Cataclysm-dda: Incorrect activity levels in many recipes

[Tamiore]

Game version: Tiles-b11117
Operating system: Win 10
Tiles or curses: Tiles
Mods active: default + bionic slots

Let me give you an example to illustrate:
I start a run in the woods (no weariness to begin with). Make a digging stick, dig a shallow hole, get 20 rocks, make a fire ring, start a fire. At this point about 3 in-game hours have passed and my character has some light weariness (which is fair enough).
However, over the next 8 hours of nothing but clothing crafting (mostly knitting) character's weariness just plummets straight towards "extremely weary". At which point crafting becomes effectively impossible.

This just does not make sense. 10-ish hours (of mostly sitting by the fire knitting) should NOT drain a healthy human to the point of collapsing.

P.S. I'm not 100% if this is a problem with JUST activity level associated specifically with knitting (and other tailoring technics), or if there is some bigger issue at play.

[Tamiore]

As a separate issue: recipes like "boil water" should never be effected by weariness. Being tired does not suddenly make water take longer to boil.

[ZhilkinSerg]

And how exactly your example invalidates this mechanics?

[I-am-Erk]

Can you post your activity level readout for the day in question or a list of what recipes you did?

And what are you talking about water taking longer to boil? It shouldn't have an activity level.

[Tamiore]

And how exactly your example invalidates this mechanics?

The problem is not with the idea of "weariness" mechanic, but with current implementation.

Namely:

• activity levels are inconsistent and not displayed clearly in UI
• it's not communicated at all what exactly _lowers_ weariness. Just waiting doing nothing is enough? Is that much better than doing something with light activity level? You need to sleep? You need to eat? You need to sleep AND eat? Can you lower it without sleeping proper? Without eating at all? Etc, etc.

[Tamiore]

Can you post your activity level readout for the day in question or a list of what recipes you did?

From light weariness all the way to extremely weary I was just knitting rags from thread:
http://cdda-trunk.chezzo.com/rag/craft
(I can record a video if you want me to)

And what are you talking about water taking longer to boil? It shouldn't have an activity level.

Maybe it _shouldn't,_ but it definitely increases time to boil water by more than twice:
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/780245838

[I-am-Erk]

Ah, the problem with the rag is a simple one:

"activity_level": "MODERATE_EXERCISE",
    "result": "rag",
    "id_suffix": "knitting",

Similarly, clean water is marked as LIGHT_EXERCISE, which is unsurprising since most cooking was made light by the script. It and some other really basic stuff can be switched to NO_ACTIVITY.

I can go through and change a bunch of these activity levels, it seems some of the tailoring got marked too high at moderate. Knitting should be no activity. It's the sort of job that would benefit from some help though.

[Giagantic]

I always viewed it as justifiable, as your example points out you did 8 hours of menial tasks (tailoring) after already having done quite a bit of physical labour for 3 hours. Weariness isn't just one form of physical exertion but the culumative effect that work has on the character and their efficiency to complete a task. 8 hours of knitting would definitely result in your very tangible reduction in your efficiency in real life look at sweat shops and what extreme levels of activity do to people.

[I-am-Erk]

It's fine for tailoring to have an activity, potentially, but Moderate means it's as tiring as briskly walking carrying a heavy backpack, making you dog tired as if you'd hiked for eight hours at the end. That's overkill.

[Tamiore]

8 hours of knitting would definitely result in your very tangible reduction in your efficiency in real life look at sweat shops and what extreme levels of activity do to people.

And yet many people do knitting as a hobby to relax, and they knit for hours on end.

Practically, I would suggest something like "light activity without proficiency, no activity with proficiency" for knitting specifically.

[I-am-Erk]

I'm likely to set knitting to no activity for the moment. In the future we'd like proficiency and higher skill level to reduce the calorie cost of activities, but as the spouse of a dedicated speed knitter I have never seen my partner knit herself to exhaustion even after twelve straight hours.

[Giagantic]

8 hours of knitting would definitely result in your very tangible reduction in your efficiency in real life look at sweat shops and what extreme levels of activity do to people.

And yet many people do knitting as a hobby to relax, and they knit for hours on end.

Practically, I would suggest something like "light activity without proficiency, no activity with proficiency" for knitting specifically.

I'm likely to set knitting to no activity for the moment. In the future we'd like proficiency and higher skill level to reduce the calorie cost of activities, but as the spouse of a dedicated speed knitter I have never seen my partner knit herself to exhaustion even after twelve straight hours.

I understand that, heck video gaming is an example of that point but we aren't doing it for a hobby, rather big difference between being forced to do it in a survival scenario or as a job compared to doing it as a source of enjoyment. Heck, many people go into careers for jobs they initially loved but come to find it droll and tiresome overtime, what was once a task that you could spend significant amounts of time on without noticing becoming a very mentally and as a result physically tiring thing. Most scenarios don't posit your character as a tailor or hobbyist knitter and the purpose of tailoring is to survive.

I am not against adjustment just I haven't had a single issue with the weariness you gain from doing tailoring since the adjustments you made shortly after release of the weariness system.

Now, if the various professions had a deeper impact beyond stats and locations (impacts that actually permanent effect a playthrough) such as a Tailor / Knitters no longer being effected by weariness then that would make sense and be great. But as it stands currently most players go into tailoring purely out of the utility and almost necessary aspect of progression that it provides, not because their character is some master tailor or hobbyist.

[Tamiore]

many people go into careers for jobs they initially loved but come to find it droll and tiresome overtime, what was once a task that you could spend significant amounts of time on without noticing becoming a very mentally and as a result physically tiring thing. Most scenarios don't posit your character as a tailor or hobbyist knitter and the purpose of tailoring is to survive

Sure, but trying to survive in post-cataclysm world if already a rather mentally-tiring endeavor. The questions is not so much "Is knitting in a forest crawling with undead monstrosities mentally tiring?", it's more of "Is knitting in a forest crawling with undead monstrosities any more mentally tiring than just aimlessly staring at the fire, contemplating the end of civilization?".
Arguably, in this context, knitting some gear might provide a sense of normalcy and purpose.

[I-am-Erk]

Weariness is also not measuring mental fatigue, it is strictly physical exhaustion, as evidenced by this bug causing overestimation of calorie costs. While we'd like to track mental exhaustion as well (partnered with morale and focus like weariness fits to calories and stamina), this ain't it.