In this post, we will continue our conversation from last time. If you missed the previous post, you can read it here.
The next update will also add one more new Profession: Cooking! I wanted to talk about this one separately, as it adds some of the most significant changes, and is also designed to solve some existing problems.
The main issue this is designed to help with is food availability in general. The need for food in battle is tied to every other aspect of the game. You can’t sell crops if you need them for cooking. You can’t progress in battle if you need more food. You use more AP in battle if your food heals less. If your food isn’t good enough, where you can even use it becomes more restricted. The more food you need to make, the more resources you have to use, which may mean not crafting other items which use things like Bitter Herbs or Green Mushrooms.
The first way that the cooking skill helps with these issues is by adding food quality to the game. Now, as you level up cooking, you gain an increasing chance to craft a high-quality version of the food you’ve produced. This not only increases the sell price of the food, but also scales the HP and MP it restores by the same amount. So, a void quality food will heal for double!
Now, that sell price increase might not sound like much, as food is not particularly worth selling right now, but that leads me to another change:
Food now always sells for the same price as the total ingredients required to craft it. This also affects the cost to buy any food items (such as in the Saloon). This means that, if you craft a high quality food, it is just a flat increase to the value of the ingredients used to cook it.
The main reason for this not being the case before was that I didn’t want to create a toxic gameplay pattern where you had to math-out the optimal thing to cook for every ingredient, and then sit there and watch a green bar fill up over and over again just to get the most value out of your items. So, all food previously sold for the same or less than its ingredients.
However, this is all balanced differently now. Because the other professions offer so many varied ways to increase the value of raw or processed goods, whether or not cooking is the best way to earn more money is more about how you choose your perks now. In addition to quality items, you can also increase the price of sold food in general via perks, so you can make cooking a consistent way to earn more money. However, the increased value of the food is based on the standard price of the ingredients, so if you have, say, perks that make crops sell for more, they might still be more profitable to sell directly. This is a deliberate choice to ensure that all players can lean into the game mechanics they enjoy most as their means of earning gold or resources. This also means that cash crops have an even clearer role, since they can’t be used to cook. Dedicated farmers may want to grow cash crops to process and sell, whereas those looking to cook for their income might prefer growing more ingredient crops and selling the meals they make.
The elephant in the room, of course, is how long it takes to craft items, as that wouldn’t be a very fun way to make money or generate all these new quality food items. But, don’t worry, that is getting a rework as well.
Now, when you craft any item, the progress bar is divided into visible sub-sections to denote how many you are crafting, and one bar fills for all of the items at once. It moves more slowly when you are crafting many items at once, but this scales based on the volume, and has a cap, so you can craft 500 mystery meat at once if you want, and it will only take a few seconds.
Additionally, it is now possible to craft 2x items when cooking, conserve certain materials, or make quality items. These mechanics may also come to other crafting in the future as more professions are added. These outcomes pop up as you craft through the current batch, so you know how many special outcomes you’re getting as the craft happens, making it feel a bit more engaging.
Between the above buffs, and the fact that there are perks to add flat sell price bonuses for cooked items, cooking food becomes a viable way of earning gold if you lean into that skew of perks.
The new perks also address issues relating to food economy. Getting more out of your food than before is now possible, as quality food will be more effective for healing. This means that even early-game food might heal for enough in its high quality form that it is useful in battle even in a boss fight or later area, and the less effective qualities can be sold or used out of battle. Perks that give you a chance to cook 2x food will make it easier to create higher volumes of food in general. Other perks that allow you to conserve ingredients randomly or use items as substitutes for others will also make it easier to balance your ingredients and cook more food (or save those ingredients for other important crafting).
But, that 's enough for today. Join us in Part 5 next time, for the final look at the upcoming update…