Now we're cooking!

[Sklo:D 2,210]

25 minutes ago, Propheteer said:

 

 I tried to refrain from posting this, but we had a talk about development today in our teamspeak and i was in the mood to rant.

 

 In the nicest way possible, the cooking update is fairly half-assed, like a lot of the existing PvP mechanics. Please take what i write below as criticism and not personally. There are a lot of possibilities to make something really cool, and take the depth you have already created and take it to the next level, as opposed to giving people the impression of an unfinished product once more.

 

First off, and probably the largest issue are the time-based affinities that you get for eating specific meals. This is account dependant, so little Timothy might get a Body Strength affinity for eating a Breakfast (which would be a single meat in a bowl), whereas Bernard might get his from a Crab Bisque, which is one of the more demanding meals in the game that requires many materials, some of them farmable, and four heating stages. Not only does this imbalance it and create RNG in account creation for those joining who hope to catch up with the existing big shots, it also kills the potential for something really cool and unique, a new entry into the market of wurm. Cooking. Imagine if these time-based rewards were meal-specific? So both little Timothy and Bernard could get Body Strength from Crab Bisque, as opposed to one having to go through a few hour long process to make his, and the other a five minute process. People would pay for the meals that give these affinities, and some people would pay for pre-made materials to make them.

 

There is also no purpose to make any of the advanced recipes under any circumstance. (Obviously, if some people get ###### and end up having to create one for a half-decent time-based affinity they would have to, but for reasons explained above this is shitty.) Using the examples listed above, Breakfast and Crab Bisque. Breakfast is pretty simple. It’s just a meat in a bowl. It gives you everything you need. Crab Bisque is pretty advanced, if you click here you can see the recipe. Now, when you compare the two, why would i EVER create this recipe? You know, excluding if my account gets reamed by being unlucky with affinities. Well, heres your answer: There isn’t one. You will get everything from the breakfast as you would from the crab bisque. You would simply be wasting your own time, which seems to really devalue the whole reason for the cooking update in the first place. Why add all these new recipes if they don’t do anything?

 

Keeping in mind the advanced recipes, even the recipes you would think a new player would go for, like one of the soups, are awful. Liquids do absolutely nothing except kill the nutritional value of the meal. You have no more reason to ever make anything with a liquid in it than you do now, the reasons being to waste your own time, or make food to feed your pet you set aside for taming grinding, Magnus the Cave-Bug. Without even considering nutrition, some of the recipes are outright annoying to handle. I don’t know if this was an oversight or if it was made intentionally, but we will use orridge as an example. You can put one portion of rice and one portion of water to make porridge. You cannot put 20 portions of rice and 20 portions of water to make porridge. This missing QOL mechanic also flares up in non-liquid foods too, such as when making bread. To make bread you need enough dough for a piece of bread and a stoneware. You however, cannot make 10 bread without doing 10 pieces of dough and 10 pieces of stoneware. Why? Why is this a thing?

 

Moving on to another missed opportunity, i’m not sure if developers were willing to accommodate balance changes necessary to properly do something like this, but you completely ignored all the endgame unique items you couldve thrown in to make unique, fantasy meals that give nice bonuses. You could have tied it into the affinity system, such as making a white dragon steak give one of those temporary Body Strength affinities. people would go out of their way to try and get this stuff which would increase the value of items that are currently deemed worthless (which is HUGE, considering most of the things and materials you come across in the game are pointless.) It’s something that was skipped over but could have been pretty revolutionary, i suppose this part was more of a suggestion than anything else, but it couldve been the start of really fleshing out the clutter that currently persists in the game world.

 

Last but not least, the UI could do some work. I mean for the affinity thing, you could add a search feature to show which meals give what affinity so people know instead of having to rely on third party programs to do it for them (or if it was standardized, the forums or wiki, or ingame chat.). The fats value, as i just dislike clutter, doesn’t need to be there at all if you are a non-priest. It has no benefit for you in any way, shape, or form.

 

Also, with the cookbook you are adding too many unknowns. A lot of the recipes here have a lot of ingredients, some with very minor variations. I’m not asking for you to list the name of the recipes, or the ingredients, or even the number of ingredients. But it would be excellent to have a number next to each category showing how much you have learned and how much you need to go. Like Brews [20/50], indicating to the player that they are missing 30 recipes. You could even take a step further and tie in to the achievement and personal goal systems in some way.

