BALANCE: Warly/Crockpot Edition

[Gourmand]

With Warly's addition to the roster of misfits, his abilities along with the new crops and recipes have brought about some criticisms. The recipes are unbalanced, and there is little use in maintaining varied diets. Here are some notable points: 

Meatballs = Overpowered: With the minimum of half a meat value and three fillers, this dish is far too easy to make for what it provides. 62.5 hunger is immense, and it makes other hunger-based recipes obsolete. 

Warly's new recipes are iffy, some are useful such as the Volt Goat Chaud-Froid, but are outclassed by meatballs. Monster Tartare provides 62.5 hunger, -20 sanity and -20 health and is great for characters like Wormwood and Webber. It requires 2 monster meat at minimum however, so why would anybody cook Tartare when they could use that 2 meat for 2 meatballs, netting them a total of 125 hunger? 

Warly's limited use: His portable equipment and his chef pouch are welcome additions, but it's the spices that cement his role as a strong support. He is not consistently vital, and the upkeep required with him makes me yearn to switch characters as soon as possible. His damage resist, damage boost and efficiency boost spices can be mass produced and applied to the never-rotting powdercakes. Once that happens, he is no longer needed. The buffs can be stored almost indefinitely, leaving Warly with no active purpose other than his 25% faster crockpot cooking speed.

His exclusive dishes are also useful, albeit niche. But with so many crops, it's difficult to maintain a regular flow of asparagus, toma root, onion, potato, garlic and pepper. His recipes often end up being cooked very rarely because of this, even with a Worm/Wicker combo. 

Another example of Warly's lack of use stems from his sanity dishes. Now, he was never advertised as a sanity-sater, but I don't think a great chef should be outdone by a spider-boy and an imp. Warly's highest sanity dish, Moqueca, grants 33 sanity, whereas other survivors can craft new dishes that are on par to that sanity gain. Banana pops, Salsa Fresca, Vegetable Stinger and Creamy Potato Puree all grant 33 sanity, and can be cooked by all characters. (Warly's exclusive Puffed Potato dish only provides 15 sanity, which I think is wasteful of potatoes when others can make the mightier Potato Puree).

I think the food system as a whole needs an overhaul, with plenty of new farming options and dishes that are viable. Because really, why does anyone need to make anything other than meatballs or pierogi? I say we take some precedent from Hamlet, and introduce shops/traveling merchants to the game to make the world feel a bit more alive! These merchants can sell a plethora of goodies, such as a set of 10 potatoes for 15 currency (perhaps gold) amongst other ingredients, to make a varied palette achievable. Possibly a new use for pigs as well, I'm keen on the idea of hiring/enslaving our pork friends to farm for us, or even cook for us! (We/the pig farmer funnels them ingredients, we set a list of dishes we want cooked, and they make it).

What are your thoughts on balancing recipes and the state of Warly? Any ideas on how to improve farming, or how to introduce new mechanics such as trading and pig farmers that would compliment the food system? 

Edit: If you're going to act pompous or elite, please oh please spread your almighty wisdom by actually answering questions or adding to the discussion.

[YouKnowWho]

I think the real thing needing to be changed is switching characters. We shouldn’t be judging their abilities as just drop and go mechanics. 

[Dr. Safety]

I honestly like him as more of a late game character. I see his sanity dishes as just more ways of maintaining sanity while still satisfying his variety craving. His exclusive buffing dishes are incredible imo. Yeah, they require a variety of veggies that are hard to come by, but that is what makes him good for late game. With the right farming techniques, anything can be done late game, even stockpiling farms with onions, toma roots, or garlic. 

That being said, I do have just one minor complaint #GiveWarlyAChefSkin 

[me real life]

50 minutes ago, Gourmand said:

Meatballs = Overpowered:

The problem with the "meatballs op" argument is that it assumes that hunger is a big deal. It assumes that 62.5 hunger is something that's hard to achieve, rather than being around the same amount of hunger you could get from eating 7 berries, or 6 butterfly wings and 2 seeds, or 1 meat and 3 cooked berries, or 3 jerky, or 7 honey, or... you get the point.

Forgive me if I sound rude, but someone saying meatballs are OP is a clear sign that they have never done endgame stuff. And that they generally don't know what they are talking about.

