Chef Archive

Hey guys,

Well, here is the first draft of next correspondent report. I hope to send in a final draft at the end of the week. I have no idea if it will be read, but feel like I should be doing something.

As always, these are the issues as I see them. Feel free to disagree and tell me what I should add or what I should take away. I try to make these reports represent the community as much as I possible can. This is just a starting point.

Sorry for any spelling mistakes. As I said, this is a rought draft.

Developers,

Thank you once again for reading over the complaints of the people pursuing the chef profession. We see the potential fun in this profession, but we also see that there is a lot of work that needs to be done.

Also, thank you for the improvements you have already made. We see that you have added a way to get eggs for our recipes (is there a way to get milk as well? Hint hint.) I am also pleased that you are going to be putting in fixes for experimentation. While this was not on our list last week, it was something we were all concerned about.

Here are the top 5 problems with the chef profession for this report . Some of these are repeats from the last report, but they are extremely important to us.

1. Food is bugged and people cannot use all the charges.

Right now there is a bug that prevents people from using all their food. If a tattooine sunburn, for example, has seven charges, the food will stop working after it has been used 3 times. This is just and example. This bug seems to hit different types of food after different amount of uses at random.

One work around that we have found is to place the food on the floor and then using it. Obviously, we hope to find a better fix.

Here is a thread where we are talking about this issue: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=chef&message.id=7026

2. Buffs need to be more useful.

Right now, we make the weakest products in the game. Scouts, Smugglers and Doctors can outsell us because the buffs of their products are so much better than ours. We need buffs that are more competitive. We need buffs that are more comparable with their buffs. Our food has a much shorter duration than the buffs of other classes, and buff for a lot less than other classes.

One thing that chefs are divided on is how the buffs should be improved. Some of us feel an increase in duration will help us, while other feel it is the potency of the buffs that need to be increased. Of course, why not both? Then there are others who think we should be more creative than that. Why just buff stats? Why not buff skills? Why can't cantina drinks increase the rate battle fatigue is used? Why can't sports drinks increase speed? I am not sure which is the best way to increase buffs, although a combination of all of the above is probably the best way. One thing that I really hope you keep in mind is that Doctors, Scouts and Smugglers all have other ways to make money while chefs do not.

Here is a thread where we talk about how buffs should be increased: http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=chef&message.id=3114

3. There needs to be a better progression between novice artisan and master chef.

There seems to be no rhyme or reason to where you put schematics on the skill tree. Our best buff is in Mixology II, in the middle of the skill tree. For the most part, a Homemaker can make better food than most chefs. We need to see a progression of schematics with the lower ones being in Domestic Arts I and the best being with Master Chef. And we need to see a clear line between the two. Right now, as we climb up the tree we are not seeing better schematics as we go, and that is very discouraging for us. We need that ding, that reward for a job well done.

I know you have already said that you are going to be doing a balance pass on the recipes. We feel this really needs to be done soon. I think that this is probably what discourages people the most from becoming chefs. There have been many times where people have come on the boards saying that they saw that their buffs are not improving significantly (or at all) and becoming really discouraged about proceeding.

4. Several recipes are broken.

As people have moved up the Chef tree, we have discovered several broken schematics. The Wedding Cake, for example, does not seem to give any buffs or benefits. Double Dip Outer Rim Rumdrop and the Terratta do not even load at all. Nobody has been able to find the hydron-3 inert gas for the T’illa-T’iil. This, of course, are besides recipes that involve milk.

We request a developer go through and make sure all the schematics are working, and that we have the resources to make them work. This, of course, does not include recipes that involve milk.

5. Got Milk?

We need milk in the game. Either that, or please take milk out of the recipes. There are several recipes we would love to try that require milk. What is star wars without blue milk?

And finally, my personal request. My goal as a chef is to own and operate my own cantina. Right now I don’t like the way cantinas are set up. If anybody can heal battle fatigue in their own houses, why would they even bother coming to a cantina? I also think that cantinas should have their own schematics to that they are more recognizable at a distance. I think you should also do this for shops and medical centers. It will add more variety, make it easier for people to find them and just over all improve the feel of player cities (even though we don’t have them officially yet.) As things stand right now I don’t see how I could make a living running a cantina if nobody can find it and there is no reason to go there.

