Chef Archive

SNACK BAR?!?!?!

why didnt i think of that?

First to address something I've seen for the first time:

Merlinmast wrote this:

1. What it buffs: This should only be secondary stats as many have agreed that increasing primaries makes no sense.

And to this I respond...Huh? Thats an excellent plan to make us totally useless and irrelevant. I've not seen that posted yet, so I'm curious to where the 'many have agreed' comment came from. If its your idea, then I'll respect that as your opinion, but I've honestly not seen that floated in a serious discussion.

Why do I say that? Well thanks, I'm glad you asked. Remember, the primary HA (minus the M) stats can be insta healed by fully 3 classes in the game (Medic, Doctor, and Combat Medic). Therefore, if there happens to be any of these three classes in the group, your buffs are USELESS because there is no need to regen Health or Action (of course Willpower remains useful for Mind).

Secondly, if our buffs only impact secondary stats, then they are relegated to 'downtime reducers' which is a very narrow and limited market segment. We want that big juicy market segment of gamers that are looking to increase their COMBAT EFFECTIVENESS.

Now that I've respectfully disagreed with said poster, I'd like to take SirVimes up on his offer and copy-paste from a previous post about where I think Chef buff stats should be.

btw I am FIRMLY in the camp of HIGH POWER short duration (10 - 30 min) buffs should be our primary focus, although as many people have pointed out and I think its a good point...we have a LOT of schematics and its quite possible to cover the range to make both groups satisfied. Enough of that, onto my repost:

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Domestic Arts foods that I condider 'worthwhile' making are (with experimentation):

Teltier Noodles at 110 health 80 Willpower for 300s

Ruby Blei at 80 Mind for 400s.

So scaling up from that I believe at Novice box we should have a progression like:

Novice Chef --->Buff single HAM stat +200 base(+400 for secondary)for 500s duration base.

Intermediate lines--->Buff single HAM stat +250 base (+500 secondary stats) for 600s duration base

Advanced lines -->Buff single HAM stat +350 base (+700 secondary stats) for 800s duration

Expert lines-->Buff single HAM stat +450 base (+900 secondary stats) for 1000s duration

Master Chef--Buff single HAM stat +500 base (+1000 secondary stats) for 1200s duration.

Multi-HAM buff enhancers would have a lower base, but of course affect more overall HAM stats, perhaps with a shorter duration.

I see this progression as similar to the doctor buff line. With the thought that at master eating 3 of a single food should be able to buff a single HAM stat into the +2000 range (after experimentation and all) for a 30 minute duration.

Here are some things to think about.

1. We are arguing right now that doctors and smugglers are outselling us because their buffs are better. What I don't want to get into a case of people complaining the master chefs are outselling novice chefs. Yeah, master chef should have different buffs...but there should always be a market for lower level cheffs.

2. I think we concentrate on buffing stats too much. Why can't higher level buffs be skill buffs? Cantina drinks increase dancing and musicial skill, while others increase the rate BF heals. Carrot cakes help reduce night penalties in combats. Sports drinks buff your exploration abilities. Another way we could seperate us from smugglers and doctors.

Just food for thought.

I was going to make the same suggestion SirVimes. Buffing skills could be an interresting twist.

I'm on the side of the not so powerfull buffs, that last long. With a little change to how the food and drink bar work. If the duration of our food exceeds the food/drink bars regen, we'll have a situation where people will be able to eat even more and add even more buffs to themselves. I don't think we want that as it would upset in game balance. For that reason I think that the food/drink bar should get back to normal after the buffs run out, or when one buff runs out the amount the food filled you for is given back to you so you can eat one more, or change.

This would force players to plan their buffings a bit ahead, cause you can't cancel a buff.

I think our buffs are good for the moment. Since we can eat more than one food before being filled, it means you can actually combo several food/drinks to get interresting results. For example let's say you take 2 cafs, a SS, a Veghash, a Fire stew and an ormachek (that's what I sell atm ). That would add up to something like Health +0, Str +140, Con +300, Action +50, Qui +90, Sta +240, Mind +100, Focus +270, Will +140. That's Tier2 food with cooking 2, plus some Dom food. If all those lasts between 5 and 10 minutes, it means you can eat more when the buff drops. You could expect from a Master Chef to be well buffed, like on average +1000 on HAM, and +300 to every secondary all the time, as long as you have enough food. I'd be pretty happy with that.

I agree that food buffs need to last longer, and the food should actually improve as you go up the skill trees.

One idea I had to make chef a more interesting profession would be the ability to add optional ingredients to each dish, which would provide special attributes. This ingredients should be appropriate to the dish, and somewhat difficult to find/make. (I think that there is something already like this having to do with Bio-Engineer, but it is unclear and I've been told it doesn't really work.)

For example, if you make a stew, there should be an optional 'herb' slot. The rarer the herb is, the more potent the effect. Maybe if you add a Nabooian Bay Leaf it adds an extra +20 stamina, but if you put in the Mysterious Chili Pepper of Endor it gives +1000 strength. For desserts, special ingredients could be fruits,nuts,or other additions, while drinks couldchange their effects depending on the type of liquor used(like a shot of some nice Tusken Scotch). The foods that are higher up the skill trees could contain more optional ingredient slots, giving them higher potential for greatness.

What would be even better is if these additions could also affect skill attributes. The aformentioned Chili Pepper could give+20 berserk for the duration of the food, and a Corellian Carrot could provide +10 defense against blindness. These would make food more unique and distinct, and create a real market whereby people might be inclined to pay us more than 100 for some food. It would also be much more fun to do the actual crafting of food, as we could experiment with different combinations. Finally, it would give explorers something moreto do (look for rare components) as well as Bio-Engineers (make specialized components).