 

Thats it. Also, I have crippling depression.

 

 

 I could basically agree on the constructive part. Maybe we could work out some difficulty for meals to give them more important affinities, to make them worthwhile and adding persistence to the affinities opens a whole new market. I will not be cooking, but I sure will pay people to cook for me! Some quirks overshadow the depth and complexity, that many people will enjoy. However, they are not huge changes and could be really worthwhile.

 

GJ Tich, looking forward!

Edited October 25, 2016 by Sklo:D

[Jaz 2,665]

I've tried to chop onion on the cooking test server

* took onion from "farm produce" FSB
* used (silver) knife on onion

The action timer runs fully but nothing happens. No error message, no chopped onion, no loss from the weight of the onion.
The onion cannot be put back into FSB as "you work with that item".
Tried with another onion and after relogging for /lotime, same issue.

 

Seems I can chop stuff taken from other FSBs. Tried to put an onion which was taken from fram produce to another and take it again, still no success.

[Stanlee 3,434]

 

I've got you now, conservation of energy!

(Bug: Bee smokers can be fuelled forever.)

 

Also, should I find a way to update my form now I've come back and done over 10 recipes?

[Annyil 189]

Same with me, I can't make chopped veggies from farm produce fsb.

[Ostentatio 1,970]

I was just speaking to Retrograde about this stuff and it seems there's a likelihood that more complex/difficult dishes are more efficient in terms of how much CCFP and affinity timer they give you. If this stuff (or nutrition, or how much it fills the food bar) indeed scales based on difficulty/complexity, I think that's more than enough incentive for people who care about cooking to cook complex dishes.

 

Could we possibly get confirmation one way or the other?

 

 

... also implement my suggestions regarding booze plzkthx

 

EDIT: I would also recommend limiting temporary affinities to characters who have been premium at least once, to prevent people from randomly starting new dudes until they get one with a channeling affinity from eating wet sand, similarly to how currently you can't see your affinity until getting premium to prevent similar behavior. I also recommend removing temporary affinities from food that is meant only to be ingredients, like flour and chopped vegetables.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Ostentatio

[Aeris 3,752]

I'm personally not looking for incentives to cook more complex stuff, because I think this whole new cooking system is going to turn into a massive chore that bored players will enjoy for 2 months before it becomes too much of an annoyance. I do however think that once it's launched it needs to be balanced in some way that makes sense, for example:

 

- Highly nutritious meals that aren't a pain to make, for those that don't enjoy oven slaving (and for "balance" this meal could be exempt from the affinity category so that it will give you nutrition but never an affinity)

- "Random" affinities being limited so that their assigned meal makes sense, i.e.

--> Characteristics stats and other skills that are slower to raise assigned to more difficult meals

--> A certain food kind affecting certain skill groups (so that if you're looking for the affinity for blacksmithing you try all the recipes in one category and so on, as opposed to having to cook all types of food)

 

I honestly don't think the whole "searching through all foods" to find the affinity you're after is going to be a big hit and I would've gone with a system where everyone had the same affinity for the same meal. I could be wrong though, and only time will tell. But personally I'm just interested in a food that will give me the same skillgain I get today at 90+ nutrition, anything other than that is completely uninteresting.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Aeris

[Ostentatio 1,970]

4 minutes ago, Aeris said:

- Highly nutritious meals that aren't a pain to make, for those that don't enjoy oven slaving (and for "balance" this meal could be exempt from the affinity category so that it will give you nutrition but never an affinity)

 

You'll still be able to make high-nutrition meals rather easily, or use Refresh, and you'll have basically exactly what you have now with similar amounts of effort. Less effort, if you include the upcoming ability to do things like store filets in a bin and stick meals in an icebox for better longevity.

 

In other words, if you don't want to mess with the new system you won't really lose anything. For those of us who enjoy making digital meatballs and giant sandwiches, there are the optional bonuses on top of that. I think this is a reasonable compromise.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Ostentatio

[Stanlee 3,434]

I tested eating a large variety of foods, all affinity timers seemed to be tied to QL, with no effect of complexity. Drinks were a lot more.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Stanlee

[Aeris 3,752]

1 minute ago, Ostentatio said:

 

You'll still be able to make high-nutrition meals rather easily, or use Refresh, and you'll have basically exactly what you have now with similar amounts of effort. Less effort, if you include the upcoming ability to do things like store filets in a bin and stick meals in an icebox for better longevity.

