Should Crabby Hermit Get a New Favorite Food?

[JazzyGames]

When the QoL update changed the ingredients for the Hermit Home I was excited to see how much this could accelerate the process of scoring 10 friendship points. The change has helped a bit in that regard because you can now get that 10th friendship point earlier than Summer because cactus flowers are no longer required.

However, it would seem that for most practical purposes, the pearl is still locked behind certain seasons. The main reason for this is because several of her friendship points can only be accessed after some time has passed.

• The cactus salad friendship point is not obtainable before Summer.
• The lureplant point is not obtainable before Spring.
• The snow clothing point is not obtainable before Winter.
• The heavy seasonal fish are locked behind their respective seasons.

While technically, yes it is now possible to obtain the Pearl before first Spring, there are significantly fewer options for reaching 10 friendship points. Unless you get lucky with the weather and manage to deliver both an umbrella during rare Autumn rain and insulating clothing during Winter snow, you are forced into hunting for heavy fish, another heavily RNG-dependant task.

My main suggestion would be to give the Hermit a new favorite food for that friendship point, preferably one that more accessible year-round. This would make sense since cactus flowers are no longer a requirement for the house. Any veggie crockpot food would work here: butter muffin, ratatouille, trail mix, stuffed eggplant, jam, potato puree, tubers, salsa, or any banana recipe.

This change alone would mean that there would still be a straightforward method to obtain the pearl in your first season and would be significantly less dependent on luck. If the purpose of changing the house recipe was indeed to make the pearl accessible earlier in a run then a change like this makes sense.

Thoughts?

[roversfanss]

Actually, thats a great idea. However, I think that favourite food should still take effort to make. Something still accessible at any point of the game, but not as easy as cooking meatballs. Melonsicle or pumpkin cookies would probably fit.



Or a mandrake soup.

[Auth]

Perhaps guacamole?

[kaTome]

I actually really like the way it is now thematically. Pearl is a nice old lady who likes to have us young kids visiting her. I think its only fitting that the game gives us motivation to visit her multiple times by having most of the easier quests locked behind certain seasons. However, if you do want to rush her, that option is also available. There is always autumn rain between day 5-7, and there are 2 fish quests you can do: Big Fallounder and 5 Big non-seasonal fish. 

In other words, if you are just doing a regular playthrough, you will visit her multiple times, say hi, dance, etc. And if you are speedrunning, then it's harder but still possible, which make sense to me.

[Third Porkus]

"Unless you get lucky with the weather and manage to deliver both an umbrella during rare Autumn rain"

You can guarantee rain with telelocator staff, and I believe there is guaranteed rain between day 5 and 8

[JazzyGames]

Day 5-8 is almost entirely out of the question for delivering an umbrella to Pearl if you are trying to get an opal by Day 11. And sure, you can spend time to make a shadow manipulator and craft a telelocator staff, that's just an extra three purple gems you will need to collect in the ruins in addition to the eight you need for Crab King. Not saying it's impossible but it seems highly dependent on godly worldgen and a number of other factors. I made two trips to Pearl's island during weather events only to have it stop by the time she came out in the day.

[Pig Princess]

Can't she have 2 dishes she likes? I would like flower salad to remain an option, and soothing tea becoming another one. Forget-me-lots are available year round, technically ice is too (water balloon + deconstruction staff in summer), same for honey; Pearl definitely can eat honey since she has bee box for a reason on her island, ice is just water, and forget-me-lot flower seems not much different from cacti flower (even though it has decoration value in crock pot and not veggie). But I would like to keep options for flower salad, because every extra use for rarely used dish is one more reason to make it. I wouldn't want flower salad to be removed. Let me treat her with both yummy snack and drink.

[Moongo]

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Can't she have 2 dishes she likes? I would like flower salad to remain an option, and soothing tea becoming another one. Forget-me-lots are available year round, technically ice is too (water balloon + deconstruction staff in summer), same for honey; Pearl definitely can eat honey since she has bee box for a reason on her island, ice is just water, and forget-me-lot flower seems not much different from cacti flower (even though it has decoration value in crock pot and not veggie). But I would like to keep options for flower salad, because every extra use for rarely used dish is one more reason to make it. I wouldn't want flower salad to be removed. Let me treat her with both yummy snack and drink.

that's a really good idea-
maybe they could make the tea have less of a friendship effect to make it still decently expensive?