Suggestion Cooking needs to be improved.

[nath1234567]

The current cooking options in the crafting/cooking tab do not support the hardcore, survive with what you can get ahold of atmosphere that Willard is currently striving for right now.

The resource costs to get into cooking your food is simply too much, resulting in many players opting into eating their meat scripts raw rather than realistically finding simpler ways to cook their food. All one should need to do is be able to exposure their food to a source of heat. A slummer should not be opting into eating raw headcrab meat because they don't have the glue to make a pot or pan, or the various unnecessary ingredients such as salt or margarine, when there is a barrel fire twenty feet away from them.

I see a few ways that this issue can be resolved.

1. Reduce the resource cost that it takes to make pots and pans (no glue, nobody should be choosing to eat raw meat cause they dont have glue) and introduce new cooked food items that can be made without the use of the seasoning ingredients, just pure heat over a fire as one would if they were actually in this hardcore atmosphere we're playing in. These new items should provide more restoration of hunger than raw food while still being inferior to meat that is cooked with the current recipes. We could also introduce a new makeshift pot/pan script that breaks much faster than the current ones do (one or two uses, but cheap to make) so that we can keep the higher quality glue pot/pan in the game.

2. idk i kind of covered my idea in 1 but i want to keep my numbered format to help your eyes

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Overall, I feel these changes would be much better suited for the roleplay environment we are striving for and that this is long overdue.

I have seen mentioned in the past the idea of a disease/infection mechanic being introduced to combat people eating raw food. If these changes were introduced, then I can see this sickness system being much more sensible, as the game would have a plethora of realistic options to cook the diseases out of your food.

This sort of thing would pave the way for many more interesting RP experiences. Slummers cooking food at campfires rather than quietly eating raw meat scripts with no RP or /me's involved. Watching a slummer cook a shitty meal with a makeshift pot and a long timer will spawn RP. Strangely enough though, not many people are interested in even acknowledging that their character is eating raw meat all the time because everyone knows they would be dead if they were.

As it stands now though, eating raw meat is something that we're basically forcing players into doing with how expensive and unrealistic our cooking recipes are and understandably should not punish players for these mechanics.​

 

[nath1234567]

When I have time to get on the server, I will gather information on how many times raw meats have been consumed versus their cooked counterparts and will post the numbers under this message.

imagine a world where people rp cooking shitty meals under a long timer at their campfires, rather than quietly consuming their raw meats scripts with no RP involved because they dont want to acknowledge that they should have died to infection..

 

[Matt]

I'm glad you made this post as it put a lot of my thoughts into words.

A big limiting factor currently in cooking any type of food is the lack of any ingredients, despite being able to realistically cook the meat over a fire as Nath stated above.

My main citizen character is a cook with a relatively high skill level, and the only thing I could make recently is the Artificial Cheese Paste, but since the ingredients have slowly dwindled it has become increasingly difficult to cook anything as of late. We have more than enough meat to supply us, but absolutely no means to cook it.

Even if we just had alternatives to the more common types of meat with the buffs removed & longer cooking times, specifically Headcrab & Antlion, I think it would go a long way in supporting the hardcore atmosphere while still giving some autonomy to the player & their survival.

 

[FieldersNL]

either cwu needs to stock up a lot of ingredients or cooking requirements needs to be lowered

 

[RedHotGinger]

Okay, suggestion aside for a moment, why on Earth did you format the text this way? Take a moment to reconsider...apologize.


Cooking wise...I could be talking out of my ass here, but on the subject of 'simpler' cooking you could basically have food that provides zero benefits, is comparably easy to make, and just serves as a meal to be eaten. While the more 'ingredient based' foods are those that actually provide all those buffs and shit.

On the flipside, raw food becomes something that you only eat in pure desperation. Providing massive debuffs, I'm talking like -2 across the board. Cause right now, raw food is kinda 'meta.' A single leech provides extreme nutrition at basically zero cost or debuff. This means rations are more or less kinda pointless cause you never really need them. Hell, Im 99% sure a single raw leech feeds you more than several cooked ones. When in reality, eating shit raw isn't really a good idea. Especially not alien meat, which is the most common brand of meat on Willard.

