Amphibious

[SaD-82]

Because of the daily challenges it's the first time ever that I have a char with the physical defect "amphibious" (I play COQ since it was a free game back in the old days.) and I'm kind of questioning myself whether it's broken or I'm too stupid to understand the description correctly.
The description says: 67% more usage of water. 67 fricking percent. Not 66, not 68, and most importantly: Not a gazillion times more than fricking 67 %.
So: How can this be that if I'm running a normal char, I can move in world view four tiles until my status "Quenched" changes to "Parched" and I just need two drams of water to get back to "Quenched", but if I'm running an amphibious char I can (mostly) move two tiles until my status "Soaked" changes to "Desiccated" and I need 21 (!!!!!) drams of water to get to "Wet". "Wet", not even "Soaked".
How on earth is the difference between 2 drams and bloody 21 drams 67 (or less) % more water usage? Not a single calculator or abacus can confirm this magical mathematical equation.

Therefore: Is "amphibious" broken or is the description simply wrong?

[Pixel Peeper]

It's probably 66.6 repeating %. Or basically, 2/3 more water usage.

I use Amphibious regularly and I can say without a doubt that you absolutely do not need to consume 21 drams of water per two overworld tiles, that'd be beyond absurd. I can travel the entire map horizontally on far less water than that.

Also, from the sound of it, it looks like you've turned off autodrink for some reason. I'd suggest turning it back on. There's no reason to ever have it off.

Not sure why you're seeing what you're seeing but it's definitely not normal.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

It's probably 66.6 repeating %. Or basically, 2/3 more water usage.

2/3 more water usage would be 3-4 drams in total per drinking/pouring session. But, as I mentioned, I need 21 drams. Every single char with the defect "amphibious" that I tested - everytime he needs 21 drams to get from "Desiccated" to "Wet". Every single one.

If you say that this doesn't occur to your chars then this probably means that - in my case - it's a bug. Well, then it's time to uninstall, reinstall, uninstall, reinstall ad infinitum till the problem will be solved.

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Also, from the sound of it, it looks like you've turned off autodrink for some reason. I'd suggest turning it back on. There's no reason to ever have it off.

There are many reasons for turning it off. Having fun is one of them. Micro the dram usage is another. Not feeling like been played but rather playing myself is a third. Etc.
If I would feel that I don't want to drink the water myself than I would begin to question the decision by the devs to implement drinking at all. All mechanics which are automated are mechanics that are redundant.
And in my opinion the water-usage isn't redundant at all, therefore there is no need to automate this. Instead, I play the game in its whole.

[SomethingAboutUs]

I've tried it a couple times, and my impression was that amphibious is broken but the other way. I never notice it in any way, it's a complete gameplay non-factor. I would rebalance it to be a 1-point negative mutation, or to give a faction bonus and turn it into a point-neutral "perk" mutation instead of positive/negative.

I use auto-drinking & would find it obnoxious if I had to manually drink. As SaD-82 points out, this makes it a redundant game mechanism, but I'm okay with that because it's ad delightful fit for the atmosphere of the game.

Here's a few ways of making drinking more interesting as a game mechanic instead of making it a chore:
* What we drinking? Middle eastern history has many examples of lightly-alcoholic fluids like small beers (invented in ancient Iraq I'm told,) partially fermented wines and nectar teas, etc. Fresh water steeped with the various plants you can find could give you constant micro-doses of beneficial effects. And that's before we get into outright brewing and distilling, which, as a long time Dwarf Fortress player, I miss ;)
* I often run into people who have no water at all. What are they doing? Do they need water? Can I get some kind of pretext for sharing water with a person who's not important? Obviously not my call to make since it's so core to the lore of the game, but I love the ritual of sharing a dram of water with somebody, and I'd be even happier to share more water with more people, and especially people in need vs only leaders and legends. The question of "how much extra water should I bring for people I meet who got lost or were under-prepared" seems like it would be fun, as does the question "can I share my water with this person and still make it to safety? where's the nearest caravan?"
* What time is it? Taking liquids at certain hours often has religious and cultural significance. In addition to drinking when I'm thirsty, can I schedule sips? Can I drink something in memory of a person I saw slain, or in reverence for an enemy I killed, or in the name of my ancestral home?
* Can I offer water to a hostile folk in return for a temporary pass through their turf? It's easy to build trust and camaraderie one dram of water at at time with a folk whose members are neutral; can a larger sum of water be the start of a more peaceful relationship with folk who start out generally hostile, even if it means many seasons of paying tribute before I'm able to climb out of the well of their ire?

Thanks for bringing this topic up, SaD-82 and Tripoteur Ventripotent!

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by SaD-82:

2/3 more water usage would be 3-4 drams in total per drinking/pouring session. But, as I mentioned, I need 21 drams. Every single char with the defect "amphibious" that I tested - everytime he needs 21 drams to get from "Desiccated" to "Wet". Every single one.