Any feedback?

Muramarrra
Novice Bartender
(Gorath Server)

First:a question. How many of you also play as a combat class? I don't know, but from my experience playing as a combat class, I wouldn't touch a buff that gave +100 for 3 hours(18,000 on saiteks scale). Even if it was selling for only 200 credits for 3 uses. Why? This kind of a boost would give a negligible improvement, and wouldn't help me much. One chunky +800 boost that lasted for 10 minutes(8000 on saiteks scale) with 3 uses, I'd easily be prepared to pay 500 for. If it lasted 20 minutes, I could pay maybe 700 for it. One of my large markets is bounty hunters. They're high level players who already have all the equipment they need, so they can afford to spend money to be able to take down their target. They need these buffs to last for about 1-3 minutes at most while they kill their bounty. The rest of the time would be going to waste while they're running back to town to get the next mission.

I do see that there is a small market for longer lasting buffs. I'm sure that entertainers for example would be happy to buy 2 drink buffs and 2 food buffs that all added to stamina and lasted an hour, so for that hour they could dance nearly incessantly.

A note on the above: I think that since our profession is entirely dedicated to buffing we should be able to do both areas, and though I think reblsoldier may be asking for a bit too much, that the general idea is the same as I have... different branches concentrating on different areas... one for duration, one concentrating mainly on hams, and one for raw, quick burts of power, as well as of course the experimentation tree.

I'm not sure what you are refering to when you said "saiteks scale"

Argh... I meant Iwa's scale... you both have the same avatar under your title.

Sorry.

P.S. doh

hehe, thats ok , I was just really confused reading your post, and kept going back to my previous post to see if I some how mentioned a scale, or something that would resemble a scale.

I totally agree though, 100 pts on health is so not worth it, I've seen PVP hit up to 1000 on 1 shot, that 100 isn't gonna help you out to much there.

If a single buff isn't atleast 300,(anticipating you made more than 1, and you will eat more than 1), then frankly I'm not sure how helpful it is, especially for combat classes.

In my opinion, chef buffs would be better and more fun to use if the following were true:

1) Foods could be digested more quickly, so that once a buff wears off, one would be able to eat more right away. That's not to say that it necessarily should be digested as soon as the buff wears off (otherwise, who would care about improving duration of the buff). It might be that higher level chef items would digest faster. It should be fast enough that one could eat some food, have an encounter (or use it for recovering from an encounter), and then be able to eat again for the next encounter. Higher level chef foods could be less filling so they would digest faster. It might also be nice if the description of the food item gave some indication of how long it takes to digest. Digestion time could be a non-experimentable constant.

2) It is much too difficult to tell if a food buff is in effect. Many times I have given food to players as samples, they eat it and say "I don't see any difference." Maybe it could be different colored dots on the HAM bars, orsomething on the ctl-C character screen. But there should be *something*. Maybe a quick fix would be, when a player eats something, he or she would see a message that says something like "You drink ruby biel, you feelmore mentally acute"-- or something like that. There couldbe a corresponding message when it wears off.I imagine that wouldn't be too difficult to implement.

3) Once the problem of digesting and ascertaining whether or not a food buff is in effect, then I think we can talk about duration & size of the buffs. Well-experimented Teltier Noodles are useful as they are-- with the willpower buff experimented up, they make a discernable difference in the mind regen rates for players with relatively small mind pools. However, as a novice chef, I think that I should be able to make at least one dish that is close to the usefulness of Teltier Noodles without using any experimentation points. And quite frankly, I believe that it is the size of the buff, not the duration, that tends to catch players' eyes when they are shopping on the bazaar. In general, I'd like to see longer primary stat buffs, and bigger secondary stat buffs. I would also expect the more expert chef foods to be better and better and to digest closer and closer to the time that the buff itself wears out. A chef at the top of the treeshould be able to make a buffcomperable in size and duration to spice, but with no downside (such a big buff would probably have to take some time to digest in order to avoid upsetting game balance, however).

4) Since foods don't stack, it would be extremely helpful to have a lunchbox container that could be used to consolidate foods so that players could carry more.

Finally, I'd like to point out that chefs, alas, are not alone. Look at the backpacks in the tailor line . . . tailors can make several different backpacks as they become more expert, the backpacks look different, but there is *no* difference in function. What's up with that?

Thanks for giving me this chance to share my views.

I still prefer my idea. I don't want to see Entree IV completely make Entree I dishes useless. In weaponsmithing, there are cases where you want a Spraystick and there are cases where you want a T21. The more advanced weapon does not completely replace the less advanced weapon, and food needs to be the same way.

Make things from Entree I buff many stats for low values and long durations:

Willpower/Focus/Strength/Stamina +150 each (+600 total) for 1.5 hours

Make things from Entree IV buff one stat for a higher total value but shorter duration:

Willpower +700 for 45 minutes

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That way people wanting to buff one stat for huge amounts will take higher level foods and people looking to buff all their stats for a longer time will take lower level foods. Entree I and Entree IV will both be useful.

I like the idea of skill buffs, so long as they're not too specific. I'd hate to make a drink that only has use for the architects, for example.

Maybe we could get ones that modify things like melee skill or ranged skill in general, though. Increased resistance to wounds. Dodging bonuses. Running speed. Things that make a difference to the passive qualities of the user.

One thing's for certain - our products won't be much in demand until they generate a meaningful bonus for the user. Everquest's standard high level buff demands are a good example for the kind of things we could work into recipes...