Is Healing Factor Worth it?

[Pizzarugi]

So I had a discussion with my boyfriend earlier about the perk. We had recently discovered that, despite the lack of details mentioned on the perk itself, it accelerates food consumption which obviously means chowing down on more food in general. This may not be too much of a concern if you're real good at avoiding damage, but if you get hurt a lot by zombies, this will have a notable impact on your food reserves.

There's another issue of when it might be usable. The earlygame might be best because of a lack of medicine, but you also have a similar issue with finding food around that time. However, if you wait to get it much later when you're well supplied, you'll most likely have a bunch of medicine around which makes Healing Factor irrelevant. It's not too difficult, after all, to get aloe farming going and spam a bunch of healing bandages.

Perk points spent improving defensive value of armor and damage of weapons to avoid getting hit or at least mitigate it would have more long-term benefits by comparison. It leads me to believe that no, Healing Factor isn't worth it. Is there something we're missing that makes it worth considering?

[Geordy]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

The 2nd point only lets you build cheaper crop plots,...

I want to mention that LotL 2 also allows you to craft seeds yourself. Especially corn, potatoes and shrooms. Which are the ingredients to Vegetable Stew, the first impactful food you can completely grow on your own. So if you want to be self-reliant quick LotL 2 is the way to go for me.

[KellyR]

Again this is sort of a silly argument... It ONLY causes your food consumption to be higher IF you're injured. There's a fixed amount of hunger the game inflicts to heal each HP, and it never changes. So healing factor does not, in fact, change the total amount of food you'd have to eat. It just makes you have to eat again a little sooner because you heal faster, full stop.

And if you eat something for the healing bonus then the healing factor had no effect on your hunger at all basically.

[OH! MY CAR]

Originally posted by KellyR:

Again this is sort of a silly argument... It ONLY causes your food consumption to be higher IF you're injured. There's a fixed amount of hunger the game inflicts to heal each HP, and it never changes. So healing factor does not, in fact, change the total amount of food you'd have to eat. It just makes you have to eat again a little sooner because you heal faster, full stop.

And if you eat something for the healing bonus then the healing factor had no effect on your hunger at all basically.

EDIT: lel my faulty mouse double click made me just quote your post instantly and post it.

The skill is okay, but depending on how you play it is a bad deal. I do not like it currently.

Last I played the healing was 1 health per 1 food... which is really bad with how much cotton and aloe bandages require.

If you are pretty active on horde night you could easily end up needing to eat many times.

One of the problems is that even if you would rather just bandage a minor injury, if you do not do it at just the right time, you will waste a lot of food and healing.

So if you get hit for 10 health, your options are to waste a bandage right away and lose healing, and still probably lose 2 food, or just wait and lose 10 food.

Since I tend to fight the horde on harder modes, without a base, I find the skill pretty much unusable, at the moment.

[pApA^LeGBa]

I actually never used it until i deceided to do a playtrough in the EdenMall POI (huge custom POI) where i don´t allow myself to go outside the POI.

If you do quests, healing isn´t really a problem, and even if i play without trader i never felt i really needed it.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by KellyR:

Again this is sort of a silly argument... It ONLY causes your food consumption to be higher IF you're injured. There's a fixed amount of hunger the game inflicts to heal each HP, and it never changes. So healing factor does not, in fact, change the total amount of food you'd have to eat. It just makes you have to eat again a little sooner because you heal faster, full stop.

And if you eat something for the healing bonus then the healing factor had no effect on your hunger at all basically.

You're right. I don't think anyone is saying that though... HF heals you and drains fullness as it heals, thereby making you hungry faster, for no real net benefit. If you're not damaged, you lose fullness at the normal rate. If you ARE damaged your fullness-to-health ratio is the same, causing you to be hungry faster.

So consider this example: If I'm at mid game and have taken 80 damage, I could wait for that increased healing rate to restore me to full health and then eat a sham chowder to restore that fullness. OR I could just eat the sham chowder right from the start, and regain the SAME amount of health much faster. Nothing is gained by healing factor, other than maybe the convenience of topping off the health bar (or recovering from critical injuries faster.)

That was a mid-tier food, granted it was one of the better foods for restoring health but the same principal applies. Even bacon and eggs, if I eat it after I get damaged then I heal that damage quickly. And realistically if I take enough damage that 15-30 healing is required, I'm not going to wait for healing factor, I'd use a bandage or painkiller so I'm not hanging out at less than full health.

So for me, t's skill points spent for what basically amounts to faster healing from criticals, which can be largely cured by other means and I try to avoid those anyway. But if others like it for that, or the convenience of being topped off without needing to eat, or the placebo effect - By all means go with it!

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

So consider this example: If I'm at mid game and have taken 80 damage, I could wait for that increased healing rate to restore me to full health and then eat a sham chowder to restore that fullness. OR I could just eat the sham chowder right from the start, and regain the SAME amount of health much faster. Nothing is gained by healing factor, other than maybe the convenience of topping off the health bar (or recovering from critical injuries faster.)

It's not a mutually exclusive situation. (That's called a false dichotomy the caps OR in the quote above).

You can eat a high value piece of food when you have healing factor and took a sudden 80 damage too, and benefit from the food healing just as you mention, which I do. But in the general case, healing factor is keeping me topped up from chip damage the vast majority of the time without having to carry or use bandages.

[OH! MY CAR]

You are allowed to like and use healing factor.

Natural healing is pretty costly though, so for a lot of people, speeding it up is a negative.

I do not like swapping 1 food for 1 health, so I prefer to keep the rate as low as possible.

