Chef Archive
Thread: Chef Correspondent Report
Sorry that I didn't make much sense. Let me simple it up a bit for ya:
*entering Oog Mode*
Vimes Good! Yay for Vimes! Carrot and Angua proud!
Longer Buffs, Lower Maxes! +50 for hour better than +300 for minute! Smart idea. Best mix? Spice huge for tiny bit! Stimpacks fix Primary Stats. Chef? Regen/Action buffers. Split up statistics amongst classes.
Food Stacks good! Insane amounts bad! Best fix? Weight not Volume! One stackof 10 Butter same as ten stack of 1 Butter! Hard to code though... Still, if you take 90K Wheat in one slot for granted, no whine about only stacking 100 Stew! Oxymoron*. Price for Factory is one item per mix. Beats click-click-click.
'We have no money' and 'Need Bigger Harvester' also oxymoron*! Take one out.
Finally - no money for harvesters? Bah! Get one level brawler. do8 easy destroy missions. pays for eight harvester and two wind power. Time? one hour. Ooo, so hard! (Or, stand in bar. Give bread away, be nice. Tips = 5-7k an hour if you not stupid. Easy!)
*stops caveman talk*
Nice job, man. Credit to the cause. You even did the 'apostrophe' bits right - no one ever does those right on teh IntarNet, big pet peeve. ^_^ ("Lol I LikE Chef's and Bantha's!")
(*since big word hard, this make easier. 'Oxymoron' mean 'both bad together'. Oog.)
"I know, but the reason chefs ain't makin's teh moneys is because there ain't no demand on their products."
Do you buy spice in droves? Do you know anybody that does? I'm a few boxes shy of TKA Master and have never even tried a spice...but I eat a ton of food & drinks.
Even if the buffs become better, last longer, etc. there will never be hoards of people running to your shop. Two huge reasons for this...
1) Uneducated players / Lack of advertisement - Yes, the game did a poor job of explaining the benefits of food & drinks to the community. Having a single blurb that says food / drink temporarily increases stats on a loading splash screen does nothing for the Chef. Apparently it is our job to get the word out as to the effects of food & drink.
I don't think that looking at the base unexperimented stats is a good way to decide on the power of a buff... I've seen some buffs get stronger faster when experimented then other. Veronian berry wine is listed in optimus' guide as +20 health +20 action +20 mind for 70seconds, however, even BEFORE experimenting, its already something like +60 to each for 2 minutes, and that was with pretty badmaterials IIRC. After experimenting to the max for ingredients I was using(only 40%... I was just running a quick test)it was about +150 to those stats. Now consider the fact I wasn't even using the best alchohol for that, and had crappy ingredients. You can also use at least 2 of them at a time(already for +300 to all pools), with some proper ingredients and the best alchohol type I bet you could get just one serving to do +300 to each stat. Comparing unexperimented stats is a bad idea. It's quite possible the unexperimented stats are mediocre at best intentionally to encourage people to take the cooking tree.
Also, it would appear that most DA buffs have a built in power limit. I remember that I experimented something up to +159, and after that, experimenting higher gave no bonus'.
I'm not saying that changes don't need to be made. They do. But I think a lot of people are making rushed decisions without putting proper research into them.
Also, I haven't exactly seen many artisans killing off novice weaponsmiths markets by selling cdef's that are better then nearly any gun in the weaponsmith line until the weaponsmith gets a LOT of experimentation. So I don't think we need to worry about tailors trying to kill off our trade quite yet 
"I know, but the reason chefs ain't makin's teh moneys is because there ain't no demand on their products."
Do you buy spice in droves? Do you know anybody that does? I'm a few boxes shy of TKA Master and have never even tried a spice...but I eat a ton of food & drinks.
Even if the buffs become better, last longer, etc. there will never be hoards of people running to your shop. Two huge reasons for this...
1) Uneducated players / Lack of advertisement - Yes, the game did a poor job of explaining the benefits of food & drinks to the community. Having a single blurb that says food / drink temporarily increases stats on a loading splash screen does nothing for the Chef. Apparently it is our job to get the word out as to the effects of food & drink.
