Suggestions for underpowered crockpot recipes

[Omid.R.G]

I just cut right to the chase. As far as hunger, health and sanity goes, you can just survive with meatballs, pierogi and taffy, assuming you're not playing Wurt or Walry. But that' no fun! There are a lot of of food items and although some of them are quite nice alternatives to those I mentioned or at least have some uses, some are just completely useless and that's no secret.

Guacamole: I don't think I've ever seen anyone make guacamole, ever. Because it's simply not worth the time and effort at all. How about giving it some unique feature like temporary night vision? The mole is used to make moggles which is for the same purpose. So it kinda make sense.

Mandrake Soup: Cooking this is currently considered a sin, due to mandrakes being way too rare. So by deleting an item this rare from your world, I think you should get some permanent bonus. How about making it increase your max stats a little bit? I mean, you won't really need more than 3 pan flutes (since you can just deconstruct them).

Spicy Chili: This is another badly underpowered food. Maybe it could give a short duration of speed boost? It's supposed to make you hot and energetic. I mean, I know it gives 15 seconds of warmth but it's not useful in any situation. 15 seconds of speed boost however, is gonna be useful.

Ceviche: This dish is entirely outclassed by fishsticks. All you need to do is replace one fish with a stick for more health and hunger. just, why ?? Give it some use! Like, how about eating it makes fishing faster? Fish bites your bait faster. Idk it doesn't make sense but this dish is just there for the sake of being there, which is sad. Fish tacos and California roll also have the exact same problem. Maybe they could have different effects on fishing to make the tedious process a bit faster. Right now, fishing is not too favorable since it's way too slow.

Ice Cream: This one got outclassed by jelly salad so hard. You can plant lureplants on boats and harvest leafy meat forever. How about making ice cream stop sanity drain for some time? I don't think it's overpowered since you need to manually obtain milk and it's not the easiest thing in the world.

Unagi: Now this could be a really nice healing food in ruins, since both ingredients are found in there. But still, fishing takes waaaay too long. Buffing any of those useless fish recipes in regards to making fishing easier, could actually make this dish viable.

Barnacle Pita & Barnacle Nigiri: Outclassed by fishsticks again. Make fishsticks need at least 0.5 fish and these would actually have a place.

Flower Salad: Making a useless dish useful by making it tradable with the Hermit Crab is clever. But if it's gonna be a trading dish, let it be a proper trading dish. Like for example, you can also trade it with pigs and bunnymen in return for, I ... I don't know for what. For somehing. Anything. The possibilities are endless.

 

That's every dish that I have suggestions for. There are still a few that could be tweaked:

Kebobs: One of the most restricting dished when it comes to ingredients, for 37 hunger. What the hell??

Stuffed Eggplant: This is supposed to be the reason to farm eggplants but, no thanks.

Pumpkin Cookies: Again, another one which is supposed to be the reason to farm an item but is outclassed by taffy.

Melonsicle: AGAIN, ANOTHER REASON TO FRAM AN ITE( they should just remove taffy at this point. Especially because Wigfrid can now eat it)

Waffles (or any recipe with butter): Butter is just a lesser mandrakes. We gotta have some reason to start a butterfly farm.

Bacon and Eggs: Hell, this one is so bad, even eating each cooked ingredient will actually give you the same hunger value!

*Side note: Speaking of bacon and "eggs", eggs should really have some more recipes. Especially tallbird eggs which have egg value of 4 for absolutely no use (I know it allows for making bacon & eggs with 3 morsels but just don't!!). We could have omelet or other egg dishes.

Fruit Medley: You can use 3 pomegranates to make this dish and gain 20 hp, while each cooked pomegranate grants 20 hp. Come on Klei!

Asparagus Soup: I don't even know what to say about this...

 

So yea that's about it. I'm excited to hear your suggestions and opinions as well. 

