Food shouldn't be a part of itemization

On top of that it's locked behind two skills. I understand wanting to prevent low level players from being invincible thanks to high level food buffs but either tie food to endurance, make it percentile regen, or provide base regeneration and don't make food such a huge part of dungeoning. When you're in a party food is basically more important than any piece of gear you're wearing and if you don't have good food all you'll do is slow down your party.

I can appreciate the idea of it but in practice it's just meaningless power gimp. All I have to do is go cook and eat every recipe like I'm playing Yakuza, and I'll be over the hump. Though it's just a hump. Having a variety of skills is neat but every adventurer needing to be a chef and foodie is just silly.

For the most part, the player stalls lets you buy and consume food and creates a market for people looking to profit from the crafting side of things.

That said, food is 100% essential right now - low tier food and snacks won't cut it for regeneration at later levels, and lacking the bonuses it provides seriously gimps what you can do in any reasonable amount of time. I wouldn't say that every character needs to be a cook, but it's in the pool of "you should probably have this skill" - along with things like alchemy, transmutation, and augmentation. The skills that these skills rely on, such as gardening, mycology and such, also become fairly essential as well.

The fact that you have to level up your gourmand skill through these various foods before you can use better foods is severely limiting as well. I think a flat level requirement (based on endurance) would be better placed, because having to source a variety of low level food isn't always possible unless you craft it yourself, further reinforcing it as an essential skill to have.

Trying to play a new self-dependent character, I always find myself having to do things in a certain order - First Aid, Armour Patching, Alchemy, Cooking, and eventually Transmutation are all core skills to have. Fishing, Foraging and Mycology quickly become priorities as well. It makes it difficult to focus on the areas of the game I'd like to focus on, but instead I constantly find myself distracted by tasks I'd rather not be doing but are key to character development.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Oxlazr

For the most part, the player stalls lets you buy and consume food and creates a market for people looking to profit from the crafting side of things.

---

I thought about that as well and to me I think anyone who is interested in continuing the game into high level will just end up doing cooking themselves with gourmand. I just wonder in this particular game if you'll get a person who is happy to level gourman purely through player vendors and doesn't want to touch cooking. Maybe it's just me but if I'm going to bother to level gourmand (which requires me eating foods for the first time) I might as well craft them myself.

I guess my prime issue here is that all MMO cooking is a closed loop, food gives direct combat benefits to justify the existence of a cooking skill which only exists to provide players with necessary stats. Unlike mining which gets you in the world or gear crafting which lets you customize gear or make cosmetic stuff, cooking basically could be removed and it's benefits made a baseline.

I was talking to my brother and he had a cool idea of food types and a nutrition system. Something like having healthy foods make you skinnier (which gives you slightly higher energy regen) or hearty foods making you fatter (which increases health regen or makes you damage resistant). I realize that idea makes the whole system even more tedious but it'd definitely be more fun. That way all the foods and the gourmand skill can still have value.

I really like the RP value of the starving debuff and I really like the RP value of there being different types of foods. Though the RP value of gourmand and the value of increasingly gourmet food meaning your health and power recover faster is lost on me, it makes a lot more sense to me that potions and drugs do that. Also I'm not a hardcore RPer but the idea of my elf learning phrenology and how to make cranium powder to augment his psychic abilities just feels really fitting.

Right now the system kind of annoys me and that's why I made the post but stepping back from that I think it could be a cooler system.

While I agree having the slim/large thing as being a much cooler feature than simple buffs (well, simple buffs that are fairly essential to gameplay), the overall design can be problematic if certain characteristics become superior for various builds, once again forcing players down a certain path.

The starving debuff pops up immediately after a food buff falls off as far as I can tell, and the availability of food makes it more of a frustration than a survive thing, I think. The game could definitely improve its survival elements, and I think cooking would be a good start.

I don't have any immediate ideas, though (not as active in-game at the moment), I definitely agree something should be done about food overall. I don't like the idea that any aspect of gameplay should be a requirement, especially in a game with so many skills. It takes away from the sandbox elements.

I don't understand; if you cook things that you Gather, the it's just like Smithing and Mining. How does it not get you out into the world?

We probably should have some other gardens which are easier to access water but have other level gate requirements, too.

But gear and food are in the world. Any argument about removing Cooking could be applied to any other crafting skill. O-o

The Devs, i think, put a lot of thought and effort into food. Recently, Citan increased the stats of ground spawn fruit so that they would make a better food source for new players. You can get food from mobs, foraging, Hang outs, Quests, buying from taverns, buying from players and special cooking pots in game. The higher your level of Gourmand the longer your food effect lasts.

I'll admit I'm not a fan of the food requirement, but the game is suppose to be challenging to keep you interested in it. So we should be thinking of suggestions to make food more fun but no less challenging to get.

