Suggestion for improving Barony's "Disable Hunger" mode.

[pugtato1212]

TL;DR: Players should regain a percentage of their max HP and MP whenever they go down a floor, and they shouldn’t regain HP or MP naturally to avoid players waiting around for ages to regen their stats.

Hi. I want to preface this by saying that I’m autistic, and I might come across as rude, but I’m not trying to be! I adore this game, but I believe that the current implementation of the “Disable Hunger” game flag (which I’ll just call “No Hunger Mode” from here on) is a massive problem, to the point that it basically ruins the entire game for me.

The game seems to be pretty well balanced in the regular mode (Hunger On). Players can choose to wait to restore HP/MP if they have spare food, and anytime they choose to wait, they could be shooting themselves in the foot later on. No Hunger Mode, however, is not balanced at all. The dominant strategy is to wait around and restore your mana, which allows you to cast heal if you have it, but even if you don’t, it allows you to use super powerful spells with no drawbacks (other than wasting tons of real-life time).

From what I can tell, it’s meant to be boring and tedious to restore your stats as a way to stop players from actually doing it. While this might sound good on paper, it never works out in practice. There’s a famous quote by game designer Soren Johnson talking about this: “Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game.” Players WILL do something boring or unfun to win, and it’s really hard not to. You have to constantly ignore the obvious best solution at all times, and that doesn’t feel fun. It feels like you’re handicapping yourself, and when you lose, you don’t learn from your mistakes—you blame it on the fact that you didn’t wait for an extra 20 minutes.

Now, if this was a side game mode, maybe it could be okay (it would still kind of suck, though). As it is, it doesn’t disable achievements, and it changes some mechanics to make the game seem harder (disabling HP regen), so it very much seems like an equally difficult alternative to new players. But the real problem is with the Skeleton race.

Even if you are playing as “normally” as possible, with all the default settings, the dominant strategy as Skeleton is to sit around and wait to recover not just your MP but your HP as well. Combine this with the fact that your stats recover four times slower, and you have an absolutely awful experience. I assume this was done to make players not want to do it, but as was said earlier, players will either still do it, feel like they should have done it to have better odds of succeeding, or just quit the game.

I’ve seen other people talk about adding a “rest” mechanic, similar to the NPCs in the game. While it would fix the problem of players being bored, it doesn’t fix the other problem with No Hunger Mode: the fact that spellcasters become OP. Spellcasters seem to be balanced around the fact that your MP is a limited resource. With hunger on, you can only live in the dungeon for so long, and therefore, you can only recover so much MP. You can only cast so many spells as a spellcaster. This, combined with the fact that it takes time to recover your MP, leads you to save your MP for when you really need it. Compare this to No Hunger Mode, where you always have max MP if you take your time, turning the entire game into a joke.

I’ve seen a developer of this game in other posts talking about No Hunger Mode (I don’t know if the dev/devs are a group or a single person) saying that the intent is for players to play quickly and take risks, as if they were playing with hunger on. That doesn’t make that much sense in my mind, as the whole point of removing hunger is giving the players time to think, letting them manage their inventories without stress, and letting them explore the map. Even if we disregard that, which is a pretty massive thing to ignore, at what point are you waiting for too long and breaking the balance? In the regular game, you’re never doing anything “wrong,” as you’re either saving time and thus food, or exploring and regaining MP and HP. But with hunger off, you just have to arbitrarily decide to go deeper even if you need more health or mana. If I’m at the end of a multi-hour run, I want to have a fair chance against the boss—I don’t want to just run in with nothing, knowing that I’ll die.

Another problem is that unlike traditional difficulty settings or self-imposed challenges, it’s not easy to see if you’re “cheesing” the game. If I genuinely just play really slowly, I get a massive advantage over someone who rushes through the game, and I wouldn’t think I’m stalling or anything. It’s not as simple as “don’t wait around after you’ve cleared a level,” as playing quicker or slower will drastically change the amount of MP you regain over the course of a run. Playing with hunger off rewards players who play slowly, and learning to play faster is actively discouraged, as you get less mana and health. This makes the jump between No Hunger Mode and the regular game even bigger to those who actually want to try it, as they’re trained to take their time.

My solution for all of this tries to fix the current problems with the system while adding to the overall gameplay loop of resource management. Normally, you have to manage inventory space, weight, hunger, durability, HP, MP, NPCs… Without time/hunger, the new solution should force you to manage something else to compensate. What I propose is that players do not recover their HP or MP at all in No Hunger Mode OR when playing as a skeleton, and instead, they recover a percentage of their max HP and MP whenever they go down a floor.