[CaptainChaotica]

33 minutes ago, Dr. Safety said:

I honestly like him as more of a late game character. I see his sanity dishes as just more ways of maintaining sanity while still satisfying his variety craving. His exclusive buffing dishes are incredible imo. Yeah, they require a variety of veggies that are hard to come by, but that is what makes him good for late game. With the right farming techniques, anything can be done late game, even stockpiling farms with onions, toma roots, or garlic. 

That being said, I do have just one minor complaint #GiveWarlyAChefSkin 

THIS!  The late-game character thing.  _That_ is what's needed to make Warly make sense!  It's getting up and running in the first place that's difficult with him, but as an ADDITION to an already running and successful base/team...

Also HELL YEAH chef outfit!  And why, oh WHY did the Gorge happen BEFORE we had our actual chef?  That Stupid Mouth Thing in the Sky would've _loved_ him!

...his food, I mean.  His food.  : P

...Notorious

[. . .]

Don't make Klei ruin character switching because elitists abuse it so much with every new character or character refresh that comes out ..

[Gourmand]

11 minutes ago, Warbucks said:

Don't make Klei ruin character switching because elitists abuse it so much with every new character or character refresh that comes out ..

Warly just needs to be more viable is all, he has no passive positives. A sanity boost when cooking, or when another player eats his dishes would be nice.

1 hour ago, Dr. Safety said:

I honestly like him as more of a late game character. I see his sanity dishes as just more ways of maintaining sanity while still satisfying his variety craving. His exclusive buffing dishes are incredible imo. Yeah, they require a variety of veggies that are hard to come by, but that is what makes him good for late game. With the right farming techniques, anything can be done late game, even stockpiling farms with onions, toma roots, or garlic. 

That being said, I do have just one minor complaint #GiveWarlyAChefSkin 

All valid points, especially that chef skin one!

[ShadowDuelist]

1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

Warly just needs to be more viable is all, he has no passive positives. A sanity boost when cooking, or when another player eats his dishes would be nice.

I think that if you want to enjoy more than his spices, you need to either switch into him very often, or stay as Warly at all times. Otherwise you are missing out being able to keep making interesting foods that let you no freeze/no overheat, being able to remove entire wetness, glowing in the dark for 2 days, the moquecas super stats, the grim galette switching health and sanity, the Volt Jelly, etc. Even with bundles its very hard to stockpile a lot of ALL the dishes, and even if you do, I find myself using them a lot faster than they can be mass produced.

Having said this, there's always room for improvement, and I've been thinking that maybe he should "enjoy" special food for longer, allowing him to have at least 33% more duration time from his special effects of foods, to compensate for all the effort he makes. After all in teamplay, he shares all the foods with everyone and when everyone's buffed, he is just "one more".

Other than that: 

2 hours ago, YouKnowWho said:

I think the real thing needing to be changed is switching characters. We shouldn’t be judging their abilities as just drop and go mechanics. 

This exactly. Someone in another post suggested a one ingame year cooldown per player after each switch, and i think it's fair enough: Keep it very cheap, but think twice who are you going to switch into, since you will be stuck as that char for a while.

[Gourmand]

1 hour ago, ShadowDuelist said:

I think that if you want to enjoy more than his spices, you need to either switch into him very often, or stay as Warly at all times. Otherwise you are missing out being able to keep making interesting foods that let you no freeze/no overheat, being able to remove entire wetness, glowing in the dark for 2 days, the moquecas super stats, the grim galette switching health and sanity, the Volt Jelly, etc. Even with bundles its very hard to stockpile a lot of ALL the dishes, and even if you do, I find myself using them a lot faster than they can be mass produced.

Having said this, there's always room for improvement, and I've been thinking that maybe he should "enjoy" special food for longer, allowing him to have at least 33% more duration time from his special effects of foods, to compensate for all the effort he makes. After all in teamplay, he shares all the foods with everyone and when everyone's buffed, he is just "one more".

Other than that: 

This exactly. Someone in another post suggested a one ingame year cooldown per player after each switch, and i think it's fair enough: Keep it very cheap, but think twice who are you going to switch into, since you will be stuck as that char for a while.

Agreed. He just doesn't feel all that special and I think the 33% boost you proposed would alleviate that sentiment. 

