Remove hunger penalty from burden statuses
issueid=1419 12-11-2012 03:08 AM
Ancient Member
Number of reported issues by Grey: 58
Remove hunger penalty from burden statuses
Make Burdened / Strained etc not affect hunger rate

Might be controversial, but hear me out...

We already have in-game penalties for being Burdened / Strained / etc. They reduce DV, speed, to hit and can give a chance to fall down the stairs with a funny death message. All of these effects are fairly visible. The hunger rate is not visible and for a lot of players causes huge issues early game. For new players there's nothing worse than starving to death before really getting to experience the game. Especially a problem when they spend too long in the wilderness because they don't know where anything is. I've even seen players with years of experience getting caught out by the burden hunger trap.

But mostly it's just not a fun mechanic. There are times you'll want to stretch to burdened, and you accept there are consequences. But let those consequences come in battle, in worse defence, in slower speed. A slow and inevitable death is not a fitting punishment for taking a risk. Let me have a more glorious and bloody death! There are instances when hunger becomes interesting, but this is not one of them.

And is there a good reason for having double hunger rate because you're carrying that extra sword? It's such a big penalty compared to the other burden effects. Double hunger is a lot! If it were only 20% or so it wouldn't be so bad, but at that stage you might as well say get rid of it.

So I say get rid of it. Remove the link between hunger and burden status. It doesn't make a lot of sense, it stealthily kills a lot of new players, and it isn't a very fun mechanic. Keep the negative effects of burden to combat stats like speed. Hell, double the speed penalty even.
Issue Details
Issue Number 1419
Issue Type Feature
Project ADOM (Ancient Domains Of Mystery)
Category All
Status Implemented
Priority 5 - Medium
Suggested Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 7
Implemented Version ADOM 1.2.0 pre 9
Milestone (none)
Votes for this feature 1
Votes against this feature 6
Assigned Users (none)
Tags (none)




12-11-2012 03:27 AM
Ancient Member
"It's just not a fun mechanic", to a mean-spirited mind, would be applied to the food system in general. I find a slow and inevitable death due to starvation a rather fitting penalty to the sin of greed. It's one of those things where once you do understand the connection between burden status and hunger, you go "Oh, that makes sense, that was stupid of me". It makes sense, and it adds to the survival flavor of the game. (I do not think ADOM is all about glory and death in battle; maybe we disagree there?)

But I do agree the jump from 1 per turn to 2 per turn that comes with Burdened is too much. You get Burdened way too easily. You have my full support in getting rid of the penalty there - but I wouldn't remove the food penalty from the Strained statuses and onward. Reduce them somewhat, maybe - the point is that players should realize by the point of "Strained" they're probably pushing their character a bit too far, and if they don't ... they kinda deserve to suffer the consequences that would feel consistent with the rest of the game. This ties in with the stretching of hunger statuses to have an earlier warning - Burdened is the transititional, "warning" stage.

I mean - if a player came back from a hypothetical ADOM 1.2.1 and went "Why is it that wearing two artifacts makes me hungrier faster, but walking around with twice my carrying capacity in loot doesn't? That doesn't make any sense" what would you tell him? That he isn't right?

12-11-2012 03:36 AM
Ancient Member
I do hate hunger clocks in general :) They were in the original Rogue to make you move quickly between floors, never sure where the next meal will come from. Every roguelike since has copied the hunger clock blindly, without having the pressure to keep descending any more. In ADOM it especially makes little sense to the gameplay when you're backtracking through dungeons and exploring overworld maps - this doesn't fit the pressured descent that hunger clocks are supposed to encourage. In opposition to this the corruption rate really *does* force this type of gameplay, whilst also being greatly thematic to the game, so it really works well as a late game hunger clock.

But such design quibbles aside (I know ADOM isn't about to lose its entire food system, much as I may whine) I do agree on the principle of punishment for greed - something that appears throughout ADOM's gameplay. Reducing hunger increase to just Strained and at lower effect would be an improvement on the existing system. Magical power from artifacts and invisiblity items increasing hunger are a good example of this in the game, whilst also linking in with general fantasy tropes. Hunger from Strained may make some real world sense, but I personally think there's enough punishment in the form of speed reduction, especially if this is increased.

Higher speed reduction would also make Strained status less of a nothing issue for the late game, when adventurers packed with cooked lizards and herbs laugh off any penalty from Burdened or Strained status.

12-11-2012 04:09 AM
Ancient Member
Disagree with this one. I actually like the Hunger mechanic and think that extra hunger is an acceptable penalty for being strained, etc.

I don't think that Burden causing extra hunger is documented in the manual or anything, which it probably should be. Perhaps having your hunger rate somehow visible in one of the game screens would be nice--at very least from potions of insight.

12-11-2012 04:25 AM
Ancient Member
^ Downvoted it for the same reason, and this is mentioned in the manual.

"If your PC carries a lot of stuff, he'll get hungrier soon. (...) ADOM uses several burden levels (from burdened over strained to very strained and overburdened) to mirror this fact. Each burden level comes with a growing need for food. Take care!"

12-11-2012 05:28 AM
Ancient Member
I think the hunger increase should stay but be toned down. Doubled hunger at Burdened is too extreme, make the penalty just +50%.

12-11-2012 05:37 AM
Ancient Member
I thought Burdened only consumed 1 nutrition point every other turn?

Edit: did some testing with Adombot in 1.1.1 to verify this. The results:

Unburdened - 1 point/turn
Burdened - 1 point/turn
Strained - 2 points/turn
Strained! - 2 points/turn
Overburdened! - 3 points/turn

The PC was a level 1 dark elf wizard, which should mean encumbrance was the only thing altering food consumption rate. And this leaves me somewhat more confused, because I thought burdened did make you burn extra nutrition... *shrugs*

12-11-2012 06:04 AM
As a related aside to this I think it's a little silly how much rations weigh.

12-11-2012 06:07 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by anon123
I thought Burdened only consumed 1 nutrition point every other turn?

Edit: did some testing with Adombot in 1.1.1 to verify this. The results:

Unburdened - 1 point/turn
Burdened - 1 point/turn
Strained - 2 points/turn
Strained! - 2 points/turn
Overburdened! - 3 points/turn

The PC was a level 1 dark elf wizard, which should mean encumbrance was the only thing altering food consumption rate. And this leaves me somewhat more confused, because I thought burdened did make you burn extra nutrition... *shrugs*
need to be moving. standing or w5ing does not inflict burdened penalty.

12-11-2012 06:36 AM
Ancient Member
Quote Originally Posted by Soirana
need to be moving. standing or w5ing does not inflict burdened penalty.
Wow. Indeed I was checking by waiting on the spot. Burdened spends 2 points/turn if I move, Strained 3, Strained! 4 (which is pretty high). Thanks for this tip!

So, I wouldn't remove the hunger penalties, because it makes sense that carrying tons of stuff would exhaust and make you hungrier sooner. But maybe they could be toned down a bit.

Quote Originally Posted by heavensblade23
As a related aside to this I think it's a little silly how much rations weigh.
Maybe they have a portable, one-use instant oven included?

01-10-2013 03:31 PM
The Creator
The hunger rate for being burdened has been halved (effectively 0.5 points), all other hunger rates have been reduced by 1 (see correct analysis above for details).

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