 

They initially wanted to nerf refresh though, which makes me really suspicious. And I'd like someone to confirm a recipe that does what I need since I'm not at all amused by the idea going through 500 recipes just to find the easiest to make meal that gives 90+ nutrition. :/

It's super great that we will get to store fillets in a bin and meals in iceboxes, however, and much needed additions to the game.

[FranktheTank 1,901]

1 hour ago, Propheteer said:

 

 I tried to refrain from posting this, but we had a talk about development today in our teamspeak and i was in the mood to rant.

 

 In the nicest way possible, the cooking update is fairly half-assed, like a lot of the existing PvP mechanics. Please take what i write below as criticism and not personally. There are a lot of possibilities to make something really cool, and take the depth you have already created and take it to the next level, as opposed to giving people the impression of an unfinished product once more.

 

First off, and probably the largest issue are the time-based affinities that you get for eating specific meals. This is account dependant, so little Timothy might get a Body Strength affinity for eating a Breakfast (which would be a single meat in a bowl), whereas Bernard might get his from a Crab Bisque, which is one of the more demanding meals in the game that requires many materials, some of them farmable, and four heating stages. Not only does this imbalance it and create RNG in account creation for those joining who hope to catch up with the existing big shots, it also kills the potential for something really cool and unique, a new entry into the market of wurm. Cooking. Imagine if these time-based rewards were meal-specific? So both little Timothy and Bernard could get Body Strength from Crab Bisque, as opposed to one having to go through a few hour long process to make his, and the other a five minute process. People would pay for the meals that give these affinities, and some people would pay for pre-made materials to make them.

 

There is also no purpose to make any of the advanced recipes under any circumstance. (Obviously, if some people get ###### and end up having to create one for a half-decent time-based affinity they would have to, but for reasons explained above this is shitty.) Using the examples listed above, Breakfast and Crab Bisque. Breakfast is pretty simple. It’s just a meat in a bowl. It gives you everything you need. Crab Bisque is pretty advanced, if you click here you can see the recipe. Now, when you compare the two, why would i EVER create this recipe? You know, excluding if my account gets reamed by being unlucky with affinities. Well, heres your answer: There isn’t one. You will get everything from the breakfast as you would from the crab bisque. You would simply be wasting your own time, which seems to really devalue the whole reason for the cooking update in the first place. Why add all these new recipes if they don’t do anything?

 

Keeping in mind the advanced recipes, even the recipes you would think a new player would go for, like one of the soups, are awful. Liquids do absolutely nothing except kill the nutritional value of the meal. You have no more reason to ever make anything with a liquid in it than you do now, the reasons being to waste your own time, or make food to feed your pet you set aside for taming grinding, Magnus the Cave-Bug. Without even considering nutrition, some of the recipes are outright annoying to handle. I don’t know if this was an oversight or if it was made intentionally, but we will use orridge as an example. You can put one portion of rice and one portion of water to make porridge. You cannot put 20 portions of rice and 20 portions of water to make porridge. This missing QOL mechanic also flares up in non-liquid foods too, such as when making bread. To make bread you need enough dough for a piece of bread and a stoneware. You however, cannot make 10 bread without doing 10 pieces of dough and 10 pieces of stoneware. Why? Why is this a thing?

 

Moving on to another missed opportunity, i’m not sure if developers were willing to accommodate balance changes necessary to properly do something like this, but you completely ignored all the endgame unique items you couldve thrown in to make unique, fantasy meals that give nice bonuses. You could have tied it into the affinity system, such as making a white dragon steak give one of those temporary Body Strength affinities. people would go out of their way to try and get this stuff which would increase the value of items that are currently deemed worthless (which is HUGE, considering most of the things and materials you come across in the game are pointless.) It’s something that was skipped over but could have been pretty revolutionary, i suppose this part was more of a suggestion than anything else, but it couldve been the start of really fleshing out the clutter that currently persists in the game world.

