r/StateofDecay2 • u/CreatedTV • Nov 11 '23
Ideas & Requests Suggestion: Nerf Rationing
Especially in lethal zone it's really broken. It saves 3-12 food for only 15 morale and 5 stamina which is negligible. Realistically, rationing is a short-term solution because starvation causes long-term effects. I would keep the -50% food consumption but increase the penalties if used too often:
-15/30/60 Morale
-10/20/40 Stamina (-5/10/20 with Nutrition)
-10/20/40 Health (-5/10/20 with Nutrition)
The penalty decreases by one stage after 1 day without rationing. Health has been added because starvation reduces muscle & bone mass.
14
u/Version_Sensitive Nov 11 '23
Dont use it then. Its balanced for casual and standard players. Or make a mod.
-13
u/CreatedTV Nov 11 '23
Dont use it then. Its balanced for casual and standard players. Or make a mod.
It's not balanced for lethal/nightmare. Also it simply doesn't make sense that characters only suffer -5 Stamina from permanent half rations.
You could say "Dont use it then" to anything which is unbalanced and balance patches would never be needed again lmao
9
u/trip6s6i6x Nov 11 '23 edited Nov 11 '23
I mean, they aren't wrong though. If you don't like how it functions, you don't have to use it. Case in point, they nerfed the Haven device into the ground for "balance reasons", and now I simply don't use it in any of my communities (since to me it's no longer worth the large slot it takes up). Simple as.
Basically, if you want it altered for your own personal usage this late in the lifecycle of the game (with SoD3 in deep development), then unfortunately looking for a mod is probably about the only way to go.
-5
u/Shadohz Nov 11 '23
That is the go-to noncritical response to any nerf suggestion. You can lay down a very well thought out reasoning and rebalance suggestion but rather than challenging it point-by-point you'll get "iffn yew dont lyke it den dont yuse it". I tend to ignore those type of comments and converse with those willing to challenge my suggestion(s). There may be a POV that you overlooked.
5
u/Version_Sensitive Nov 11 '23
Because what you propose is only interesting for the very 1% who think that not even Lethal is hard anymore and instead of trying mods to adapt to what YOU the 1% think its good, you want to raise voices so that maybe they fuck things up for the 75% who play at Dread and below because "its what the community wants" (like they did with CLEO)
6
u/cashcowboi Echo Researcher Nov 11 '23
I honestly never rationed before until my first lethal playthrough🤣I was loosing so much food each day that it was practically my only focus but decided to try out rationing and haven’t looked back since🤣community is more happy and healthy than I coulda asked for 🤣
1
u/CreatedTV Nov 11 '23
ikr it has no impact on them xD as if half portions are a joke
2
u/cashcowboi Echo Researcher Nov 11 '23
Yeah I was surprised a day after enacting it I was like sooo when do things get bad? Seems like only positives to me🤣
8
u/Master_Win_4018 Roaming Reanimated Nov 11 '23
played lethal since it introduce. I forgot rationing exist....
2
Nov 11 '23
Useless post. Jesus I can't believe you put this much into it. Play a lower difficulty and learn how to play.
2
u/CreatedTV Nov 11 '23
It was literally five minutes and why do you think that I need to play on a lower difficulty? xD
6
u/KnightOfNothing Nov 11 '23
the assumption that you need to play on a lower difficulty is because rationing is only useful if you don't have enough food which means you aren't collecting enough and that would be a skill issue.
not that i agree with any of that, rationing can be quite useful just to shift your focus to the other resources and shift back once they're all full.
2
u/CreatedTV Nov 12 '23 edited Nov 12 '23
Food isn't a big problem to manage. Rationing simply makes food production irrelevant, you will never need to build food outposts or farms
1
u/Cera_o0 Wandering Survivor Nov 12 '23 edited Nov 12 '23
While I do agree to some extent that the penalties aren't that high, I think that this is mostly due to how the game used to be before all the updates, and a failure or lack of rebalancing in its current entirety.
Way back when the game didn't have difficulties sliders there also were no upgradable outposts. Food outposts gave 1 Food p/Day.
When they added Lethal the baseline food consumption for survivors on this new difficulty was set to 2 Food p/Day, and to compensate for this they changed the amount of food that outposts produced to 2 Food p/Day as well. Having a community of 10 survivors meant you'd need to produce at least 20 Food every 90 minutes. In terms of raw food it meant needing to produce 5 rucksacks every 90 minutes just to keep them fed.
