Post by Azherae on 2021-07-08 23:44:37
So my group was talking about Food buffs in Ashes and having that bittersweet feeling of 'having an experience of a game with a really strong food design' while 'expecting it to not be as robust or good'. But realized that was silly, because we should just say everything that was good about it, and hope that Intrepid takes as much inspiration as they consider reasonably possible.
This post is under the jurisdiction of @JustVine for the most part, otherwise we will adhere to our normal rules of not all posting in the same thread and skewing any feedback data collection.
The Food system we are most familiar with is again, FFXI, and even while trying to figure out 'ok how can Ashes not basically have the exact same things tied to the same foods', we realized that FFXI's decisions about what food does, aren't necessarily arbitrary.
Let's start from Taverns.
A Tavern is a place where players go to buy and eat a meal and get a buff or set of buffs.
Q: How can we make it so that players want to go to Taverns instead of just carrying their own food everywhere?
A: Make it possible for a Cook to make a 'Group meal' that feeds all 8 members of the same party, for only 5x the Ingredients, or maybe 5 members for 3x Ingredients. If the party is less than the number it can feed, players lot on/distribute the leftovers, which are Single Serving versions of the same food. So a party of 5 ordering for 8 gets 3 Single Servings after.
A2: Make it possible to stack up effects that can't otherwise easily be stacked, maybe, i.e. you can get up to 6-8 buffs when you can normally only get 1 or 2.
Q: How can we make it so that players don't all have to get the same buffs?
A: The Meal UI for the Tavern has some number of slots open, and the group decides beforehand how many of these (half of them at minimum probably) should be 'open'. Each player orders what they need for their class within the 'open' slots, and otherwise they share whatever the leader or whoever was in charge of ordering food, got. These don't count as Group Meals and therefore don't generate Leftovers.
Q: How can we stop RPers and non-RPers from arguing over how long to spend in the Tavern?
A: Add some satisfaction or similar that builds up if you stay the whole minute or two (no downside to staying longer). Other than that, solved by the above. The party leader or designated person can arrive early and order the Group Meals and the others trickle in later. You could literally 'wait for people at the tavern'. Also, even the short period spent ordering your own Personal stuff might help smooth out some of this. You have to spend time getting the food anyway, might as well.
Q: How can we make this preferable in any way to Cooking without making Cooking irrelevant or Tavern Only?
A: Cook's level and tools. The Tavern pre-provides a lot of things, time, ingredients, etc. A high enough level cook with all their tools could create Group Meals and similar out in the field, but lesser cooks, or even just those who aren't carrying their stuff around, might benefit from this, even for reasons not above. So you have a good reason to go to the Tavern or even hang around there, but a high level Cook (assuming they can cook in the field at all or at their Freehold) has options.
Next is Food Buff Balance
Food Buffs need to feel obvious without being vital for everything.
Q: How can we make players want to eat often and keep the food economy going without making them feel stupid for not eating?
A: Primary basic foods should focus on things like Movement Speed (this one probably just a small buff for eating at all), Health, Mana, and the Regeneration of those stats, and food should not wear off because you die. This way a player is incentivized to eat whenever they reasonably can, but can go without it and the 'penalty' is semi-realistic and yet not 'complete suffering'. These are also good effects to go into Group Meals as described above, since no one will be likely to want to pass them up.
Q: How can we make food impactful without making it a balance nightmare for buff stacking?
A: Lots of foods can focus on resistances to statuses or elemental damage in addition to their small(er) buffs to main stats. This solves 'regional variation', stops players from feeling the need to always eat the exact same thing to min-max, and lets cooks have more niches they can specialize in for markets and selling.
Q: How can we make food intuitive enough to understand without having to be a cook or read a guide?
A: Aside from simply 'putting the effect in the tooltip', this is where the FFXI-style system comes in (other games have this too, this is just the familiar one for the discussion). Types of food have specific effects. The Tavern helps more because you can combine them more easily. You can even go further and make certain meals innately 'pair up right' for most people, while not forcing players to adhere to this. Example below, followed by a whole Appendix (yes seriously) of effects.
Example of all this in action
The Party Leader, an Empyrean Nightshield, arrives at the tavern first, orders Group servings of Bread, Soup, Roast Pig, and Pumpkin Pie, and leaves the other 4 slots open.
The Nikua Archmage arrives, sees what is there, orders an additional Cheese Plate, Stuffed Mushrooms, and Ale for themselves to get Mage buffs. They sit around and roleplay a bit as two other party members trickle in and order, each (including the Leader), ordering their personal stuff.
