Chef Archive
Thread: Visions for the chef Class A wish list of suggestions for improvement.
I have some ideas for the chef profession as well.. unfortunately my list is at home.. I will add them later tonight...
One of the sillier ideas that I had was to allow foods to make people fatter after they consume large quantities of food. Say every 100 units of food consumed they get a bit fatter.... this would also be good for image designers as most people in game want to be skinny... they eat lots of food.. get fat and consult an image designer to get skinny and buffed again....
I'll post the rest of my ideas later tonight.. since they are on a piece of paper that I have at home
Now some of you have been chefs far longer than me, and I would like to get a little input as to what you guys would think of some ideas I have been kicking around. I have played a Bio Engineer since later beta, but have always focused on the cooking and tailoring aspects and almost no attention towards the creature side. So i like to do a little dabbling in the experimentation of foods and combining additives to give food more of a kick.
However, I have a few ideas that i thought would be a great addition to the chef class (who knows how easily implemented some of these things might be, but I thought I would give it a shot.)
1. Components for cooking - Currently, the chefs have quite a few recipes that call for dough or for alcohol, carbo-syrup.. etc. This is great, but wouldn't it be even better if we had some cool hunting and forage style recipes? Or maybe a little face-lift to some of the recipes like the weaponsmiths and such saw with the powerups. Vitamin enhancements? You can see where I am going with this.
What I think would be a great idea would be something along the lines of new recipes like "Chuba Stew". This would most likely require more work than just adding a new recipe. But say there is a 5% chance that a creature from the chuba family would drop a chuba leg as loot. These could then be used in the "chuba stew" recipe for a nice hunting style recipe. We see this in certain recipes already, via recipes that specifically require Corellian berries or Lokian wheat. etc. But it would add all that much more depth to have hunting style recipes. Maybe offset the difficulty ofhaving to hunt for animal components by giving a boost in the length of the buff, or a marginal increase in power. I just think it would be so cool to have a dish based off of a kimogila's liver or a Kaadu's wing... the possibilities are endless. There could even be 'pot-luck' or 'stew' style dishes that would take different components and give a random mix of buffs, but I get ahead of myself...
2. Customization - I know that a lot of the experimentations are still a tad loopy, and that classes like the Droid Engineer have completely lost their customization ability for the time being, so this might be something that would be in the future after those fixes have been put into effect. I was thinking customization would be cool for certain food aspects. It would be purely cosmetic, but being able to choose the color for certain things would be really nice. Think about a Corellian Air Cake that is made with blue icing? Or different cantina drinks with coloring added to them. Its more or less a minor thing, but i think it would add to the feeling of really experimenting with your food. Maybe even add a "Food Coloring" component for certain recipes that would change the color of the food. This could be given as a recipe to another class for interdependence, or left for the chef.
3. Chef Specific Storage Units and Furniture- Once again this is another idea that is just a way to add a little bit of customization for a chef. Currently my house feels like it doesn't have any real kitchen elements to it. Besides my measly little food and chemical crafting station there is nothing in my house to really say that I am a chef. How about refrigeration units? Or a range ... I would even settle for a larger version of the little grill that comes in the scout's camping kit.. actually ANYTHING to put into my designated kitchen area to tell it apart from the other rooms would be nice. I guess I'll have to wait on things like a hanging pot rack or cutlety blocks though... I would like to see cooking utensils like pots and pans eventually though. And maybe silverware and earthenwarefordinner parties (formal and informal would be VERY cool)? However a lot of this is dependent on being able to raise the Y-Coordinate of items, which is inconveniently missing from the furniture placement options.
4. Chef Clothing- with the exception of a few bits of clothing, there are no real "Chef" clothes. I am sure in the future there are many additions slated for the crafting classes and new recipes and schematics will be added. However, I would like to see a chef hat! I would also like to see aprons, and other chef style clothing. There are a few buttoned vests that when crafted white are very "cheffy". But I miss my big muppet Swedish Chef hat! I have not seen a lot of the clothing for the tailor so there may be some things that I am missing, but to my knowledge 2 of my master tailor friends have confirmed there is specifically no Chef hat. 
