. Also, the hunger bar depletes way too quickly. IRL a person can last for 2-3 weeks with no food depending on weight, body fat, etc.... TFC is supposed to be more like RL so starving in 1 minecraft day is a bit absurd! I have loved TFC since playing release 75 but this new TFC has become a game of food/water micromanagement and less about building and exploration and overall fun. A 'game' should be fun, not tedious and frustrating. Thanks for listening to my 2 cents.

This is something you should probably be leaving as feedback on the TFC forums. I've already said mostly exactly those last two lines already in the TFC IRC, and they more or less completely didn't care what I had to say. I actually have not even played at all on the server (b78) since we've updated. While I'm on it, it's generally only to assist players and randomly do stuff in creative. It's because of all this micromanaging and high levels of unrealism with the food and such that I have no longer been interested in "playing" the game, as it feels more like it's work and tedious, like a job, than fun like what you expect from a game.

Minecraft is about creativity and building, with the difficulty of monsters, gravity, and lava there to make things difficult. While getting a stable food source off the bat is difficult in Minecraft, it is far from a core focus of the game.
Terrafirmacraft is about surviving, trying to find food quickly enough before starving, gathering enough food to last a while, and then getting more, because what you collected has rotting away. Then once you finally establish a decent bit of food, you can begin to build a bit, while still dealing with micromanaging your food, deciding which is going to rot first so you can eat it quickly, and then eating enough different types so your HP pool is large enough to avoid being killed in two shots by a skeleton, or from a small fall.

This is why I really haven't been playing TFC anymore. It had plenty more challenge than vanilla ever had, and that's what I enjoyed it so much for. However, with this new direction, I don't find fun gameplay in it anymore, the ability to be creative and have fun building has been crippled by this micromanaging, and unrealistic food & hunger system.

wcorbett
28th April 2014, 07:02
I totally agree Katt! And oddly enough, with theupdate to 78.10, everything seems to have been ramped up! I timed it and my hunger bar is now dropping 1 bar every 2-3 rl minutes! In rl, I'd have to be eating every hour to 'maintain' a full hunger bar and if I didn't eat at all I'd starve to death in less than 1 TFC day! wow! Oh, and I'd post on the tfc forum but if they would ignore YOU, what chance would I have that my opinion would be worth anything. Its really sad the direction they've taken TFC in as I too am getting rather fed up with spending a good 75% of my time hunting, preparing, trimming, planting, and eating food/water and then doing it all over again and again once I've finished. I have gotten almost nothing done in my town lately because of this food micromanagement system and forget about any long term exploring without half an inventory of rotting food! Ugh TFC!

Oh yeah, J...I would fully support turning off the decay mutiplier thingy!

subwayatrain
28th April 2014, 08:35
My whole understanding with the fact you have to eat all the time is that you don't get "Saturation" from regular food. Saturation is the vanilla mechanic that keeps your food bar from constantly depleting and you can read about it here (http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Hunger#Mechanics). If you want saturation, you have to make meals. The only problem is that meals "Saturation" is based on taste and your cooking skill. So if something is "Terrible" the Saturation is very low or non-existent. With that said, we might want to have someone experiment and publish a list of meals that have high "Taste". Like before it's random combos based on the seed. If we can figure out which meals "Taste Good" and share it, then people can make those meals and get good saturation bonuses so they don't have to constantly eat. If you want to know more about how meals work in TFC, you can read that here (http://terrafirmacraft.com/wiki/Food#Meals).