 

[Bounter]

While I don't think "skill" levels should be reduced any further for recipes, as it would defeat purpose of COok Specialised characters, I do agree, that in the current state, it's basically impossible to cook.

Not only are ingredients rare and hard to come by, and never restocked, but also shop owners who may sell them, also may not even have access to restocking. It's less a "no tools issue" and more "no things to make food with" issue.

For instance, while I wouldn't be opposed to certain cooking utensils having changed recipes, I also don't think recipes should be braindead easy to make either.

 

[Bounter]

Okay, suggestion aside for a moment, why on Earth did you format the text this way? Take a moment to reconsider...apologize.


Cooking wise...I could be talking out of my ass here, but on the subject of 'simpler' cooking you could basically have food that provides zero benefits, is comparably easy to make, and just serves as a meal to be eaten. While the more 'ingredient based' foods are those that actually provide all those buffs and shit.

On the flipside, raw food becomes something that you only eat in pure desperation. Providing massive debuffs, I'm talking like -2 across the board. Cause right now, raw food is kinda 'meta.' A single leech provides extreme nutrition at basically zero cost or debuff. This means rations are more or less kinda pointless cause you never really need them. Hell, Im 99% sure a single raw leech feeds you more than several cooked ones. When in reality, eating shit raw isn't really a good idea. Especially not alien meat, which is the most common brand of meat on Willard.

I mean some "Raw" things aren't bad to eat, like Fish irl, they can be eaten raw, or at the very least, when cleaned under water + 10 seconds over fire to dry.

For instance, a Leech is like a raw fish, but I do agree, raw ones give TOO MUCH. They give more than raw antlions or crabs. And roasted gives equal / bit less, but requires far more to make.

 

[Robert]

I don't really see a point in changing cooking this way to make it simpler.

Getting a Cooking pot or frying pan not that hard and progressing to that level some have done in under 3 days of starting their rebel journey which is a good benchmark given the pan and pots have quite a lot of uses.

Raw foods is to be eaten out of desperation and the cooked ones are not that hard to make either starting from the basic level of what you need which is skewered meat. These have been made to be dummy simply with just 4 zombie kills allows you to feed 2 players with 12 headcrab skewers gained from 4 headcrab meat.

That is just only simple example and I see no reason to make that process any simpler when there is a few producing a ton of food resource. I think the recipes are fine.

The only problem cooking really has atm is the LACK OF ingredients to make the foods better than skewered stuff, the type of foods that actually give benefits upon consumption. That stuff I think should remain as is, just the stock issues may make it hard to get.

Anyone eating raw foods is desperate and not finding those people who can produce tons of good food or failing to progress themselves for one reason or another despite many around them jumping higher and higher each day.

Like unless someone can break down the real issues of cooking that isn't a lack of progression related or lack of stock related. I may be able to look into it, but I can't edit something due to IC circumstance.

 

[RedHotGinger]

Raw foods is to be eaten out of desperation

At least for leeches, this just isn't the case.

no debuffs
Massive replenishment

Raw leeches (if not all raw food) is basically a much better ration.
You'd be better off just eating a raw leech than compared to wasting five of them for a skewer.

 

[BrennenW05]

I don't really see a point in changing cooking this way to make it simpler.

Getting a Cooking pot or frying pan not that hard and progressing to that level some have done in under 3 days of starting their rebel journey which is a good benchmark given the pan and pots have quite a lot of uses.

Raw foods is to be eaten out of desperation and the cooked ones are not that hard to make either starting from the basic level of what you need which is skewered meat. These have been made to be dummy simply with just 4 zombie kills allows you to feed 2 players with 12 headcrab skewers gained from 4 headcrab meat.

