Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-05 22:37:42

This happens to me a lot, even now.

And it happens to new players almost constantly.

People have blamed all sorts of aspects of the game, from UI fiddliness, to lack of an auto-eat feature if food is in hand/backpack.

But really, it's just a matter of people waiting to long to eat. Of pushing their luck.

I think this probably has something to do with the messaging of the timing. Maybe the chimes need to start way sooner?

The other thing is that, when you're cold, your 3 warning bars go really quick, whereas when you're warm, they might take an entire minute to go. A minute of hunger chimes might be too many, but 15 seconds of hunger chimes is probably too few. Maybe it needs to be based on an estimate of time left instead of a number of bars left?

Or maybe the server should implement a fixed grace period (15 seconds or something) when you actually reach 0.

Yeah, just like people abuse the reserve tank in their cars, they would learn that there's a grace period and abuse it. But at least it would give everyone the same timing after reaching 0 regardless of how warm they are.

New meta: save village food by always "eating" all of your grace period before eating. To prevent this, people could go into invisible "negative" hunger bars during the grace period, and then their first meal would fill them less.

happynova · 2018-06-05 22:58:44

Addressing this in some fashion sounds like a really excellent idea to me. I've died way, way too many times with food actually in my hand, frantically trying to click myself to eat it. And I'm not the kind to ever willingly let my gas tank get too close to E, but my gas mileage doesn't very remotely as much as my food consumption rate does in this game. I think the fact that how fast your hunger goes down is so variable with temperature can indeed be a pretty big factor. Even when you've been playing for a while, it's still so easy to be surprised by how quickly you starve when you're naked and cold, especially if you've just spent some time not being cold.

InSpace · 2018-06-05 23:01:27

Lily · 2018-06-05 23:08:56

I heard that is a trick for a lot of shooters and fighting games. Where they make it so when your low on health, the health is actually worth more(but they don't tell you that). So when you are low on health, it is more dramatic and exciting, because you can often survive with a sliver of health, when if things were actually as shown on the display you would totally be dead.

I think you can do the same here, where you give a little extra boost to the last couple of food boxes. I wouldn't actually have them go to zero boxes and still be alive. Instead when you reach zero, the last box remains and you get the 15 second grace period regardless of temp or whatever. That way the player doesn't know if they are in the grace period or not, and most players probably wont even realize that there is a grace period at all. When you hit your last box, you are going to look for food any where you can get it. No one is going to play games and risk death, because they might get 5-10 seconds of extra food.

InSpace · 2018-06-05 23:14:07

https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/2/162471 … er-secrets

Here is the article

TrustyWay · 2018-06-05 23:17:11

Maybe that just the last box lasts always long. The same duration time as it was in the perfect heat. So the guy knows he wont die randomly.

happynova · 2018-06-05 23:31:23

And hoo, boy, just two seconds ago did I have a majorly tragicomic example of how much I need this. Grandma sent pre-teen me off with the shovel to bury some recently deceased relatives. My food was not full, but I knew I had enough time to do it and come back, and there was a big stack of pies waiting for me. But then I got a little lost trying to remember exactly where the graveyard was, and was getting a smidge low. I was just about to head back and grab food, when Grandma, who I was very attached to, showed up at the graveyard to tell me she was going to die soon, and she'd brought me a tombstone she wanted me to bury her with. Needless to say, this touching moment was distracting. Oh, and did I mention the graves were right next to the snow?

Next thing I know, I'm on two food bars. OK, I figure I have just enough time to ask my dear gramma for some of the pie she has in her backpack and scarf it down.

I didn't. Instead of laying her to rest, I died in front of her in her final moments. I feel awful.

So, yeah. I want that grace period. For my grandma.

sc0rp · 2018-06-05 23:53:02

jasonrohrer wrote:

I think this probably has something to do with the messaging of the timing. Maybe the chimes need to start way sooner?
The other thing is that, when you're cold, your 3 warning bars go really quick, whereas when you're warm, they might take an entire minute to go. A minute of hunger chimes might be too many, but 15 seconds of hunger chimes is probably too few. Maybe it needs to be based on an estimate of time left instead of a number of bars left?

I think that the best feedback would be varying time between chimes, depending on how fast you get hungry.

As Eve I usually don't have problem with keeping my temp and eating when necessary (even if food is hard to find). What I really hate is to die in towns. I'm usually fully clothed there and don't see ground tiles at all (due to floors). I start hearing chimes, so I try to put the thing I'm holding down, and when I put in down, I'm suddenly lying dead with two full pies ready to use in backpack.