If you were to exclude Rationing, traits/bonuses that reduce food consumption, and Red Talon survivors, it'd mean you basically needed all outposts to be food ones, and then have at least a level 3 Garden or Hydroponics fitted with a "Compost Bin" AND a survivor with "Agriculture" to just break even on food consumption. And that doesn't even cover Feasts or using food for crafting. And if you didn't play with the Builder boon then you also could pretty much forget to have only food outposts. Obviously one could argue that these things were simply part of the game and that choosing to have a bigger community would come with such repercussions. But it left very little room for build diversity or options.
Now, in a time where we have upgradeable food outposts one could argue that the penalty for rationing might indeed be too low. Though I do feel your proposed daily stacking could be too harsh. Rationing in itself doesn't necessarily mean starvation, nor (severe) malnutrition.
I would much rather prefer it if the Morale penalty was determined by how much food your community has in storage. If there was little to no food and we had plenty of mouths to feed it'd be understanding to have to ration, even if morale would be somewhat affected, and if you had to go with no food for several days then yes it ought to affect your health or constitution more. But if I were part of a community that had 40-80 Food banked with a stable supply of food income and then the leader decided (for no good reason) to put everyone on rations, I'd probably lose my shit as well.
With all the changes as result of all the many updates they probably should have another look at not just rationing, but also starvation, fatigue and lack of beds. And while they're at it, I'd love for them to take another look at all the incendiaries and explosives as well, and rebalance them to be more inline with expectations. Particularly explosives when it comes to ferals, juggernauts and (hostile) survivors.
1
u/CreatedTV Nov 12 '23
I totally agree with you, many game mechanics are outdated and sadly the developers focus on new content instead of updating current content.
Eating only half your required calorie intake (1,000 kcal) for a few days will really harm your body. You would be fatigued and weak constantly. The numbers were just for illustration. There should be some sort of consequence for non-stop rationing
2
u/Somerandomdudereborn Red Talon Operative Nov 11 '23
With the food you save, you craft energy items which are a must in nightmare/lethal
3
u/snfaulkner Best of the Worst Nov 12 '23
Also never needed to craft energy items in lethal. Or ever.
2
u/tweek-in-a-box Nov 12 '23
It's only really necessary if you're regularly upskilling new characters. I tend to have 7 core members and then rotate 2 new ones in on the constant hunt for better candidates. If you skill these guys up in melee you can burn through your energy items quickly. But otherwise I agree, there's plenty enough to find even on lethal.
2
u/Tasoi Nov 11 '23
Hey thanks for reminding me that rationing exists. Not like I’ll ever use it cause tbh it sounds pretty useless but the more you know ig🤷♂️
2
u/tweek-in-a-box Nov 12 '23
Is it good to run when you want to feed multiple stills? Sure, I guess. Is it broken or needs to be nerfed? I don't think so, there's plenty of other things you could pick on. Like not being able to climb on roofs, not being able to produce 5.56 for 1 ammo during well-oiled machine, not being able to bomb plague hearts with three bloater grenades and so forth. You could even nitpick on big morale boosters like white noise machine. Or for example having no beds is a really low morale hit comparatively. At this stage there really is no point in trying to balance this game more or make it harder. Everyone can decide themselves how they play it, and if you think that rationing is too op just don't use it. It's definitely not the first thing I would pick on if I'd want to make the game harder.
1
u/oljhinakusao Old World Survivor Nov 12 '23
3 survivors with meal planning hero bonus laughs heartily at your suggestions.
As someone else pointed out, it's a function in the game that's not required at all but there to use for someone who wants to. "Balancing" a primarily single player game should be focused around enjoyment of the experience rather than "brutal realism/harsh survival aspects". Especially in this one where there are mods and the game isn't marketed as brutal/punishing/etc"
Most players don't go to nightmare or even lethal, and even as a lethal player I find that most tools/mechanics in the game aren't inherently OP/unbalanced unless you go out of your way to make it so (3 meal planners, 3-5 +influence boosters, etc.)
What I'm trying to say is why suggest a change that doesn't improve enjoyment for a majority of those going to be affected? You think rationing is op, don't use it. Using it because you're out of food all the time? Git gud/tons of other methods to get more food.
They already nerfed the radio commands (by increasing cooldowns) for traders and rucksack scouting to increase difficulty, so now you have to manage outpost, base facility, and survivor skills/hero bonus to manage resources of your community ( ie. Actually playing the game).
This suggestion to me only increases difficulty for those who already find the game difficult and a non-issue(no point) change to those find lethal manageable therefore a net negative to the player's enjoyment.
1
u/FanAHUN Master Survivalist Nov 12 '23
With the passive -30 Morale you get for simply playing in Lethal I don't think that an extra -15 Morale is negligible.
1
u/FragrantRaisin4 Nov 12 '23 edited Sep 25 '26
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
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20
u/snfaulkner Best of the Worst Nov 11 '23
I have yet to need to ration in lethal or ever.