125003-cooking-making-it-better

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Hey fellow players (and maybe carbine tradeskill developers), I would like to take a moment to opine, if you will be so indulgent, on the current terrible state of the cooking profession. Currently, its not worth leveling. The best foods are available from reputation vendors and cost almost nothing. Further, foods that provide basic stats and are easier to make, are generally better than the difficult to make foods. Additionally, foods with rare ingredients are beat out by foods with common ingredients, making being a survivalist pointless for that craft.
 
I tried to level up cooking, I love cooking as a profession in MMOs, and I would love to see Wildstar's cooking profession made better than it is. With the additive system, wildstar's cooking can be fun and frustrating at the same time. Sometimes, I've been lucky enough to get a discovery on the first try by using the ingredients I would use if I was actually making the recipe. 
 
To begin, I want to show several examples of what I think the biggest problems in the cooking profession are. I am going to concentrate on the end-game recipes, that is special diet, elder meals, and datascape meals.  
Generally the same recipes - nexus casserole, enhanced spider stir-fry, and mechanistics meal all produce the exact same 67 tech based food. While admittedly the variations on each are different, the ingredient prices and difficultly of getting the recipes are also very different. The same is true with many other foods such as Behemoth Steak and the Defenders Meal. Additionally, the special meal variations of these recipes are very easy to get (rep vendor) and provide the same bonuses despite being lower level. 
Bad Variations - the cooking discoveries are incredibly difficult to get (especially at high level) as well as being incredibly lackluster. In most cases, it is better to use the base food. Further, many of the variations offer terrible stat combinations. A good example of this is the Dominion Dessert, and insight food used by healers. Chua Cheescake, one of its discoveries gives Insight and Brutality, the other two give tanking stats (armor and shield cap). Insight is at best a secondary or tertiary stat for tanks and there is not class that builds for insight and brutality. Another example of this is Corrigan's lasagna, a variation of Vindicators risotto that gives finesse and deflect. 
Cool ingredient variation completely lacking for top level recipes - with the exception of datascape foods, the top level food all resort to the very basic ingredients at the top level. Gone are the leveling variations where cubig food needed cubig meat and not just generic meat. I've always loved games that had 1 or 2 extremely complicated recipes that gave awesome foods.
Suggestions to fix the cooking profession
Step 1. Fix the Variations. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have variations of food that no-one will ever consider using such as insight/brutality, finesse/deflect crit, etc. especially when there are so many other worthwhile stats in the game. Any of the following would make more sense as secondary stats to accompany a main stat food.Brutality - Brut/Moxie, Brut/Finesse, Brut/Tech, Brut/ST, Brut/CHS, Brut/CH
Finesse - Fin/Mox, Fin/Brut, Fin/ST, Fin/CHS, Fin/CH
Moxie - Mox/Fin, Mox/Brut, Mox/ST, Mox/CHS, Mox/CH
Tech - DPS - brut, mox, st, chs, ch Tank - armor, grit, base health, insight, DCR, DR
Insight - Crit, CHS, FRR
Food variations could also change the stat the food provides completely allowing for a pure crit hit food or transforming Armor food into a boosted version giving Tech Resistance for specific fights.
Step 2. Fix the powers of the food and the variations.I would suggest having the foods increase in strength based on the difficultly to get the recipe and ingredients. For example, this might mean decreasing the special diet foods to 61 stat, increasing the elder meals to 71 stat, and maybe even pumping up the boots from datascape meals to 81. If not stat boosts then duration boosts for higher level foods would also work. 
Could also increase the number of variations each type of meal has as you move from special meals --> elder meals --> datascape meals. (e.g. Blademaster meal can have Brut/Finesse and Brut/Moxie variation. Brightland Stew has in addition to those a Brut/ST, Brut/Crit and Brut/CHS, the next level variant (not in game at the moment) might have the option to make a pure ST food option additionally) (pure stat variants could be one per recipe (brut--> ST, Moxie-->Crit, Finesse-->CHS, Insight-->FRR, Tech-->DCR, Grit-->DR)
Datascape meals could also include a 3rd stat bonus on variations. (100/50/25)
Fix the power of the variations. Instead of having the variations give 50% main stat and 50% alternate stat, have them give 100% main stat and 50% alternate stat or 100% alternate stat (when the stat replaces the main stat entirely), this makes pursuing the variations worthwhile as they are actually better than the main stat food by itself. When using primary stats this would also differentiate from a Brut/Finesse food and Finesse/Brut food.
Step 3. More recipesIntroduce more recipes requiring ingredients from places like GA and DS that create good raid foods to flesh out the datascape cooking stat base. Maybe even make assault power or support power foods (as a high level recipe or variations) available from raid instance recipes/ingredients.
Step 4. DecorWhy is it that architects can make food based decor! Give cooks the ability to make some cool food based decor for their plot!.
Step 5. Achievements, titles, and rewardsAchievement for each tier of cooking trade skill tree completed. When the tradeskill tree is completed get the title chef and a cool chef hat or apron costume piece!
These are just my ideas on how fix and improve cooking for everyone. I am always open to suggestions. Let me know what you think. 	
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			Totally agree. Stopped even bothering cooking since they put all the special diet meals on vendors, it's become pointless and expensive. Cooking has no redeeming valve in the game anymore (other then too drain you of cash.)	
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I have several lvl50 with a tier 6 festival plot. I haven't even had to cook any moxie or brut food, which I use, and I'm still dumping a good load of all the other stuff into our guild bank.
 