WTF just happend???

It turns out that I was standing fully clothed on desert tile, which I didn't see (floors). And chimes are completely misleading in this situation. I'm few seconds from the death, but they play the same as if I had full minute. And I know I'm clothed, so I'm completely unprepared that I need to react ultra fast. Didn't grab food on first chime? Dead.

So I think that number of chimes should be always identical. But time between them should vary, that you know how urgent situation is.

jasonrohrer wrote:

Yeah, just like people abuse the reserve tank in their cars, they would learn that there's a grace period and abuse it.

Well, I have friggin berry rabbit pie in backpack. I can't eat that frequently, especially when getting a bit older. I need to wait till or close to chimes.

P.S. While we're at it. Starving chimes not playing at all when you're ~57 are really insidious. You want to say goodbye to your kids and say how much you love them. You eat berry, go to them, and... you drop dead without a word. Maybe they should still play, only slightly quieter?

Last edited by sc0rp (2018-06-06 00:46:19)

YAHG · 2018-06-06 00:00:27

You can have the chimes play faster when you are more hungry. It is like you said, people need to think ahead more.

Changing the value of each hunger box is only gonna encourage people to wait till they are ever and ever hungrier to max out what they get from food.

Gimmicky play being optimal is not good.

SpreadDaWord · 2018-06-06 00:10:41

play loud tense music when you are starving

aowen · 2018-06-06 01:15:51

jasonrohrer wrote:

Or maybe the server should implement a fixed grace period (15 seconds or something) when you actually reach 0.

This was my first thought.

Since food decrements on an interval of [2,22] seconds, making it 10 seconds is a fair middle ground. That way it's the time interval for halfway cold and halfway hot.

Lotus · 2018-06-06 01:21:24

Different, quieter, less tense note should play at the beginning of “hungry”

Big fan of the multiple chimes at last box. It adds to the pressure.

Uncle Gus · 2018-06-06 01:28:06

I like the idea of adjusting the frequency of the chimes based on time left, rather than squares left. It would be pretty straight forward and all client side.

pein · 2018-06-06 02:38:39

noo, make people collapse that 15 sec, somebody else could lift them up, they couldnt move
if you are noob , you deserve 15 sec all the time, maybe once

the other could be body fat.

you could be a slim, medium or fat character based on how many you nearly starve

a medium character loses fat and collapse but can go further to eat
when you reach thin, you collapse and cant move, somebody needs to help you up, so basically second chance, but you get speed boost, need to overeat a few times to become normal
on fat, you are slower, this should be when you overeat like 50 bars, same collapse, people need to help you up, medium is perfect. fat ladies could have more kids

could be visual indication how hungry someone is

or the negative bar, eating should still matter

fragilityh14 · 2018-06-06 04:03:33

lmao this almost never happens to me (though it has, of course).

It's how none of my children survive, even when they say they're good.

It makes me wonder if you were one of my children who died for no apparent reason Jason.

Falsewall · 2018-06-06 06:21:54

15 seconds of collapse where you can't move, but can use inventory. Hopefully less dieing facefirst in food.

Also like all the other ideas.

Muddauber · 2018-06-06 06:44:27

I would just like to say I am against the idea of a grace period. I like the difficulty, I enjoy a game that doesn't pull its punches. You die near food sometimes, sure, but a month in game time is equal to 5 seconds of real life time. In real life 3 weeks without food and you are dead. When you look at it that way, the game is actually pretty flexible with how long you can go without actually eating. I think people just need to learn to respect the food bar. Play smart, don't leave newborns alone, watch your babies and children until they're able to take care of themselves, remember to not let crafting/etc distract you from eating, take appropriate supplies on trips.

Last edited by Muddauber (2018-06-06 06:45:01)

Intangir · 2018-06-06 06:47:27

maybe make it so you can be at 0 food, but if you hunger past that point you die

or just leave it, i think its actually fine how it is, people gotta pay attention - hunger don't play!

i wouldn't start the alarm sooner, it already interrupts the music too much

Last edited by Intangir (2018-06-06 06:47:50)

YAHG · 2018-06-06 07:02:33

Intangir wrote:

maybe make it so you can be at 0 food, but if you hunger past that point you die
or just leave it, i think its actually fine how it is, people gotta pay attention - hunger don't play!
i wouldn't start the alarm sooner, it already interrupts the music too much

Amen, if you starve to death a few times you will figure out you need to eat.