Some ideas:
-More repeating Hangouts for food, the challenge is level up the favor and getting around to that NPC once a week, once a month. Low level food hangouts would probably be skipped by higher level players because they have better sources of food.
-Alchemy pill that extend the effects of food. The challenge is making the pill, the benefit the amount of food you need is cut in half or more. Plus with good pills/potions you maybe don't need to carry around food at all, you go to storage get your alchemy item, take it, take your food and you are maybe set for a complete run of GK or Labs. Sort of like stools for meditation.
-Barter options for food. NPC could be willing to trade for food, doesn't have to be a fair trade, the NPC could require a lot for a Item of food. 20 fish for a fish dish, If not actual barter a repeating quest could have the same effect.

I don't think the food requirement will go away, so we need to find little changes that will make it a little more livable.


----------------
Addition thoughts

Acquired Taste: Instead of food being completed locked out by Gourmand, if you eat food above your Gourmand level you only get a short time frame of usage like the food only last 5 minutes or 10 minutes, and you only get a flat +10 xp on Gourmand. The idea being exotic/fancy food you can't get the full benefit from because you can only force yourself to eat a little bit and/or you spit most of it out. Maybe you would need to be seated inorder to eat over level food, this would prevent most accidental eating of high level food.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Crissa

I don't understand; if you cook things that you Gather, the it's just like Smithing and Mining. How does it not get you out into the world?

We probably should have some other gardens which are easier to access water but have other level gate requirements, too.

But gear and food are in the world. Any argument about removing Cooking could be applied to any other crafting skill. O-o

---

Look that's a minor point but I was talking about games in general. Foraging still relates to alchemy, lore, etc, etc. Various potions provide different benefits and can't be baselined, armor crafting is an alternative way of obtaining gear and also can give you vanity items, otherwise you'd just need to dump it all on a vendor. However if you just looked at whatever the best regeneration of the best food was for the best health/energy pool at end game and then just gave everyone that percentile regeneration there would be no need for food to be in the game.

It's kind of like WoW Jewelcrafting, a skill that had very little interesting going on (except laser pointers) and was only added because gem slots were added and it was even then made sort of a baseline with the reforging feature. It's just a hoop to jump through, that's it. Also it almost only became relevant for end game.

I'm not suggesting they just take food out of the game and make regeneration baseline, but I am saying that they could take food out of the game and make regeneration baseline or throw it on gear or even just not balance combat around everyone regenning their health like they're a troll because they ate beef and broccoli. The same way food in any other MMO could simply be taken out and those stats be added to gear or just be added to your final level. That to me is just a fundamental problem with food in most MMOs, however I'd be perfectly happy if the gourmand requirement was changed to endurance.

It's the same way in a game where you only have one ring slot probably the rings won't have as little stats assigned to them as in the same game where you have two ring slots. The main difference here is that your "food slot" is arguably your most important piece of gear since it provides combat regeneration.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by ShieldBreaker

You can get food from mobs, foraging, Hang outs, Quests, buying from taverns, buying from players and special cooking pots in game.

---

I mean I've obviously not done everything there is to do in this game but the only food I noticed in taverns was in Kur where it was just sitting on the counter as 'complimentary bread', the only pots of food I noticed are in hogan's and the goblin dungeon, the only time I remember getting food as a reward was from gretchen, and I really haven't seen food drop from mobs but sometimes goblin wheatbread is in the eltibule goblin dungeon.

My play experience was very devoid of finding worthwhile food though, especially as I tried higher level areas.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Worm

I was talking to my brother and he had a cool idea of food types and a nutrition system. Something like having healthy foods make you skinnier (which gives you slightly higher energy regen) or hearty foods making you fatter (which increases health regen or makes you damage resistant). I realize that idea makes the whole system even more tedious but it'd definitely be more fun. That way all the foods and the gourmand skill can still have value.

---

This was a hidden gem in the thread, really great idea. There is already some sort of perks, such as being a vegetarian helps cows milk faster, and vegan. But what about balanced diet, or fad diets etc given longer buffs or even cosmetic effects to a player, great idea!

As to the general point about how food works etc, it's a bit of a jumble right now as you can't just buy top level food which sort of makes the whole idea of someone specialising as a chef redundant, as why buy food to get gourmand levels? May as well just level it. I've levelled both up now on several characters, and it's far easier to just level cooking AND gourmand than it is to make a 'gourmand levelling kit'. So therefore, why would someone buy high level food from a player provvy rather than just spend 2 or 3 minutes a week making a few stacks from stuff just gotten while out and about?

What would maybe help would be further specialisation on the cooking tree, where I could choose to go down a specific route that would close another one off, but could use say 4 foods from different specialisations. That was at least I might need to trade with someone with different training.