I really dislike timed meal buff effects

[Durden]

These type of systems have been around forever, but it feels like they've really become much more standard in a bunch of adventure games these past 5 years or so. Think that's largely in part of massive games like BotW, FFXV, and Monster Hunter World using them extensively. It doesn't get a whole lot of discussion, so I assume most people are just ok with these systems.

I on the other hand, rarely if ever find enjoyment or reward in them, and generally dislike them. For a lot of reasons.

I know I can be compulsively specific with the way I play games (scouring every inch generally), but just the simple idea of timed buffs/status effects in this way annoy me. Many of the games these buffs are featured in are free form, but every game's rules are different. So I'm already irked about when the countdown is active.

For instance, I eat a meal before a big boss fight in Kakarot that gives me a lot of buffs. But then before I go fight the boss, there ends up being a lot of NPCs I want to talk to. Are my timed buffs being wasted while I'm talking to them? Or are they "paused". Is the timer even paused when the game is paused? In some games this is easier to tell than others (in Kakarot I still don't know), but regardless if the timer isn't paused with stuff like that, that's going to push me to rush through those types of conversations or other things.

Also because of the timed nature of them, it's hard to tell when the best time is to eat them. Should I just eat some random dishes when running around in BotW? Well that seems kind of like a waste in a lot of cases. Maybe I should eat right before a boss fight? Oh shit, I just walked into a boss fight and didn't realize it. Oh well, guess I'm never eating it. Then there's other weird shit like Monster Hunter, which from what I remember only allows you to eat a meal before a hunt. So I go through this trouble of making what I think is a good meal, only for the buffs to wear off 10 minutes into a hunt when I could be on it another 20 mins. It's hard to prepare around.

Building on that point, most of these systems have a ton or ingredients and a ton of recipes as well. So eventually, especially with my habits described before, I just end up with a TON of shit. Each making stuff that may be just incrementally better than another recipe, all while the base buffs themselves are generally incremental too. I end up not even wanting to go through the cooking process just to get a buff that I'm not even sure will make a difference or I'm unsure of when to use.
I dunno, like I said I'm sure some of this is a personal problem. These systems just aren't my jam. They're not enough to put me off of a game entirely. But I'm wondering if anyone else has similar hesitations towards these types of systems.

I'm really glad it brought us this though.

 

[est1992]

Saw title and immediately thought of DBZ Kakarot. That game made me eat more food in a week than I did in real life.

 

[Brazil]

I'm with you, OP. I always completely ignore them.

The only exception was raid food in WoW, which I had to use or I'd get kicked from my guild.

Edit: I forgive FFXV and Vanillaware games because the food in them looks amazing.

 

[Diogo Arez]

Same, hate it in most games especially Kakarot

 

[Lowrys]

The Outer Worlds was particular obnoxious with this. Endless amounts of food giving you marginal timed gains.

 

[orlock]

its maybe the only thing i dont like about Like a Dragon. it seems like it lasts for two battles if youre lucky.

 

[ignata]

Like all items I usually hoard these for the entirety of the game, saving them up for some special moment where I really, really need them, and then ultimately never use them, thus ruining the point of having any of them at all.

 

[Morrigan]

Then there's other weird shit, like Monster Hunter. Which from what I remember only allows you to eat a meal before a hunt. So I go through this trouble of making what I think is a good meal, only for the buffs to wear off 10 minutes into a hunt when I could be on it another 20 mins. It's hard to prepare around.

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??
The buff lasts for the whole hunt, unless you cart (without Felyne Foodie active).

 

[niaobx]

I despise it. Same for all +0.3% or whatever items/abilities

 

[Baron Von Beans]

The meals you eat in Monster Hunter last 50 minutes, one quest, or until you die. You can only eat every 10 minutes. The 50 minute rule applies to the Guiding Lands as well, for MHWorld. Those meals aren't as bad as other time based meals in other games, but I generally dislike them as well. In MH at least, the skills and buffs you get from them can be pretty substantial, and dynamic depending on your play style. Or you can go just standard attack or defense. I could just be biased though, MH is one of my favorite series..

 

[Nephtes]

I agree OP. I can't say I've ever gotten any immediate buff in real life from eating food. Long term sure... but in the short term I don't gain enhanced speed or endurance. It's usually the opposite and the need to lay on the couch and nap...

Food in games should only provide short term debuffs.