To sum it all up, and I haven't touched theareas of contention about buffstrength and duration, I believe that the "accessory" side of the chef class is almost non-existant. I will humbly accept any counters to this argument because I would really like to see some chef utensils if there are any that I don't know about or haven't mentioned. But I would ultimately like to see a lot of this stuff added. I want my chef shop to stand out when people walk in, I want my customers to say, wow... that's a kitchen. Or man, this wood-burning pizza oven is huge and looks so cool next to your wine-rack.
If anyone else has any ideas or suggestions get them up here so we can start a lively discussion on the issue.
Age
heh.. I mentionedmy initial thoughtelsewhere, but, I'd really like to see a visual cue associated with our efforts. Basically, chefs see their food more clearly as a necessity because we resource and labor over it, but players only really note it in their inventories before its clicked away into a mild "glug glug" or "gulp". I'll let other people push the buffqualms and balancing needs - I'm thinking longterm additions which would make me happy...
So I'm asking for:
1) PAT THE BELLY for when a character can eat or drink no more. Maybe a belch that includes gestures.
2) UNIVERSAL FOOD VENDOR on the street or cantinas or hotels. OR ALTERNATIVELY, a toplevel FOOD category on the bazaar that doesnt hide under MISC. Remember the stall in Mos Eisley with the little creatures in it hanging by their toes, over by the starport? It'd make a funny place to buy your drinks and eats on the street.
3) CHEF SKILL ANIMATING I like the chef hat idea, or how about a spoon waving, or bowl mixing or something silly. All we have is a timer so far, which is simplistic and workable, but again, not endearing to other players. I want something which catches the eyes of others to make us relevant to their interest. Something they SEE that informs them our profession is doing something. Not this timer visible only to us.
4) ATTRACTING AROMA Heh, for our food crafting (not drinks) it would be amusing if we could intrigue some of those pets hanging around in a non hostile way. What better way to get people to buy food for their gubburs and slice hounds than if the pet issued a (!!!FOOD!!!) whenever we crafted near them. Well, ok, maybe that's scary.
5) DARTH CHOCCA BROWNIES Cuz I'm a freak and I want to make brownies for my cantina buds. Please?
6) LUNCH BOXES A 2-3 slot container which we can make that will let us customize contents, remains cheap and disposable, and provides endless combination choices to sell paired products to encourage usage. This is totally self-serving and the reason I suggested 2-3 slots is because my main goal this past week has been informing the newer players what a food buff does. How about a container that advertises exactly what we provide to the rest of the galaxy.
and my last one....
7) BUFFET TABLE/ ie chef specific camp site. Again, because I'm a freak, but, if we have a stack of products to give away for free in the hotel or cantina (notice the specificity of location), it'd be a hoot to pull out our buffet table gear at Master Chef levels and offer other players a real course. I'm sure we'd need other requirements alongside utilizing this (ie a variety of pre-made foods in the inventory).
Yesterday I had two people tell me ingame they had dropped being a chef because it wasn't rewarding. I already KNOW being a baker isn't rewarding because people are pigs when it comes to good eats. What would make this profession more attractive to the game is more visual cues reminding other players of why we exist - but which also MAKE US FASCINATING TO BE AROUND. It's like being a Teras Kai and having those red trails, shooting a rocket gun, dancing with lights or just tumbling to a kneel - we have no visual loving from the game right now. PLEASE, save a durni, keep your chefs in the city by making our professions more attractive than fieldwork.
If you drop a food/chem crafting tool, it looks kinda like a small barbeque grill, but that's about as close to "kitchen" furniture as I've been able to get so far.
More accessories would be really nice for those of us setting up shops to give them a real restaraunt feel.
And we definately need a Chef Hat!
The artwork for at least one style of apron is in game, check out what the Chef Trainers are wearing 
Maybe chopping veggies or something. Maybe standing over a grill with lil flames popping out.
Would be nice for bartenders to be able to pour a drink. would be even better if experts could twirl bottles around. make it kinda like a flourish that entertainers have.
For RP purposes have all character be able to hold a drink and maybe sip from it every one in awhile.
Would love to put food on a table that someone is sitting at.
just some wishlist stuff that would make the RPing chefs have a little more fun. would also add a new flavor to cantina life.
Some great suggestions in here. I particularly like the idea of hunting foods that can be crafted with a chuba leg or other animal trophy. In terms of risk (and rarity!) vs reward, these foods should have absoluely superb buffs, since they should be really rare.
