Recipe-less cooking with food as a soft requirement
I propose 2 things to make cooking an integral, engaging, economic yet not demanding expereince. 1) An open ended effect-by-ingredient cooking format that allows the cook to mix whatever they like (limited by portions, skill ability, and satiation), effected by skill level/perks, and cooking tool/station used. 2) A basic, non-lethal satiation system that helps control the amount of what people eat, and amount of ingredients used, to make engaging decisions of what should be eaten in that situation. It would add depth and purpose to world items and consideration of their use, and creates an economic sink and trade avenue. To go into detail...
Open ended cooking
I would really like to see cooking steered away from the A+B+B = Dish C type of blueprint recipe. So an egg with a spice that have no effects can be made into a specific dish, that has effects completely unique to any recipe.. ok?? The recipe can't be tweaked, cooked differently, anything.. Try a different herb? Nope, CAN'T be cooked. It's a poor representation of actual cooking and just ends up being a small handful of recipes people actually use cause most aren't "the best". You could have a very open ended, deep cooking system because the items aren't really rendered in game, save for a few thumbnails and the effect card.. unlike usual crafting that needs a real world object with animations considered etc etc... anyway..
If the effects of food came from the ingredients used, that were then altered with flavour additions, cooking method, and skill focus, you could have a system where the resultant dish is unique. Cooking would be more like real life.. throw in whatever- the ingredients, your skill, and how you cook it determine the result.
Ingredients could be 2 simple types, Food and Flavour. Anything could be eaten raw for it's advertised effect when unable/uninterested in cooking. 'Food' is straighfoward, would offer a low to high satiation and comprise most of the dish's effects (ex. 200 calorie drumstick gives +2 Str and Sta; 20 calore GlitterBerry gives +4 arcane damage and vulnerabilty; 100 calore Marsh Tubar, no effect ). A dish would be at most a handful of Food items, even just 1... Think like rice and a couple vegetables.. A steak and potato.. Fruit salad.. A rack of ribs.. Portion compositons end up logical with what you're trying to get out of it and the limts of calorie intake.
'Flavour' are the spices, herbs, seeds, berries, any 1-bite/smaller item that can be added in much higher amounts, that impact the Food's effects of the dish. Ex., SmellyHerb gives +1% to all Meat food effects.. or Sesame Seeds reduce Vegetable debuffs by 10%.. These are limited more by cooking skill, and a dish could have anywhere from zero to over a dozen additions.
Effects don't have to be just different buffs.. Somethings could be a debuff (not everthing is good for you) or offer a glaring trade off.. It Allows potential for some interesting interactions if Flavourings can alter otherwise bad foods into strong ones. Effects could get quite exotic or if magic were going to be involved you could have things that offer actual abilities or something for time a period based on cook's skill/ ingreds. etc..
It might also be beneficial to tie certain effect types to certain food categories, but couldn't say without some deeper consideration. Maybe just a player convenience, so dish design is more structured.
The degree to which food is filling makes choosing the buffs you'll get vs how long you'll be stuck with them a real thought. Especially expensive and more specialized ingredients. Adds consideration as a factor to what you should carry. Meals become less of a Best+best=best dish.. You might not have room at the moment, or just want the satiation in place of food that offers better buffs. You might want a big solid mid-tier meal before some good ol' pve farming or travel, but the tough boss you're after may need a very specialized food to help, but making it very filling would be wasted as once he's dead, as the effect isn't too practical. A potion or something could be available that wipes your food buffs and satiation so you're not 'stuck' in situations where every % matters.
Rarity/ challenge to procure should determine the tier of the ingredient and exoticness of effects. A step up in tier would offer higher effect strength/ satiation efficiency, and for Flavourings offer more specialized impacts to cooking. Most food in the world should be common, some things qutie ubiquitous; apples, eggs, rice w/e...
