Chef Archive
Thread: Debate thread: Filling remaining on cloning
- Personal attacks will not be tolerated. People have strong feelings about this, so it's occasionally gotten a little heated, but if you have to resort to name-calling then you might as well concede and let someone else pick up arguing your position. Ideas and positions can be attacked, the people giving the idea or promotinga position are off-limits.
- You're going to need to give reasons to back up your position. This is a debate, not a petition or a poll.
- If you are against filling remaining in the stomach, you are going to have to propose some other downside to food to balance it with other buff types. Right now the limited stomach size and fixed digestion rate are the only costs associated with using food for the customer (after they've paid us for it, that is).
- "Take it out because I don't like it", "Take it out so I get more business", and "Take it out because a clone's stomach shouldn't have anything in it" are not valid arguments (although they are certainly valid opinions that you can try to back up). The first two ignore game balance, and the third is silly: game balance trumps "in-game immersion" every time. Besides, everyone knows they should be bacta centers, not cloning centers.
To start it off, here's my position:
{Note: The discussion below assumes that 1) The digestion rate gets fixed to 30m per 100 filling and 2) the (confirmed) bug of non-stat buffs remaining after death goes away}
Filling should remain in your stomach after cloning. The filling is the cost associated with using the food, both in limiting how many food buffs you can have active at one time (limited stomach space) and in limiting how often you can re-apply food buffs (fixed digestion rate).
Stomach filling is the only drawback to food.
- Spices have their short duration (max is 10m) and the downer period.
- Entertainer buffs have to be applied in a cantina, hotel, theater, or camp; require mastering an elite profession to apply (for full power); cannot be applied during combat;and the buff process takes several minutes. Also (I am not personally positive about this) the buff timer is retained after cloning/rezzing.
- Doctor buffs have to be applied in a medcenter, camp, or with a med-droid; require mastering an elite profession to apply; require many specific resource types, and the buff process can take a minute or twofor all 6 buffable stats (although Havla reduces this).
Food is portable, can be used by anyone with no skill point investment, can be used during combat, and has a wide range of useful effects. Give players any means of bypassing this drawback, and you allow them to get somethingfor nothing.
Most arguments against remaining filling focus on "But I lose my buffs when I die, why shouldn't I lose the filling?". If youaccept this argument, why should I still have filling in my stomach when my Vercupti wears off? I mean, I only get the HAM buff for 10m, why should I have to wait 10 more minutesafter it wears off before I'm empty?
The reason you have to wait after the Vercupti wears off is that it's a powerful boost: +1200 HAM is nothing to sneeze at. So to balance that buff size, the devs said "Ok, you get this increase in power, but you can only use it once every 20m." Clearing stomach contents on death would give a player a way to bypass that 20m obligation.
I think what should be done by players is to look at filling in a different way. It's not primarily a space cost (66 fill vercupti + 25 fill nutricake, darn can't squeeze in a veghash). It's a time cost (20m before using another vercupti, 7.5m before using another nutricake, gotta wait a minute or two before I have room for a veghash). I'd say about half of the popular foods have a time commitment equal to the buff duration, at least considered one at a time:Brandy, Canape, Snow Cake, Pikatta Pie, Bivoli and Veghash can all be digested before the benefit wears off. Retaining the stomach filling after cloning means that death has some sting (you are still obligated to pay the time cost, but now you don't get the benefits). If the stomach cleared, then players would actually get rewarded for dying (they now have 100 points of stomach space they can fill up).
I think that the filling/cloning design is fair. Sure you can't behopped up on Brandy + vercupti + canape100% the time, but you're not meant to be. If you die, in some sense you made a mistake (even if it was justbeing in the wrong place at the wrong time), and it should cause you some inconvenience. Having to wait a maximum of 30 minutes while going without whatever food combo you prefer for is not the end of the world.
And just because it's a personal pet peeve:
Yes, I know clones shouldn't have the food from their original's previous meal in their stomach. They also take (in SW)10-15 years to mature, don't have the original's skills or memories,don't pop out of the cloning tube with their original's equipment, and probably shouldn't have access to their original's bank account. If you want one, it's only fair you take them all...
"Cloning" isa game mechanic, not a supporting argument. Think of storing clone data as paying a crack squad of NPC medics to rush your dying body into a bacta tank and you'll feel better.
Message Edited by sciguyCO on 10-01-2004 05:07 PM
The only reason why I think this alternative isn't a good one, is because part of the excitement of chef is making that double buff vercupti, or creating the perfect set of foods and drinks for a player. By now changing the filling to something other than what it is now, takes alot of the flexibility and fun away from modifying the filling of foods at all.
sciguyCO wrote:
I think what should be done is to re-evaluate how filling is looked at. It's not primarily a space cost (66 fill vercupti + 25 fill nutricake, darn can't squeeze in a veghash). It's a time cost (20m before using another vercupti, 7.5m before using another nutricake, gotta wait a minute or two before I have room for a veghash). I'd say about half of the popular foods have a time commitment equal to the buff duration, at least considered one at a time:Brandy, Canape, Snow Cake, Pikatta Pie, Bivoli and Veghash can all be digested before the benefit wears off. Retaining the stomach filling after cloning means that death has some sting (you are still obligated to pay the time cost, but now you don't get the benefits). If the stomach cleared, then players would actually get rewarded for dying (they now have 100 points of stomach space they can fill up).
I think that the filling/cloning design is fair. Sure you can't behopped up on Brandy + vercupti + canape100% the time, but you're not meant to be. If you die, in some sense you made a mistake (even if it was justbeing in the wrong place at the wrong time), and it should cause you some inconvenience. Having to wait a maximum of 30 minutes while going without whatever food combo you prefer for is not the end of the world.