If you say that this doesn't occur to your chars

To be fair, I wouldn't know because I never tried going back up from desiccated. I was never desiccated, ever. My characters just pour water over themselves when they start getting dry.

All I know is my water consumption as an Amphibian is noticeably higher what it normally is (not quite double, which fits with the 166.7% premise) but nowhere near 21 drams per two tiles. I would have died several thousands of times over if that were the case. I've often traveled dozens of tiles with only 40 drams to start with and never had less than 20 when I arrived at a town.

IMO water consumption is essentially a soft hunger meter. It makes it so, if you keep resting or wasting time, you're paying a cost, in this case money. This happens whether autodrink is on or not so it's still a thing even when not micromanaged. Manually going into the menu to drink is just an additional hassle that very few people would want to bother with. Like SomethingAboutUs said, it would be quite obnoxious.

But that's a potential cause. It's possible that this water overconsumption bug occurs only if you let yourself get desiccated, which wouldn't really happen to anyone because everyone's got autodrink on and would explain why it's gone unnoticed before.

Try turning autodrink back on and see what your water consumption is like. Then turn it back off and see if it's still as absurd as you describe. If it is, then you can safely report the bug and provide the dev with a really big hint as to the cause.

[Water Ｖａｐｏｒ Merchant]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

Originally posted by SaD-82:

2/3 more water usage would be 3-4 drams in total per drinking/pouring session. But, as I mentioned, I need 21 drams. Every single char with the defect "amphibious" that I tested - everytime he needs 21 drams to get from "Desiccated" to "Wet". Every single one.

If you say that this doesn't occur to your chars

To be fair, I wouldn't know because I never tried going back up from desiccated. I was never desiccated, ever. My characters just pour water over themselves when they start getting dry.

All I know is my water consumption as an Amphibian is noticeably higher what it normally is (not quite double, which fits with the 166.7% premise) but nowhere near 21 drams per two tiles. I would have died several thousands of times over if that were the case. I've often traveled dozens of tiles with only 40 drams to start with and never had less than 20 when I arrived at a town.

IMO water consumption is essentially a soft hunger meter. It makes it so, if you keep resting or wasting time, you're paying a cost, in this case money. This happens whether autodrink is on or not so it's still a thing even when not micromanaged. Manually going into the menu to drink is just an additional hassle that very few people would want to bother with. Like SomethingAboutUs said, it would be quite obnoxious.

But that's a potential cause. It's possible that this water overconsumption bug occurs only if you let yourself get desiccated, which wouldn't really happen to anyone because everyone's got autodrink on and would explain why it's gone unnoticed before.

Try turning autodrink back on and see what your water consumption is like. Then turn it back off and see if it's still as absurd as you describe. If it is, then you can safely report the bug and provide the dev with a really big hint as to the cause.

I would not be at all surprised if this is actually intentional. Water loss with Amphibious may be exponential instead of linear with normal characters, which sort of makes sense. Maintaining your water regularly means you don't need as much as often. Neglect it though and you suddenly need much more water to recoup what you've lost.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

But that's a potential cause. It's possible that this water overconsumption bug occurs only if you let yourself get desiccated, which wouldn't really happen to anyone because everyone's got autodrink on and would explain why it's gone unnoticed before.

Originally posted by Dr Vapor:

I would not be at all surprised if this is actually intentional. Water loss with Amphibious may be exponential instead of linear with normal characters, which sort of makes sense. Maintaining your water regularly means you don't need as much as often. Neglect it though and you suddenly need much more water to recoup what you've lost.

Nope.
The stages are soaked, wet, moist, dry, desiccated. Going each stage up requires 9-10 drams of water. Test it for yourself - it's simpler and faster than writing here. I've asked around and the people I know tested it, too. And they confirmed the fact that the amount of water is that high. 9-10 drams of water to go up one stage of hydration.
This translates that the description in "amphibious" is wrong. The higher amount of water usage isn't 67% - the only thing that matches this 67% in a way, is the faster rate at which water is needed: 4 tiles gainst 1-2 tiles. On top of that comes the actual amount of water usage, which is roughly 1000% higher than the normal one.
Therefore the proper description for "amphibious" has to be: 1067% more water usage. Which explains why this perk gives 3 Mutant points.

As I said: Test it for yourself. It's simpler and faster than explaining to me that it wouldn't be the case.