Finally the Ren'Kai Dreadnought arrives, orders an additional strong drink, a Roast Duck, Fried Red Snapper, and a Walnut Salad, 'shovels it all in' and the Party leaves, after distributing amongst themselves 3x of Bread, Soup Flask, Porkchop, Slice of Pumpkin Pie. Food buffs last 90m.
The Archmage got HP up, MP up, Attack Speed Up, MP Regen Up, HP Regen Up, Mentality Up, Knockback Resistance Down, Earth Resistance Up, and various other Resistances
The Dreadnought got HP up, MP up, Attack Speed Up, MP Regen Up, Attack Bonus, Accuracy Up, Damage Mitigation Up, Bleed Resistance Down, Fire Resistance, and various other Resistances
Why do people associate X food with Y buff?
Honestly, we don't know, maybe it's just us, maybe we're biased precisely because of FFXI and BDO and Fairyland. Either way, here's the 'Appendix of expected effects', tuned to increase the opportunity for 'cultural identity in food' and 'easy recognition of most likely effect of new ingredients'.
Breads and Starches - HP Up (potatoes and grain porridges etc might give mitigation), Knockback Resist Up
Basic Vegetable/Mushroom Soups (not stews) - MP Up, Blind Resist Up
Meats and Meat Stews - Attack Speed Up or Attack Bonus, Paralysis Resist Up
Sweet Pastries - MP Regen Up, Slow Resist Up
Savoury Pastries/Cheeses - HP Regen Up, Stun Resist Up
Fish Dishes - Accuracy Up, Bleed Resist Up
Other Seafood - Dexterity Stat up
Mushrooms - Mentality Stat up, Knockdown Resist Up
Fruits - Wisdom Stat up
Rare Meats - Power Stat up
Eggs/Other Dairy - Resistances, varies (e.g. Stun Resist Up), Constitution Stat Up or Mitigation Stat up
Mix and match as desired for complex meals like 'Mushroom Cheese Melt on Rye Bread' or what have you. The Resistances are small bonuses like 5%, there to stack with others while having some effect, but not making the player feel like they have to have it. Maybe they only activate in Complex meals.
Alcohols:
Intended to be where resistances are generally stored, to prevent those who RP or otherwise don't want to consume alcohol in game to from needing to do so. They can drink milk. Always funny (I say this as a milk-drinker). They have downsides as well, universal enough to affect most players so they can't min-max their way out of it entirely (note that any 'pairs with' stuff is 'flavor' or just resultant from natural player-goals interacting, and is specifically not supposed to be rigid or strong enough to prevent people from doing whatever they want)
Ale - Dunir related, gives Fire Resistance up, Knockback Resist Down, MP Regen Down, pairs with Carbs and Meat, tends to negate Dairy
Botanicals (Mushroom Wine, etc) - Py'Rai related, gives Earth Resistance Up, Knockdown Resist down, Basic Attack Speed Down, pairs with Mushrooms and Veggies, tends to offer less for Meat eaters
Dark Lager - Vek related, gives Darkness/Planar/Gravity Resistance up, Paralysis Resist Down, Ability Cooldown (negative effect) 'pairs with' Meat and veggies but not so much with Seafood
Scotch (or equivalent) - Kaelar related, gives Lightning Resistance up, Blind Resist Down, mild Magic Defense down, pairs with Veggies and Fruit, not so much Breads/Starches
Pure Distills (the strong stuff) - Ren'Kai related, gives Wind Resistance Up, Bleed Resist Down, mild Accuracy down, pairs with Seafood and Starches, not as much Veggies
Rum/Schnapps - Nikua Related, gives Water Resistance up, Burn/Slow Resistance Down, Mild Healing Received Down, pairs with Fruit and Seafood, not so much Mushrooms
Wines - Empyrean Related, gives Light Resistance up, Stun Resist Down, mild HP Regen Down, pairs with Dairy and Mushrooms, but not really Fruit
Vaelune have nothing assigned at this time, our alcohols expert 'didn't have an eighth that would specifically suit them' due to certain cultural analogues IRL not really 'providing as much'. Which was fine since you probably shouldn't ever get Ice Resistance from drinking and that was the last one left.
For the RPers who have made it this far
We'll always argue against people having to drink what their race drinks or eat what they normally eat. Stand with us! Fight for people's right to get inebriated as they see fit!
More seriously, that's why the 'this pairs with this' is so loose. You might be slightly less than optimal minmax if you, the Py'Rai Archer who has enough Accuracy to not need to eat fish, and will never be in range of a serious Knockback Ability, then choose to drink some Ren'Kai liquor, but no one wants to make it so that you can't do this randomly or have a build where this is actually a good thing.