Message Edited by Saitek on 10-01-2004 06:54 PM
Saitek wrote:
The only reason why I think this alternative isn't a good one, is because part of the excitement of chef is making that double buff vercupti, or creating the perfect set of foods and drinks for a player. By now changing the filling to something other than what it is now, takes alot of the flexibility and fun away from modifying the filling of foods at all.
Just to clarify, I wasn't proposing a change to the filling system. I was attempting to illustrate a different way of viewing the existing filling system.
With a fixed digestion rate, a given filling is a fixed duration. Take away that fixed digestion rate (like you'd get with cloning clearing the stomach) and you lose that connection, which I believe was a basis for most of the food balancing decisions in the revamp.
I mean if this were removed you could use bespin port without limits, simply do it to your full, get killed then you're good to go. But i like it now where i have to use it sparingly, makes it more satisfying when i get those all amazing schems.
I know that the major frustation/agruement is from the pvp communitee but i'm sure they can see that filling is the only limiting factor on foods, to take it away with death would make them simply unbalacing.
The argument about buffs being applyable after death is flawed imo by one thing. I think buffs themselves are vastly overpowered, and should be toned down or have some limit imposed on them, like foods have.
Filling remaining makes sense from a game balacing point of view, and should remain.
sciguyCO wrote:
Saitek wrote:
The only reason why I think this alternative isn't a good one, is because part of the excitement of chef is making that double buff vercupti, or creating the perfect set of foods and drinks for a player. By now changing the filling to something other than what it is now, takes alot of the flexibility and fun away from modifying the filling of foods at all.
Just to clarify, I wasn't proposing a change to the filling system. I was attempting to illustrate a different way of viewing the existing filling system.
With a fixed digestion rate, a given filling is a fixed duration. Take away that fixed digestion rate (like you'd get with cloning clearing the stomach) and you lose that connection, which I believe was a basis for most of the food balancing decisions in the revamp.
I see what you are saying. I just think this is such a complicated issue.
It's all very circumstantial.Of course for a crafter to fill up on Bespin port, go die and then havean empty stomach would be a clear exploitation of the system. However for "Joe the Swordsman" out on Dath just trying to hunt and have a good time, but whoops watch out for that night sister, clones and gets rebuffed, drinks his brandy and is on his way is not.
I myself have died when my ISP borked out for 10 minutes during PvE, I logged in, had to clone and my stomach was full. Kind of ruined my outing.
For me, I think it comes down to a playability issue. Usually we ask the developers to fix a part of the game that is broken, and as a result not used or neglected. We have several schematics that are nearly useless, and are never used by anyone. Dont get me wrong, we have a lot of good stuff, and the Chefs that educate their customers sell a LOT more than just brandy and canape. But there are still several recipes that could be tweaked or changed entirely. This to me constitutes as "broken", since it affects the gameplay for chefs poorly and not as intended.
So to ask the question that we are here to discuss: Is filling "Broken"?
I think that there is a valid argument that keeping your filling after death does not make a lot of sense. I agree entirely that it does not make sense, however I DO NOT THINK IT SHOULD BE CHANGED.
It is not an open and shut case. This is a hard one to debate from either side. Mainly, what it comes down to for me, is gameplay. If a players filling was emptied upon death, it would open up a dozen exploits and change the tactics of PvP in an adverse manner as a result. The only benefit would be that people would eat a lot more food, and we would do more business.
So then the question becomes, do we need more business to improve our gameplay, and does this benefit to us outweigh the poor effect this would have to PvP?
I dont think there is a Chef here that can honestly say that we currently have trouble making money. Chef is one of the best moneymaking professions in the entire galaxy. And everyone wants food from us even though they keep their filling when they die. In other words, this filling issue doesnt really affect our gameplay at all, and certainly not to a level that would justify a fix that could hurt an already broken PvP structure.
Bottom line: I cant justify changing the current filling setup. It may not make a ton of sense when compared solely to buffs, but when you stand back and look at the whole picture and how this fix would affect the rest of the game....well....I personally think there are a LOT of other things they could fix for us that would improve our gameplay to a much greater degree than this. Imagine having a dozen new/changed useful foods that were previously broken. That would be fun. ALways nice to have something new. Or how about plates for food? Larger stacks of bivoli, ahrisa, canape, synthsteak, vercupti, etc would be GREAT. Either of these fixes are worth a LOT more to the chef experience than changing the filling.
That is my two cents. Props to Kriles for once again bringing good discussion on relevant issues to the table.
Vomit
Message Edited by ChefVomit on 10-01-2004 04:37 PM
PvEers needs brandy and ahrisa, maybe sometimes canape. Unless they're doing things like the dwb but still.
Higginsis wrote:
But that 3% are the ones using the majority of ours foods. Who in PvE ever uses Vercupti or synthsteak or thak apart from pvpers?
PvEers needs brandy and ahrisa, maybe sometimes canape. Unless they're doing things like the dwb but still.
Message Edited by Saitek on 10-01-2004 07:41 PM
Jedi they're a different matter people will do alomost anything to protect them so they do want everything. But i do think alot of the chef custom while not obviously limited to them, comes from pvpers.
Higginsis wrote:
Well i get a very different customer responce, PvEers tend to only need/want the basics, unless like i said they do the really big stuff like the dwb.
Jedi they're a different matter people will do alomost anything to protect them so they do want everything. But i do think alot of the chef custom while not obviously limited to them, comes from pvpers.
I would say that it is server dependent. I'm frequently making custom orders for PvE'ers. I find they want the craziest stuff of all.