Glassius · 2018-06-06 07:34:29

It happens to kids who want to be useful ASAP and die gathering. Solutions:
1. Spawn Adam with Eve. Adam collects, Eve cares about camp.
2. Kid in backpack. It does not waste time by the campfire, it explores and learns with mother.
3. Tweak breastfeeding, so after picking up you have to click kid once again for breastfeed action, animation and sound. This way, Eve would not worry to carry kid around, drop out for moment and carry again. Also, elder womans would not starve picked children trying to breastfeed them (happened to me).

Feldspar · 2018-06-06 08:03:29

I like the idea of adjusting the hunger chime to the time left until you starve, rather than a set amount of squares-makes much more sense to me.

Additionally having an extra 15secs grace or making the last 2 boxes be worth more sound good to me BUT with one addition- if a player lets their hunger level drop this low, food is worth LESS. So for example if a carrot usually has a food value of 8 while eaten on a semi full stomach, on an empty stomach it would only be worth 6. That way you punish bad play while also being a little less frustrating for new players.

Tane · 2018-06-06 12:22:14

An easy fix is just to change the pitch higher depending on the temp/time it will take til your death

jasonrohrer · 2018-06-06 15:03:32

Another thing that came up:

The game encourages you to wait before eating, especially if you are eating high-value foods, because eating too soon wastes food. If you are eating pies, you want to wait until you're down to near starvation.

Maybe this is the core problem.

Maybe eating a high-value food when almost full shouldn't waste food, but instead fill an "overflow" tank. Like your food bar would show the normal 20 boxes, and then show (+17) at the end that would slowly tick down. But during that time, you are super full and can't eat anything else.

I'm hesitant to do this, because it changes a lot of stuff, like how fragile you are when you're a child or old.... I also like how old people and babies need to stick to simpler foods to avoid waste. Well, I like that they stick to simpler foods, not necessarily that they have a propensity to waste food by accident.

It's just too bad that there's a way to waste food....

And I really don't want to implement half-eaten berries or whatever if you're too full to eat the whole thing...

Outright preventing you from eating something that's too big for your stomach would also be a no-go (ridiculous to starve while actually trying to eat pie).

Maybe there can be a generic "Leftovers" item that ends up in your hand to represent the extra food that is left from what you couldn't finish? Like a pile of slop containing N-X remaining calories if you only had X room in your stomach. Or maybe it goes on the ground (because the rest of the pie should be in your hand).

Aria · 2018-06-06 16:11:37

When I first started I honestly thought there was already a kind of hidden overflow tank, based on where the vertical line sat on your hunger meter when you overeat, heh.

hihibanana · 2018-06-06 17:01:52

I think the overflow tank should be limited based on your age. When you are a baby, you have two overflow squares. When an adult, you have five. When an elder, you go back to two. When full, you cannot eat, yes; you have to wait for it to drain all the way first. But a hard cap on the overflow tank would be ideal, in my opinion. Perhaps this could even prevent mommies from draining themselves (if baby is in overflow, you cannot breastfeed them).

To fix the dying when near food, I think having the chimes be based off of estimated time left would be ideal. If it's too complicated, having the chimes start at 5 bars, imo, would be a simpler fix.

Last edited by hihibanana (2018-06-06 17:06:57)

One Hour One Life Forums

#1 2018-06-05 22:37:42

Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#2 2018-06-05 22:58:44

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#3 2018-06-05 23:01:27

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#4 2018-06-05 23:08:56

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#5 2018-06-05 23:14:07

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#6 2018-06-05 23:17:11

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#7 2018-06-05 23:31:23

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#8 2018-06-05 23:53:02

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#9 2018-06-06 00:00:27

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#10 2018-06-06 00:10:41

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#11 2018-06-06 01:15:51

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#12 2018-06-06 01:21:24

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#13 2018-06-06 01:28:06

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#14 2018-06-06 02:38:39

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#15 2018-06-06 04:03:33

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#16 2018-06-06 06:21:54

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#17 2018-06-06 06:44:27

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#18 2018-06-06 06:47:27

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#19 2018-06-06 07:02:33

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#20 2018-06-06 07:34:29

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#21 2018-06-06 08:03:29

Re: Dying of starvation a few steps away from food

#22 2018-06-06 12:22:14

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#23 2018-06-06 15:03:32

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#24 2018-06-06 16:11:37

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#25 2018-06-06 17:01:52

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