That is just only simple example and I see no reason to make that process any simpler when there is a few producing a ton of food resource. I think the recipes are fine.

The only problem cooking really has atm is the LACK OF ingredients to make the foods better than skewered stuff, the type of foods that actually give benefits upon consumption. That stuff I think should remain as is, just the stock issues may make it hard to get.

Anyone eating raw foods is desperate and not finding those people who can produce tons of good food or failing to progress themselves for one reason or another despite many around them jumping higher and higher each day.

Like unless someone can break down the real issues of cooking that isn't a lack of progression related or lack of stock related. I may be able to look into it, but I can't edit something due to IC circumstance.

why do i need a knife to put leaches on a stick, and hold them over a fire

 

[Rio]

cook women instead

 

[nath1234567]

Raw foods is to be eaten out of desperation

As I said in my last post I would break down the numbers on how often raw scripts are being consumed versus their cooked counterparts, and I think my results are proof enough that raw foods aren't simply being eaten out of desperation. They're being eaten because the game simply doesn't incentivize you to cook your food enough. If getting a cooking pot or pan plus the unnecessary/unrealistic requirement of seasoning ingredients wasn't the chore that it is, then players wouldn't be eating raw as much as they are, which is quite a bit more often than cooked food.

They would most certainly be choosing to cook their food scripts for the buffs they provide, but the buffs aren't enough to incentive the chore that the current crafting is.

At the time of this message and going back 18 days from now, we have..

1. 779 raw eating incidents of headcrab, antlion and leech.
2. Roughly 350 headcrab, antlion and leech scripts consumed in the form of skewered meat. (crafting 2 meat of these types gives you 5 skewers so i had to do some math)
3. 123 roasted antlion, headcrab and leech items.

Another thing is that when I go through the names of the characters that are habitually eating raw food, they aren't all just desperate slummers as you describe. A good chunk of these people are well connected and belong to groups that have good amounts of resources, including the crafting glue needed for the creation of pots and pans. They're choosing not to because it simply isn't worth wasting the glue on this.

I would much rather see these players cooking their food with pots and pans that don't require such a demanding crafting recipe than to see them all secretly eating raw meat with no RP involved because nobody wants to acknowledge that they're eating raw alien meat every day and would realistically be deader than dead. This is just bad for RP and I think my suggestion would do a lot to help with immersion and improve the atmosphere that Willard is going for.

I'm going to try and run the numbers again but this time for raw food consumption throughout our time on City 8, where there was an abundance of resources. This will be harder through since there were a lot more food items that I will have to go through and I'm tired rn.

Not only are ingredients rare and hard to come by, and never restocked, but also shop owners who may sell them, also may not even have access to restocking. It's less a "no tools issue" and more "no things to make food with" issue.

I agree, and an important part of my suggestion is that you should be able to cook these food items without seasoning. Realistically, our desperate moments should be eating food that we cooked with no other ingredients over an open flame at a barrel fire or something, but the game doesn't facilitate this and instead forces us to unrealistically consume raw food because other mechanics just aren't there. (we're all dead from this) Again I think this is an issue because nobody actually acknowledges that they're eating raw food because they know they're dead from doing that, which results in a system that adds little to RP.

Okay, suggestion aside for a moment, why on Earth did you format the text this way? Take a moment to reconsider...apologize.


Cooking wise...I could be talking out of my ass here, but on the subject of 'simpler' cooking you could basically have food that provides zero benefits, is comparably easy to make, and just serves as a meal to be eaten. While the more 'ingredient based' foods are those that actually provide all those buffs and shit.

On the flipside, raw food becomes something that you only eat in pure desperation. Providing massive debuffs, I'm talking like -2 across the board. Cause right now, raw food is kinda 'meta.' A single leech provides extreme nutrition at basically zero cost or debuff. This means rations are more or less kinda pointless cause you never really need them. Hell, Im 99% sure a single raw leech feeds you more than several cooked ones. When in reality, eating shit raw isn't really a good idea. Especially not alien meat, which is the most common brand of meat on Willard.