I think changing characters should either be harder or have repercussions, like a "new game plus" mechanic. (The player should have the ability to toggle that on or off through the settings, not everyone wants a hardcore experience.)

[AdventZen]

Disclaimer: My entire Warly experience consists of a 500+ days Solo world, this is far from a survival POV.

Warly is... actually pretty fun to main.
First of all, Warly without farms is, although still fully playable, not as fun (or easy, for that matter). Sure, you can manage the Repeated Foods penalty by eating 3 meatballs every two days, but being unable to benefit from Mushrooms for Sanity, and having ever-decreasing recovery from Pierogi/Trail Mix/Fish Sticks is a preeetty big downside. But... I have yet to see such a versatile character, provided he has a well-set farmplot: He is the perfect late-game generalist for me, and there are very few things he can't do faster than the average Wilson, given access to Farms or a willing Wormwood. Playing as Warly, I've:

Cut down trees with 1/2/3 chops (Honey Crystals + Glass Axe);
Feasibly stacked up to 82 Nitre in two days from Petrified Trees (Honey Crystals + Golden Pickaxe);
Dealt over 100DMG per strike, one-shotting Spiders and Seasonal Hounds (Chili Flakes + Dark Sword)
Barely taken any damage while tanking big baddies (Chili Flakes + Pierogi, Garlic Powder + Jellybeans, Dark Sword)
Used a Football Helmet and Walking Cane for the entire duration of my Caves vacation (Glowberry Mousse)
And other amazingly efficient oddities...

Surely, I could stock-and-swap to a more focused character and do any of these faster... but Warly has such varied uses, It's a lot more fun to feel like a one-man-kitchen than to just constantly spam-switch for every menial task. 

I'd describe him as a Jack of all Trades character, someone you can always switch to, if you have multiple things to do in your world/foes to slay, I don't believe he should receive a Buff or a Nerf for that matter. New players will always struggle with the game, and try-hards will always optimize the crap out of any good mechanic.

As stated, any character is fairly easy with a 500-day base, and most characters are fairly hard just dropping in a fresh new world

but not all are actually this fun to play. 

[Brago-sama]

Spoiler

3 minutes ago, AdventZen said:

Disclaimer: My entire Warly experience consists of a 500+ days Solo world, this is far from a survival POV.

Warly is... actually pretty fun to main.
First of all, Warly without farms is, although still fully playable, not as fun (or easy, for that matter). Sure, you can manage the Repeated Foods penalty by eating 3 meatballs every two days, but being unable to benefit from Mushrooms for Sanity, and having ever-decreasing recovery from Pierogi/Trail Mix/Fish Sticks is a preeetty big downside. But... I have yet to see such a versatile character, provided he has a well-set farmplot: He is the perfect late-game generalist for me, and there are very few things he can't do faster than the average Wilson, given access to Farms or a willing Wormwood. Playing as Warly, I've:

Cut down trees with 1/2/3 chops (Honey Crystals + Glass Axe);
Feasibly stacked up to 82 Nitre in two days from Petrified Trees (Honey Crystals + Golden Pickaxe);
Dealt over 100DMG per strike, one-shotting Spiders and Seasonal Hounds (Chili Flakes + Dark Sword)
Barely taken any damage while tanking big baddies (Chili Flakes + Pierogi, Garlic Powder + Jellybeans, Dark Sword)
Used a Football Helmet and Walking Cane for the entire duration of my Caves vacation (Glowberry Mousse)
And other amazingly efficient oddities...

Surely, I could stock-and-swap to a more focused character and do any of these faster... but Warly has such varied uses, It's a lot more fun to feel like a one-man-kitchen than to just constantly spam-switch for every menial task. 

I'd describe him as a Jack of all Trades character, someone you can always switch to, if you have multiple things to do in your world/foes to slay, I don't believe he should receive a Buff or a Nerf for that matter. New players will always struggle with the game, and try-hards will always optimize the crap out of any good mechanic.

As stated, any character is fairly easy with a 500-day base, and most characters are fairly hard just dropping in a fresh new world

but not all are actually this fun to play. 

 

Wow you did 500 days already? I've barely made it to 540 after 3 weeks and I feel I play a lot. 

