Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Food should spoil otherwise why have so much?

You know we can get to almost any overground location without almost any combat?
The player can easily choose any location and then withdraw from it immediately. Taking into account the openness of the map, rotting food in certain areas does not make sense.

Only when you metagame.

Actually, it is quite easy to find places where you would not like to be, e.g. swamps or the northern part of the map.
There is nothing really guarding these transitions and you can find a lot of things there that might be too difficult for 2lvl.

I cant help the feeling you missunderstand me ...
I believe it should be possible (dunno how hard or easy tho) for Larian to cut the map into segments ... and ONCE player enter the segment, food there starts rotting (after predephined amount of long rest ffs) ...

This way ...
You start on beach ... and you decide to Long Rest for whatever reason ... any food you find on the beach afterwards will be spoiled.
But food on Waukeen's Rest will still be fresh, when you reach there ... unless you decide to Long Rest before you explore kitchen of that inn.

No, thank you! I don't want to be worrying about food rotting because I happened to cross an area boundary. It sounds painfully like Kingdoms of Amalur setting zone level the first time you entered it--to train a skill or whatever. Exploration is one of my favorite activities in games and I'd hate to see Larian put up artificial boundaries to it.

I'm guessing this whole food argument has something to do with being able to spam long rest. If this is the case I think they should make it so there are only specific places you can long rest safely like an inn or an area obviously guarded. But if the player takes a long rest in a place like a forest or cave were there is bound to be danger; there should be random encounters, and you should have to pay a food price. "unlimited food" isn't the issue. The issue is long rest itself isn't balance. The fact I can long rest in a cave with giant hostile spiders without consequences is a problem. Also food shouldn't have healing properties in battle or otherwise.

Im affraid i dont follow ... what is there to wory about? O_o

You are looking at Long Rest as if the party rests right there in the cave of spiders. The concept is that the party leaves, finds their camp, and then long rests in a nice, safe location. Thus, random encounters would not apply. Larian is simply cutting out all the travel with a sort of "fade to black" effect.

So many think the rest issue is easily solved, but I've learned that it is far more complicated than it seems. Hence, I have been trying to develop a system that might work, hoping Larian will take some ideas from it.

Food spoiling could be a good, realistic mechanic, but I'm now leaning towards the idea that food should give some sort of bonus as opposed to being a requirement for resting.

Why would the party back track out of the cave just to rest, only to go right back into the cave to finish their adventure? In retrospect, especially If we are speaking about a large cave or tomb of some sort, that would be a waste of time.

It is easily solved. Make long rest have consequences in dangerous locations. So the player won't just spam it before every encounter.

I personally don't care about the spoiled food idea. Though if they do implement it, they better do it in a way that doesn't make dealing with spoiling food a chore

"Why would the party back track out of the cave just to rest, only to go right back into the cave to finish their adventure? In retrospect, especially If we are speaking about a large cave or tomb of some sort, that would be a waste of time."

Hey. I don't disagree, but that's Larian's approach. The idea is, travel back to a safe, nebulous camp that doesn't actually exist on the map. Then rest 24 hours and travel back to where you left off. The fade to black just cuts out all the in between boring steps.

"It is easily solved. Make long rest have consequences in dangerous locations. So the player won't just spam it before every encounter."

Not as easy. All this does is force the player who wants to rest between every encounter to be annoyed. Instead of a quick press of a button to take you out of danger to a safe location, you have to manually run out of said location back to a safe place. Larian's implementation at least cuts the annoying out of the process. Regardless, this doesn't actually limit a person. It just discourages via making it annoying. Don't get me wrong. This, at least, is something. Making it too easy to long rest simply makes it more appealing. Thus, it is easy to spam, so why not?

"I personally don't care about the spoiled food idea. Though if they do implement it, they better do it in a way that doesn't make dealing with spoiling food a chore."

Agreed. I would ONLY want food spoiling to be implemented if the game auto-manages it. That's why I suggested an auto Survival skill check when you long rest to determine how much food is preserved, and whatever food spoils is simply auto-tossed. The game then just tells you, "25 Camping Supplies spoiled" when the new day begins.

At this point, I also think food limiting rest is not good. We've tried making it work, and it just doesn't. Either you limit it too much and could soft lock players, or you don't limit it enough and it limits nothing. I'd prefer the "Using Camping Supplies provides a bonus for the next day to your adventure" approach.

Saying that it's "Larian's approach" doesn't seem right to me, especially since patch 5 and mini camps. Why bother with mini camps if they're approach is "characters have just walked to a safe area" ? Why wasn't it ok before patch 5 ?
Saying that "players that wants to rest before every encounters would be annoyed" is like saying "some players don't want any rules so let's not create any rules".

Instead of reinventing the wheel, look at a system that actually worked (not perfectly, but at least worked) as it did with Deadfire. With minor modifications, it has the potential to work really well.

Many people appear to be put off by what would amount to a survival mechanic, but I feel like the more you have to consider when adventuring, the more immersive the experience is. So I'd be more than happy to have to deal with scarcity, or at least have to manage needs with magic and foraging.

Nah they have magical preservatives which prevent them from spoiling, it's like eating fermented foods that are good for your gut microbiome.