Chef Archive
Thread: State of the chef address (05/18/04)
They need to say what they mean and mean what they say!
Good Synopsis,
I feel about the same. I would love a couple more food items added as lootable schems. Eg:
1. Tat Sunburns....drop the filling on those just a BIT and its a viable drink.
2. Ryscate, same thing.
3. a Will power food.
Other than that I would love a Rolling Pin, and the abiliity to throw a Pie at our amazing Correspondant! 
Sure, its a few months out, and we know nothing about it, but its probably close enough that trying to work towards getting any new foods or food balances before then might be a waste of time.
Oh, and on my own wish list I'd still love to see different plate sizes so I don't have to carry multiple crates of synthsteak, fixing the stomach timer (besides being a clear bug, it would also alleviate a fair amount of cloning/still full problems to at least calm that crowd down), and a fix to food effect icons properly either staying or going after cloning based on the status of the effect - not the blind "keep em all" that we had originally or blind "drop em all" that we have now.
Well, it's been just about two months since I became correspondant, and around three since the revamp. So I figured I'd subject you to a bunch of rambling thoughts of mine, and maybe allow you to add your own. 
From most reports, the chef revamp has been a pretty good success. It wasn't quite the end of the world, even with the "forced" interdependence with Bio engineers. Chefs have pretty much changed from a quirky, niche profession made up mostly of the crafting weirdos in SWG to a standard for-profit job in the same way as armorsmiths, weaponsmiths, and architects. We had our Flavor of the Month moment in the sun (where everyone and their brother was pumping out crates of Brandy), but I think that's mostly settled down as well.
The new stat buff foods are much more organized (no more mixing and matching +this and -that), with foods to buff just about any combination of stats. Of course, as before, the mind buffs make up the majority of sales, but with the current state of combat and PvP, that's probably to be expected.
The skill buffs are bit more hit-and-miss. Some, like veghash's +creature harvesting have found a niche market. Others, like Jaar's bonus to wookie roar I don't think has ever been used. Still others, like Bivoli, have become quite popular.
The special effect foods have a similar breakdown. Synthsteak's damage reduction appears to be popular. Wound reduction after cloning doesn't seem at all useful. And a couple (Parwan Nutricake and Havla) appear to be edging towards being too powerful when additives are used, although time may be needed to be sure.
Customers do mainly demand foods enhanced with BE additives, but after a period of bad blood, I think things have smoothed out between our two professions. The market for BE tissues (especially BSNs and Nanonutrients) appears to have stabilized, with acceptable profits on both sides. I personally still wish there was some improvement chefs could impart when crafting the additive itself (instead of simply inheriting the work of the BE), but that's something I've learned to live without.
Still, there are a few nagging bugs that continue to plague us:
- Barrels continue to be bugged. Although to be honest, I wonder if we really want stacks of 30 dose Brandies. Still, these would be much appreciated for the lower-dose drinks like Breath of Heaven or Blue Milk.
- Wookiees cannot wear crafter's aprons.
- Stomach digestion remains at 45m, when it's been confirmed that 30m is the intended period. Although there are those occasional reports of a 40m buff remaining when the stomach empties...
- Garmorrl and Durindfire are capped due to resource stats.
- Havla and Ruby Bliel give no benefit unless you hit 100 Heal Recovery (only on Havla, and only with an additive). Of course, if you do get it that high, doctors/medics/CMs can spam heals/buffs/poison with no delay (possibly overpowered).
All of those have been brought to the Devs attention, and will (/crossesfingers) eventually end up as a listing in the patch notes for a publish or hotfix.
As of today, Chefs have a place and a role within the game, something that was iffy even four months ago. Some respected "old fogies" have left after the revamp (Nikki, Saitek, Liv, Hero, even SirVimes has gone AFK), if not from the profession than at least from the forum. However new blood has come in, both for the new market opportunities and because we're no longer a mostly useless, broken profession. Hologrinders come by every so often, but they get their questions answered (sometimes with a not-so-subtle point at the stickied FAQ) and either move on or hang around if they decide they like the profession.
The nostalgic part of me misses the rampant weirdness and flat out silliness that used to permeate the chef board (I think an equipable rolling pin just missed out being on one of our Top 5 issue lists), but I suppose that's something that would get lost with Chefs becoming more mainstream. One of the first "Astromech" Friday Features had Chefs being the third-rarest profession, above only Jedi and Pikeman. I'm positive that's changed, which I consider a good thing.