Only use for cooking is fulfilling a completionist's OCD and to make money off of certain foods when you vendor it.
 
I'm all for OP's ideas 1 and 2 as must-have to make cooking useful, with the rest being "nice to have". Even leaving aside a big revamp and removing some of the silly combinations, just making higher level food (datascape) and more costly variations more powerful by just a few stat points would go along way.	
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			It doesn't help that anyone can make foods with bonuses cooks can't get using the melting pot housing instance.	
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			It also doesn't help that the field tech industry means that plants that would be used in cooking are horribly expensive.	
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{| class="blockquote"
Hey fellow players (and maybe carbine tradeskill developers), I would like to take a moment to opine, if you will be so indulgent, on the current terrible state of the cooking profession. Currently, its not worth leveling. The best foods are available from reputation vendors and cost almost nothing. Further, foods that provide basic stats and are easier to make, are generally better than the difficult to make foods. Additionally, foods with rare ingredients are beat out by foods with common ingredients, making being a survivalist pointless for that craft.
 
I tried to level up cooking, I love cooking as a profession in MMOs, and I would love to see Wildstar's cooking profession made better than it is. With the additive system, wildstar's cooking can be fun and frustrating at the same time. Sometimes, I've been lucky enough to get a discovery on the first try by using the ingredients I would use if I was actually making the recipe. 
 
