Comfort

Comfort is a major survival resource in Beasts of Bermuda. In the current, soon-to-be legacy UI, it is represented by a green sphere. By default, a player's comfort will be 50% full, and this residing point can only semi-permanently be shifted by the influence of comfort bias. Comfort has a tremendous influence on the health of the creature a player is playing. It has many benefits, and a lack thereof has many drawbacks.

Death due to Extreme Stress

• Comfort influences the rate at which a player heals. High comfort will provide a significant boon towards healing rate, whereas low comfort will cause the player's health to decay. It is possible to die from lack of comfort, justified as extreme stress.
• Comfort influences the rate at which a player accumulates points. High comfort can significantly increase the rate at which these points accumulate. While this score is currently just for bragging rights, future development will likely yield cosmetic rewards and achievements for high scoring players.
• Comfort influences the rate at which a player's stamina regenerates. High comfort provides a mild boost to stamina gain, and low comfort will slightly hinder stamina gain.
• Comfort influences the rate at which a player's ability power regenerates. High comfort provides a mild boost to ability power gain, and low comfort will slightly hinder ability power gain.
• Extraordinarily comfortable creatures may receive special perks in the future.

UI Image containing the large, green Comfort Sphere

Sources of Comfort Gain

• Proximity to other friendly players will increase your comfort. Being closer together will increase comfort more than being spread apart.
  • As a carnivore, you can only gain comfort for being in close proximity to your own kind.
  • As a herbivore, you can gain comfort for being in close proximity to any other herbivore. Certain creatures will grant more comfort to you than others. Most notably, the Apatosaurus grants significant comfort to its herd members.
  • Formation of friendships with other players will significantly increase the comfort bonus one gets from being in close proximity to the other player.
• Comfort granting plants will yield positive comfort over a duration of time, called comfort bias. These plants provide a long-term comfort bonus. The bonus slowly decays over a long period of time, so these flowers are a very beneficial way to increase comfort.
• There may be other mysterious ways to add to a player's comfort as well.

Sources of Comfort Loss

• Just as being close to friendly players grants comfort, being close to hostile players will lower comfort. Just as a creature in a real-world scenario may find stress in being in close presence with its predator, so do creatures in Beasts of Bermuda.
  • As a carnivore, being in close in proximity to any creature not of your own kind will decrease comfort. Larger creatures sharply reduce comfort, whereas smaller ones provide more meager comfort loss.
  • As a herbivore, being in close proximity to any carnivore will decrease comfort. Larger creatures sharply reduce comfort, whereas smaller ones provide meager comfort loss.
• Stormy weather will reduce comfort, sometimes significantly. Weather resistance can aid in mitigating the negative effects storms have on comfort. Taking shelter in caves and temples will allow a player to take refuge from the negative comfort effects of stormy weather.
• Deep saltwater will sharply reduce comfort if you are playing as a terrestrial creature. Thalassophobia is strong in Beasts of Bermuda, for good reason.
• Just as terrestrial creatures lose comfort sharply while in deep saltwater, aquatic creatures sharply lose comfort while on land, in a beached state.
• Creatures without the piscivorous trait will lose comfort bias when consuming fish.

Sources of comfort gain or loss gradually influence comfort to rise or fall, exponentially approaching a steady-state value that is the sum of all positive and negative comfort sources. For example, let's say the player's comfort is being influenced by the following nearby environmental factors:

There is a gentle rainstorm, reducing the player's comfort by -15. There is a nearby herd member, increasing the player's comfort by 20. The player has recently consumed enough comfort flowers to increase their comfort bias by 7.

The player's comfort will, over time, approach the value 50-15+20+7=62. The closer to 62 this player's comfort gets, the slower it will continue to approach 62. If external factors that influence comfort change, the player's comfort will approach and drift towards a new steady-state value.

Comfort will much more rapidly decay than increase. The presence of a negative stressor will sharply and quickly reduce comfort, whereas the presence of beneficial sources of comfort gain will slowly bring comfort back up to a higher value. One way players can more rapidly increase comfort lost from negative stressors such as a swim across the Ocean is to sit or rest.

Comfort is capped between 0 and 100.