So thats where I see that we are: a stable, mostly-working crafting profession on the same level as smiths and artisans. Major changes are likely far down the Dev's to-do list, but with the pervasive nature of buffs I have confidence in the little things getting taken care of. I've been picking away at this post for quite a while now, so I think I'll wrap it up.
So, what do you think?
I would like to see quantity and filling (and to a lesser extent duration) play a bigger part in the experimentation process. The resources I use are good enough and the effect of experimenting on these attributes small enough that I seldom put any points into these categories. The only real exceptions to this seem to be 33% fill Canape, 50% fill Vercupti or 3 use Bivoli. Consequently, DR has become increasingly under-weighted in my resource selection process.
Message Edited by MilkToast on 05-19-2004 01:23 PM
MilkToast wrote:
I would like to see quantity and filling (and to a lesser extent duration) play a bigger part in the experimentation process. The resources I use are good enough and the effect of experimenting on these attributes small enough that I seldom put any points into these categories. The only real exceptions to this seem to be 33% fill Canape, 50% fill Vercupti or 3 use Bivoli. Consequently, DR has become increasingly under-weighted in my resource selection process.
Message Edited by MilkToast on 05-19-2004 01:23 PM
I'd also like to extend the above to include the BE additives. With the value ranges of these additives, it's very rare that nutrition isn't the 'optimal' choice by a LONG way. Both filling and flavour additives seem to be around half-strength (if not worse)compared to nutrition.
For example, my BE made me some +62 Heavy Flavour additives (I asked for a few, so I could play with some possible ideas). Unfortunately, when you compare a 62% duration increase to a 116% buff increase, it just never seems to be a viable option.
Likewise, I can get Light filling additives of 13, compared to Light nutrition of 56 (easily). The buff-per-filling-point is clearly higher with the nutrition-enhanced stuff -you'd need a filling bonus of 33 to get the same buff-per-fillas a +50 Light nutrition additive. Even then, buff-per-credit would still come out in favour of nutrition.
I can't believe this is intentional, especially since the other additives seem to require rarer resources to make them - it's just a one-horse race.
rgrocott wrote:
MilkToast wrote:
I would like to see quantity and filling (and to a lesser extent duration) play a bigger part in the experimentation process. The resources I use are good enough and the effect of experimenting on these attributes small enough that I seldom put any points into these categories. The only real exceptions to this seem to be 33% fill Canape, 50% fill Vercupti or 3 use Bivoli. Consequently, DR has become increasingly under-weighted in my resource selection process.
Message Edited by MilkToast on 05-19-2004 01:23 PM
I'd also like to extend the above to include the BE additives. With the value ranges of these additives, it's very rare that nutrition isn't the 'optimal' choice by a LONG way. Both filling and flavour additives seem to be around half-strength (if not worse)compared to nutrition.
For example, my BE made me some +62 Heavy Flavour additives (I asked for a few, so I could play with some possible ideas). Unfortunately, when you compare a 62% duration increase to a 116% buff increase, it just never seems to be a viable option.
Likewise, I can get Light filling additives of 13, compared to Light nutrition of 56 (easily). The buff-per-filling-point is clearly higher with the nutrition-enhanced stuff -you'd need a filling bonus of 33 to get the same buff-per-fillas a +50 Light nutrition additive. Even then, buff-per-credit would still come out in favour of nutrition.
I can't believe this is intentional, especially since the other additives seem to require rarer resources to make them - it's just a one-horse race.
I agree with rgrocott 100%! It would be nice to be able to have a use for these other additives. I still have some of the first crate of flavor additives I ever bought, I still havent found a good use for them.. any suggestions?
You're right about how most of our bugs are more annoying than game-breaking. Any chef who's been around since last August or so could tell some horror stories. /shudder.Message Edited by sciguyCO on 05-20-2004 12:15 PM
Great post Sci! I think you were pretty much bang-on in your assesment. I just became Master Chef yesterday, and I love it. (I also found out about barrels being bugged, shortly after mastering. Nice surprise, that.)
One issue I'd like to mention that in a roundabout way affects the Chef, but moreover every player who uses food:
- Stomach full percentages remain after ressing. This needs to be addressed. When you clone and res, you are effectively a new "you". Why then, does your food level remain? If that can't be fixed, then I know more than a few players who would love to keep their med buffs after res too. 