[AdventZen]

2 minutes ago, Brago-sama said:

Wow you did 500 days already? I've barely made it to 540 after 3 weeks and I feel I play a lot. 

I switched to him on an already-existing (and horribly farm-less) world :v
That's why my experience is admittedly biased: I have very little early-game with him.

[Girl Bart]

Been commenting this a lot but yeah . . . I really want to Main Warly but he doesnt feel very special
I just want Warly to have a nice little bonus passive to himself (Like his old + 33% bonus from his crockpot foods he eats)
Except making it 20% to counteract his 20% hunger drain now, (this would make early game less tedious)
But also as a bonus he could have a 20% bonus duration to his boons / buffs too? 

That would make playing him much more enjoyable and to see he gets a little special from the foods hes makes himself

Flavor wise it could be that since he is a Chef, he would know how to enjoy his food more (savoring the tastes)

[Gourmand]

15 hours ago, AdventZen said:

Disclaimer: My entire Warly experience consists of a 500+ days Solo world, this is far from a survival POV.

Warly is... actually pretty fun to main.
First of all, Warly without farms is, although still fully playable, not as fun (or easy, for that matter). Sure, you can manage the Repeated Foods penalty by eating 3 meatballs every two days, but being unable to benefit from Mushrooms for Sanity, and having ever-decreasing recovery from Pierogi/Trail Mix/Fish Sticks is a preeetty big downside. But... I have yet to see such a versatile character, provided he has a well-set farmplot: He is the perfect late-game generalist for me, and there are very few things he can't do faster than the average Wilson, given access to Farms or a willing Wormwood. Playing as Warly, I've:

Cut down trees with 1/2/3 chops (Honey Crystals + Glass Axe);
Feasibly stacked up to 82 Nitre in two days from Petrified Trees (Honey Crystals + Golden Pickaxe);
Dealt over 100DMG per strike, one-shotting Spiders and Seasonal Hounds (Chili Flakes + Dark Sword)
Barely taken any damage while tanking big baddies (Chili Flakes + Pierogi, Garlic Powder + Jellybeans, Dark Sword)
Used a Football Helmet and Walking Cane for the entire duration of my Caves vacation (Glowberry Mousse)
And other amazingly efficient oddities...

Surely, I could stock-and-swap to a more focused character and do any of these faster... but Warly has such varied uses, It's a lot more fun to feel like a one-man-kitchen than to just constantly spam-switch for every menial task. 

I'd describe him as a Jack of all Trades character, someone you can always switch to, if you have multiple things to do in your world/foes to slay, I don't believe he should receive a Buff or a Nerf for that matter. New players will always struggle with the game, and try-hards will always optimize the crap out of any good mechanic.

As stated, any character is fairly easy with a 500-day base, and most characters are fairly hard just dropping in a fresh new world

but not all are actually this fun to play. 

Wait, can you stack different effects? Can you have the chili flakes and garlic powder both active?

13 hours ago, Girl Bart said:

Been commenting this a lot but yeah . . . I really want to Main Warly but he doesnt feel very special
I just want Warly to have a nice little bonus passive to himself (Like his old + 33% bonus from his crockpot foods he eats)
Except making it 20% to counteract his 20% hunger drain now, (this would make early game less tedious)
But also as a bonus he could have a 20% bonus duration to his boons / buffs too? 

That would make playing him much more enjoyable and to see he gets a little special from the foods hes makes himself

Flavor wise it could be that since he is a Chef, he would know how to enjoy his food more (savoring the tastes)

I definitely agree. He needs a good passive.

[AdventZen]

1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

Wait, can you stack different effects? Can you have the chili flakes and garlic powder both active?

When you make a post complaining about a character, but didn't play enough to know basic synergies...

t h o n k

[Gourmand]

2 hours ago, AdventZen said:

When you make a post complaining about a character, but didn't play enough to know basic synergies...

t h o n k

200 days as Warly, console user and I have other players to feed. It's not testable when I have three Wolfgangs harvesting all my garlic for meatballs and eating my spiced powdercakes to give Dragonfly a whooping. 

[AdventZen]

1 hour ago, Gourmand said:

200 days as Warly, console user and I have other players to feed. It's not testable when I have three Wolfgangs harvesting all my garlic for meatballs and eating my spiced powdercakes to give Dragonfly a whooping. 

