Chef Archive
Thread: Discussion: Quality of Buffs
Some things youmight want to know.
On TC right now, the variability of Doc buffs has been removed.
A master doctor with pretty much 1000 quality packs made out of 1000 quality subcomponents will now buff for about 2300-2400 (using +25 Bivoli, a good droids and +25 BE clothing)). All really high end buffs are gone.
The reason they went bye bye is because we were getting buff overwrite ability (higher buffs will also write over lower buffs with the next patch too). To keep the uber gits from buffing over and over again for 3.5+ k per stat we got bumped down to average buffs (we had a close vote on removine variability months ago, and this issue threw over the close vote)..
This says 2 things.
1.) Buff totals were too high for game balance.
2.) Devs wanted room to lower buff totals, while allowing people other then docs to buff.
I really doubt you will get buffs higher then docs (even the 2k the average master docs with decent (not the best) packs) will pass out ... Why? Becasue the total would be over 4k buffs.
While Buffing is indeed the only thing that Chefs do. STAT buffing is not the only thing chefs do. So that argument is just trash really.
This is not to say I don't agree that a lot of chef buffs should be tweaked up, and/or last longer... just that you are never gonna get higher then docs with stat buffs, since we are actively getting lowered.
The current formula looks like this (from what I can see after the next publish)
best doc buffs 2.3k
+ best entertainer buffs +2k (if you have 1000 stats to start w/)
+ food
+ spice.
The last two as needed, per fight as a last min heal or buff.
The key is to make skill food better / more wanted/ easier to make.
The player percieved good foods are flying off the shelves. I don't know a single doc that doesn't want a metric tonne of bivoli, or the like.
Try pusing to make the skill food better/more useful.
The 2 big benefits of chef food is that anyone can use it (don't need a master doc.. believe me, nobody wants a buff from a non-master doc), and there are no downers.
Right now, I'd definitely agree chefs aren't getting value out of materials used to make an item.
I don't think you are gonna get higher stat buffs, but you could get them to last longer, and/or get skill buffs better and longer.
That's my take on it anyway.
-T
I think the balance of the new foods and drinks is very good at the moment. I wont go into much detail as most has been covered. The only suggestion I would personally make, is to not give chefs working on becoming a master so many experiment points. Lower the amount they gain when going up the tree, and give a larger proportion of the extra experiment points only when actually becoming a master. This will still give them the ability to make sellable products for a profit, but would make for a bigger difference between Master and non-master products.
I see many combat players who just jump on Chef and have no intention of mastering it, but just go for xx34 so that they can produce really good products (mostly brandy as they know its a big seller). If they want to make the best of the big sellers, make them work to become a master to do it i say. 
-T
(CLEAR! ZAAAAAP!)