I'm sorry I thought it looked better when I was on mobile but the formatting is terrible I'll fix at some point. I agree with everything you said, but also I don't think that eating raw food should punish the player in the current state of the game considering it's evident by the numbers I posted above that it just isn't easy enough to cook food with the current recipes we have, otherwise people would be doing it.

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

779 raw eating incidents of headcrab, antlion and leech.

Terminal 7 is one day away from becoming a Cannibal Tribe.

 

[Robert]

I can tweak the recipes slightly perhaps but speaking with my gameplay colleagues we don't see a reason to make cooking too easy. For the civ factions and combine factions, they can easily use the CWU for all their needs in regards to cooking and order ingredients via LAMS.

Also no one should be able to eat raw meat apart from vorts, headcrabs and birds- fixed that now as that was a bug. Apologies to those who can no longer live off raw foods.

As for Slummers, you generally need to be in a group to really get anywhere and this has always been in the case in Rebel RP and in turn, the point. Solo'ing or being a duo is very difficult and is essentially forcing yourself to play on super hardcore mode. While being in a group is playing on standard difficulty with groups making cooking equipment, benches and more with minimal grinding required. Multiple groups have made ovens and some dont bother with ovens and stick to using fire barrels which they now can, or the old fashioned campfires which allow you to just use a knife and cut up foods onto a stick (Aka skewered meat) or if they have the resources get a frying pan and progress to make fillets with some ingredients which is notably much harder.

Skewered meat doing the calculations isn't hard to make and making the required knife can be done in under a day of playing- its not hard and if anyone is calling that expensive they haven't figured out the tricks everyone else is using to boost themselves miles ahead. This is a skill difference between groups of players.

I actively partake in the rebel scene daily and am aware of how much food is available, all of it cooked. Some of it comes from the Russian group, some comes from the Front group and others just comes from other smaller groups doing their own thing.

Like the data provided makes no sense when its not that difficult and we have literally seen the slummers doing better than the City in some cases- and even some groups use the workers union for their supply. Infact, one group even managed to get 4 stacks of adhesive in the first week of playing, shooting past the larger groups in terms of progression as they used their RP connections to convince CWU. And even without using that, other groups have made a lot of glue easy.

Its about as simple as a hardcore experience could get.

 

[Lost Coast Chanties]

...they haven't figured out the tricks everyone else is using to boost themselves miles ahead.

Didn't know you needed a meta understanding of epic tips and tricks to cook a basic kebab.

 

[Robert]

Didn't know you needed a meta understanding of epic tips and tricks to cook a basic kebab.

More or less having a understanding of the basic mechanics

Trash & loot
NPCs
Gathering methods
Crafting / Cooking skills

Or alternative of making friends, a group or even getting help from a faction like the Workers via relations or trade.

There is many ways to achieve success.

 

[nath1234567]

I'd like to point out that this suggestion is focused on improving the cooking mechanics and wasn't aimed at the removal of eating raw foods.

From my understanding, adhesive has been removed from the recipe to create a kitchen knife, meaning that it will now be easier to make skewered meat. I hope this change helps things and that we start seeing food be realistically prepared more often. (we dont really have a choice now either since raw eating is gone)

 

[George]

Generalised crafting system locked behind EXP system is a gamefied mechanic placed into a roleplay setting. Sorry I can't cook a pancake because I'm level 20, but I know the recipe and how its done. I also can't fathom a sandwich.

 

[FieldersNL]

Generalised crafting system locked behind EXP system is a gamefied mechanic placed into a roleplay setting. Sorry I can't cook a pancake because I'm level 20, but I know the recipe and how its done. I also can't fathom a sandwich.

skill issue

 

[ford-michigan]

What if instead of having skill locked meals that automatically have buffs. Instead most of the normal stuff that should not need a high cooking skill get set to a low level but no buffs. And then depending on your skill the buffs come back to corollate with the skill increase.