It's not the character's fault your server has hunger issues, a more intensive research might have helped iron out some of the weaker points in your post, for example:

-Moqueca [2 Fish, 1 Onion, 1 Tomato] recovers 112,5 Hunger, 60 Health and 33 Sanity.
One of Warly's strongest recipes, and since you'll be needing farms for Spices, might as well grow some tomatoes. It ain't iffy. (You can also make Bone Bouillon with all the dead survivors you may have lying around your base lul)

-You can also use Bird Cages in order to mass-produce any vegetable. Surely, it's easier with WormWicker, but quite doable nonetheless. This allows Warly (with enough stock) to feed a batallion with just a decent amount of silk, ponds, tomatoes and onions.

-Constantly switching characters isn't advised when on a Multiplayer world, since you'll barely be able to maintain a stock, making Warly mains more relevant the bigger a server is. Although somewhat niche, having a remedy for every weather is quite nice, it means at least one player won't need Spring/Summer gear, provided they're well prepared. (Hot Dragon Chili Salad is just way too expensive for mass production IMO)

-Warly isn't very good at sanity control, true. Most sanity recipes were added because the devs noticed the stat was fairly under-represented in the crockpot scene, so it's only fair they're available to all characters. (I'd still love the Soufflé to have a nice 45 Sanity, potatoes are not that good)

-Yeah, why would anyone make any dish other than Pierogi and Meatballs? The devs should really add a character that incentivizes a varied diet...
(You won't always have Eggs or Meat available, so variability, even when not in focus, is quite nice)

Farms themselves are absurdly underwhelming unless you have a huge amount of them, so having a character that leans heavily on them for dishes does make it quite clear we need a buff for them. Instead of implementing an entire currency, I'd only make one simple change:

"-Crops also drop their respective seed when harvested."

[Gourmand]

3 hours ago, AdventZen said:

It's not the character's fault your server has hunger issues, a more intensive research might have helped iron out some of the weaker points in your post, for example:

-Moqueca [2 Fish, 1 Onion, 1 Tomato] recovers 112,5 Hunger, 60 Health and 33 Sanity.
One of Warly's strongest recipes, and since you'll be needing farms for Spices, might as well grow some tomatoes. It ain't iffy. (You can also make Bone Bouillon with all the dead survivors you may have lying around your base lul)

-You can also use Bird Cages in order to mass-produce any vegetable. Surely, it's easier with WormWicker, but quite doable nonetheless. This allows Warly (with enough stock) to feed a batallion with just a decent amount of silk, ponds, tomatoes and onions.

-Constantly switching characters isn't advised when on a Multiplayer world, since you'll barely be able to maintain a stock, making Warly mains more relevant the bigger a server is. Although somewhat niche, having a remedy for every weather is quite nice, it means at least one player won't need Spring/Summer gear, provided they're well prepared. (Hot Dragon Chili Salad is just way too expensive for mass production IMO)

-Warly isn't very good at sanity control, true. Most sanity recipes were added because the devs noticed the stat was fairly under-represented in the crockpot scene, so it's only fair they're available to all characters. (I'd still love the Soufflé to have a nice 45 Sanity, potatoes are not that good)

-Yeah, why would anyone make any dish other than Pierogi and Meatballs? The devs should really add a character that incentivizes a varied diet...
(You won't always have Eggs or Meat available, so variability, even when not in focus, is quite nice)

Farms themselves are absurdly underwhelming unless you have a huge amount of them, so having a character that leans heavily on them for dishes does make it quite clear we need a buff for them. Instead of implementing an entire currency, I'd only make one simple change:

"-Crops also drop their respective seed when harvested."

Moqueca is definitely not iffy, whereas his exclusive potato dish and his tartare do classify as such in my opinion (Throw in Hot Dragon Chili Salad as well because as you said, it's too expensive to make it viable).

I definitely agree with your point about seeds! It's so taxing to farm potataoes, and only have 1 or 2 of them left after feeding them to a bird. A merchant system would still be cool though, The Gorge got me hooked on the potential.

[GenomeSquirrel]

Technically there is a merchant system, sadly the merchant is a cat.