 

[julia crawford]

Honestly i ignore all that timed stuff. Like, always. Especially if it's a consumable. They're usually very weak buffs too...

Actually i would rather just not use any consumables at all please. Saving them for later.

 

[Alecs27]

Ignore them. Or use them when you really need them. But yeah, I don't like this type of system neither.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Should I just eat some random dishes when running around in BotW? Well that seems kind of like a waste in a lot of cases. Maybe I should eat right before a boss fight? Oh shit, I just walked into a boss fight and didn't realize it. Oh well, guess I'm never eating it.

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IIRC In BOTW you can eat them anytime. So only eat them if you are actually fighting the boss, or start taking damage from an environmental condition.

 

[Kapryov]

Generally I dislike this too, not just meal based but most temp buffs (I rarely use them in RPGs at all).

That said, Monster Hunter does it well. Choosing the right meal before the hunt is part of the experience (especially with the fun cook animations). The effect lasts the entire hunt anyway, unless you get knocked out.

 

[snausages]

But did you see how that food looked in FFXV tho

They put all the story and combat budget into that food, and you tell us you hated it?

 

[kodax_shc]

Outside of Monster Hunter I almost never use meal buffs in games.

 

[OrdinaryUsername]

I like the concept, but in practice I never use it. In any game where I can prepare a dish, I'm more willing to eat 500 apples instead of one apple pie. It's just faster - I don't always feel like taking the time to cook.

Those buffs have rarely been useful to me and are sometimes overkill and unbalanced - taking away from the fun and challenge.

I do have to say that making recipes in Final Fantasy XV suited the game's camping setting very well. And the dishes looked very tasty. It contributed to the atmosphere, but like other games, I never found much use for preparing dishes on a gameplay level.

 

[fontguy]

The time it takes out of my life to scroll through menus and/or watch my idiot character shotgun half a gallon of soy sauce is not worth the fifteen seconds of +0.3% dexterity.

 

[Keym]

But did you see how that food looked in FFXV tho

They put all the story and combat budget into that food, and you tell us you hated it?

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I would literally eat everything from that game.

 

[steejee]

I use the XP food buffs in FFXIV, but I generally just don't like using temporary consumable buffs in any game. Just feels like a pointless obligation typically.

There are exceptions though - if the buff is significant and specialized, like something you really gain something big from but would only use in specific situations, I'm more okay with them. Those feel like gameplay mechanics, rather than obligations.

 

[Flon]

I always end up neglecting it.

 

[Durden]

The meals you eat in Monster Hunter last 50 minutes, one quest, or until you die. You can only eat every 10 minutes. The 50 minute rule applies to the Guiding Lands as well, for MHWorld. Those meals aren't as bad as other time based meals in other games, but I generally dislike them as well. In MH at least, the skills and buffs you get from them can be pretty substantial, and dynamic depending on your play style. Or you can go just standard attack or defense. I could just be biased though, MH is one of my favorite series..

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It's been years since I've played MH, so guess I'm wrong on that. I could have sworn there were a couple of times where I found the system to be annoying and hard to prepare around too. But maybe I got knocked out or something. I do remember it being handled better there thab

Like all items I usually hoard these for the entirety of the game, saving them up for some special moment where I really, really need them, and then ultimately never use them, thus ruining the point of having any of them at all.

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This is definitely a thing a do too, which adds to my dislike of the system. Personal thing, but still.

IIRC In BOTW you can eat them anytime. So only eat them if you are actually fighting the boss, or start taking damage from an environmental condition.

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Yeah true, and I did like that about BotW. But still even just getting that dish prepared (which cooking a lot of meals takes a long time) so that you may have a meal that might protect you against electricity when up against a random enemy that has it for like 2 minutes and 30 seconds...I dunno just sounds so messy to me. I liked that BotW's was linked to health so I just had to eat stuff sometimes, but the status effect they bring with them with their timers still had me second guessing using them all the time.

 

[dd492941]

Like all items I usually hoard these for the entirety of the game, saving them up for some special moment where I really, really need them, and then ultimately never use them, thus ruining the point of having any of them at all.

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This right here. I never use timed items. They seem superfluous. I never find that "right" moment to use them so I don't. In a big fight I'd like a moment break I know about to use such buffs so at least they would be useful.

 

[Starlatine]

Never bother with times buffs of any sort. Meals in ffxv, drinks in borderlands pre sequel, I'd rather just care about what I always had. I like how the food in bloodstained gave permanent buffa the first time you ate them though

 

[BasilZero]

Saw title and immediately thought of DBZ Kakarot. That game made me eat more food in a week than I did in real life.

