I recall a story about rested XP in World of Warcraft. Before it became a double experience point bonus, it was a penalty for playing too long. The system remains today as first implemented. Blizzard simply rebranded it. All these ideas for hardcore options are great, but they are hardcore options. They are only appealing to people looking for them. Mass & volume and CPU are already too much for a lot of people to handle. For others (like me), playing without them is tennis without a net. This is true of every difficulty option, including scenarios. The same would be true for detailed nutrition. When your character does die, the fact that you can respawn instantly without penalty feels game-y. It pulls you out of your engagement with the fantasy and sticks you back into the perspective of a person sitting in front of a video game. From this perspective, it's entirely understandable why this is so. A player's material equilibrium is precarious. The random nature of the play space means there are places of unforeseeable danger. There is a constant threat that something will suddenly upset your apple cart when you can least afford it. When it works, the lure of this thrilling puzzle draws you back into the fantasy. When it doesn't, recovering from a setback looks more like a frustrating slog. Where you fall on that spectrum is something you have to figure out for yourself. That's why we have so many different difficulty options and scenarios. The buffing condition idea works for everyone because it's tied to the fundamental feature of survival mode; mortality. Turn off hunger, turn off oxygen, turn off base attacks and drones, turn off every difficulty option there is, and you can still die to swarm of aggressive dinosaurs. Your level of risk is tied to how you decide to play, but it never goes away completely. You push the world. The world pushes back. Sooner or later, no matter what difficulty options you use, you're going to have to go through that shock of disengagement again and respawn. Having a little bit of that game-yness be positive would help players cope with that shock more easily.
I always wanted a new device to feed the player working like the O2 station, you would fill a tank with a delicious goo made of water, stone dust and plant fiber and you would suck it from a pipe hanging on the ceiling, it's the future. I'm fed up picking up plants.
You and your goo can stay away from my pizza. The survival packs are too good, and I really do feel like it takes away from the other options that are available. I keep a fridge stocked with at least burgers and pizzas.... even though there's no actual valid in-game reason that I can think of to do so.
I think, overall, an easier option to encourage survival would be to have the degredation impact on gear more harsh. Not just on armor, but on everything. Make people think a little more careful about what they are taking into a POI as opposed to just arming to the teeth with no thought to repercussions.