Addendum:
If the auto use of drinking doesn't use this amount of water then I would say there is a bug. In auto use.
Remember: Amphibious gives 3 Mutant points (in former times you even got 4 points). For what? 67% more usage? What are 67% more usage? Either becoming dehydrated at 1-2 tiles world map against 4 tiles world map with normal chars or becoming dehydrated at 4 tiles world map and using 3-4 drams water (instead of 2 as normal chars need) to get back to quenched/soaked. This would be 67%.
Would this higher amount of usage, this very little higher amount of usage justify 3 (or 4) points to spend? In fact: This was the reason why I never ever used "amphibious" because it seemed to me like cheating. A cheesy way of getting free points - if it would have been actually only 67%. Guess what - they never were. I've tested older versions (including the one with which I started nearly 8 years ago) - all of them had this high amount of usage.

If auto use doesn't include this amount then auto use is broken.
This means:
Either reducing the high amount of usage in manual usage, too, and reducing the Mutant points to 1 or changing the auto use to the proper amount of usage to justify the 3 points across the board.

To be fair: The challenge of balancing the water in the beginning of the amphibious char was the most fun I had in a long time with COQ. It was finally a challenging experience again - and the 3 mutant points are justified. By 1067%, not merely 67%.

[SomethingAboutUs]

I did a quick little test just now which suggests that the additional water usage of an amphibious character is noticeable, but barely. Here's the method I used:

I created a water merchant mutant character with all lowest stats (10s) and no mutations. I zoomed to the overland map and walked one parsang to the west then one back east to Joppa, 20 times. In the case where I got lost (one time) I just walked directly west back to Joppa. So in total, 40 parsangs of movement. This consumed 21 drams of fresh water. For both this trial and the next, I used auto-drink.

I next created another character, again all a water merchant with lowest stats, except this time I chose the amphibious defect (but no other mutations.) After the same 40 total parsangs of movement (again I got lost once and walked directly west to Joppa,) I had consumed 27 drams of fresh water.

This suggests that, absent other factors, amphibious characters consume about 30% more water when traveling overland in the swamps than non-amphibious ones. It also comports with my experience playing two long-lived amphibious characters, in which my impression was that being amphibious has practically no game impact.

I would be interested to see the exact methodology you used that suggests the 1067% number and reproduce that myself. Similarly, if you follow my methodology and get dramatically different results I would find that interesting as well.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by SomethingAboutUs:

I would be interested to see the exact methodology you used that suggests the 1067% number and reproduce that myself.

By not using auto drink.
Pick a char with amphibious (stats are irrelevant - I've tried different combos), go into world map and wander off (or hit "5" on your keypad in zoomed in map) till it says "desiccated". And feed your char the water.
The premise to get 1067%:
Normal char moves 4 tiles until he gets dehydrated, amphibious char moves 1-2 tiles until he gets dehydrated (roughly 67% more water usage by demanding water faster).
Normal chars needs 2-3 drams of water until he is quenched, amphibious char needs 30-31 drams of water until he is soaked (roughly 1000% more water usage by actually using water).
1000+67. ;)

(This also works by going from wet to soaked - this I mention to prevent arguments concerning higher amount of usage while being more dehydrated. Which isn't the case.)

Fun fact: This works in all versions of COQ.

[Pixel Peeper]

Not going to bother testing this, but it's still pretty funny.

My current character is an Amphibian. Level 27, traveled all over the world. I just tried moving from Grit Gate to the Stilt. Moved 17 tiles. Poured a grand total of 5 drams of water over myself. Would have been 10 without Fasting Way.

It's hilarious that this bug existed for so long without anyone noticing. Just shows that everyone has autodrink on.

[Aquillion]

Originally posted by SaD-82:

Addendum:
If the auto use of drinking doesn't use this amount of water then I would say there is a bug. In auto use.
Remember: Amphibious gives 3 Mutant points (in former times you even got 4 points). For what? 67% more usage? What are 67% more usage? Either becoming dehydrated at 1-2 tiles world map against 4 tiles world map with normal chars or becoming dehydrated at 4 tiles world map and using 3-4 drams water (instead of 2 as normal chars need) to get back to quenched/soaked. This would be 67%.
Would this higher amount of usage, this very little higher amount of usage justify 3 (or 4) points to spend? In fact: This was the reason why I never ever used "amphibious" because it seemed to me like cheating. A cheesy way of getting free points - if it would have been actually only 67%. Guess what - they never were. I've tested older versions (including the one with which I started nearly 8 years ago) - all of them had this high amount of usage.

If auto use doesn't include this amount then auto use is broken.
This means:
Either reducing the high amount of usage in manual usage, too, and reducing the Mutant points to 1 or changing the auto use to the proper amount of usage to justify the 3 points across the board.

To be fair: The challenge of balancing the water in the beginning of the amphibious char was the most fun I had in a long time with COQ. It was finally a challenging experience again - and the 3 mutant points are justified. By 1067%, not merely 67%.

You can't possibly be serious.

You know what the description says. That's how the defect is supposed to work. There's no unambiguity about that - do you think they just slipped and accidentally typed 67% in the description, then accidentally introduced a bug that coincidentally made auto-drinking consume 67% more?

