Sugg.: Randomized Berries

[MKP]

What would you think about berries being randomized, for each map? What I mean: When a new savefile or world is generated, berries can have properties which would be normally expected for one specific color. When thinking in U3-terms, indigo berries could get properties of amber berries, teal berries, or stay as they are. I am not talking about having the stats value changed (like, having berries that will give you +/- 30% immunity, saturation of hunger and thirst or health), but that the individual berrie properties are swapped around.

Well, this might be at first annoying, when you’d expect to eat something you thought it will heal you, but instead, your immunity (or whatever system in U4 will handle this) gets worse. However, that is one of the key aspects of survival, having to face dangers and dreads of uncertainty to gain advantages for yourself, in other word, taking risk into account in order to survive. It is maybe one aspect of getting ‘bored’ of survival, knowing everything about your surroundings and having the freedom of taking risks without severe consequences. But thinking that you’re safe is just the first step into a world full of pain.

Another thing, just because you once ate an edible berry that happened to have one distinctive color, doesn’t mean that other similiarly colored berries would be the same. E.g., blackberries, elder and belladonna (I hope you know which edibles I mean [english isn’t my native language, so sorry for any mistakes], for those uninformed: two are safe to eat, one is heavily poisonous) have a color in common, but to assume that all berries are edible when you ate one of the good ones is a fallacy that will most likely cost your health or life.

Randomizing items makes players more careful, what is a necessary trait considering you being on your own, with each decision having an impact on your further existence. There is a game called ‘Pixel Dungeon’ where this mechanic actively influences the players decisions, to the extent of causing game overs. (Spoiler) Each time you start a new game, items like potions, scrolls, rings and wands gets randomized. Drinking potions would be most likely harmful (not knowing if you heal of poison yourself), while other items might decrease your combat abilities and similiar because of using items the wrong way. This could improve the dread of not knowing which items are helpful and which will cause harm.

Other items that I could think of being randomized are mushrooms. There are a lot of species that share similiar traits (prominent examples are ceps and satan’s bolete). Or fish, minerals etc. Generally speaking, all entities, that have just a loose relation to reallife counterparts. Swapping properties of two berry colors is less grave than swapping those of tomatoes with wheat or carrots, which give you a understanding of what those things are.

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So what do you think about that? One problem I could think of would be the implementation of IDs for each item. So far, each items has a property assigned. I thought of having ‘template’ berries which the game can assign one property to. But I don’t know if that is possible to implement without having to mess around with the game a lot.

(If there was already a topic on this idea, then I guess it’s already to late after having written this much. As far as I researched, there was no identical or similiar idea, neither on the Trello nor the forum.)

Should berries be randomized in U4?

• Yes
• No

[AdrianWR]

Hmm sounds interesting but maybe too much complicated for a simple berries, i think Nelson could easily make 10 types of different berries and that would be enough.

[darkySp]

I don’t think they should be.
I’d rather keep them the same all the time, for the sake of consistency.
Locations and amount gathered ? Yeah, that’s pretty much a given with any loot in a survival game.
But i don’t think their properties should be randomized.

Instead, i’d rather have the berries provide very small bonuses by themselves, but combining them with other berries or processing them through brewing, drying or mashing up will provide more potent mixtures with higher bonuses.

Sort of like Rust’s teas, on a second thought, except i don’t want them to have ludicrous bonuses. I don’t see how you can drink a potent tea and suddenly have +50% ore yield.
Max health tea also seems far-fetched, but a health regen tea is acceptable.

Rust doesn’t have a stamina system, so you can get a berry mixture for better stamina, maybe 1 for stamina endurance and 1 for stamina regen. Immunity is another area where berries can provide bonuses.

Lastly, i don’t think you should be able to take more than 2 berry mixtures at once, as a balancing precaution. Doesn’t seem great to be able to have more stamina, faster regen on stamina, regen health and have added immunity all at once. You become a drugged-out monster that runs for ages, regens health and is almost untouchable by zombies and radiation.

Not to mention that hunger, thirst and immunity all interact directly with health (and health regen, in turn), you can counter starvation, dehydration and radiation sickness by constantly taking berry mixtures. Even if the bonuses aren’t 50% or higher, you still bypass the need to scavenge for food, water and pills/masks/hazmat suits by farming 2 items of identical type, out in the wild where you barely have any risks of player intervention or AI.

[The_Berrie-Man]

Berries you say?

[MKP]

@darkySp

Instead, i’d rather have the berries provide very small bonuses by themselves, but combining them with other berries or processing them through brewing, drying or mashing up will provide more potent mixtures with higher bonuses.

Sort of like Rust’s teas, on a second thought, except i don’t want them to have ludicrous bonuses. I don’t see how you can drink a potent tea and suddenly have +50% ore yield.
Max health tea also seems far-fetched, but a health regen tea is acceptable.

The idea with making tea out of herbs, berries etc. sounds really interesting.

What I had in mind is that keeping the player hooked on the game is by throwing him/her into the unknown. Having things you can explore and learn from is at first glance acceptable, but after some time, it gets predictable and thus boring since you fight the same pattern (unless another game mechanic make use of that, like quests; although fetch quests cannot keep the interest since this also gets repetitive quickly).

@AdrianWR

i think Nelson could easily make 10 types of different berries and that would be enough.

Currently, we have seven berries already in U3, so there wouldn’t be a big difference. Adding like 30 or more berry species would be however irritating and annoying; despite mentioning that the player shouldn’t be able to differ between similiar berries (be it color, form, etc.), adding, like, eight species which are all blue except some have a slight hue alteration, that would just make the game too much complicated. I am okay with the amount of berries there are in U3.

When looking back at the first time playing the game, there was the thrill of exploring and finding out what there is, which items will grant you which benefits etc. The game gets boring because this aspect depletes over time. Randomizing some features could solve this problem to some extent, since you have to explore again, but since it’s just swapping stuff around, this could get repetitive itself. Well, it is a suggestion.

[AdrianWR]

Its not worth it , For Nelson, it would be a lot more easy just make some different types and done, because if he adds random berries, he would need to add random to everything in game that has variety, random types of food ? just too much complicated, he can easily press ctrl c ctrl v on berries and change some stats to make them interesting, then he can change the colours and done This post is a meme bc berries are funny drrugz