[2022] Hunger and thirst

Hunger and thirst from food and drink are applied over time. The numbers on the left over your HP and stamina reflect how much is left to consume, while the blue and green bars below your hotbar are your actual hunger and thirst meters. If you down a bunch of food or drink at once, it takes a bit for it to fill you up and negate those debuffs; This both loosely replicates actual digestion, and also encourages the player to stay on top of their food and hunger instead of leaving it till the absolute last minute and stuffing their faces Skyrim cheese wheel style.

At level 1, you have a max of 100 hunger and 100 thirst, One water gives 20 iirc. So 4 waters fills 4/5ths of your thirst meter. Ingredients and basic foods are intentionally weak to encourage the player to actually make MEALS instead of just scarfing down the ingredients themselves. A single meat stew for example fills 50 hunger.

You probably didn’t have 5 steaks. You had “charred meat” or “grilled meat.” There’s an actual steak & potato meal that’s more filling than these, but it requires the skills and additional ingredients to cook it. Similarly, if you make tea instead of plain water, it provides more hydration. How fast you burn through food & water is also affected by how active you are (expending stamina) and the temperature.

Is it somewhat arbitrary? Arguably yes. But if the game is going to apply these progression principles - of higher skills and rarer ingredients yielding superior results - then you’re going to wind up with something similar to this.