 

Last but not least, the UI could do some work. I mean for the affinity thing, you could add a search feature to show which meals give what affinity so people know instead of having to rely on third party programs to do it for them (or if it was standardized, the forums or wiki, or ingame chat.). The fats value, as i just dislike clutter, doesn’t need to be there at all if you are a non-priest. It has no benefit for you in any way, shape, or form.

 

Also, with the cookbook you are adding too many unknowns. A lot of the recipes here have a lot of ingredients, some with very minor variations. I’m not asking for you to list the name of the recipes, or the ingredients, or even the number of ingredients. But it would be excellent to have a number next to each category showing how much you have learned and how much you need to go. Like Brews [20/50], indicating to the player that they are missing 30 recipes. You could even take a step further and tie in to the achievement and personal goal systems in some way.

 

Thats it. Also, I have crippling depression.

 

 

I totally agree, encouraging players who work hard to make insanely difficult recipes can open a whole new economic sector to the game, and a reason to play. Randomization makes the whole thing ridiculous, if I want to make a hard recipe I want to know it is worth my time.

[Alyeska 2,621]

2 minutes ago, Aeris said:

 

They initially wanted to nerf refresh though, which makes me really suspicious. And I'd like someone to confirm a recipe that does what I need since I'm not at all amused by the idea going through 500 recipes just to find the easiest to make meal that gives 90+ nutrition. :/

It's super great that we will get to store fillets in a bin and meals in iceboxes, however, and much needed additions to the game.

[12:34:46] The ingredients in the frying pan would make a beef meal when cooked.

 

corn + meat in frying pan

 

@68 ql it kept my nutrition around 88 or so 

[Ostentatio 1,970]

6 minutes ago, Stanlee said:

I tested eating a large variety of foods, all affinity timers seemed to be tied to QL, with no effect of complexity. Drinks were a lot more.

 

Interesting. If that's true, I would very highly recommend a change.

 

Maybe scaling CCFP and affinity timer with item difficulty would be enough, since that would be pretty easy to implement and more complex things should tend to be higher-difficulty, I would hope. Not sure how easy it would be to introduce "complexity" or ingredient count as a notion, or maybe some variable level of "preparedness" (spaghetti bolognese > spaghetti > raw pasta > flour > wheat).

Edited October 25, 2016 by Ostentatio

[Yesirn 166]

1 hour ago, Propheteer said:

 

 I tried to refrain from posting this, but we had a talk about development today in our teamspeak and i was in the mood to rant.

 

 In the nicest way possible, the cooking update is fairly half-assed, like a lot of the existing PvP mechanics. Please take what i write below as criticism and not personally. There are a lot of possibilities to make something really cool, and take the depth you have already created and take it to the next level, as opposed to giving people the impression of an unfinished product once more.

 

First off, and probably the largest issue are the time-based affinities that you get for eating specific meals. This is account dependant, so little Timothy might get a Body Strength affinity for eating a Breakfast (which would be a single meat in a bowl), whereas Bernard might get his from a Crab Bisque, which is one of the more demanding meals in the game that requires many materials, some of them farmable, and four heating stages. Not only does this imbalance it and create RNG in account creation for those joining who hope to catch up with the existing big shots, it also kills the potential for something really cool and unique, a new entry into the market of wurm. Cooking. Imagine if these time-based rewards were meal-specific? So both little Timothy and Bernard could get Body Strength from Crab Bisque, as opposed to one having to go through a few hour long process to make his, and the other a five minute process. People would pay for the meals that give these affinities, and some people would pay for pre-made materials to make them.

 

There is also no purpose to make any of the advanced recipes under any circumstance. (Obviously, if some people get ###### and end up having to create one for a half-decent time-based affinity they would have to, but for reasons explained above this is shitty.) Using the examples listed above, Breakfast and Crab Bisque. Breakfast is pretty simple. It’s just a meat in a bowl. It gives you everything you need. Crab Bisque is pretty advanced, if you click here you can see the recipe. Now, when you compare the two, why would i EVER create this recipe? You know, excluding if my account gets reamed by being unlucky with affinities. Well, heres your answer: There isn’t one. You will get everything from the breakfast as you would from the crab bisque. You would simply be wasting your own time, which seems to really devalue the whole reason for the cooking update in the first place. Why add all these new recipes if they don’t do anything?