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lmao

I kinda like it in FFXV though but think it's kinda useless in games like tales of graces f

 

[Pankratous]

I never used timed buffs of any sort, but this is a great example of it. Just a mechanic I have no interest in.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

The food in FFXV doesn't even look good and on a base PS4 there's always a good few seconds where the texture isn't fully loaded

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Yeah true, and I did like that about BotW. But still even just getting that dish prepared (which cooking a lot of meals takes a long time) so that you may have a meal that might protect you against electricity when up against a random enemy that has it for like 2 minutes and 30 seconds...I dunno just sounds so messy to me.

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I disliked the cooking mechanic only because you had to wait for the animation. Like, if you just clicked a button and poof the dish was in your inventory I would have been fine with it. In fact it's better than having to buy potions for status effects and whatnot in a town. I dislike any forced canned animation as part of a crafting system. Animal Crossing NH and DQ8 come to mind as offenders as well.

 

[Crushed]

I disliked the cooking mechanic only because you had to wait for the animation.

Click to shrink...

Hit X.

 

[Deleted member 32005]

Yeah Cyberpunk has this and I totally ignore it. I stopped collecting consumables completely.

So many games do this and I always hate it. sometimes I end up abusing the items to get through a boss (looking at you Bayonetta). don't make the player balance the game for you, just make the game balanced. I don't want to manage temporary buffs. it's not fun.

 

[Zutrax]

I absolutely cannot stand it. It's the same issue as the "I saved all my max potions until the final boss, then didn't need them" problem. I also get choice paralysis and hate micromanaging all these timers, so I just choose to either deal without, or overlevel if the game allows it so I don't need them in the first place. Only time I ever use them is for EXP buffs or something while grinding if a game has it.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

Imagine drinking a coffee once and getting +10 perception for life.

 

[RockmanBN]

Didn't bother with it in Kakarot since they're a pain constantly keep active. Unless you do full course meals which are also a pain to make, standard foods only last around 3 minutes the effects aren't worth having to reapply 20 times an hour.

 

[behOemoth]

I like it if it's last long enough and doesn't disturb the game flow. I think FF XV did it quite well. The buffs can be very powerful and they can last almost a whole gaming session.
I didn't liked it in BotW because the workflow to cook multiple dishes was tedious and the effects were way to fast over for such a action based game.

 

[Cenauru]

I honestly love it, especially in RPG's like Outward where preparation is half the fun. I don't typically hoard either, I use what I got on me because I know it's usually easy to get more

 

[lightning16]

Yeah I basically never engage with the mechanic. In games like Breath of the Wild and Ys VIII the extent of my engagement with the food mechanics is just eating raw ingredients for health in a pinch.

 

[Micro]

Meds and Chems in Fallout too. Those can sometimes be useful, like needing rad resistance in a spot that may otherwise kill you right away.

Yeah Cyberpunk has this and I totally ignore it. I stopped collecting consumables completely.

Click to shrink...

Yep, I loot everything but periodically sell all of the pointless food and drink items. Not worth my time to use, but it does give an extra couple thousand in spending money.

 

[Het_Nkik]

Should I just eat some random dishes when running around in BotW? Well that seems kind of like a waste in a lot of cases. Maybe I should eat right before a boss fight? Oh shit, I just walked into a boss fight and didn't realize it. Oh well, guess I'm never eating it.

Click to shrink...

What? You can eat at absolutely any time in BotW. I'm playing the game right now and it has possibly the easiest to use buff system I've come across. It works exactly the same as, and is often combined with, your health recovery. Never use it until you're in a situation where you need it.

 

[Zephy]

Yakuza 6 handled buffs very well. You buy a soda from a vending machine, and the character drinks it wihle you hold a button as you continue to walk around. Once it's finished you get the buff. There is no interruption to your normal activity (no loading or annoying scene), the drinks cost next to nothing, and it's integrated naturally in the flow of the game. It was very cool, fun and immersive.
For some reason they messed it up in the next game (Kiwami 2) where you purchase soda cans as regular items you use from your inventory. Boring and useless.

Tales of Vesperia had a cool feature where you could have a meal at the end of a fight, using a shortcut and with no animation or load time, just instantenous buuf or restoration.