If certain (all?) foods were regionally distributed, it could add a big element to economic trade/ travel. Makes sense for fruit, fish, and the like anyway. Cultivated plants and animals could be the mainstay bread+butter of the world. If Seasons do play out, then there is huge potential for seasonal foods. You could have super rare foods, like how we have caviar, 80$/lb wagyo beef, saffron (but more like boss drops and master fisherman's catchs or dangerous area mushrooms etc.) so if you want the peak buffs, it will cost you. Open ended cooking makes how you use rare ingredients (or if you want someone else to do it) a real consideration. Also leading to absurdly priced luxury meals at inns. Like Dragon Kebabs or something..
Given that there are magical creatures, there's huge potential for meats and other drops to do all sorts of things. A lot of it would come down to alchemicy instead, but cooking could offer a reduction of the same effect.
Inns /NPCs could offer some meals just like dishes you could cook for a extra convenience cost varied by skill of the producer there, and you might be able to gain some cooking skill by eating around, learning what people do.
Ingredients would only show their effects in game only after you've eaten or cooked them. If handled categorically, you could have some idea based on what it is. Yes, you could just look up recipes, but that's quite realistic, isn't it? And skill level would still hold a large factor of the result: I can try to make a souffle by a recipe.. will I do it right? In-game books could have legitimate recipes.
Dishes cooked could use blanket names that based on the resulting appearance/ it's 'mains', like "Fried Boar Steak" and "Poached eagle eggs and Carrots" that don't account for the flavour additives otherwise you'd be trying to formulate 10,000,000 names. This also adds the dynamic of seeing the stats of an interesting dish and asking the cook- How did you make it? You can't often see small changes in cooking or components. A flavour text or thumbnail change could try to give some idea of its details/skill impact.. You could name a specific recipe of ingredients you choose and auto-fill the craft screen if they're in your inventory, aside from some common things already in the world (like our beef wellington etc). But anyway...
There's potential for more 'silly' fun by putting some strange, 'flavour' based effects on a few common foods you might have to eat while out and about - makes you glow; gives you one time weak fire breath (was in WoW?); extremely brief invisility at the expense of total mana drain; changes your skin colour; changes the colours you see on screen; makes one type of animal friendly/follow you briefly.. you get the idea. Yes, yes, exploits and such but if done with a little thought it could add more for a lot of players. Worlds get super game-y and hollow when every tiny system simply revolves around keeping the numbers on the character sheet the focus.
Food as a Soft Requirement
A soft survival mechanic of satiation (100-0%) limits how much you can eat, so what you choose to eat must be considered, and controls the ingredient limit- no one can eat 40 fish or whatever.
Most people probably don't want any REAL survival so the punishments of not eating would be simple and non-severe.. maybe like "Hungry" gives a slight mana/energy regen debuff and "Starving" is a moderate health and mana regen debuff... The starving status also offers an interesting mechanic to a few classes or enemies being able to apply a starvation or wasting curse or something. Anyway..
Making food pseudo-mandatory would wedge a new commodity type into the world's economy (currently, building and gear mats, maybe mounts is it?), which I think could add a lot more to the world.. cooking for people, trading goods, providing food to nodes, guilds, etc.. something to consider beyond gear and potions and Coin #. If you're ok with an upkeep cost on your gear and travel. etc, why not on your LIVING character.. The one thing that truly needs upkeep.
Fishing would finally feel like it's providing something needed. House/Freehold farms would make the crop and production a real choice.
Unless you're just an alt in a city, it would be wise to stay at least fed, and allowing all food to be 'useful' in regards to fillingness vs. cost vs. effect gives all food a ROLE. Staple foods for no specific gameplay intentions, safer areas etc.. Fancier stuff for specific enemies/ intentions, travel, risky areas.. Really costly items for when every % matters.