[franco116]

Some of the recipes are a certain kind of punishment the kebabs are the punish of use twigs as filler in meat Dish , the aspargus soup is also the punish of aspargus as filler instead of make a stinger juice, the same with barnacles they have good dishes and regular dishes to make ocean life less monotonous, not all recipes need to be really special

[Omid.R.G]

17 minutes ago, franco116 said:

Some of the recipes are a certain kind of punishment the kebabs are the punish of use twigs as filler in meat Dish , the aspargus soup is also the punish of aspargus as filler instead of make a stinger juice, the same with barnacles they have good dishes and regular dishes to make ocean life less monotonous, not all recipes need to be really special

They don't have to be really special but they shouldn't be completely useless or outclassed either! I mean kebobs and asparagus soup kinda make sense as punishment, but we don't need to have specific dishes for punishment as long as wet goop exists (except for monster lasanga which actually has a use case. Not the most practical one, but it exists). If there is a dish, it should have it's own place or it might as well not have existed in the first place.

[me real life]

2 hours ago, franco116 said:

Some of the recipes are a certain kind of punishment the kebabs are the punish of use twigs as filler in meat Dish , the aspargus soup is also the punish of aspargus as filler instead of make a stinger juice, the same with barnacles they have good dishes and regular dishes to make ocean life less monotonous, not all recipes need to be really special

I wouldn't say "punishment" so much as... a consolation prize. You put in a bad combination of items in the crock pot and (unless it's silly enough items to get wet goop) then you get some recipe that's not great, but still combines 4 food items into 1 and likely increases their spoilage time. That's also why I'd say recipes like bacon and eggs are still pretty good.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

I dont get why some recipes should be changed just because there is another option. As others said, not all the recipes should be unique

[franco116]

2 hours ago, Omid.R.G said:

They don't have to be really special but they shouldn't be completely useless or outclassed either! I mean kebobs and asparagus soup kinda make sense as punishment, but we don't need to have specific dishes for punishment as long as wet goop exists (except for monster lasanga which actually has a use case. Not the most practical one, but it exists). If there is a dish, it should have it's own place or it might as well not have existed in the first place.

Other case of punishment is leafy meatloaf, has more priority than monster lasagna and exist better uses for leafy meat

[Omid.R.G]

22 minutes ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

I dont get why some recipes should be changed just because there is another option. As others said, not all the recipes should be unique

Having another option, is quite different than being outclassed. When a dish's benefits is equal to another dish while using less or cheaper resources, it outclasses the second one! There is absolutely no reason to make ceviche while you can use the 2 fish to make 2 fishsticks for 8x the benefits. This is not case of having options anymore. It's just a waste of resources. There are some dishes that are catering towards certain playstyles or currents resources like honey ham and honey nuggets, froggle bunwich, trail mix, surf n turf, potato puree, etc. And those are totally fine. Those that I mentioned in need of tweaking, are lesser versions of other dishes while needing more time and effort than them.

10 minutes ago, franco116 said:

Other case of punishment is leafy meatloaf, has more priority than monster lasagna and exist better uses for leafy meat

Yes. You can see that I didn't say leafy meatloaf and monster lasanga need any changes, because they serve a purpose (proper punishment). If I go out of my way to farm asparagus, I don't think there should be a punishment dish for it!

[ArubaroBeefalo]

2 hours ago, Omid.R.G said:

Having another option, is quite different than being outclassed. When a dish's benefits is equal to another dish while using less or cheaper resources, it outclasses the second one! There is absolutely no reason to make ceviche while you can use the 2 fish to make 2 fishsticks for 8x the benefits. This is not case of having options anymore. It's just a waste of resources. There are some dishes that are catering towards certain playstyles or currents resources like honey ham and honey nuggets, froggle bunwich, trail mix, surf n turf, potato puree, etc. And those are totally fine. Those that I mentioned in need of tweaking, are lesser versions of other dishes while needing more time and effort than them.

Yes but that example isnt the same as ice cream vs jelly salad. You cant farm leafy meat as easy as you can farm milk until you are in a long term world. And this is one example

Having similar recipes but with different ingredients brings variety to the choices that a player can make of what he will want to farm

Not everyone used only bunnymens just because they were the stronger pierogi farm pre-rwys. That is boring

[Friendly Grass]

I feel like no matter how or if crockpot recipes are rebalanced, there will always be a sort of “meta” for the recipes popularly considered the most efficient.

I also think that only Warly should be able to make dishes with super fancy side effect.