I had been thinking of something along these lines last night, but I was thinkign that we should encourage chefs to get out in the field. I'm a novice chef with some scout and marksman skills, and when I'm sitting in my little camp looking at that hibachi, I wish I could use it. How about some recipes that require the chef to be seated close to a camp barbecue, instead of (or as well as) a food crafting station? If you require both, this woudl mean the recipes could only be made by chefs who either have a droid with a food-crafting module (DEs will like that idea) or Chefs with access to one of the really high level camps (I've seen one that has crafting stations in the camp).
This would encourage chefs to dabble a bit more, getting them to take at least some low level scouting skills, or encourage them to group more, so they can go out in the field with friends and craft special foods for hunting groups. This would also add a little bit of variety to a chef's life
Great! Everything looks good, and I like the discussion we got going on here. I also had a few other ideas, keep in mind that these are all wish-list things that are far less serious than the deep mechanics of the chef class we are seeing batted about in some of the other posts.
I would like to see something akin to a disposable food/chem crafting station for the chef. Most chefs I know, myself included, are strapped for cash most of the time. We could make money if we had a few back up skills for getting cash, but I am a hardcore chef baby!! I only sell my eats for dough (no pun intended). I know that at times it can be quite daunting to accumulate enough wealth to buy a house to put a food/chem crafting station or to buy a droid with the crafting module (at least at the prices I am always quoted), so I was thinking something cool to have would bea barbecue pit or other such craftable disposable. I don't want to steal the thunder of the ranger with their food/chem crafting station in their base camp, but I think it would be cool to have a barbecue pit type disposable that allowed for 2 or 3 quick food craftings (of thevariety that requirea crafting station)before it became useless. It would also be a cool unique visual aid that says "I'm a chef! Look at me dagnabbit!"
Don't get me wrong, I am completely for interdependence amongst the professions in the game. I think it lends itself to a more interactive community and tends to pull people away from the greedy greedy powerlevel treadmill that everyone claims to hate but loves to do. For this reason, I think it would be cool to have an addition to the architect or merchantclass that would benefit the chef. Now I know this forum might not be the place for this kind of introduction, but wouldn't it be cool to be able to have an architector merchantinstall a shop display window in the front or side of your house (this would actually benefit all artisan classes)? I would love to be able to set up an elaborate bakery display so customers could run by and window shop. It would be so great... They could even go so far as to introduce some craftable or the like to the master artisan that would allow them to stencil lettering into the window for your shop. I for one would really love to see this. Imagine how great it would be to have customers walk-by and be attracted into your store because of your stunning window display. Oh well, one can dream...
I couldn't agree with Ihro more. When I think chef, I think of a bustling kitchen where silverware is clattering, soup bases are being stirred and vegetables are being chopped. We don't have anything at all that lends itself remotely to a kitchen. Like someone else stated we have the grill-like food/chem kit... but that thing is ugly and doesn't look professional at all. As an accomplished baker I want to have those glass covers to put over cakes, and the big pastry bags that hold icing. We need more visual aids. lol. I want to be able to recreate my Iron chef, kitchen arena Starwars style!
Age
Please DO add your ideas to this thread and support it so that Devs notice and consider your (and my) ideas! I have quite a few ideas as it happens, some of which have already been proposed and some of which cross ideas already mentioned but with more detail. A lot of these appeared in ageneral discussion thread of mine linked at the bottom of this page but I dont think they got the attention they deserve. I've decided now to pursue Chef so I'm expanding specifically on those aspects!
For those that dont want to plough through my whole post mySUMMARY is:
1) New ways to get food & drink to people, and make it more an integral part of cantina & hotel life
2) Food & drink that can be used on NPCs to various effects
3) Food & drink that grant temporary skills / skill mod boosts, and thus food & drink to suit particular professions
Now the long version...
1.1) I would love it if all food had an 'Offer to' option on the radial menu. Much quicker / easier / less frustrating than trading with PCs. Instead they see something like: "LedSyrus has offered you a Jawa Beer (Constitution+63,429secs Willpower+73,129sec). Would you like it? Yes/No". Chefs could rely on tips i guess, but possibly there might be some way to add a price to the message (if you want to). Perhaps you could designate an askingPrice AND a salesPatter for each item of food (for god's sake though make it default to the last askingPrice / salesPatter you entered, or some other easy way of labelling multiple items!).