But most don't want inventory to be piles of food... A good option could be that all forms of seasoning can be put in a spice pouch.. or all food items have a 'storage jar' option.. As well, basic tier food should be easy to find, at least in open/natural areas, as to not be a frustrating affair of having to leave behind most of your loot in cases of long treks home. Just eat a few apples or fish for a min. there- no debuff for the long walk.
Having food be a soft requirement means more cooking/eating based on what you feel like carrying and can find vs. its worth/use, and not just collecting the best few drops and combining them en masse to make the same best food within your hard limit skill level. I get the impression that is somewhat similar to the intention of the gear maintenance system as epic gear is claimed to require epic materials to repair. Judging risk and value. Some people just want more mindless gameplay and not to have to engage with non-combat mechanics, but the arguments against the food management gameplay apply to any crafting skill... You don't want to screw around with cooking and miss out on the buffs then pay someone to do it. You don't want to screw around with armorsmithing and miss out on the good gear then pay someone to make it. You hate the whole idea of food, then just eat what's immediately best and enjoy your time fighting. You hate grinding for top gear, then just wear what's best within your patience to attain and be a couple percent lowlier in gear stats....
The goal is to have every decision reflect more natural eating habits and give players that want to, something to consider.. what are you carrying vs what is it worth to you at the time: I'm going to cook up TrickyShrimp to gain some mobility cause I hate this area; I better buy [foodname] for the magic resistance before going to the Ghost Cave; Feast before meeting your maker in an epic raid!; Down to my last 2 rare apples, I'd rather cook this cave fungus and frog legs and endure their Debuffs right now; You get the idea.
Cooking Skill?
The biggest impact of the cooking skill would be maximizing the potential of ingredients through cooking (the boost to their effect). Flavourings could operate a percent of application based on skill, and the more of the same type (spices, salts, veggies), the less the effects stack. Ex., 1 herb does what it says, the second gets half its effect applied, the third one gets a quarter of its impact, etc. So more skill allows more impact from more ingredients. This helps correlate character level, skill level, and resulting food buffs. A more knowledgeable chef will know when/how to use more spices and how to mix them. At low levels it doesn't make sense to be able to whip up 12 different ingredients and have them all be used properly, together. There could be issues with mixing Food types that skill level could mediate.. One focus could be on the Foods themselves, and not as much the additions for that 'rustic' kind of cook- flame spit,
A couple cooking methods by deployable tool/ station could have broad sweeping impacts to certain food types, and be a just a few world items, maybe with fancier textures by tier- Ex., Master's Stew pot gives all Vegetable and Herb effects +5%... Makeshift Searing rack gives all fish +1% effects. Skill tree could offer some focuses on cooking methods, which seems reasonable. As the skill advances there could be branches for focusing further on a specific Food type or cooking type with lore like backgrounds. Dunir Stone Baking, or Kelnar Leaf Wrapping...
Branching the skill tree and limiting the area which people can focus on allows some community exchange since no one person can then be the 'best' cook of all things.
I wouldn't hate a system where cooked food (at least some methods) must be eaten at point of creation. I'm not running around with 4 plates of stir fry in my bag.. you could actually run a cooking business or go to an appropriate type of business with your group before heading out. Adds a little planning to an outing and feel organic. Methods that make a storable item- a wrap, a dried meat, etc. could offer less great benefits. Or simply eating the food then and there gives a tiny warm comfort buff or something.
For cooking for others to be more viable, I could see a system where a chef is able cook what other players put in a deployed cooking device as to not be 'stolen'.
Anyway, that's the sum of my thoughts on the matter for now. I don't imagine most people would want this kind of thing in an MMO as it's kind of sim-y, but I'm tired of slightly varied WoW systems. A game that is a bit more world oriented than run-end-game-dungeon oriented for people like me that tire of repition and variety to the roles of the world. Be a travelling spice merchant out of your backpack. Hand out a bunch of cooked clams you came back with from a cave run.. Not a cook, just eat raw foraged food to sate yourself like a barbarian.. Lots of fun stuff for (some) of us.