[Omid.R.G]

Would it kill anyone to buff some food items? Yall are acting like I'm suggesting to break the game -_-

[chirsg]

3 hours ago, Omid.R.G said:

Would it kill anyone to buff some food items? Yall are acting like I'm suggesting to break the game -_-

welcome to the forums

[Omid.R.G]

3 minutes ago, chirsg said:

welcome to the forums

I love how there is no middle ground as well. It's either "Everything is hot garbage besides Wolfgang and dark sword and pierogi" or "Everything is perfect and nothing needs to change"

[ArubaroBeefalo]

1 hour ago, Omid.R.G said:

I love how there is no middle ground as well. It's either "Everything is hot garbage besides Wolfgang and dark sword and pierogi" or "Everything is perfect and nothing needs to change"

I think you are talking about edgy rick

A forum is to discuss and, when you make a topic, you have to asume that other people might think that the ideas suggested arent 100% "wow should ne added, klei run add this idea very pls" or saying other condescension comments

Also nobody has comment in a rude way or something, they just said their oppinion so i dont understand the tears

[Ohan]

23 hours ago, Omid.R.G said:

If I go out of my way to farm asparagus, I don't think there should be a punishment dish for it!

Especially because the recipe for asparagus soup for some reason was nerfed into uselessness when they ported it to DST while potatoes on the other hand are allowed to be borderline game breaking...

theres a lot to crockpot recipe values that dont make sense. 

[Omid.R.G]

1 hour ago, ArubaroBeefalo said:

I think you are talking about edgy rick

A forum is to discuss and, when you make a topic, you have to asume that other people might think that the ideas suggested arent 100% "wow should ne added, klei run add this idea very pls" or saying other condescension comments

Also nobody has comment in a rude way or something, they just said their oppinion so i dont understand the tears

I was actually looking forward to suggestions about the ones that I didn't have any suggestions for. You know, the last 7 ones.

[ArubaroBeefalo]

46 minutes ago, Omid.R.G said:

I was actually looking forward to suggestions about the ones that I didn't have any suggestions for. You know, the last 7 ones.

And you are free to do it. But other users are free to comment they thoughs about it if they are polite and respectful

For example im free to comment that i like your mandrake soup suggestion but i dont think taffy should be buffed because fancy tubular potato exist (for example)

[Azamagon]

On 2/15/2021 at 11:13 AM, Omid.R.G said:

-snip-

Oh, I love to discuss about food balancing!

First and foremost, I find some of the crock pot recipes and raw/cooked ingredients too strong - and sometimes they are the indirect reason certain other crock pot recipes are too weak. For a more elaborate take on what I've suggested so far, please check this out: https://forums.kleientertainment.com/forums/topic/123256-food-balancing-attempt-along-with-some-misc-food-ideas/

Do note that most of my suggestions are just dealing with statchanges, and not particularly much with creative effects.

But on to your ideas!

Guacamole. I just added more sanity to this dish, but your idea of temporary night vision is definitely interesting, I like that.

Mandrake Soup. I have no real comment on Mandrake food as is. But permanent statboosts can become a bit "griefy" though, in that whomever finds it first might greedily take it and make the stat-dish, when it could be far more useful to give said stat-dish to someone else instead (or, used as Pan Flutes). I dunno, not really feeling this idea personally.

Spicy Chili. I started by making it more hunger-filling. Note that I nerfed Meatballs heavily too, which indirectly helped Spicy Chili a bit too (even though Meatballs with the cheapest recipes, like 3 Ice and a Monster Meat, is still superior to... well, most foods actually). But making you run faster? Hmmm, not sure. It's a dish without even using an ACTUAL spicy item - like Pepper - in it after all
(Note: In my own suggestions, I changed its recipe a bunch, so it requires a Pepper among other things. With a more rare fooditem like that, giving it a slight burst of speed sounds more potentially balanced. Sidenote: The current recipe for Spicy Chili (1,5 Meat + 1,5 Veggie) is something I kept, but for a new fooditem: Casserole, which is a more plain statdish... And you know what, your idea for a speedburst is now actually growing on me to make Spicy Chili more interesting. I might consider adding that and giving you credit, if you allow me to?).

