There is not much exciting about giving them food, but the reality of better food = better fed = hit harder, etc. was all we had. U can still get a buff but the feeding is broken and more of a hassle now vs before imo if u chose to even try. I think we would all love additional options and transparency with regards to stats on thralls. I have seen posts in suggestions regarding this topic and have added my own. I think most of us are intelligent enough to appreciate more depth in our thralls and I hope FC can provide.
My point was that the whole game is about survival and role playing, it’s not about convenience or about having tea parties with your friends, it’s not about “don’t worry be happy” thing. The feeding system was something that differentiated this game from the whole lot of other games, this gave additional meeting to gathering food, cooking, placing feeding pots and thralls the way they can actually feed from it. It has added yet another layer to the survival aspect of the game. It may be not perfect (it was good enough for me) but it was sooooo muuuuuch better than what we have now when I have to litelly dispose the food because I don’t have any extra space and no need to have so much. The balance is broken now, the thrall pots are useless - you can put all food into feed boxes with the same effect, cooking is largely useless - you get too much food anyway, who cares about how long it can be stored, feeding of thralls is broken now - thralls don’t get any bonuses from feeding (at least there is not way to know in UI now). With the gazzilion bugs that there are in the game right now, I don’t get why for the love of god why FC would take on changing this working fine mechanics instead of investing dev time into fixing the bugs instead. Whyyyyyy???
I have to agree the feeding system was good and made sense but I do recall people around here literally screeching about it endlessly and starting threads like the all time classic “I don’t want to be a catering service” till they blew the wheels of it. I admit at first it was cumbersome but they balanced it to a point where you could load up your pots and if you played regularly it was almost effortless. As well added to the survival aspect even further. I thought it was actually a step forward and rounded out the thralls development a little further but meh I guess I was wrong.
When you have to spend the first hour of game play after logging in constantly checking thrall / pet feeders, its boring. If you just have a few bases / pets I am sure its easy and fun to you. I keep hundreds of pets / thralls in and around my bases, so it is NOT fun to me. As for role play, you can always “pretend”. Just visit each thrall and make smacking noises with your mouth. Don’t bring it back in the current form. If your having to “throw away” excessive meat, my heart bleeds for you, no really. If you question why I keep hundreds of thralls, the answer is “because I can.”
Why? I put in the leg work to capture them, built the wheels and bases to hold them. I waited patiently for them to cook, made the gruel for the wheels, I dressed them, meaning I made hundreds of sets of armor and weapons. I feel I have put in my leg work with my thralls. They should be out hunting when not protecting my bases and “feeding” themselves, I am not their mother.
They should just be on the same decay cycle as the bases. PVP servers will never have thousands because people can kill them. PVE servers will always have some spammers, either thrall, wall, or whatever. My experience in 2.5 years is that the spammers ALWAYS get bored of being jerks and eventually quit and their bases decay. So should their thralls.
Neither am I, I am also not a role player though I do enjoy the immersion of the game and wince at seeing floating thralls constantly. This too shall pass.
It takes you an hour to check thrall pots? I think your doing it wrong 
From the discussion it’s clear that some people like the feeding some people don’t. We are getting back to the same point of why would not make it optional. I play on a small private server with friends and family and the feeding system was idea for us. Some people like only the “action” side of the game and don’t want to spend any time for feeding an upkeeping. While I do not agree with them by far I respect their choice, I just don’t understand why their preference have to be force on the rest of the players. This reminds me of the time when EverQuest2 was first released with a more hardcore gameplay were you would loose your XP and stuff and with death penalty, with meaningful crafting system, etc. but then tons of players from WoW trying out EQ2 started to cry out loud how “hard” is this game and how can’t just chill and have a good time because fo penalties etc. Long story short, EQ2 was dumbed down to the WoW level of gameplay, lost any meaning and I quit like the rest of “hardcore” player community. I see the same signs now in CE as well. The promise of this game was that you have to work hard to survive and nothing comes free, now it’s not the case - free thralls for life, zero investment :). I agree that initially the feeding system was not balanced, but before FC started to remove it it was in a good shape and balanced. Now it’s all way around - feeding is broken, thralls stats are broken, UI is broken, food balance is broken. I literally have to dump tons of meet now every day because I DON’T NEED IT at all, yesterday I’ve killed 10 small dragons in Unnamed City and for like 900 pieces of meat - all went to waste, I have no need nor place to store it now. Please put the feeding system back in the game.
