Chef Archive

This has probably been stated before, but I'm just going to add my slant to the topic. None of these are game breakers, but would do much to enhance my enjoyment as a Chef and as a player - as well as help to expand demand for our products.

Currently, players lack sufficient feedback and information mechanisms to make greater use of foods and drinks. We are provided with quantifiable figures regarding the magnitude of our crafted items (uses, effects, effect duration), but we lack in game feedback that would allow players to better plan out food tactics.

1) A player's capacity to consume more food or drink (fullness rating) needs to be easier to understand.

Currently, when webring up our (ctrl-c) character stats window, we have two fullness bars - one for food and one for drink. While there are the graduations in the bar, and while intuitive on the most simplistic levels, it does not provide sufficient feedback for players to determine whether or not a particular serving can be consumed. All other stats have numeric values, and while extremely dry, are clear and effective. Can our fullness capacity also be displayed numerically? If this seems a bit too harsh and too bland, can we at least output the data through some sort of tiered nomenclature filter?

It's been awhile since I've played a chef in the game, so forgive me if I've missed some of the more recent incarnations. When I cooked in UO way back in the dark ages of online gaming, players could consume food to help boost their health regeneration rate. Different foods had different "filling" capacity and when consumed, a player would receive immediate feedback to their current fullness. These would range from "starving", to "satiated", to "very full", to "too full to eat another bite." (I've missed several levels, but you get the point.) This brings me to my next request...

2) Players should receive feedback on their fullness status upon consuming each serving, and not only when they are too full to consume anything further.

A system or spatial emote message would be useful. Not only would players receive immediate feedback to their current capacity. Then, along with my next suggestion below, players can make on the fly decisions as to what other foods they would like to consume via hotkey'd stacks. This will help make foods more friendly to use in a tactical nature.

Additionally, this information would be useful to be displayed in PvP encounters so opponents can see what's going on and attempt to counter appropriately.

3) Foods need to display their filling rating.

While a player can eventually figure out on average how filling a particular type of food will be, it would be appreciated if it can be enumerated when examined. If the dev's don't want to display numbers, then a system of terminology, akin to what I suggested above for fullness rating, can be implemented.

It would be nice to be able to examine a glass of charde and see that is either "can quench a light thirst", or a stewed gwouch can be rated a "light lunchtime meal", or the master chef dishes display "a full 4 course extraveganza". Ok ok, we don't need to be that specific, but feedback like "light", "moderate", and "large meal" would go a long way to helping shoppers determine what they'd like.

Mmmm... ikopi 40 oz. steak.

4) Feedback when a food's effectivity expires

While in some cases,as inthe pool buffs of a doctor,the expiration of certain buffsarevery visible(you HAM suddenly drops like a rock),additional feedback for the non pool buffs would be appreciated. If players don't want to be constantly spammed by the messages, enable a option's toggle to turn on and off this reporting.

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I'm certain that ourfoods and drinkswill be brought in line in terms of game play balance, and that is clearly more important than any of whatis suggested above, but these ideas are offered as methods to helpenhance the ease and usability of our products. Ultimately, our marketability requires that players 1) understand the benefits of purchasing and consuming the fruits of our labor, and 2) how, when, and to what extent our products can be utilized.

i coudlnt agree with you more. i would however, hope that they fix the existing bugs to the profession before making them better.

they did however,give weaponsgreater clarification on stats that they did so i cant imagine how much ahrder it could be to do the saem thing for foods.

/agreed

I'm rather dissapointed that you can only eat or drink 1 masters food at a time. It makes them less "amazing" because you can find a smaller buff item and eat double or triple the amount, usually for a smaller price and get the same effect. I dont think people should be able to gorge themselves on Masters items but more than 1 would be nice.

You're right, we need the game breaker bugs fixed first. I decided to push forward these comments in hopes that they will be included in the long term development. Design changes can take weeks to go from design, to programming, to test. So I'm not in any particular rush - just trying to look out further ahead instead of dwelling on the current situation, where business has declined by 90% due to the food related bugs.

Sigh. Off to work on my brawler until it gets fixed. (Laugh, trading on slightly demented profession for another.)

Good post. I really like a lot of what was said. I personally would much rather look at numbers displaying my fullness rather than the stupid bars. It would make things much better and easier to use.

Although hte changes would be a big help. The major bugs really need to be addressed before working on this stuff.