Ceviche. I made this the Sanity dish of the sea (up to 33, from measly 5), and also reduced the required Fishvalue from 2.0 to 1.0. It's just RIDICULOUSLY underpowered as is (it's detrimental in stats, actually - the worst of them all, aside from the obviously bad ones like Monster Lasagna and Powdercake. Only Pumpkin Cookies comes close in its detriments, but Ceviche wins as the worst "normal" recipe to make right now!). Also note that I have buffed Fish Taco and California Roll, while also nerfing the overpowered Fishsticks. I don't think your ideas for Ceviche make any real sense though (well, you seem to agreed with that yourself), so I think just making it decent statwise would be good enough. If we ever get Icebergs in the Ocean during winter, it'd be an even more easily acquired dish and could actually become decently valuable.

Ice Cream. Well, there's many problems to tackle for Ice Cream
1) Jelly Salad is overpowered.
2) Dairy is way too hard to acquire, making it not worth at all to farm.
3) It's not even unique - but with your idea, it could be!

So, let's tackle those:
1) Jelly Salad shouldn't be a SANITY-dish. The majority of the survivors seem to think it (at least visually) is vile. Swap its sanity over to health, and it's maybe more sensical (as I can see it being healthy, for sure)
2) Dairy should be a bit easier to acquire. A milking kit (and allowing milking for a weaker Dairy, Beefalo Milk, from Beefalos) could make that a bit more easily acquired, just make sure the crafting materials are not too cheap, so that Dairy doesn't become easy peasy all of a sudden.
3) Your idea of halting Sanity loss for some time is pretty sweet! Brain freeze - it fits! May I add this too? With your credit, ofc.

Unagi. I just buffed the raw/cooked Eel values, along with a decent buff to Unagi too. It doesn't need much.

Barnacle Pita & Barnacle Nigiri. I heavily agreed that nerfing Fishsticks is the #1 solution to indirectly buff most Fish recipes actually, and it needs to be a stat-nerf at least (i reduced healing to 20, from 40 - that helped a LOT for the balancing). Then the Pita is the cheap longer-lasting barnacle dish, while the Nigiri is the healing one.

Flower Salad. With some tweaks, this could actually became a good healing dish: I suggested this: Vegetables needed down to 1 (from 1.5), allow twigs and potentially increase hunger fill to 25 (from 12,5). With that, a single summer cactus pick grants the two main ingredients, just add two twigs and you have the whole crock pot recipe!

As for the others:

Kabobs. How is this requiring? 1 Monster Meat, 1 Twig and 2 Ice? Regardless, I personally gave it a smudge more sanity. With the changes I made to Meatballs, it basicly means: Last filler is a Twig or Ice? You get either more Sanity or Health (Stats I gave them are, bolded being the changes: Kabobs = 3 health, 37,5 hunger, 10 sanity. Meatballs = 8 health, 37,5 hunger, 5 sanity).

Stuffed Eggplants. Yeah, these suck. I gave them a bit more hunger fill.

Pumpkin Cookies. Indeed, this needs a huge buff (as I mentioned on Ceviche: Even with the optimal recipes, this is the 2nd worst "normal" dish in the entire game, statchanges-wise). I gave it better healing and sanity, as well as excellent spoilage time (but also indirectly helped out this recipe by nerfing base Pumpkins, as they are far too good as raw ingredients - same thing with Toma Root and Potatoes).

Melonsicle. Yeah, I gave this a tad more hungerfill to make it a nudge more worthwhile. Oh, and all icy foods (Ice Cream, Ceviche, Melonsicle etc) was proposed to last WAY longer in cold storage (Ice Box, Insulated Pack), giving them more niche uses at least.

Waffles. Yup. I had to give this thing a sizeable hungerbuff to make it decently worthwhile.

Bacon and Eggs. Huh? I find these to be quite decent if you use the right ingredients (Monster Meat, Morsel and 2 eggs). Sure, the hunger benefit is not awesome (but it is a net positive), but with a 20 day spoilage time, they have a niche.

And yes, I'd agreed that there could be more Egg recipes. On top of Omelette, there could also be Scrambled Eggs (Like, the noob dish of Eggs ala Ratatouille and Fist Full of Jam), and various cakes (something for the Pomegranate? Durian? Carrots? None of those have their fruit/veggie specifically required either. Note that I have ideas for those in my thread! Might add some Egg recipes to it too, thanks for that reminder!)