 

Keeping in mind the advanced recipes, even the recipes you would think a new player would go for, like one of the soups, are awful. Liquids do absolutely nothing except kill the nutritional value of the meal. You have no more reason to ever make anything with a liquid in it than you do now, the reasons being to waste your own time, or make food to feed your pet you set aside for taming grinding, Magnus the Cave-Bug. Without even considering nutrition, some of the recipes are outright annoying to handle. I don’t know if this was an oversight or if it was made intentionally, but we will use orridge as an example. You can put one portion of rice and one portion of water to make porridge. You cannot put 20 portions of rice and 20 portions of water to make porridge. This missing QOL mechanic also flares up in non-liquid foods too, such as when making bread. To make bread you need enough dough for a piece of bread and a stoneware. You however, cannot make 10 bread without doing 10 pieces of dough and 10 pieces of stoneware. Why? Why is this a thing?

 

Moving on to another missed opportunity, i’m not sure if developers were willing to accommodate balance changes necessary to properly do something like this, but you completely ignored all the endgame unique items you couldve thrown in to make unique, fantasy meals that give nice bonuses. You could have tied it into the affinity system, such as making a white dragon steak give one of those temporary Body Strength affinities. people would go out of their way to try and get this stuff which would increase the value of items that are currently deemed worthless (which is HUGE, considering most of the things and materials you come across in the game are pointless.) It’s something that was skipped over but could have been pretty revolutionary, i suppose this part was more of a suggestion than anything else, but it couldve been the start of really fleshing out the clutter that currently persists in the game world.

 

Last but not least, the UI could do some work. I mean for the affinity thing, you could add a search feature to show which meals give what affinity so people know instead of having to rely on third party programs to do it for them (or if it was standardized, the forums or wiki, or ingame chat.). The fats value, as i just dislike clutter, doesn’t need to be there at all if you are a non-priest. It has no benefit for you in any way, shape, or form.

 

Also, with the cookbook you are adding too many unknowns. A lot of the recipes here have a lot of ingredients, some with very minor variations. I’m not asking for you to list the name of the recipes, or the ingredients, or even the number of ingredients. But it would be excellent to have a number next to each category showing how much you have learned and how much you need to go. Like Brews [20/50], indicating to the player that they are missing 30 recipes. You could even take a step further and tie in to the achievement and personal goal systems in some way.

 

Thats it. Also, I have crippling depression.

 

 

this

[Zekezor 3,188]

8 minutes ago, Aeris said:

And I'd like someone to confirm a recipe that does what I need since I'm not at all amused by the idea going through 500 recipes just to find the easiest to make meal that gives 90+ nutrition. :/

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Stanlee 3,434]

SB and Favor have swapped bar style (not position)

[Ostentatio 1,970]

1 hour ago, Stanlee said:

SB and Favor have swapped bar style (not position)

 

Is it just me or does the protein bar's color get really low contrast after about 50% or so? It's 100% there but looks half-full.

[Ecrir 887]

Perhaps another way to balance more complex foods would be if they gave multiple affinities to one skill, as the affinity on a skill can go from 1 to 5 and there are way more foods than there are skills (so I assume there is already some overlap with foods giving the same affinities). CCFP should also be better for more complex foods, else there'd be no point in putting in more effort.

 

As for affinities being random, on the one hand I understand why people don't want them to be random, but on the other hand I think it's actually a good idea to make them random. This greatly decreases the odds that people will only end up making a couple of foods, ignoring all the rest. Then there'd be little point in selling food as everybody would be selling the same stuff. If it's random then it's easier to sell food on demand, which should be far more interesting trade wise and will ensure that more of the recipes will be used. So personally I hope the random affinity part stays, as it would be a shame if people just end up making 5-10 types of food, ignoring the rest, just like how people just mostly make meals now.

If done randomly like it is now then it should be possible to distribute them in a fair way. For example if you group all the foods on difficulty then it should be possible to ensure that a skill like weaponsmithing is always tied to a food from the same difficulty for each player. This could be a group of 50 different foods. Then it's still random, but within limits in order to prevent unfair situations.

