My take on the new recipes.

[Owlrust]

As a Warly main I love cooking various recipes, but a couple of the biggest concerns with cooking said recipes is the utility of the stats per dish, and sometimes the requirements per dish that can discourage the player to make those recipes by ingredients alone. For today I would like to start the conversation about the new dishes that were added to the experimental branch: Figatoni, Fig-Stuffed Trunk, Figkabab, and the Figgy Frogwich.

Here's my take on each dish:

• Figatoni is a very nice dish in my opinion, as it is relatively cheap and provides good all around benefits in all 3 stat categories. I especially love that it's another vegetarian dish that I can add to my Wurt playthrough as well.
• Fig-stuffed Trunk is a nice addition, however I feel as though it doesn't give nearly as much hunger as it should considering that you are using a trunk in its recipe (which may seem like an upgrade considering an uncooked trunk gives 37.5 hunger, but its cooked variant gives double that alone; which is almost a monster meat's worth more than the hunger from this entire dish). The 60 health is ok but I would hate that to be the selling point of the dish considering the rarity of the main ingredient, as well as how many other easily-accessible dishes can heal just as well or even better. Many of the dishes that give a good amount of healing seem to have a low hunger value to compensate, but the only issue is that those dishes tend to be easier to amass in bulk; so having a less-common resource be used in a healing recipe may be the dam that keeps this hungry river flowing.
• Figkabab is like the Figatoni in it that it does a little bit of everything stat-wise, but just like the stuffed trunk, comes up a bit short in hunger value. In my opinion, unless you are playing Wigfrid there is no reason to make this over the Figatoni since the latter does it better stat to recipe-cost wise. Warming yourself with food is also kind of a niche aspect as well considering the other great resources for getting warm that aren't food based. In short, I feel like no one is going to be making this dish with the express purpose of staying warm.
• Figgy Frogwich is another appreciated attempt at bringing use to under-used ingredients, this time with frog legs. However one issue I have is that the stats don't seem to be strong in any particular area with the highest stat being at 18.7 in hunger (less than the combined hunger of two cooked frog legs). The dish is drastically inferior to the Froggle Bunwich in almost every way except Sanity (and maybe spoilage, not sure), but the amount of ingredients needed to make just one Frogwich, combined with 4 twigs, could make two Bunwichs which is 4 TIMES the hunger value of the Frogwich. You couldn't even try to justify it by saying you are using it get the warming effect since the Figkabab in all irony, does it better recipe and stat-wise. All around I would love to see this one get changed the most, and I also feel has arguably the greatest potential given the type of ingredients.

Ok so there's my criticisms; now I would like to make some suggestions for each of the dishes:

To make clear: I would like to suggest the idea of making each of the 4 dishes representative of a singular stat to separate them from each other and promote diverse cooking amongst fig ingredients.

• Figatoni I honestly feel is in a good spot right now, the recipe is cheap, the stats make for a Good 'little bit of everything' kind of dish, and it adds another plate to Wurts diet. I don't think any major change is needed.
• Fig-Stuffed Trunk could use some love in the Hunger department for sure. Using a trunk in the recipe would definitely give this dish my vote to be the Hunger-based dish of the bunch I definitely agree with some users here about maybe increasing its hunger to Moqueca levels (112.5). The health is nice, but I feel that shouldn't come at the expense of Hunger that needs to compete with cooked trunk to be a viable source of hunger.
• Figkabab I feel really good about as a possible contender for Pierogis if the Health were comparable (so around 30-40 perhaps considering the use of inedibles in this recipe). You're not getting much in terms of Hunger or Sanity, but I would definitely vouch to make this the Health-based dish of the bunch.
• Figgy Frogwich would be hard pressed to compete with the hunger or health of any of the previous dishes except for, you guessed it, Sanity. The relatively cheap recipe coupled with the long spoilage time would make for an excellent sanity restoration dish. A generous 30-40 sanity would not go unnoticed in a dish with lesser used ingredients, and I would personally love to advocate this becoming the Sanity-based dish of the bunch.

Overall I am always in favor of new recipes, but I also love seeing them play into their own strengths while also being worthwhile to make. After all, there are only so many ingredients but plenty of dishes to make them out of, so making them stand out is something I also like to advocate for. I only hope that with them being in beta, they will be looked into once again. That said, I would love to hear any other suggestions you guys might have down below.

[me real life]

23 minutes ago, Owlrus said:

Figkabab is like the Figatoni in it that it does a little bit of everything stat-wise, but just like the stuffed trunk, comes up a bit short in hunger value. In my opinion, unless you are playing Wigfrid there is no reason to make this over the Figatoni since the latter does it better stat to recipe-cost wise. Warming yourself with food is also kind of a niche aspect as well considering the other great resources for getting warm that aren't food based. In short, I feel like no one is going to be making this dish with the express purpose of staying warm.

Wait, figkababs warm you up? How? Is it something like stuffed pepper poppers?
Edit: I could absolutely see myself using these with the express purpose of staying warm! Figs and the biome are super cool and I'd already want to be going there anyway, and from my little testing it seems like you get 2.5 minutes of warmth during the dead of winter if you have a beefalo hat, so I could absolutely see myself throwing a fig, some morsels and a twig into the crock pot for figkababs.