1.2) Lets make food & drink more a part of cantina & hotel life. Add special food & drink vendors in entertainment venues (free / very cheap to use for qualified chefs?) which allow for lots of sales to be posted- over and above what you are allowed in the bazaar at any one time.
1.3) Alternatively food/drink could be PLACED in cantinas & hotels (on the bar?) and in player houses, and could be bought/picked up by anyone for the asking price. Some food/drink consuming animations would make cantinas & hotels more fun too (thanks Waho for suggesting these last 2 ideas in the original thread linked below)]:
It'd be cool if food & drink could be offered to NPCs as well. Possible effects:
2.1) chance of making an aggro humanoid leave you alone
2.2) chance of increasing a mission payout / decreasing training charge / decrease pilot fares (the latter if they put NPC pilots in cantinas re: my original thread)
2.3) chance of smoothing out (non-rebel/imperial?) negative faction standings. (Actually, as I have mentioned in my first thread, linked at the bottom of this post, I would like there to be NPCs in cantinas with whom anyone can converse and stand a chance of smoothing out negative faction points a little- you know how it is, you gain 50 fp with one group and lose 100 with another. That stuff is difficult to reverse because things keep going down. Let people smooth-talk their way out of the bad books and cantinas & hotels gain an additional function in the world. Make food & drink seriously useful to the process and it would be great.)
2.4) chance / improved chance of getting minor loot / info drops (not necessarily valuable stuff, just interesting: clues to point people to dungeons / theme parks etc) from cantina & hotel NPCs if you converse with them while plying them with food & drink.
2.5) food & drink that'll help Bounty Hunters get information they need?
2.6) PET FOOD! Possibly to make them grow faster / stronger.
I would dearly love to see food & drink have other interesting effects, such as temporary skill granting. Such things could help make food & drink a part of cantina/hotel life, but also particular items could be appealing to particular professions / lifestyles:
3.1) food/drink that grants a temporary high-level dance skill, or grants a dance/song 1-2 levels higher than the level you are currently know. That'd be popular in cantinas.
3.2) food/drink to temporarily improve entertainers healing rates?
3.3) combat food/drink to temporarily improve resistance to dizzy / stun / blind etc
3.4) combat food/drink to temporarily improve dodge ability
3.5) food/drink to temporarily improve item assembly, experimentation, or reduce criticals
3.6) food/drink to temporarily extend burst run duration or reduce tiredness duration
3.7) food/drink to temporarily improve terrain negotiation for those long-haul cross-country trips.
3.8) food/drink to temporarily improve maskScent / conceal effectiveness, for those long-haul cross-country trips!
3.9) food/drink to temporarily improve weapon accuracy
3.10) food/drink to temporarily assist Teras Kasi meditation
3.11) food/drink to temporarily make your name flag / HAM bars appear bigger / more prominent to other players, for those entertainers who want to stand out of the crowd, or those drunken bums who are determined to!
So theres a few starters for you (if you will excuse the chef pun).
If you like these ideas, like I said before, some of them are mentioned in this original thread:
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Development&message.id=512923
..along with other fun ideas like pair-dancing, pilot NPCs in cantinas, jukebox droids for entertainers, mobile vendor droids for merchants, merchant-run PvP gambling tables, and others. All suggestions to make the game even more fun & star-warsey for all of us.
IF YOU APPRECIATE CONSTRUCTIVE IDEAS, PLEASE SUPPORT THESE (AND ADD YOUR OWN TO THIS THREAD) SO THEY DON'T JUST FALL BY THE WAYSIDE AND GET FORGOTTEN. IF YOU DON'T, FLAME ME & TELL ME TO SHUT UP, ELSE I'LL KEEP PROMOTING MY IDEAS AND ANNOYING PEOPLE! (Not my intention btw)
Cheers!
ledSyrus
LedSyrus... beside from it's irritating to read in bold... I must really say to your number 3... it's NOT Diablo 2... please be real... will you?
The idea for the NPC thingie... well could be accepted... but I aren't fond of it...
About the offer thing... sure why not? And some animation could be cool....
oh.
im sorry those ideas dont appeal to you. i'm certainly sorry about the big-font thing- i only wanted the summary at the top to be bold, not the rest.
i'm not familiar with Diablo2 and so not clear what you find objectionable.
I'm sorry if it came out a little harsh... but sigh... letting people dance better because they get food? Sounds not to good... honestly...
Ideas are good... and I'm seeing this as a user... not a crafter of food...