[Eating and drinking] How to easily increase interactivity with the world and reduce loot

[NevaEilhart]

Hi,

A quick suggestion as to how increase the interactivity one can have with the world while also reducing the amount of loot and thus saving us hours of inventory management.

Instead of spreading tons and tons of consumables across the map, what if instead, you just :
- remove completely food and drinks from the player's inventory and from the loot tables in the open world.
- remap all the foods and drinks and break them into different categories based on the culture they originally come from. Like, ramen, miso soup, whatever for Japanese, Vodka for Russian etc.
- in each area of Night City, use your beautifully designed restaurants and food stands to sell those items, tying them to the culture they represent. If I walk into a dinner, i'd expect burgers to be available. If I interact with an asian based stand in an open market, I'd expec to eat ramens, etc.
- either use a quick interactive menu displayed on the counter (like the ones on the elevators when we choose our floor), or a NPC dialog so we can choose what we're purchasing. Either way the system is already implemented and the assets are already there.
- of course this option would also be available in V's appartment (think food delivery service).
- when we make such a purchase, allow us to sit down to enjoy our food and reuse already made assets which would show us sitting, drinking or eating. No new asset needed here.
- eating or drinking in such a fashion would grant us a semi permanent buff to one attribute or stat. Like a one hour buff to our reflexes, constitution, whatever is fine. Make it semi permanent (at least one hour) so we don't have to eat/drink all the time. Plus, it would make the act of taking time to eat or drink way more impactful this way.

This way you improve your game on different fronts :
- reducing the amount of loot and inventory management
- making eating and drinking impactful as one would expect it to be in a cyberpunk fantasy
- increase drasctically the interactivity one player can have with the world
- players would be able to enjoy a break from the main game while sitting and eating and listening to tv broadcasts and conversations around.

What do you guys think ?

 

[AdamTaylor]

Agreed. It would make the world vastly more interesting and immersive.

Right now the food system is downright stupid. You find TONS of food everywhere, and it all gives the same handful of buffs. Nothing special. A dozen different drinks doing the same damn thing. There's no point to it. Especially as the buffs are miniscule and the debuffs pretty bad.

There's no reason to use food for a puny heal over time when I can just use one of the hundreds of healing stims lying about everywhere. Along with all the cyberware that heals you up super quick as well.

Give us some reason to go to food and drink places. Right now there is none. Why would we ever buy useless items? We don't get to sit and eat or drink. There's just no feeling there.

This is just ONE of the many things that are needed to greatly improve the game. As it is now, the world feels very barren. There's just nothing to do that's not running around killing gangers and such.

 

[EarthlingTroy]

Absolutely agree! I often stop in front of TVs or at the first loading screen to hear the broadcasts and learn more about this world. It would be great to do this primarily at diners and noodle shops, tying my experience to the world even more. Especially while I myself am eating IRL.

Love this idea and think it's a no brainer to implement

 

[muratogut]

interesting idea. that would increase opportunities to develop the food shops even further.

 

[Arcafonk]

- I'd add that those shops shouldn't, at least, buy you weapons.
Drink / foods "shops" shouldn't be able to buy you anything anyway. If you go to the bar or the restaurant irl, you never sell them your random junk you just picked up in the streets, food or not food.

 

[Jake_Suarez]

Agreed, that's an awesome idea

 

[TaranTatsuuchi]

With the amount of food you can find around the world, it completely replaces the use for that body perk that allows you to Regen up to a certain percentage of your maximum health out of combat...

 

[moonracer2000]

Okay, here's my take on how to do this:

• All of the food in the world that has a model (not a paper bag) becomes a static decoration. All non modeled foods are removed.
• All food and drink vending machines no longer give items, but instantly give the player the buff as if they ate that item from inventory (allowing you to quickly top off health.
• Food stall vendors now have sit down (or stand around) and eat animations (in addition to the buff) as well as the option to view the animation in 3rd person and admire your character in the world.
• New shards are added to the world to find for each food and drink in the game with a blown up version of the inventory icon and the item description (possibly some more lore).

That way players have quick access to food to top off health almost anywhere, the sit down and eat animations people are requesting and we get to keep all the entertaining food product designs in the game.

 

[DOSS216]

Another thing they can do to add more immersion is adding animations to eating and drinking. They can just reuse the animations V does in scripted sections in quests for the free roam. Like drinking in a bar or eating at food stands when meeting with Takemura.

 

[mewpokemon]

I don't know about removing the food items from the world map. It is part of the atmosphere, too. Walking into people's places, you could expect to find a bunch of food and drinks.

Also, you do say that you want to transport it to your apartment at least?