Well, that is it for this week. As always, feel free to come into the chef forums to say hi. We really are nice folk. And we promise to put away the cutlery.

SirVimes

Chef Correspondent.

I would take away 4 and 5 and replace with these two instead:

1. Experimentation & ingredient properties. Specifically, all food items are supposed to be 33/33/33 flavor/pe/oq for each stat (kind of uncreative but at least clear), which is absolutely not the case. It is very very hard to get over 50%to flavor and texturefor instance, and the stats that seem to get you there are weird and often not in organics at all, like decay resistance and unit toughness. Flavor has little to no effect. This seems to me to be majorly broken and seriously gets in the way of working to get the best ingredients for the best possible product. A few broken food items out of 100+ does not bother me nearly so much as every food item being unperfectable due to a weird and inaccurate schematic.

2..Filling. My biggest issue with filling is that the higher end items fill you up completely with one serving, making them arguably worse than lower end items you can stack 2-4 servings of. Also, the filling display in your character screen is just random, filling is not listed when examining food, and food fills you up for longer than the buff effects. I'd say this is also more important to me than 4 and 5, as it affects all the high-level food and drink items.

Good suggestion! I meant to add the experimentation one, just slipped my mind while writing this.

Looks great and I agree with everything save one point. I have a few comments about number 4 . The Hydron-3 Inert gas has been available on my server, Intrepid, three timesnow. However, each time it has appeared it has been mainly on rim planets, Yavin 4, Endor, I think Lok once....but it has been available.

I would like to see more exotic recipes requiring rare elements added. But I have a different idea as to how rare elements are attained. For instance, borrowing from real life, some culinary mastersare able to whip up incredible recipes year round,whereas certain dishes might be harder to come by in certain seasons. For instance soft-shell crabs (although you definately find them, albeit in scarce quantities, throughout the calendar year) arevery hard to get out of season. So there should be recipes that are harder to make than others, not due to quantity of a resource, but by scarcity and maybe bycalendar cycle?? (just an idea)

I believe whole-heartedly that a certain percentage of food recipes (as well asschematics for all crafting disciplines)should be rare and difficult to make. Some obscurity is always a good thing. I don't want to see them remove the hydron-3 inert gas requirement, but add more recipes like this. Don't change any of the current ones to be harder or easier, but keep the ratio about the same when adding new recipes. We have a TON of recipes, they shouldn't all be easily craftable should they?This is my personal preference, and I understand that some people want to be able to craft most everything if not all the class has to offer whenever they want, and I respect that, but personallyI like havingthat extra touch ofscarcity.

SirVimes, I would also like to see what your opinion is on some of my suggestions for a better future for the chef class? I know its a wish list, but can you take a look at your leisure? For instance I would like to see what the devs think about better chef clothing (tailor crafted) and more kitchen decorations (from the architect). We are missing the ability to put down things in our house besides the food/chem crafting station that remotely resemble a starwars kitchen. where is my big oven and pots and pans?

http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=chef&message.id=8483

Age

i think you should be more specific when you give suggestions to fix the problems you mentioned in #2

these suggestions would probably go well with the # issue. because people are divided about buff length or potency, entrees, desserts and drinks can all be distinctively different (in terms of which tree a novice chef would choose becauseone tree'sbuffs may last longer while others are stronger). i do think that the developers can do this, but i trust us ( the actual chefs) can make it better while keeping the game's economy in mind and still making it challenging enough so that we have to work as hard as other professions to make a decent profit.

A few thoughts:

For one, eggs didn't help us at all, since NO recipes use them. However if you want to make them feel good, then I guess you can keep it in.

Secondly, Hydron-3 isn't exactly the problem. It has been on Naritus for a while, and it was around before. Naritus has missed the Hurlothrombic element. I personally don't mind a drink with resources that are very hard to get (in fact I'd like more like it), but this drink had better be pretty dang good, and I think we're all going to be very disappointed when we see what it does once a server finally has gotten all 3 resources needed.