Without the extra healing, I can just heal with bandages whenever I want, while keeping the food wasted with natural healing to a minimum.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Originally posted by RasaNova:

So consider this example: If I'm at mid game and have taken 80 damage, I could wait for that increased healing rate to restore me to full health and then eat a sham chowder to restore that fullness. OR I could just eat the sham chowder right from the start, and regain the SAME amount of health much faster. Nothing is gained by healing factor, other than maybe the convenience of topping off the health bar (or recovering from critical injuries faster.)

It's not a mutually exclusive situation. (That's called a false dichotomy the caps OR in the quote above).

You can eat a high value piece of food when you have healing factor and took a sudden 80 damage too, and benefit from the food healing just as you mention, which I do. But in the general case, healing factor is keeping me topped up from chip damage the vast majority of the time without having to carry or use bandages.

Yep, as I mentioned. The "topping off" effect is there. But still not worth spending the points for me, besides we can top off with food just as well which has the added benefit of topping off our fullness, which you'd be doing anyway as HF makes you hungry faster. Same amount of food for the same amount of healing either way, and the health restoration of food is quicker than HF.

But I used a high healing food earlier just as an example. If I'm half damaged or in a tight spot I'm not going to rely on HF or food to get me back up, I'll use a bandage or painkiller. I'm not good enough to go without emergency healing. Unless I'm chilling at the base, in which case it doesn't matter that much either way.

And yes, I know that HF will work WITH the food health for even faster regeneration, they're not mutually exclusive. I still personally find the skill mostly useless and not worth spending points on unless I have them to spare in the late game.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by OH! MY CAR:

Without the extra healing, I can just heal with bandages whenever I want, while keeping the food wasted with natural healing to a minimum.

After I have a farm, food is functionally an unlimited resource. I'm not sure I understand this.

Food becomes basically bandages that happen automatically in the background, with a greater carry capacity without taking up inventory. I.E. objectively superior to bandages.

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

I was just letting you know your example you asked us to consider did not demonstrate anything. In other words, you can eat a piece of food after taking a sudden damage spike, whether or not you have healing factor.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Originally posted by OH! MY CAR:

Without the extra healing, I can just heal with bandages whenever I want, while keeping the food wasted with natural healing to a minimum.

After I have a farm, food is functionally an unlimited resource. I'm not sure I understand this.

Food becomes basically bandages that happen automatically in the background, with a greater carry capacity without taking up inventory. I.E. objectively superior to bandages.

Sure, I'll buy that. So food is already an unlimited bandage, and better food is a better/faster bandage. And for healing large amounts of health, I'll have a stack of actual first aid or painkillers. That's a given, for me. If you can play without having that healing in your inventory, more power to you but if I get badly hurt or crippled I am not going to wait for natural healing or healing from food. So I simply don't need faster idle healing.

[RasaNova]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Originally posted by RasaNova:

I was just letting you know your example you asked us to consider did not demonstrate anything. In other words, you can eat a piece of food after taking a sudden damage spike, whether or not you have healing factor.

Yes but what is healing factor doing for me when the +80 health from sham chowder will restore my health faster anyway? I mean, yes the effects are combined but as I said it's just not worth it to me for what would amount to just topping off health anyway (since in reality I heal heavy damage with meds.)

[JimmyIowa]

Originally posted by RasaNova:

Yes but what is healing factor doing for me when the +80 health from sham chowder will restore my health faster anyway?

Speeding up natural healing 99% of the time when you aren't down 80 health. The corner case example of massive damage spike (where you can eat a piece of food either way) does not change that.

Originally posted by RasaNova:

I mean, yes the effects are combined but as I said it's just not worth it to me for what would amount to just topping off health anyway (since in reality I heal heavy damage with meds.)

I understand it's not worth it to you. (You have said that as part of every post.) I assure you, I am not trying to convince you it is worth it to you. I don't really care. I am just letting you know that there are very tangible benefits to vastly vastly faster natural wound and crit healing in exchange for 5 skill points, that make it worth it to other people.

[JimmyIowa]

I'll offer this an a possible explanation for perceived differences. Perhaps the difference here is in combat and playstyle. If you tend to mainly take damage in massive spikes that respond well to eating high-value food, or using 5 bandages in a row, then HF may seem unneeded. Example - a stealth player who goes 10 minutes without getting hit a single time, but then screws up once, gets cornered and badly pummeled. I can easily see that viewpoint. And do not disagree with that in any way.

If you tend to mainly play a fast fight-n-kite game with melee (which is me) and take more frequent but small chip damage of a few points (one hit) every 30 seconds or so, then HF prevents you from ever getting that low in the first place. Which is also worth it, when I'd prefer to keep my eye on the current animation frame of the zed in front of me so I know when to step back.

Both ways are good. None are objectively useless. You just have to be aware of how you (and perhaps others) play.

[OH! MY CAR]

Originally posted by JimmyIowa:

Originally posted by OH! MY CAR:

Without the extra healing, I can just heal with bandages whenever I want, while keeping the food wasted with natural healing to a minimum.

After I have a farm, food is functionally an unlimited resource. I'm not sure I understand this.

Food becomes basically bandages that happen automatically in the background, with a greater carry capacity without taking up inventory. I.E. objectively superior to bandages.

Well, I would rather just farm more materials for bandages and not use the heal over time effect.

I have been playing insane, nightmare run speed, 64 zombies, horde every night and perma death.

What I do is just spam a farm with lots of corn and eat it raw to save time. I go by every few days and am set until next time, depending on the size.

Other than that I make sure I have enough coffee and bandages to last the horde nights.

I like to fight the horde a lot on foot, so I allow myself to blow like 4 or 5 bandages playing, so that if I decide to record or stream later, it will be more interesting.

Playing like that I might not have full health all horde night, which means I am losing like 20 food per minute extra than normal, which just does not work for me.