On the food front, I think there should be a kitchenette in V's apartment not the vending machine.

I think setting up filters on what stuff you want to pick up could help. There should be more categories for items.

There should be vendor interactions and animation sequences.

 

[Schanana]

Great Idea OP 'cept removing the loose food items! I like to see some clutter...

Have my support anyway tho

 

[EMT-Fields]

If they actually would implement this, I'd like a survival mode as well to go along with it. Thouh with a survival mode, I would like combat to be revamped and be more deadly to both the player and NPCs.

 

[Mister_Holdout]

Absolutely. I'm all for it.

Just one extra suggestion. Players should be able to bring other NPCs with them to these restaurants for socialization.

 

[Schanana]

Absolutely. I'm all for it.

Just one extra suggestion. Players should be able to bring other NPCs with them to these restaurants for socialization.

Stop making me dream Can you imagine going out to parteh with Jackie?!

 

[Mister_Holdout]

Stop making me dream Can you imagine going out to parteh with Jackie?!

Yeah, partying with Jackie would be awesome.

My ultimate dream for this game though is for Rachel Casich to be a romance option (she's that chick from the Sinnerman quest). Being able to pick her up in my Rayfield Aerondight and drive her to the fanciest restaurant in Night City for a romantic evening would be a dream come true. Hell yeah

 

[DankRafft]

I'd love to see that. The amount of pointless items scattered across the entire game and inventory clutter annoys me quite a bit.

 

[Trinixy]

Not just restaurants, some of the stores confuse me, and feel like they were passive victims of the gutted content. Like the dud that sells you braindances, there clearly are many there of them but once bought, what now? Nothing scrap i guess?

Were they meant originally to be used and tie into some quest or just our morbid curiosity? Were these items meant as quest items to give away to someone for some reason? Or is it just to make it appear legit, this guy has braindance you need but has bunch others so he is legit look....
Then there is the sex stores and similar ones, like the record store, maybe it unlocks a song on radio or something? No. Okey what about these dildoes and gags and what not, I have no home to display my proud and extensive dildo collection so is this meant as a gift for your romance partner or something? No.
Okey but what about this Evelyn purse I found, can I give it to Judy she would love to have it ba

I feel like there was a system meant to be used for those, or are they just there to disassemble and get materials that are way valuable then the junk we bought to get them?

 

[NevaEilhart]

Guess they focused on the story and characters first... which isn't a bad thing at all considered those characters and dialogs with them are some of the best (if not the best) I've ever witnessed in a video game of this scope (on par with The Witcher 3).
I'd rather have a solid story and set of characters and some interactivity to put back in, rather than tons of side activities but generic characters and stories.
Those suggestions are easy to implement now that the assets are all in the game.

 

[dstrelek]

I'd also like to see them implement a temp bonus for sleeping and showering (with a caveat that the bonuses only enact if you first remove all your clothing to shower and to sleep). I mean lets face it, people get tired. Having V get tired after pulling an all-nighter would be immersive. And getting a perk from showering? I know I feel loads better from taking a shower after getting home from work.

I play the game this way anyway, even though I don't get anything from it. I also stop at food stands to get lunch/supper (I eat breakfast at the apartment). However it should probably be an optional setting, since not everybody enjoys that kind of thing in a game.

They did it in Fallout 3&4 (sleep at least), so I'm pretty sure they could pull it off here.

 

[NevaEilhart]

I'd also like to see them implement a temp bonus for sleeping and showering (with a caveat that the bonuses only enact if you first remove all your clothing to shower and to sleep). I mean lets face it, people get tired. Having V get tired after pulling an all-nighter would be immersive. And getting a perk from showering? I know I feel loads better from taking a shower after getting home from work.

I play the game this way anyway, even though I don't get anything from it. I also stop at food stands to get lunch/supper (I eat breakfast at the apartment). However it should probably be an optional setting, since not everybody enjoys that kind of thing in a game.

They did it in Fallout 3&4 (sleep at least), so I'm pretty sure they could pull it off here.

That's a nice idea, as long as it's not mandatory to avoid breaking the flow of the game (like food, it should stay an option for those who like it - I hated having to take care of my weight in RDR2 ; I don't play those games for small min-maxing management).

On the immersion matter though, when I did the quest with

Spoiler: side quest spoiler

Kerry

and you meet him at the mexican dinner, it was just so immersive to be able to sit down there, enjoy a meal and stare at the window while he's talking to you, with some music and noise in the background. It was early morning, the sun was rising on the badlands and you could spot the first rays of light from above the mountains in the far.
If they allow me to do this in game without it being tied to quests, it would become the most immersive game I've ever played.