The filling issue is one of my top priorities. When you first get to master or even some level 4 chef foods you are like "wowI can make something pretty cool" then you find out you can only eat 1 and they fill you up for 30 minutes, and its a punch in the gut. It makes your amazing thing, really kind of bad. Not to mention you can eat more of a lower item and most likely an even cheaper price for the same effect.

Edit:

Food stack bug is #1 for me though. What a pain.

SirVimes

Please see my thread. I don't know if that info is of any use to the Chef developer, but I put it out there for you. Do with it what you will.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEEEEEEAAAASE fix Issue Number one and fix it FAST. When I drop on the floor to try to get what's left over of an item to work, it doesn't always work. I lose customers EVERYDAY and am afraid to make more things with this bug still in effect. I am not only losing patience, but love for the game. How is it that this kind of devastating error can last past a couple patches???!!! Ridiculous. I was not angry before thinking something this serious would definitely be addressed in the past patch, but I am very disappointed that it hasn't yet been addressed. The thread that first referenced this issue was postedAUGUST 31st!!!! I know all things take time - but please, I beg you - address this one issue. It has crippled our profession. I can't believe there hasn't been more screaming and pleading out there. Maybe I'm just in a bad mood - but I just feel no need to play tonight since I'm afraid to make items since I have no way of knowing whether they'll be bugged after I sell them. I can't make things to store or sell...I can only grind for xp right now. My hands are tied and I have run out of things to say. I am, to say the least, really dissappointed. Please put my faith back in this game and do it fast.

I just cut and pasted this reply that I made to a post today. I think it applies here as well. I would rather see some of the incorrect/bugged schematics fixed and the 33 33 33% requirement a bit more clearly stated. Then down the road (not too far mind you) when the 'Major' stuff is sorted for most of the buffable classes (balancing is never finished in a MMOG) they can balance pass our recipes. I would hate for them to nerf the hell out of Sunburn and only raise a few items by a small amount causing many of our number to leave the profession. I would really prefer that they do it properly and preferrably once (for the most part).

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How this kinda just popped into my head but I think we need to remember that food/drink buffs affect every class in the game. The Devs will probably wait to get many of the major bugs sorted with the main classes (especially combat) and then see how they perform against one another in PvP BEFORE looking at our recipes. Then and only then can they do a proper job of looking at chef buffs to ensure that they fit into the SWG universe in the rightplace with the correct buff strength and duration. If they do a hack job now and then they make some corrections to our main customer classes and have to REbalance our foods just think about how pissed off that would make us.

So perhaps they are not brushing us off (although hat is a possiblility) but maybe there is a plan to the madness. I just hope it diesn't take too long. We have lost too many of our number already......

Keep on chefin'

I also think that cantinas could have the use of a "food only" vendor in which all chefs could have their food sold in the cantinas in places such as the Lucky Despot for example.

Lets say I walk into the lucky despot... There is a vendor at the bar (a bartender perhaps)... and we actually use the lucky despot's bartender to vend food and drink goods.

This is a great way for people to purchase our wares outside of bazaars and private shops. And it makes sense, I don't think you can get any food or drinks at the cantinas right now... let your chefs throughout the galaxy sell their food and drink through the bartenders.

I am with everyone else in that the bugged stacks have to be the number one priority. That bug is as hard of nerf as you can put a profession.

I would take out any reference to Wedding Cakes so far as giving stats. I think it is meant to be a roleplaying tool which is fine except that it needs to have a different graphic than Air Cake if this is the case.

The other issues all come under "bang for the buck" with regards to food and drink. They either need to increase the "bang" of food by increasing buffs and duration or decrease the "buck" of crafting foods by making the resources required to make food more plentiful / increasing stack sizes / speeding up food factory times.

Some foods and drinks can just be removed. A food or drink that is + to a secondary stat can be marginally useful even if it's just +100 for 120 seconds. A food or drink that is +HAM for +120 seconds is pretty much worthless.