Simplifying gluttony

[martinuzz]

But, whatever, I have tried to present my take on the actual problem, but no one seems interested, so I'll get on with my Sunday. Later!

Interested enough to watch the thread and post a few replies. Have faith in yourself. Enjoy your Sunday!

[Kandarim]

logi-babble

Nope. My simple and formal point was that:

If randomness is the problem, then non-randomness (determinism) solves it.
Non-randomness does not solve the problem.

Therefore randomness is not the problem.

Ah, but you yourself keep using the term "trivial determinism", implying there is such a thing as non-trivial determinism, which might provide another solution, which implies that randomness *could* still be the problem.

[jorb]

zzzz...!

I'm not saying that the randomness is great! I'm not even trying to defend it at all! I'm trying to make a couple of simple, formal points:

*) Right now there is a problem of calculation involved in the gluttony minigame. This is a skill based problem, and solving it represents some sort of challenge.
*) Trivial, full-information determinism removes this problem of calculation -- or at the very least reduces it to simple, grade-school, linear addition -- and thus makes the system devoid of all challenge.

For these reasons I think it is wrong to frame the discussion in terms of "randomness being the problem", because in my mind that framing implies that if we were to remove the randomness then the system would be peachy, but my point is au contraire that the underlying math would still be boring! Removing randomness would do nothing to make the food items more interesting or fun! There would still be four optimal dishes, and all cooking would still be a quest to establish what they are and then spam them. Removing randomness changes very little, except to remove whatever trivial problem of calculation is there right now.

Whether a new system has elements of randomness or not I do not really care all that much about, as everything obviously hinges on how any element is used. Generally speaking I prefer deterministic systems.

[Kandarim]

Ah, now I do understand what you are saying

On the other hand, is it possible to think of a non-random system in which there is no "optimal" food, or "optimal" sequence of food? It might not be a single food item, but there will always be an "optimal" way to train a bile. It might be more complex to achieve, or more difficult to calculate, but won't there always be a cheapest/most efficient way to raise humours? Trying to make it more "fun" or "complex" runs the risk of more frustration, I believe. Pre-patch, this same frustration was there, but we were able to remove the randomness and most of the frustration through grinding.

Of course, I do understand i'm very close to saying "impossible", but that merely means that in my restricted view, it seems to be so.

[Procne]

The most simple way would be to apply a limit of 1 food type between stat increases.

However, this would seriously screw people because of the RNG. So get rid of RNG in the following way - get a weighted sum of all events with alchemical components being weights. For example, we have a food with 0.1 salt, 0.2 sulphur, 0.3 mercury and 0.4 lead. Salt event gives 20 blood, sulphur event gives 15 blood, mercury event gives 10 blood and lead event gives 15 blood. This particular food will give 20 * 0.1 + 15 * 0.2 + 10 * 0.3 + 15 * 0.4 = 2 + 3 + 3 + 6 = 14 blood.

You still have some complexity related to alchemical composition, although less than now. There is no RNG left, and with 1 food type limit players are forced to make different types of foods. Bigger variety means bigger caps on stats. Any weak points?

Could we also get rid of those timers? I find them really annoying :/

[Kandarim]

The most simple way would be to apply a limit of 1 food type between stat increases.

However, this would seriously screw people because of the RNG. So get rid of RNG in the following way - get a weighted sum of all events with alchemical components being weights. For example, we have a food with 0.1 salt, 0.2 sulphur, 0.3 mercury and 0.4 lead. Salt event gives 20 blood, sulphur event gives 15 blood, mercury event gives 10 blood and lead event gives 15 blood. This particular food will give 20 * 0.1 + 15 * 0.2 + 10 * 0.3 + 15 * 0.4 = 2 + 3 + 3 + 6 = 14 blood.

You still have some complexity related to alchemical composition, although less than now. There is no RNG left, and with 1 food type limit players are forced to make different types of foods. Bigger variety means bigger caps on stats. Any weak points?

Could we also get rid of those timers? I find them really annoying :/

in your proposed system, there is no need for timers since there is no invariance penalty or draining of benefits. I rather like it there is still the complexity of various purities, and the purity grind will be more important than ever. On the other hand, you also take away the randomness.

[Borgins]

I agree with Jorb the problem isn't that gluttony needs to be simplified even the slowest of us can use a simple probability calc in determining what to glutton (even if it's intuitive). The real worry is that there is no incentive to use a variety of foods and therefore no reward in diversifying production meaning that parts of the game seem pointless.

[Potjeh]

And how, sweetie, do they determine what is "more than they actually need"?

... by doing some probabilistic math, however intuitively.

By taking the worst case scenario, ie a simple, grade-school, linear addition of worst events. It's same in effect as having deterministic gains, except the interface is a lot busier.

[jorb]

By taking the worst case scenario, ie a simple, grade-school, linear addition of worst events. It's same in effect as having deterministic gains, except the interface is a lot busier.

That works for a smaller subset of dishes, sure. The general case still stands, but I have to admit that I find it fairly pointless to argue these pesudo-points. Why not take some interest in the general thrust of my argument instead of harping on over these irrelevant tangents?

[bocage]

The randomization is okay if you can react to it. For example, first food A. If it fires one way, next food needed B, but firing another way, next food needed C. For example, if blood goes to high, devil's wort can bring it back down. I am not sure why there are not similar foods with negative values for the other biles. This to me has potential for an interesting mini-game except if there are too many combinations it is difficult to prep the foods in advance. As well as the tendency to strongly encourage foods that lessen or remove the variability. It might be interesting to have to match a pattern as opposed to merely hitting the highest number in one element. Instead of yellow over 10 you might be trying to match all 4 biles. So hitting a target something like 10 - 9 - 10 -11, plus or minus some tolerance. With overshoots needing to be brought back down to the tolerance. So for example, a food that raises yellow and blood but lowers phlegm would be desirable in certain situations. And various purities of food would be desirable to not overshoot the tolerance. But probably without the timer.