HP is already pretty scarce, but MP not recovering at all would make it far more valuable and similar to the regular game. This would also probably weaken magic a lot, especially in the early game, which would make No Hunger Mode feel like a real alternative for those who want to take their time and not just an easy mode.

This new system would allow players to take as much time as they want without making them feel like they’re cheesing the game, and it would also stop players from just sitting around, as there would be nothing to gain. This could change the gameplay quite a bit, and I’m still relatively new to the game (I have about 30 hours by now), but I definitely think it’s better than the current system. If you’re worried about players not liking it, you could maybe make it a third option, keeping the old No Hunger Mode and skeleton, while adding a new No Hunger Mode with the change.

I like to play this game as a strategy and resource management game with action elements sprinkled in, and I think that this solution both fixes the current problems with disabling hunger while allowing for this type of gameplay. But if this isn’t the approach you want to take, that’s fine! I do hope that the system is changed in some way, though. The game just doesn’t feel balanced at all when playing without hunger or even when playing as Skeleton, so I’d love to see some changes, no matter what they are!

Also… I haven’t mentioned it anywhere in here, but the minotaur is fun! The fact that it isn’t ALWAYS there can make things intense without forcing the player to be stressed out 24/7. I really like it! I adore Barony, and I’m really excited to try playing it with my friends. No matter what happens, the game is super fun, and the dev(s) should be really proud of what they’ve done!

(Edited to make it easier to read)

[mistersneak]

For what it's worth I agree with your assessment of why playing with hunger off sucks. I have more to say, but I'll keep it to myself for now. Given that we're such a small team and are working on massive new feature and content updates, a rework of No Hunger Mode isn't something that will likely come soon (or possibly ever). But it doesn't meet my personal standards if we're being honest.

I know for some players, they only play with hunger off, and it's likely a lot of them would see something like what you proposed as a serious nerf, regardless of how I would feel about it. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts!

[pugtato1212]

Thanks for the reply! I get that the game would be both harder and different with my solution, and that tons of players wouldn't like it. Working on new content is a much better idea, as all players will get to enjoy it (rather than only players who play skeleton/no hunger), it's probably better for marketing, and it can feel more rewarding as a developer to create new content, rather than changing old content. Regardless of how I feel about hunger, I still really enjoy the game, and I'll continue playing it and following along! Do whatever you think is best, this is your game, not mine! I'm excited to see the new content!

[Perry]

Wow, that's a lot of thoughts. Well written, too.

I'd just like to add my one pence here: I enjoy playing without hunger because I'm either playing with friends and I don't want to have to fight over the scarce food, or because I'm playing alone and I want to not have the timer. I'm simply not good enough to play at the speed necessary with Hunger on. Also, I'm the kind of player that will absolutely scour every floor for all the loot before moving on. There's just so much cool stuff to find!

If I could adjust the hunger tick to be a bit slower... Maybe I'd do that.

What I should really try is starting off with a Ring of Slow digestion as see if that makes a difference for me. Hmm! Next run.

As for the OP's suggested "No Regen (health or mana) Mode"... I'd honestly love to give that a go as well! That still doesn't give me a timer to fight against, so I can still take my time clearing each level. So long as eating food in this mode still gives me that teeny tiny bit of health/mana back that it does in the current "Hunger off" mode.

As someone who is not able to sit down for the 5-6 hrs it takes me to complete a run all at once, I appreciate the ability to turn off all 'timers' such as Hunger and Minotaurs.

It should go without saying, but I'll say it anyway: Thanks, Devs, for making an awesome game, and keeping it accessible to filthy casuals like myself! :P

[jaidev]

Great points by all here. I'd just like to suggest, at minimum, a simple tweak along the lines of that Perry said: just be able to adjust the hunger tick to be slower.

If we could please just be allowed that option, maybe be able to choose a value along a scale, it'll at least allow us more customization to tailor or experience especially when we take into account co-op and the increased scarcity that implies.

That quick and simple tweak alone should help reduce our headaches, and then you could potentially look into revising how hunger/food works in general, as per OP's very nuanced breakdown on how it affects gameplay across different classes/races.

[MightyLad]

i cant say i didnt glaze over this wall of text, but i cant say ive ever seen one of the devs respond to a discussion directly either. i may not play with hunger off, but kudos anyway.