Hydration as additional nutrition bar

[Wahazar]

I'm aware about devs "no-go" policy concerning thirst, as a TFC player I also recognize constant pressure of hydration as rather annoying.

On the other side, lack of needs to drink make game somewhat bleak.

Here is my idea to add drinking without additional HUD bar and constant environment pressure: make hydration as 6th nutrition level.

Drinking water, juices, eating soups, fruits etc would increase hydration nutrition. Maybe eating raw grains should decrease hydration? Of course, temperature increased either by environment or by clothes should increase rate of hydration depletion.

Drinking water slightly increase saturation bar, but drinking is impossible (or doesn't affect hunger), if hydration nutrition is maxed up.

I'm aware about two mods for TFC-like hydration, but my proposal is to add hydration in less harsh style.

[Maelstrom]

Adding water as another nutrition would monkey with the hit points, potentially unbalancing them.  There would be lower hp when you need them at the start of the game and high hp later in the game when you're less likely to need them as much (due to armor, healing items, etc).

Personally, I consider water to be part of the existing satiety mechanics.

 

[Wahazar]

42 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

Adding water as another nutrition would monkey with the hit points, potentially unbalancing them.  There would be lower hp when you need them at the start of the game and high hp later in the game when you're less likely to need them as much (due to armor, healing items, etc)

rather opposite, I mean it would be easier to gain more HP points at the beginning of the game, just eat fruits and have 2/6 nutrition filled (33%), instead of 1/4 (25%)

[Maelstrom]

If water is in all food, what's the point of making water separate?  With your suggestion I fail to see how it improves the game.  To me it would add more tedium to make sure I'm drinking water to get what is already in the game.

[LadyWYT]

4 hours ago, Wahazar said:

rather opposite, I mean it would be easier to gain more HP points at the beginning of the game, just eat fruits and have 2/6 nutrition filled (33%), instead of 1/4 (25%)

By default there are 5 nutrition bars: fruit, vegetables, grain, protein, and dairy. Protein is fairly easy to fill, along with fruits, so I'd say the default is closer to 2/5(40%) filled in the early game. With your proposed addition of hydration, it would be closer to 3/6(50%). Each full bar of nutrition gives an extra 2.5 hitpoints, so the end result is a potential extra 2.5 hitpoints in exchange for another stat to keep track of.

It's an interesting idea, in any case, but I think hydration is probably best left in modded territory right now. I've been playing with one of the thirst/hydration mods of late and while it brings a different challenge to the game, it also gets a little tedious when I'm needing to drop what I'm doing for a drink every so often.

2 minutes ago, Maelstrom said:

To me it would add more tedium to make sure I'm drinking water to get what is already in the game.

This is how my thoughts are generally leaning as well. I don't think this implementation would be as tedious as either of the mods currently available that do similar, but I'm not sure that an extra 2.5 HP is worth the extra stat tracking. I already do a half-baked job of keeping all nutrition bars full as it is. It's not really unusual for me to let one or two drop pretty low due to wanting either a particular food, or using what I already have and not caring about whether it's filling nutrition or not.

[Thorfinn]

Nutrition already more than doubles your HP in Wilderness.

[Wahazar]

16 hours ago, Maelstrom said:

If water is in all food, what's the point of making water separate?  With your suggestion I fail to see how it improves the game.  To me it would add more tedium to make sure I'm drinking water to get what is already in the game.

Not in all food, additional water in fruits (maybe a little in vegetables), net negative in raw grain. Also depletion of water nutrition depend on temperature, so there is no point to drink water in cold climate, while you can eat less and drink more in hot climate (which is good balance according to faster decay rate).

[Nedrakus]

I am using the "hydrate or diedrate" mod at the moment, which I found very good.  It adds the drinking requirement in a smart way imo because you receive negative sasiety from drinking water, hence directing you towards using fruits and grains for your hydration needs.

In the standard non-modded game I found dealing with bread / tart making a bit tedious at times, and having too many berries and tree fruits to know what to do with.  The hydration mod solves these 2 issues for me whilst making the juice/beer/alcohol gameplay something useful.

It's also a bit less stressful to keep your nutrition levels up because drinking increases your fruit nutrition in summer (fruit juice or wine) and grain nutrition in winter (beer).

One minor drawback is you need to carry from 1 to 6 jugs (= 18 L of liquid) with you.  They occupy one inventory slot in total even if you carry 6 jugs as long as the liquid is identical.  You can drink a bit from each jug in one motion, keeping the jugs stacked together at all times.

I highly recommend that mod if you want to check hydration requirements.

Edited July 13 by Nedrakus

[Wahazar]

About hydration: in TFC, open barrels were slowly filling with water when it was raining. Would be nice to have similar feature if hydration is introduced by mod or game.

[Bumber]

19 hours ago, Nedrakus said:

I am using the "hydrate or diedrate" mod at the moment, which I found very good.  It adds the drinking requirement in a smart way imo because you receive negative sasiety from drinking water, hence directing you towards using fruits and grains for your hydration needs.

That's kind of weird. Are you barfing up your food every time you take a sip?

You can only increase your nutrition by filling the satiety bar, which you can't do while full. Seems like that would lead to players guzzling water to deliberately get hungry. Again weird.

[dakko]

On 7/12/2024 at 2:02 AM, Wahazar said:

Drinking water, juices, eating soups, fruits etc would increase hydration nutrition. Maybe eating raw grains should decrease hydration? Of course, temperature increased either by environment or by clothes should increase rate of hydration depletion.

This is an interesting idea. I'm not sure how to implement it in a way that wouldn't become tedious, but we do already have foods that include liquids (as you've mentioned). I would think grains would be neutral, but salted meat or pickles are likely candidates for having a negative effect.

[Nedrakus]

@Bumber  You're right!  I never thought of trying it before, but you can still drink water whilst hydration is full, which in turns decreases sasiety.  It seems it's possible to deliberately drink water to gain nutrition.  I'll inform the mod dev.

@dakko In the "hydrate or diedrate" mod, eatign grains or salted meat decreases hydration.  Warm clothes increases hydration depletion.  Clothes have an hydration protection rating (for instance a straw hat or sandals are better than a wool hat or boots in summer).

[dakko]

@Nedrakus In your earlier post, you mention the benefits of fruit for rehydration. Personally, I see the overuse of fruit pies and fruit juices to have a negative effect on hydration as it results in diarrhea (irl). I know this is just a game but those kinds of oversights are off-putting to me. Perhaps there is some way for them to have a positive effect in small amounts (as part of a balanced diet), while having a hugely negative effect when relying on them as a main food source.

Maybe no one else would be thinking along these lines though.

[Thorfinn]

You almost have to rotate pies, @dakko, or your other nutrition bars start getting hit. Roughly speaking, I've found you need to rotate through 1 meat, 1 veggie, 2 fruit and 2 dairy pie. You still need to top up individually here and there, eating a bowl or two of  jam, or the occasional turnip or slice of bread, but mostly the game is not awful for healthy nutrition.

[dakko]

Good point, @Thorfinn. Geez, got the best start just now. Surface tin right by spawn and a gorgeous lava-fall not very far away. More reeds than I know what to do with and bunches of flax. Stumbled across a dungeon with 2 torch holders, 2 pots, 4 bowls, a storage vessel and a few crates. How's that for a lucky first day?! 

[Maelstrom]

Only thing that could have made that better would be a lantern in the ruins.