If you think it's overpowered or whatever, you can try and make your case, but it's pretty unambiguous that 67% was always how it was meant to work and that nobody ever discovered the bug with auto-drinking because almost nobody turns it off.

...I mean, not only is it silly, it's pointlessly silly, because if you want it nerfed you'll have to convince the developers, and they know (just like I know and you know) that the intended number was 67% and not 1067%. So there's absolutely no point in pretending you think 1067% was the originally-intended number.

Originally posted by SomethingAboutUs:

I would be interested to see the exact methodology you used that suggests the 1067% number and reproduce that myself. Similarly, if you follow my methodology and get dramatically different results I would find that interesting as well.

I don't think they have any methodology. They want Amphibious to be nerfed, and the only way they can think of to argue that is to claim that the normal behavior (when auto-drinking is on) is the bug.

But that's obviously implausible nonsense, since the description clearly says it increases your thirst rate by just 67% - so they hit on the idea of randomly speculating that the thirst when you have auto-drinking off is 1067%, which is the only remotely plausible way they could argue with a straight face that the higher thirst level is intended.

I mean it's still absurd, but that seems to be what they're getting at.

Also I'm saying this with indifference to whether or not it's actually balanced at 67%, though I've never heard of anyone complaining about it or even discussing it before, so I'm inclined to think it's not a big deal - I can't recall ever using it myself. But the argument they're making is just so absurd that I can't resist objecting. There is absolutely no plausible chain of logic that can seriously argue that the thirst rate when not auto-drinking is the intended one.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by Aquillion:

You can't possibly be serious.

You know what the description says. That's how the defect is supposed to work.

Then you didn't get the point:
It doesn't work.
Neither by manual drinking nor by auto drinking.
In manual drinking it's 1067%, in auto drinking it's (regarding the comments of users who use auto drink) from around 30% to not noticeable. No matter what, it doesn't work as it is described to do and the amount of water used by auto drinking doesn't justify 3 points gained..
So what's your problem with either reducing the mutation points to 1 and reducing the amount of water needed by manual drinking to the point that it fits the amount of water used by auto drinking or with the change to boost the amount of water used by auto drinking to the 1067% you consume when manual drinking?
Afraid that "amphibious" could be a challenging defect (as other defects that grant more Mutation points by choosing them) or that you can't cheese the system anymore by choosing a defect which doesn't do anything noticeable and gaining 3 free points? These things I consider silly and absurd.

Originally posted by Aquillion:

I mean it's still absurd, but that seems to be what they're getting at.

And, by the way: Who are "they"? Paranoid? Last time, I checked, I was one person, not many.

[Alugere]

Originally posted by SaD-82:

Originally posted by Aquillion:

I mean it's still absurd, but that seems to be what they're getting at.

And, by the way: Who are "they"? Paranoid? Last time, I checked, I was one person, not many.

While technically archaic, 'they' can function as a third person singular pronoun in English (primarily for when you don't know the individuals gender, such as the case when chating online, speculating on an unknown criminal perpatrator, etc.). It's started to move back into use over the past couple of decades.

If you want examples, I believe the use of 'they' as a singular pronoun pops up a bunch in shakespeare's works.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by Alugere:

If you want examples, I believe the use of 'they' as a singular pronoun pops up a bunch in shakespeare's works.

In these cases it's called Pluralis Majestatis.
This would be too much honour, but thanks.
(And no, I don't think your explanation is fitting as it would have been the first time that someone in a chat or forum would have used "they" to describe another person. More fitting is that he (as in "he") has a clear enemy image - all who dare to not share his opinion are "they", the big grey mass that needs to be adressed by using the words "silly" and "absurd" to describe their totally and utterly flawed sentiments. This sounds more appropriate in regards to the internet and mirrors his banter in quite the fashion.)

Doesn't help me to stay soaked in the dry winds of the salt marshes, though.

[Pixel Peeper]

Originally posted by SaD-82:

And no, I don't think your explanation is fitting as it would have been the first time that someone in a chat or forum would have used "they" to describe another person.

Indeed, I've seen it used well over a thousand times in a variety of media over the last few years alone.

I dislike it because "they" is already in usage as a plural form, so I like to type "he/she" instead, but nowadays people like to include what they call "non-binary gender" people and apparently neither of those pronouns are applicable there.

Strange times.

[SaD-82]

Originally posted by Tripoteur Ventripotent:

I dislike it because "they" is already in usage as a plural form

Which leads to misunderstanding and isn't a respectful approach, as one person is just one person. If someone would be uncertain about the gender of another person than he (or she) could ask him/her if he/she sees him-/herself as man or woman. Problem solved.

Or becoming a chromeling and being devoid of genders at all. Praise be to Barathrum!