In Kakarot I didn't bother for the buffs but I occasionally liked watcning the sequences showing the characters eating.

 

[stefanomusilli96]

I really like it in Yakuza Kiwami 2. Drinks give you times buffs like increased EXP, damage or knockback. Some of that stuff might break the game if it was a permanent upgrade, but it's fun to have for a limited time.

EDIT: interesting to see that it works slightly differently (and apparently better) in 6, I've yet to play that.

 

[Imran]

Also because of the timed nature of them, it's hard to tell when the best time is to eat them. Should I just eat some random dishes when running around in BotW? Well that seems kind of like a waste in a lot of cases. Maybe I should eat right before a boss fight? Oh shit, I just walked into a boss fight and didn't realize it. Oh well, guess I'm never eating it.

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You can eat any time you can pause in BOTW. Period.

Hell you can just jam stamina food into your mouth as you're losing stamina while climbing a mountain.

 

[Deleted member 679]

I actually liked it quite a bit in FFXV, but agree in most cases. I don't mind consumable timed buffs like, say, Fire Paper in Bloodborne because you're instantly activating it right when you need it, anything that's tied to a specific place or needs to be prepared should last much longer, or have its "duration" tied to a level, instead of an actual timer. Like the prayers in Dragon's Crown, they'll work until you go back to town, that's great.

I think the reason why I liked it in FFXV is a combination of the duration being fairly generous and it being one extra element reinforcing the gameplay loop of exploration -> camping, which ends up leading to some cool sidequests, cute unique party interaction animations and even a great emotional payoff later on. God, I love FFXV.

 

[gebler]

They don't really bother me, but I don't give much thought to them either. Mostly, I just consider them a free bonus that could never hurt and could be helpful occasionally. If I prepare for a specific fight (e.g. if I've already lost in an earlier attempt) meal buffs could be part of the preparation, but usually in a fairly minor way. If it seems likely that I'd lose the buff before I reach the boss, I don't sweat it.

 

[Deleted member 33533]

I feel you, OP. Xenoblade 2 and Kingdom Hearts 3 had features like this. I ended up just neglecting them entirely. I prefer to spend time in the menu on permanent stat upgrades. I hate having to go into the menu repeatedly for temporary buffs, especially when they involve tons a different materials and a bunch of different effects.

Usually it seems like you can safely ignore them but if you want to take on the tougher challenges it usually becomes necessary which involves hunting for materials which is a grind to me.

 

[Ketaya]

I dislike these temporary buffs as well most of the time, because usually it's just not worth the effort. Need to get materials, than craft the stuff, than manually use it just for the effect to run out after a few minutes.

FFXV kinda makes it work though, because camping is part of the main gameplay flow, as you need it to level up or look at Prompto's photos and campspots are everywhere. You basically always end up cooking again naturally before the last buff runs out (they also last really long) and barely have to go out of your way to refresh anything. And you're not cooking in the hopes of maybe using it at a later point, the effect is just active immediatly. It's just integrated smoothly inbetween other systems.

 

[Dr. Zoidberg]

Hit X.

Click to shrink...

Thank you. I may have already knew that, it's been a long time since I finished BOTW.

That being said, the canned animation probably shouldn't exist past the first time you do it, or should be toggleable so I don't have to make an extra button press. I hate it in ACNH, where hitting the button only speeds up the annoying animation.

 

[Rosebud]

I only use the system if the buff is permanent (like Odin Sphere that gives XP)

 

[haotshy]

I typically ignore them. It's a bit annoying in Breath of the Wild though, because my inventory is filled with food that gives buffs, and I pretty much never need them, yet I feel some need to hang onto them in case I ever need them, and as a result I don't have very much room for regular meals.

I know, it's the stupidest problem ever.

 

[Barrakketh]

so that you may have a meal that might protect you against electricity when up against a random enemy that has it for like 2 minutes and 30 seconds...I dunno just sounds so messy to me.

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If you plan on using foods for shock resistance you can add a dragon horn for guaranteed 30 minute duration buffs. Farosh is really easy to farm.

There is also a set of rubber armor that grants shock resistance and has a set bonus (Unshockable) that grants lightning immunity.

Hell you can just jam stamina food into your mouth as you're losing stamina while climbing a mountain.

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And for more efficiency use the endura shrooms/carrots for that. Cook one item in a pot that will increase your max stamina and it as a full stamina refill. This also applies to hearty foods that increase your max HP.