Simplifying gluttony

[Potjeh]

Well no, I don't think that guessing totally random outcomes has any skill in it, no matter what all the slot machine addicts say. In Haven there is skill because you can get a "wrong" stat, and you have a big degree of control over which "wrong" stats you can possibly get. In Salem a bad roll simply means that you need to eat another item, getting a "wrong" stat is virtually impossible unless your humours are lower than what a single food item gives. Seriously, the randomness here adds absolutely nothing at all, it's just a pointless obstacle for sake of having obstacles as it doesn't involve any actual decision making but rather artificially increases the grind requirement - and grind is already way too high in virtually every facet of Salem, which IMO is the primary reason why it's doing so much worse than Haven.

[martinuzz]

I agree that randomness should be used with care (And it can be argued that we've used it too much in Salem. Using it the way we have has been an intentional experiment on our part.) , but over larger batches it can, again, be considered a matter of distribution, which I think is fine.

A problem is here, that a gluttoning player cannot rely on the distribution among larger batches. Because you want to raise your biles in a balanced way, you want to be able to predict more precise than the random distribution allows for.

[jorb]

Well no, I don't think that guessing totally random outcomes

That is an inaccurate description of the task, though. You are planning a sequence of food items, aiming at a target food points value, and there is certainly some probabilistic math involved in determining how much food you will need to reach your target value, which presents at least some meaningful problem of calculation. Removing that -- is my very humble point -- makes nothing better. Sure, you can argue that you don't like randomness, or the skill set involved, or whatever, but you can't claim that you are merely "guessing totally random outcomes". Again, would it be more fun if the game used trivial determinism instead? Of course not. Good, well then the primary problem isn't randomness.

Anyhoo, the point is not particularly important. I am not in *any way* wed to the randomization, or to any other part of the system, nor am I arguing that there is a lot of skill involved (quite the contrary) or that its fun (again, quite the contrary). I'm just saying.

[jorb]

For the record: I generally prefer entirely deterministic systems.

[Potjeh]

I don't think that anyone actually does any math or even guesstimation of how much food they'll actually need to raise a stat. If it turns out that it wasn't enough everything that you did eat will be completely wasted, so everyone plays it safe and overshoots the worst case scenario by a big margin.

[jorb]

everyone plays it safe

By doing some probabilistic math, yes.

[Kandarim]

in any case: the current randomness with lower purity (at max 50% chance for the even you want, let's say) is horrible when you only need one or two events gone bad to increase a humour you do not want to increase.

Yes, for larger batches the randomness might not be of such importance, but in that case we will be beat back by either the invariance penalty or the mindnumbing complexity of a sequence of food. A longer sequence of foods only means that there is even less chance that we get the event sequence we want.

Again, would it be more fun if the game used trivial determinism instead? Of course not. Good, well then the primary problem isn't randomness.

There is no logic here to speak of. Your argumentation:

Code: Select all

topic A, not in the game, is not fun.
players are arguing that topic B is a problem.
topic A is one possible alternative to topic B.
Ergo, topic B is not the primary problem.


Main argument:

the FEP system is vastly superior to the current system, in my mind, and here is why:
with the FEP system, if you're doing something wrong, there's no time pressure to solve it. if you notice you made a mistake, you can just go do something else until you find a food that you want. Here we have the glutton-system which means that our biles must be maxed before gluttony, the invariance penalty and more important: the timer.

What you are currently argueing is that we should be prepared for every single contingency to our sequence. We want the lead event, but if we don't get it, we need to respond to the event we did get by eating another piece of meat, hoping for the right event there, and so on and so forth until we are lucky enough (again, ignoring pre-patch purity, with chances at a ceiling of 50%) to get the correct sequence. When two (or even one) unwanted events can lead to a humour increase we do not wish, we're pretty much *****.

Using smaller events is simply not an option because the timer and invariance drain the events so hard that we almost NEED to use the very highest food, that can screw up the gluttony session in two-three events. In haven, we could just stop half-through our feeding frenzy, and go fill 'er up with small-time single-FEP food. Yes, at the cost of more time spent to get that food. Yes, at the cost of more hunger required. But we had that control, if we wanted it.

[Potjeh]

By stocking up way more than they actually need, ie grinding hard in a game that's already too grindy. The obstacle here is less off an inappropriate level encounter and more of a rocks fall, everyone dies. Just like tinder drills, and huge failure rates on everything. The game basically ***** the player at every turn, and not in a fun way.

[martinuzz]

I still think the idea of separating purity from quality is an interesting thought.

Add non-grindy ways of increasing quality modifier, like civilian artefacts.
Priestly blessings.
Witchcraft.

Perhaps, add a penalty to purity, for quality increasing things. So you'd have to balance grinding purity for more accurate events, with getting a higher modifier. You like to take a chance? Use impure, high quality stuff. Like to play safe? Grind up purity to 100%, but be prepared to have to think up long strings of various reliable, yet crappy foods. Player choice.

[jorb]

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.

By stocking up way more than they actually need

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

... by doing some probabilistic math, however intuitively. I don't see why you would bother to argue against what is obviously true a priori. Again, would it be more fun with trivial determinism? If not then why try to frame it as randomness per se being the huge problem?

You seem to think that I'm making excuses for the present system or arguing in favor of it. I'm not.

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!