How many of you know the following about stats and when did you learn? Health is your true Hitpoints while Strength determines the amount of health lost when performing actions and constitution effects how fast you regen your health. This works the same for Action/Quickness/Stamina & Mind/Focus/Willpower.
If the community as a whole knew what thier own stats did then they might become more interested in enhancing them. Until that day the only hoardes coming to your door will be other Chefs because you have eggs in your vendor droid.
2) Only way to sell food is by single stacks one at a time.Currently if someone wanted to stock up on food and drinks he would have to sit at the bazaar and buy goods one at a time...and that just sucks honestly. I don't have the willpower or the time to sell food for 100 credits at 25 auctions at a time and then run back and forth around the galaxy to refill machines for a terrible profit. Let me sell a food bag that reduces the weight of food & drinks and actually gets listed in a food catagory. I can carry 100K of steel or 1 Wastril Bread for the same 2% of space. I don't want to become a rich chef, just self supporting for my time invested like any other profession.
Rueben Samonrye
"The first two items in his second draft would solve the money issue.
If factories worked, you would be able to sell a stack of 100 food.
If buffs were improved, those 100 food would be worth eating and thus buying and would take up less inventory space than25 stacks of 4.
And the bazarre limit wouldn't hurt you as much because instead of having to try and sell 25 stacks of 4, you can sell4 stacks of 25."
Pecos, I will agree that this would indeed help the money situation for some however it will amplify other issues. Such as UXP for factory made items....people can't afford a harvester, how they going to afford a factory...Alot of Chefs prefer to do it by hand because they feel they are Chefs and not Sysco foods. Even still there is no demand for foods without people knowing what food does. Suddenly with the above fixes the Chef becomes a rich mans profession.
Rueben Samonrye
Harvesters and Factories while VERY important to us, SHOULDNT be in your report. That is an ARCHITECTS job! It needs to go in thier report that ALL arch items should be able to be crafted, period. Factories and Stacking are an issue with us too,but thats STILL an architect issue. If anything from the 'Architect' profession belongs in your report, it should be listed under XP/Balance because...I do agree that UXP isnt being added right for foods made with the factories.
That eliminates one of your issues entirely if you can get the Arch Correspondant to see the light of this.
In mentioning the bazaar, you said,
"And stop putting spices under the food category on the bazaar. When people are buying from the bazaar they have no way of knowing what is food and what is spice. Give spice their own category."
I wish sony could see that these things don't belong on the public market. You should be doomed to a street corner, "Hey buddy, need a pick me up?" Yep. The empire dosent like spice trade, some of it is contraban, and I really don't see bazaar issues as being a BIG deal with our class. I have a vendor, and I don't care about the public market. This is just an RP point of view though, I currently like selling my spices on my smuggler on the market, but it takes away from the 'smuggling' aspect of the class. Hell, these guys should have to run from police IMO.
Focus on the inbalance in XP gain, Uxp, inability to make some recipes, and the issues about stacking and underpowered food. Yes I also think that all Dom Arts foods should either give food crafting xp from the start, or give NOTHING BUT food crafting xp when you get the chef profession.
Lastly, RPing a barkeep is bullsmackish! You can't trade to opposing factions (We don't serve your kind here!), which is fine for everyone else, but not for us. You don't stop the dancers/musicians from healing cross faction, so why limit the barkeep from serving drinks. I mentioned this in another thread, but we need to be able to serve EVERYONE in a cantina.
I understand that it could be some time to see these issues, but what I don't understand is why we have to pay the dumb fools to work on it when it SHOULD have been taken care of in beta. Now, we have to pay to deal with these issues.
Thanks sony, and thanks to our correspondant for working with us to do what they should have done six months ago.
Wahoooo, I can finally post! I was worried I would have to do some real work there.
A few responses...
-Pecos and Slayerxellos: The idea of putting in some sort of notification that buffs are working and when they wear out is a good one, although I am not sure if it would be a top 5. However, this is suppose to be a weekly report and I will be sure to get it in there soon.
-About the making money vs. harvesters: I don't see a problem with including both in the report. Some of us do have harvesters and able to maintain them, but the impression I am getting is that they are maintaining them by doing destroyer missions or even a few delivery missions. This means that they are not making a prophit by being a chef? Is anybody making a prophit based on just being a chef? I know the only prophit I am making is by selling off the excess energy from my wind power generator. I do believe that increasing our buff duration will make the food more desirable and make it sell better (although I think selling it in droves is an exageration. 
