Do we need equalized Gluttony Bars?

[ImpalerWrG]

As everyone knows, the highest Humor determines the cost to raise ANY Humor during a Gluttony session. This was a hold over from Haven&Hearths Food Event Point system and I think the intent was to force a more diverse set of foods to be consumed. But given how FEP/Gluttony has evolved I think it's now obsolete and is just forcing folks to raise all humors in lockstep which is denying us potential character diversity. The fact that ANY humor reaching zero will KO a character is all the incentive we need to not make a 5/5/5/500 out-of-balance freak.

Why it's obsolete mechanically

* If the goal is/was maximizing diversity then the Food Group Penalty/Restore system already gets us eating a wide variety of food groups and would continue to do so because all 4 humors are very well distributed amongst the Food groups.
* A Gluttony session is naturally broken down into individual 'rounds' pushing towards filling a particular humor bar, currently the only sensible choice is to push towards your lowest humor to maintain balance and efficiency, similar rounds will still exist even with unequal bars as wiping out of all progress in bars means food can not just be eaten willy-nilly, but the choice of what humor to push for in each round and in the session overall is more open and subject to your long term goal for the character.
* Their will be a natural 'soft ratio' that prevents humors from being massively out of balance, the fact that their are virtually no pure 1 humor foods, and the wipe out of bar progress mean your going to want to intentionally raise low humors simply to prevent them from 'spoiling' a push towards raising the high humor. I'd suspect no worse then 3:1 ratio and more likely 2:1 for folks not trying very hard to be asymmetrical.

Why we should want more asymmetrical characters

For the sake of specialization of course, crafters and fighters already specialize themselves in their skills and gear, why should Humors be any different. I don't anticipate any problems with crafters, but fighters might conceivable break the combat system if glass-cannon Yellows vs Sprinter Blues vs Tank Reds doesn't produce a pleasant Rock-Paper-Scissors environment, obviously JC should test all this by some arena combat and look to balance out any disparity.

Another area that might bet more interesting is the Crime/Raid system, if crimes cost different bile types to commit and Braizers drained different humors based on the crime committed it could make for the beginning of specialized criminals.

[JohnCarver]

Something we have definitely considered. One thing we certainly don't like about the idea is the incentive it gives players to spam their black bile high 'first' in order to get the largest advantage on their inspirational regen, and then catch up the other biles later if ever.

[ImpalerWrG]

People already do that, but they just equalize while still in the <50 range. The inspiration gain rate seems to have a strongly diminishing return (can't find an exact formula but it's certainly some Jorbian Square Root thing), so I don't think this is likely to be an especially unbalancing factor.

Also did you consider just basing Inspiration regen on the sum of all Humors?

[DarkNacht]

People already do that, but they just equalize while still in the <50 range.

Thats a lot different form equalizing above 200 which is likely what would happen if they were not linked. You would probably see most people build 50/50/100/200 chars and then equalize them, though this may be easier or harder based on what gets changed. The problem is that BB is just more important for leveling than other humours are.
The current linked system is problematic though as it makes it hard to specialize your humours unless you are willing to basically permanently stop leveling one and make a lot of food pointless because you don't need that many food item for each humour because you level them all every day.

[Feone]

I don't think this change is something that will really benefit the gameplay in any major way.
I also don't really see any reason why not to, though.


It's probably a good idea to wait for the new food system to come out and then take a new look at this suggestion, as things may be quite different by then.

[Brego]

I do not see any problem with BB.
Currently Gluttony system is consist of differents recipes.
Where not necessary to use same food and i do not see that i'm getting more BB than other biles.
you should check all recipes and find own formula.It's just takes a lot of different types of ingredients and you are lazy to grow it.
Our gluttony system is perfect at the moment.
i want to see new recipes and food will keep same way where everybody can find own formula.

[Trenial]

Something we have definitely considered. One thing we certainly don't like about the idea is the incentive it gives players to spam their black bile high 'first' in order to get the largest advantage on their inspirational regen, and then catch up the other biles later if ever.

Why not have any one humour synchronized to the other 3? As the other 3 become more marginalized, the more significant say the food debuffs become?

[Mereni]

I prefer them the way they are myself. It is an interesting idea, though if you consider the mentioned 'soft ratio', I think it would end up being a less fun system than what we have now. Just look at some of the foods listed in the wiki. Only one or two rare ones only elevate one humor. Most of them to two or three or even all four. You'd want to increase your BB and find that unless you plan very carefully, you're going to accidentally raise your YB or something, and waste a difficulty food on a humor you could have gotten with something easier.

To make matters worse, we're about to get a whole new food system which I'm already dreading putting into the wiki because it's promising to be so changed from what we used to have, there's just no way to speculate on changing mechanics right now. We have no idea what we're getting, really, so how can we know how well something like uneven Gluttony will work?