RPers should let us know if they care about anything in here not being the way it is. Non-RPers should let us know if anything about this would be annoying or frustrating to them if implemented. Assume JustVine will address any of that, if I post more it will be for 'the usual reasons'.
This post is under the jurisdiction of @JustVine for the most part, otherwise we will adhere to our normal rules of not all posting in the same thread and skewing any feedback data collection.
The Food system we are most familiar with is again, FFXI, and even while trying to figure out 'ok how can Ashes not basically have the exact same things tied to the same foods', we realized that FFXI's decisions about what food does, aren't necessarily arbitrary.
Let's start from Taverns.
A Tavern is a place where players go to buy and eat a meal and get a buff or set of buffs.
Q: How can we make it so that players want to go to Taverns instead of just carrying their own food everywhere?
A: Make it possible for a Cook to make a 'Group meal' that feeds all 8 members of the same party, for only 5x the Ingredients, or maybe 5 members for 3x Ingredients. If the party is less than the number it can feed, players lot on/distribute the leftovers, which are Single Serving versions of the same food. So a party of 5 ordering for 8 gets 3 Single Servings after.
A2: Make it possible to stack up effects that can't otherwise easily be stacked, maybe, i.e. you can get up to 6-8 buffs when you can normally only get 1 or 2.
Q: How can we make it so that players don't all have to get the same buffs?
A: The Meal UI for the Tavern has some number of slots open, and the group decides beforehand how many of these (half of them at minimum probably) should be 'open'. Each player orders what they need for their class within the 'open' slots, and otherwise they share whatever the leader or whoever was in charge of ordering food, got. These don't count as Group Meals and therefore don't generate Leftovers.
Q: How can we stop RPers and non-RPers from arguing over how long to spend in the Tavern?
A: Add some satisfaction or similar that builds up if you stay the whole minute or two (no downside to staying longer). Other than that, solved by the above. The party leader or designated person can arrive early and order the Group Meals and the others trickle in later. You could literally 'wait for people at the tavern'. Also, even the short period spent ordering your own Personal stuff might help smooth out some of this. You have to spend time getting the food anyway, might as well.
Q: How can we make this preferable in any way to Cooking without making Cooking irrelevant or Tavern Only?
A: Cook's level and tools. The Tavern pre-provides a lot of things, time, ingredients, etc. A high enough level cook with all their tools could create Group Meals and similar out in the field, but lesser cooks, or even just those who aren't carrying their stuff around, might benefit from this, even for reasons not above. So you have a good reason to go to the Tavern or even hang around there, but a high level Cook (assuming they can cook in the field at all or at their Freehold) has options.
Next is Food Buff Balance
Food Buffs need to feel obvious without being vital for everything.
Q: How can we make players want to eat often and keep the food economy going without making them feel stupid for not eating?
A: Primary basic foods should focus on things like Movement Speed (this one probably just a small buff for eating at all), Health, Mana, and the Regeneration of those stats, and food should not wear off because you die. This way a player is incentivized to eat whenever they reasonably can, but can go without it and the 'penalty' is semi-realistic and yet not 'complete suffering'. These are also good effects to go into Group Meals as described above, since no one will be likely to want to pass them up.
Q: How can we make food impactful without making it a balance nightmare for buff stacking?
A: Lots of foods can focus on resistances to statuses or elemental damage in addition to their small(er) buffs to main stats. This solves 'regional variation', stops players from feeling the need to always eat the exact same thing to min-max, and lets cooks have more niches they can specialize in for markets and selling.
Q: How can we make food intuitive enough to understand without having to be a cook or read a guide?
A: Aside from simply 'putting the effect in the tooltip', this is where the FFXI-style system comes in (other games have this too, this is just the familiar one for the discussion). Types of food have specific effects. The Tavern helps more because you can combine them more easily. You can even go further and make certain meals innately 'pair up right' for most people, while not forcing players to adhere to this. Example below, followed by a whole Appendix (yes seriously) of effects.
Example of all this in action
The Party Leader, an Empyrean Nightshield, arrives at the tavern first, orders Group servings of Bread, Soup, Roast Pig, and Pumpkin Pie, and leaves the other 4 slots open.
The Nikua Archmage arrives, sees what is there, orders an additional Cheese Plate, Stuffed Mushrooms, and Ale for themselves to get Mage buffs. They sit around and roleplay a bit as two other party members trickle in and order, each (including the Leader), ordering their personal stuff.
Finally the Ren'Kai Dreadnought arrives, orders an additional strong drink, a Roast Duck, Fried Red Snapper, and a Walnut Salad, 'shovels it all in' and the Party leaves, after distributing amongst themselves 3x of Bread, Soup Flask, Porkchop, Slice of Pumpkin Pie. Food buffs last 90m.
