I’m just throwing at the dart board here. A few buddies of mine and I have played through a few survival games and they suffer from some weird issues.
The main one being that hunger and thirst usually involve an activity that is just a chore. Where you need to eat every few minutes and food isn’t hard to find, you just have to do it. Conan Exiles has this problem too. Every 30 minutes you need to eat.
You can set the modifier so that you only need to eat every 300 minutes. But then you have an overabundance of food.
What we’ve been able to come up with is an idea where you don’t need to eat often, but getting food isn’t easy. Or I should say as easy.
First we need to determine how long a bar/wheel/meter of hunger will last. For the sake of argument lets say it lasts 6 hours. Eating bugs gives you minutes. And maybe won’t even get you past 10-20%. To do that you need some better food. Apples, pears, vegetables, etc. Are better, but again they don’t get you ‘full’. Maybe to half. Can lump in uncooked meat at that tier too or even put it with insects. Cooked meat gets you further, maybe 75% and it gives up to an hour each. Full meals and religion meals can get you to full and do it in one go for many of the best ones.
Now before we speak about buffs, lets talk about acquisition. Insects, nuts, ect. can be found in bushes. To be honest, I don’t think I would change how they work, since they’re used for fishing and such and they don’t give much in this system. Fruits and vegetables can be found in plants and grown with farming. But you don’t get as much from harvesting like you do now. Maybe 1-2 with higher tier tools not giving +x to harvest, but +% to get an extra 1. Same thing with meats when hunting and using cleavers.
So in essence it works like it does now if all you’re eating is insects. You get about 30 minutes on a full stomach. But you start pushing it further and further with better meals.
Now for buffs. Not sure how the logic on this can go, but the idea here is the better you get sated, the better the sated buff will be. So if you get to 25% (1.5hr hunger) you get a 1.5hr long sated buff that works like the one we have now. Get to 50% and you get a 3hr buff that does 50-100% more healing for that time. And so forth. Could even have it so taking damage doesn’t knock off the buff. Or just downgrades the buff if you’re below the threshold. Either way is fine as far as I am concerned.
Then meals could give attribute bonuses for their full durations as well. For example if a meal gets you to 80% then you get a +1 or 2 attribute bonus for just under 5 hours. With the best giving full 6 hour buffs for a higher bonus.
If not attribute bonuses (or in addition to), then bonuses to health or stamina, or other effects such as climb/swim speeds and such.
But the overall idea is getting the buffs is gameplay in itself, but it isn’t required every few minutes of gameplay. You login, eat your meals, do your stuff, prep for the next time you login, and repeat. At least once its routine. Obviously new characters off the cross will need to find ways to get a steady source of food. But it is a survival game. First thing you need is water, then food, then a roof over your head.
The great thing about making full meals desirable is they would require materials from different parts of the map. So players will want to visit various areas and either have to contend in PVP when doing so, or engage in possible trade, extortion, robbery, or what have you.
. I see that as an improvement.
At the very least, it would just be nice if they did have a purpose, even if it were minute and insignificant. There’s soooo many recipes it just seems a shame to abandon them. Hence why I also asked if any modders may have been looking into something with them.