 

7 minutes ago, Ostentatio said:

 

Is it just me or does the protein bar's color get really low contrast after about 50% or so? It's 100% there but looks half-full.

 

The color seems to be too close to the background, making it hard to see. That's one they should probably switch out for another color.

Edited October 25, 2016 by Ecrir

[Griffith 362]

all this seems good for people who like micromanaging. i do not unfortunately. so a big -1 from me.

i guess when it comes to wu ill have to play in my own private server and play an old version

that doesnt include this crap.

[Ostentatio 1,970]

1 minute ago, Griffith said:

all this seems good for people who like micromanaging. i do not unfortunately. so a big -1 from me.

i guess when it comes to wu ill have to play in my own private server and play an old version

that doesnt include this crap.

 

As has been mentioned countless times by now, if you don't want to use the new features you don't have to. If you just want the benefits of 99% nutrition and a full food bar, you can get that just as easily in the new system as you could in the old, if not more easily.

 

... But you'd know that if you had read the thread.

[NeeNee 855]

1 hour ago, Ecrir said:

 

 

As for affinities being random, on the one hand I understand why people don't want them to be random, but on the other hand I think it's actually a good idea to make them random. This greatly decreases the odds that people will only end up making a couple of foods, ignoring all the rest. Then there'd be little point in selling food as everybody would be selling the same stuff. If it's random then it's easier to sell food on demand, which should be far more interesting trade wise and will ensure that more of the recipes will be used. So personally I hope the random affinity part stays, as it would be a shame if people just end up making 5-10 types of food, ignoring the rest, just like how people just mostly make meals now.

If done randomly like it is now then it should be possible to distribute them in a fair way. For example if you group all the foods on difficulty then it should be possible to ensure that a skill like weaponsmithing is always tied to a food from the same difficulty for each player. This could be a group of 50 different foods. Then it's still random, but within limits in order to prevent unfair situations.

 

Agreed. I really love this. Yes, it adds a layer of difficulty that belongs in Wurm. Otherwise, it'll be the same min/maxing that happens with all over games (and in Wurm). This opens up more economic possibilities, new uses for skills and allows you to even ignore it completely! I don't know about tying it to difficulty, because why can't one person get weaponsmithing skill from tea, but another from the most complex thing ever. It's Wurm. It's supposed to have wogic. 

[Alectrys 2,040]

4 hours ago, Jaz said:

I've tried to chop onion on the cooking test server

* took onion from "farm produce" FSB
* used (silver) knife on onion

The action timer runs fully but nothing happens. No error message, no chopped onion, no loss from the weight of the onion.
The onion cannot be put back into FSB as "you work with that item".
Tried with another onion and after relogging for /lotime, same issue.

 

Seems I can chop stuff taken from other FSBs. Tried to put an onion which was taken from fram produce to another and take it again, still no success.

 

I was not able to reproduce this Jaz.  Can you try again the next time you come in?

[zigozag 918]

On 24.10.2016 at 6:19 PM, zigozag said:

Can you bring back the crafting window into cooking everywhere where it makes sense? Sandwiches, juices, cheeses... Right-clicking sucks, in general. It was enough having it the only way for alchemy.

 

[Trystant 1]

If I place a lemon in a cauldron and use the 'lore' option. I says "Have you tried a red wine (0% of solids)?".

 

Same holds true for raspberries and strawberries.

 

If you put a blue grape or green grape in a cauldron and use the 'lore' option, it says "Have you tried a white wine (0% of solids)?".

 

Trystant

[Ostentatio 1,970]

For what it's worth, even if I make a pancake with jam in it, the description says "a plain pancake".

 

Also the current graphic of it is very meaty.

[Greyfox 427]

Just bumping my idea to have the test left up for another weekend.
I know I personally have not been the most helpful tester, expressing frustrations more than anything else.  That said, I'm not the only person to say the cooking update needs some work.   It's awkward right now.   Hard to work with.
Give us one more weekend of testing. 
I really do appreciate the work that has gone into this update. It needs some fine tuning.  Reason I'm asking for another weekend for testing.   I can't speak for anyone else, but for myself, going to Test after work while I have deed chores to do is a no go. 
It can't hurt the Dev team to keep the cooking update open for another 3-4 days.   Probably help actually.