Will add my few cents here. I am still trying to understand what kind of problem FC was trying to solve by removing feeding system that was perfectly logical and working. Having to provide one meal per thrall every 6 days (they grabbed 5 at a time but I never noticed they eat more than 1) - was it too much? I do not thing so. That system gave a perfect reason for having thrall pots and feed boxes. Right now I use them to store all my food and subconsciously waiting when FC decides to remote them as an artifacts of unused system. And, while feeling stupid, I keep running around and put food into every thrall and pet inventory because … well, you have to take care of everyone you tamed - dress them, feed them, heal their wounds. This is how you develop appreciation having them on your side, bond with them, make them your family kinda. They are not just a meat you throw into battle to bleed and die for you, not for me at least. That is why new feeding system approach introduced a lot more problems to me personally, and i would really love to have previous system back. That was my few cents 
.
The thrall pots/feed boxes will still distribute food to your thralls and pets… it now transfers ONE item of food to their inventory that they consume immediately… this gives them a one hour combat buff. The pot/box will transfer a food item approximately every 9-10 minutes the last time I tested it … which was prior to the latest round of patches.
The preferred food gives a 25% combat buff that we can see on their health bar when they are in combat. The non preferred gives an invisible 10%.
So we have come a long ways since thralls were just statues standing there in combat mode forever. You can dress them (or undress) feed them (my damn T4 Bearer ate 200 pounds of salt!) And they actually stand normally, follow you , etc. The feeding system implemented was sub-par and I am glad its gone. That being said, there should be some kind of responsibility system that makes you work harder the more thralls you have. The old feeding pots looked like a bathroom sink the night after a frat party. maybe something a little more toned down, like a common stew pot over an open fire thats smaller, and less industrialized.
My vote is for reverting it back to the old feeding one. I liked it. It seemed to work on keep the thrall spam and leave the server to minimum.
Yea,I wouldn’t mind it back at all…kinda gave the thralls more life and cleared them faster then whatever is supposed to clear them now from abandoned and decayed buildings…floating all over the place…would be nice to check their decay state like buildings so we could loot the bodies for their armor and weapons…what is clearing them now? Cant be decay cause they would disappear when the buildings disappear…
The decay for thralls and pets on official servers is set at 14days default across all platforms. Their decay is NOT directly linked to the building decay … they have their own set of commands that can be turned on/off and decay timer. So expect them to despawn on the 15th day after the owner has not logged in.
Recent information from Funcom is that the thrall/pet decay timers are reset by owners proximity… but I have my doubts on that as it wasn’t due to proximity when they changed the system in March … due to a thrall that I put well out of render distance from me in mid-March still alive weeks later. I’m currently retesting with another thrall … results expected mid-June.
The feeding system was optional. There are still checkboxes in the admin panel to turn off hunger and decay.
I turned decay off before starting my first character. When the feeding system was released, it got turned off too.
It also combated for a time to “floating army” of pets and thralls that disappear days after the buildings they are standing on.
It’s funny, when the thrall feeding system was implemented there were people complaining. Yes, originally thralls didn’t have to be fed.
Now they remove the thrall feeding system, and people complain.
Perfect example of you can’t please anyone/everyone regardless of what decision is made.
The question is the amount of complaining for both sides I guess really.
I agree and couldn’t really care either way but just want one of those ways to work