). Back to harvesters. Some of us can make enough money to maintain medium and heavy harvesters through other means, and hopefully ALL of us will be able to afford them soon. So, even though we have trouble affording them now, I would like to think we will all be able to aford them soon just based on the money we make as chefs and that when that times come they will be ready.
-I also realize that the harvesters are the architects problems. Sigh. I really hate to say this, but I don't want to rely on the achitect correspondent to bring up this problem. But the architect correspondent said, "I already have a general idea of what will be sent this week. If I feel it necessary I will post it the day before I send it off." and "I COULD start threads asking for your advice, but to do that would only show my incompetence towards the issues at hand." I am not sure I want to rely on him to address issues concerning our profession. And I apologize for saying this, I don't want to start any kind of trouble between architects and chefs.
-Factories is deffinitely our issue. The architects can make food factories fine! The problem is when we try to use them, it is making an inferior product.
-Xukan: Thanks, I am going to include it in the report. I hope you don't mind me cutting and pasting some of that.
-"Vimes Good! Yay for Vimes! Carrot and Angua proud!" I was wondering if anybody would get the reference. Although I think Carrot would be proud of a block of wood.
-"Spice huge for tiny bit! Stimpacks fix Primary Stats. Chef? Regen/Action buffers. Split up statistics amongst classes." There was actually a proposal about this in beta that Holocron said he liked...I keep prodding him about it when I talk to him. Basically it said that food should buff health, mind and action (food makes you healthy), medicines should buff the regenative stats (medicines heal you) and spice should buff the endurance stats (basically making spice a form of steroids or stimulants). I still hope to see this in the game. But for now I would be happy with food having low buffs that last a long time and spice having high buffs that burn out quickly and can be stacked on top of food buffs.
-SWG-Dahn: Do you really expect anybody to believe that somebody would get close enough to you while you are weilding a knife to teachyou how to make roses out of potatos? Let's be realistic here, huh?
I was out and about with a Surgeon friend of mine in game and he gave me something (stimpack maybe) and it boosted my health bar but 1000k points I think, and it was for quite a long duration. Hard to compete against that lol
Whooops, forgot one thing.
J2xC - You have a good point, and I have thought of that. The problem is that climing up that experimentation tree is a huge grind, and you are not getting any new recipes while doing it. Seems really boring to me. And the problem is, until you do get up that tree, you are making an inferior product that can be out-sold by DAs.
*sigh*
The top five list... *sigh*
Being that we can't generate money, I'd think we'd need something in the top 5 list to help us do that. The one thing that can bring the chefs to the forefront is to actually have the food/drink meter on the main screen. If people have those empty bars staring at them, they might actually be reminded to look up a chef and eat.
The recipes are unbalanced and quite the mess. Our power buff comes at Mixology II (god, watch them nerf it).
We use too much product to create our foods. If they could reduce our usage of grains, meats, etc, then there could be the hope of money in the future.
Screw putting milk and eggs into the game, just change the product type with something else in game. Less programming time. I'd rather have one food that is desired in a tree than five undesirable egg foods anyway.
Tile on Tarq : Combat Chef
Samonrye wrote:
... people can't afford a harvester, how they going to afford a factory...
The reason chefs can't afford a harvester is because they can't produce useful buffs.
In Vimes second draft, improving buffs was #1, fixing factories was #2. Improved buffs will mean that you have foods that will sell, which will give you money to buy harvs and factories and then with fixed factories you can mass produce these improved foods and make even more money, etc.
Saying "factories won't help because we can't afford them" is looking at it the wrong way. The reason we can't afford nice things is BECAUSE factories are broken and food buffs aren't good enough. Even now, I bet I could sell a stack of 100 K-18 Rations for, what, 3000 credits? That seems like a reasonable fee for something I can hotkey for a Willpower regen bonus whenever I need it. With my rifleman/medic skills eating away my mind pool, I'd pay that myself. Someone could afford that in 1 mission and have enough Willpower buffs to last them a couple days.
We're in the poorhouse because factories are broken and the buffs themselves aren't very good.