The Archmage got HP up, MP up, Attack Speed Up, MP Regen Up, HP Regen Up, Mentality Up, Knockback Resistance Down, Earth Resistance Up, and various other Resistances
The Dreadnought got HP up, MP up, Attack Speed Up, MP Regen Up, Attack Bonus, Accuracy Up, Damage Mitigation Up, Bleed Resistance Down, Fire Resistance, and various other Resistances
Why do people associate X food with Y buff?
Honestly, we don't know, maybe it's just us, maybe we're biased precisely because of FFXI and BDO and Fairyland. Either way, here's the 'Appendix of expected effects', tuned to increase the opportunity for 'cultural identity in food' and 'easy recognition of most likely effect of new ingredients'.
Breads and Starches - HP Up (potatoes and grain porridges etc might give mitigation), Knockback Resist Up
Basic Vegetable/Mushroom Soups (not stews) - MP Up, Blind Resist Up
Meats and Meat Stews - Attack Speed Up or Attack Bonus, Paralysis Resist Up
Sweet Pastries - MP Regen Up, Slow Resist Up
Savoury Pastries/Cheeses - HP Regen Up, Stun Resist Up
Fish Dishes - Accuracy Up, Bleed Resist Up
Other Seafood - Dexterity Stat up
Mushrooms - Mentality Stat up, Knockdown Resist Up
Fruits - Wisdom Stat up
Rare Meats - Power Stat up
Eggs/Other Dairy - Resistances, varies (e.g. Stun Resist Up), Constitution Stat Up or Mitigation Stat up
Mix and match as desired for complex meals like 'Mushroom Cheese Melt on Rye Bread' or what have you. The Resistances are small bonuses like 5%, there to stack with others while having some effect, but not making the player feel like they have to have it. Maybe they only activate in Complex meals.
Alcohols:
Intended to be where resistances are generally stored, to prevent those who RP or otherwise don't want to consume alcohol in game to from needing to do so. They can drink milk. Always funny (I say this as a milk-drinker). They have downsides as well, universal enough to affect most players so they can't min-max their way out of it entirely (note that any 'pairs with' stuff is 'flavor' or just resultant from natural player-goals interacting, and is specifically not supposed to be rigid or strong enough to prevent people from doing whatever they want)
Ale - Dunir related, gives Fire Resistance up, Knockback Resist Down, MP Regen Down, pairs with Carbs and Meat, tends to negate Dairy
Botanicals (Mushroom Wine, etc) - Py'Rai related, gives Earth Resistance Up, Knockdown Resist down, Basic Attack Speed Down, pairs with Mushrooms and Veggies, tends to offer less for Meat eaters
Dark Lager - Vek related, gives Darkness/Planar/Gravity Resistance up, Paralysis Resist Down, Ability Cooldown (negative effect) 'pairs with' Meat and veggies but not so much with Seafood
Scotch (or equivalent) - Kaelar related, gives Lightning Resistance up, Blind Resist Down, mild Magic Defense down, pairs with Veggies and Fruit, not so much Breads/Starches
Pure Distills (the strong stuff) - Ren'Kai related, gives Wind Resistance Up, Bleed Resist Down, mild Accuracy down, pairs with Seafood and Starches, not as much Veggies
Rum/Schnapps - Nikua Related, gives Water Resistance up, Burn/Slow Resistance Down, Mild Healing Received Down, pairs with Fruit and Seafood, not so much Mushrooms
Wines - Empyrean Related, gives Light Resistance up, Stun Resist Down, mild HP Regen Down, pairs with Dairy and Mushrooms, but not really Fruit
Vaelune have nothing assigned at this time, our alcohols expert 'didn't have an eighth that would specifically suit them' due to certain cultural analogues IRL not really 'providing as much'. Which was fine since you probably shouldn't ever get Ice Resistance from drinking and that was the last one left.
For the RPers who have made it this far
We'll always argue against people having to drink what their race drinks or eat what they normally eat. Stand with us! Fight for people's right to get inebriated as they see fit!
More seriously, that's why the 'this pairs with this' is so loose. You might be slightly less than optimal minmax if you, the Py'Rai Archer who has enough Accuracy to not need to eat fish, and will never be in range of a serious Knockback Ability, then choose to drink some Ren'Kai liquor, but no one wants to make it so that you can't do this randomly or have a build where this is actually a good thing.
RPers should let us know if they care about anything in here not being the way it is. Non-RPers should let us know if anything about this would be annoying or frustrating to them if implemented. Assume JustVine will address any of that, if I post more it will be for 'the usual reasons'.