To begin, I want to show several examples of what I think the biggest problems in the cooking profession are. I am going to concentrate on the end-game recipes, that is special diet, elder meals, and datascape meals.  
Generally the same recipes - nexus casserole, enhanced spider stir-fry, and mechanistics meal all produce the exact same 67 tech based food. While admittedly the variations on each are different, the ingredient prices and difficultly of getting the recipes are also very different. The same is true with many other foods such as Behemoth Steak and the Defenders Meal. Additionally, the special meal variations of these recipes are very easy to get (rep vendor) and provide the same bonuses despite being lower level. 
Bad Variations - the cooking discoveries are incredibly difficult to get (especially at high level) as well as being incredibly lackluster. In most cases, it is better to use the base food. Further, many of the variations offer terrible stat combinations. A good example of this is the Dominion Dessert, and insight food used by healers. Chua Cheescake, one of its discoveries gives Insight and Brutality, the other two give tanking stats (armor and shield cap). Insight is at best a secondary or tertiary stat for tanks and there is not class that builds for insight and brutality. Another example of this is Corrigan's lasagna, a variation of Vindicators risotto that gives finesse and deflect. 
Cool ingredient variation completely lacking for top level recipes - with the exception of datascape foods, the top level food all resort to the very basic ingredients at the top level. Gone are the leveling variations where cubig food needed cubig meat and not just generic meat. I've always loved games that had 1 or 2 extremely complicated recipes that gave awesome foods.
Suggestions to fix the cooking profession
Step 1. Fix the Variations. It doesn't make a lot of sense to have variations of food that no-one will ever consider using such as insight/brutality, finesse/deflect crit, etc. especially when there are so many other worthwhile stats in the game. Any of the following would make more sense as secondary stats to accompany a main stat food.Brutality - Brut/Moxie, Brut/Finesse, Brut/Tech, Brut/ST, Brut/CHS, Brut/CH
Finesse - Fin/Mox, Fin/Brut, Fin/ST, Fin/CHS, Fin/CH
Moxie - Mox/Fin, Mox/Brut, Mox/ST, Mox/CHS, Mox/CH
Tech - DPS - brut, mox, st, chs, ch Tank - armor, grit, base health, insight, DCR, DR
Insight - Crit, CHS, FRR
Food variations could also change the stat the food provides completely allowing for a pure crit hit food or transforming Armor food into a boosted version giving Tech Resistance for specific fights.
Step 2. Fix the powers of the food and the variations.I would suggest having the foods increase in strength based on the difficultly to get the recipe and ingredients. For example, this might mean decreasing the special diet foods to 61 stat, increasing the elder meals to 71 stat, and maybe even pumping up the boots from datascape meals to 81. If not stat boosts then duration boosts for higher level foods would also work. 
Could also increase the number of variations each type of meal has as you move from special meals --> elder meals --> datascape meals. (e.g. Blademaster meal can have Brut/Finesse and Brut/Moxie variation. Brightland Stew has in addition to those a Brut/ST, Brut/Crit and Brut/CHS, the next level variant (not in game at the moment) might have the option to make a pure ST food option additionally) (pure stat variants could be one per recipe (brut--> ST, Moxie-->Crit, Finesse-->CHS, Insight-->FRR, Tech-->DCR, Grit-->DR)
Datascape meals could also include a 3rd stat bonus on variations. (100/50/25)
Fix the power of the variations. Instead of having the variations give 50% main stat and 50% alternate stat, have them give 100% main stat and 50% alternate stat or 100% alternate stat (when the stat replaces the main stat entirely), this makes pursuing the variations worthwhile as they are actually better than the main stat food by itself. When using primary stats this would also differentiate from a Brut/Finesse food and Finesse/Brut food.
Step 3. More recipesIntroduce more recipes requiring ingredients from places like GA and DS that create good raid foods to flesh out the datascape cooking stat base. Maybe even make assault power or support power foods (as a high level recipe or variations) available from raid instance recipes/ingredients.
Step 4. DecorWhy is it that architects can make food based decor! Give cooks the ability to make some cool food based decor for their plot!.
Step 5. Achievements, titles, and rewardsAchievement for each tier of cooking trade skill tree completed. When the tradeskill tree is completed get the title chef and a cool chef hat or apron costume piece!
These are just my ideas on how fix and improve cooking for everyone. I am always open to suggestions. Let me know what you think. 
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I wish I could like your post 1,000 times, OP. I usually enjoy cooking a lot in MMO's as well. In WoW on my main I had TONS of the cooking recipes that I had collected all the way back from Vanilla. In GW2 I loved "discovering" recipes and it felt like a real joy and pleasure.
 
In W* however... cooking is -NOT- fun. It is a pain, expensive, feels daunting to farm for, and just overall is not fun at all. The discovery system for cooking here is hit or miss like you said, sometimes fun, other times bone grinding frustrating.
 
I was REALLY hoping they would have overhauled the system by now. The pet is a nice start, but the core system itself needs to be fixed, then they should start adding in cute pets and titles for it imo.	
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I enjoy the "Battleship" aspect of cooking, but that's it. There is very little reason to pick up cooking. You don't get anything for the time and effort put into it. The drop rates of mob specific ingredients are ridiculously low. For example, it took me 3-4 hours of killing dawngrazers in Whitevale and got 4 shanks for my trouble. Even the celery pet really isn't worth it. 
 
Being able to make food-themed housing decor would be awesome. Maybe have some cooking-themed costume gear, such as a chef's hat and apron, would be neat too! Or, do what WoW does and let cooks be able to make feast tables that we can drop on the world. That would be fun for the RPers.
 
Also, the Exile rep vendor in Wilderrun still does not sell the Wilderrun Platter recipe.	
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For me it would be:
Step 1: Increase cooking mat drop rates.
like, a factor of 10 or more in some cases.
 
Main reason i never got into cooking was because getting materials to cook anything was usually that i simply did not have materials to cook, and the time it took to farm any to cook with.
 
It feels silly that now, at level 50, i need to go to celestion or algoroc to farm mats, and frustrating that even now it takes forever to get any mats at all.
Seriously, why don't these roan have any meat in them?	
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The pending Sproutling pet requires a cooking achievement, actually. So expect many Aurin running out to become iron chefs.
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			Perhaps food cooked by the profession could give some slight stacking bonus to foods simply purchased or obtained from festivals.  I said slight.  ;)	
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