[Owlrust]

1 hour ago, Sunset Skye said:

t seems like you get 2.5 minutes of warmth during the dead of winter if you have a beefalo hat, so I could absolutely see myself throwing a fig, some morsels and a twig into the crock pot for figkababs.

I can definitely see where you're coming from, I just hope they flavor it to at least be more forthcoming about the warmth aspect going forward (same with the peppers) to make it more obvious to the player in game and maybe give that aspect a little more love. What's your take on the Frogwich?

[me real life]

26 minutes ago, Owlrus said:

What's your take on the Frogwich?

I think it seems like it could be a neat way to put figs to use as Wigfrid without just using them as generic filler, since you can get just a biiit more hunger out of your frog legs by adding a fig and two twigs... but I'm not one to minmax with the crock pot, personally, and that's just my little bit of theorycrafting that might not really feel so good in practice.

[Theukon-dos]

I'm glad you like them, because honestly I'm rather dissapointed all-around.

 

First things first, Figs have a 6 day spoil timer raw, and a 3 day spoil timer cooked. This + the fact that you can't re-locate the vines means that Figs aren't something you can really "farm" as a food source. This is already a pretty big hit to them as it means that they're really only something you can eat/cook with on the go. So in that regard, how do they hold up?

 

Well, let's go in the same order you did. So first we have the Figatoni.

As you said, the stats on Figatoni arn't bad. The spoil time leaves a lot to be desired, but 30 HP, 15 sanity, and 56 hunger is pretty good. The problem is that it's recipe requires 2 vegetables, which means you can't use kelp for it. So either you're bringing vegetables with you (which are honestly pretty darn OP on their own. A pair of potatoes are beating it in HP, just behind it in hunger (Unless you're Wolfgang), and can be made into spiral potatoes). Or you're fishing for Corn Cods. But this biome also has Grass Crocodiles, which drop a whopping seven leafy meat. If you're going through that much effort for vegetables, then you may aswell go all the way and make some Beefy Greens for the extra HP and hunger.

Next is the Figgy Trunk. 60 HP is good, without a doubt. But the hunger's nearly half of what you'd get just from eating the trunk and 1 fig. And on top of that, you can't find Koalaphants out in the ocean. So the only reason you'd make this is if you brought a trunk with you a head of time. But if you're going to do that, then just bring some healing foods with you out to sea.

 

Third is the Fig Kebabs. And ironically, I think this might very well be the best of the fig-based recipes. Allow me to explain.

 

Fig Kebabs restore 20 HP, 25 Hunger, and 15 Sanity. Low, but decently balanced stats. However, unlike every other recipe, all the ingredients are readily available in the biome you find them in. Figs are self-explanatory. Meat can be obtained from Spiders or Grass Crocodiles, and twigs can be found from the mangrove trees. Even if they're stats are below the other options, they're still going to be the easiest sources of HP and Sanity to make on the fly. And they restore the same amount of Sanity as the Figatoni. So you're really not loosing out if you just want to get Wavy Jones off your tail.

 

And Finally, we have the Figgy Frogwich.

 

And Honestly... this dish sucks.

 

Not only are frog legs not found in the waterlogged biome, but this dish is just a worse version of the already existing, and much cheaper, Froggle Bunwhich. half the HP and hunger for what? 10 sanity? If you bring the frog legs you need out to see with you, then you can just pick some bull kelp to make the bunwhich. This is quite possibly the third worst dish in the game, beaten out only by Fish Tacos and Unagi.

 

As it currently stands, the only dish I can see being made regularly are the fig kebabs for the reasons I listed above. But if Klei lets the above average trees grow figs, then I think the other two dishes could have some potential.

 

Also, I said it in another thread, but where's my Figgy pudding?

On 7/26/2021 at 9:40 PM, Sunset Skye said:

Wait, figkababs warm you up? How? Is it something like stuffed pepper poppers?
Edit: I could absolutely see myself using these with the express purpose of staying warm! Figs and the biome are super cool and I'd already want to be going there anyway, and from my little testing it seems like you get 2.5 minutes of warmth during the dead of winter if you have a beefalo hat, so I could absolutely see myself throwing a fig, some morsels and a twig into the crock pot for figkababs.

Don't get that excited. There are actually a lot of dishes that can change your tempature. The issue is that the tempature of the food decays much, much quicker than the spoilage timer. So if you made a batch of Fig Kebabs before going out for a trip in winter, then by the time you start freezing, the kebabs would have gotten cold.

[me real life]

6 minutes ago, Theukon-dos said:

Don't get that excited. There are actually a lot of dishes that can change your tempature. The issue is that the tempature of the food decays much, much quicker than the spoilage timer. So if you made a batch of Fig Kebabs before going out for a trip in winter, then by the time you start freezing, the kebabs would have gotten cold.

I'm getting that excited, cause I already like to use an insulated pack as soon as possible! Hot food never cools down in there for some reason.

[Theukon-dos]

53 minutes ago, Sunset Skye said:

I'm getting that excited, cause I already like to use an insulated pack as soon as possible! Hot food never cools down in there for some reason.

Does... this apply to Warly's chef pouch?