Fruit Medley. Even with the most "useful" recipe (3 Durian and 1 Twig), this is indeed a total garbage recipe, despite its high requirements. My suggestion? Buffs to all 3 main stats (making it akin to the Veggie Burger).

Asparagus Soup. More health and more hunger, is all it needs really.

On to one other underpowered dish that you didn't bring up, which I'd like to highlight as well:

Seafood Gumbo. This recipe is kinda ridiculous to me. First, the only way to make it is by adding Eels in DST - so it's not craftable purely on the Ocean, despite the recipe's name lol. Second, its stats are BAD. It has a big loss of hunger for a healthbuff (and a dash of Sanity), something which you can do far more efficiently with other fishdishes (in particular, it tries to do the same thing as the much more easily created and FAR more stat-efficient Surf n' Turf).
I suggested to basicly make it a Meaty Stew-esque recipe in terms of stats AND I changed the recipes for both Seafood Gumbo and Surf n' Turf:
1) Seafood Gumbo can now have equal meats and fish (instead of needing more fishvalue). This means you can create it on the ocean too, so it's no longer a dish exclusive to the caves.
2) Surf n' Turf, however, now requires the meatvalue to be higher than the fishvalue (which makes a lot more sense considering what the dish is, by the way). This means you need to add some non-fish meat in there too (which is still doable on the ocean if you have a drying rack).

[Omid.R.G]

On 2/17/2021 at 3:37 AM, Azamagon said:

But on to your ideas!

Very nice points. Thanks for your suggestions and opinions. Also, you can take any of the ideas even without credit. I just want them to be in the game

A few notes tho:

On 2/17/2021 at 3:37 AM, Azamagon said:

Seafood Gumbo

I thought this is way too stupid of a recipe to actually need mentioning. It's not even being underpowered. The recipe is flawed!! Just make the God damn thing like the single player version, Klei... Come on!!

On 2/17/2021 at 3:37 AM, Azamagon said:

"griefy"

I mean, yea but you stop grief from one aspect, they'll still find another way (Torch always exists). In a private server, there shouldn't be a problem in this regard.

 

On 2/17/2021 at 3:37 AM, Azamagon said:

well, you seem to agreed with that yourself

Yes it definitely doesn't make sense but I truly feel we need something to speed up the fishing. Even if not in form of food, something like the fish farm from shipwrecked could be game changing. Just, something. Anything!

Also, yea spicy chili may not be suitable for speed boost but I miss coffee from shipwrecked so bad, it's actually painful! We gotta have something like it in here.

[Azamagon]

27 minutes ago, Omid.R.G said:

1) Very nice points. Thanks for your suggestions and opinions. Also, you can take any of the ideas even without credit. I just want them to be in the game

A few notes tho:

2) I thought this is way too stupid of a recipe to actually need mentioning. It's not even being underpowered. The recipe is flawed!! Just make the God damn thing like the single player version, Klei... Come on!!

3) I mean, yea but you stop grief from one aspect, they'll still find another way (Torch always exists). In a private server, there shouldn't be a problem in this regard.

4) Yes it definitely doesn't make sense but I truly feel we need something to speed up the fishing. Even if not in form of food, something like the fish farm from shipwrecked could be game changing. Just, something. Anything!

5) Also, yea spicy chili may not be suitable for speed boost but I miss coffee from shipwrecked so bad, it's actually painful! We gotta have something like it in here.

1) Gotcha!

2) Is it really flawed though? Fish work differently in Shipwrecked vs DST, in the fish in DST also have Meatvalue, which screws heavily with Seafood Gumbo. Which is why I changed the requirements on this and Surf n Turf (along with buffing it, since it's a pointless food regardless).

3) True enough.

4) It's only slow on the sea (not so much from ponds, imo). A food for it could work, but I'd not give it to Ceviche at least, as it has good potential as Sanity-food. But I can see gear helping out, like some kind of fisherman's hat and/or jacket.

5) Related to this: I'm hoping for more islands to explore in the future, including islands which could have coconuts and coffee!