Some dishes should give bonus effects

[aidancode]

I really like how food is handled in DST. I really like how many options there are for getting food, and how each of them are legitimately viable in their own ways. After all the updates over the years to farming, fishing, and various mobs, I think the resource gathering side of food feels quite good. HOWEVER! I think that most dishes are pretty boring. This becomes super true in the late game, since all you need is good access to one or two good dishes for each stat and you're completely set. I don't think the solution is or ever was to nerf the really strong dishes. What I think would serve food great is more bonus effects added to dishes! It doesn't have to be anything substantial. Look at soothing tea or Warly spices! Little bonuses to dishes can make more of them feel unique and worth making. Even if they're super subtle effects, they still would put thought on the right dish for the right job.

Examples for benefits that could be offered:

- A dish could convert hunger to health over time

- A dish could restore a ton of health or sanity, then drain that stat over time

- A dish could slightly increase movement speed for a short time

- A dish could grant a small damage/insanity resistance for a few minutes

- A dish could increase damage and time between attacks

Importantly, I want stuff like this that all characters can interact with. I don't think making this just Warly-exclusive is good. I think the existing weaker dishes could get benefits like these added on.

[Well-met]

this will only create new metas, it's not gonna solve much

[aidancode]

29 minutes ago, Well-met said:

this will only create new metas, it's not gonna solve much

What do you mean "solve"? There isn't a problem in the first place. I just think it's boring that vastly different food sources give pretty much the same exact set of returns.

[Edible Coal]

9 hours ago, Well-met said:

this will only create new metas, it's not gonna solve much

we want diverse metas, not only one meta

[Ohan]

I would love to see more dishes with interesting effects that arent warly exclusive. 
 

food and cooking is a huge part of the game, its literally in the name. It should be fun and interesting for all players not just when playing 1 specific survivor. 

several crops are borderline useless if ur not playing warly. 

dont remember when/where i saw it first but i love the idea of a pomegranate dish that cancels or inverts the sanity drain of being in the caves. Referencing the greek myth of persephone. 

Edited November 28, 2025 by Ohan

[3TimesFernando]

On 11/28/2025 at 6:31 PM, Ohan said:

I would love to see more dishes with interesting effects that arent warly exclusive. 
 

food and cooking is a huge part of the game, its literally in the name. It should be fun and interesting for all players not just when playing 1 specific survivor. 

several crops are borderline useless if ur not playing warly. 

dont remember when/where i saw it first but i love the idea of a pomegranate dish that cancels or inverts the sanity drain of being in the caves. Referencing the greek myth of persephone. 

Pomegranate is useless even with warly.

The game need a rework for dishes, creating new ones would only exacerbate the problem... 

Like 60% of the dishes that already exist sucks. Who's gonna ever make pumpkin cookies for the gross stats?

[Harthur90]

I was talking one of these days with my wife about a similar opinion, that DST is not at all about not starving once you mastered a little of the game. 

My solution to this would be to introduce properties to ingredients that gets carried over dishes.

Similar to farming where you have 3 Macro nutrients (Compost, Growth formula and Manure) , I would make dishes have 3 macro nutrients (Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats)
and I would not necessarily lean on boosting any player attributes (becase the game already do a good job on this), but instead on making sure you have no penalties:

Proteins : 0-20% Damage done reduction
Carbs: 0-20% Slower DPS
Fats: 0-20% Slower movement speed

This idea would to make a difference between making say for example a Meatball (3x ice, 1 Meat monster) vs a Meatball (3x carrot, morsel)

this would reward players who go from different sources of food when preparing dishes

This ofc would be super hard to accomplish

 

[3TimesFernando]

3 minutes ago, Harthur90 said:

I was talking one of these days with my wife about a similar opinion, that DST is not at all about not starving once you mastered a little of the game. 

My solution to this would be to introduce properties to ingredients that gets carried over dishes.

Similar to farming where you have 3 Macro nutrients (Compost, Growth formula and Manure) , I would make dishes have 3 macro nutrients (Proteins, Carbohydrates and Fats)
and I would not necessarily lean on boosting any player attributes (becase the game already do a good job on this), but instead on making sure you have no penalties:

Proteins : 0-20% Damage done reduction
Carbs: 0-20% Slower DPS
Fats: 0-20% Slower movement speed

This idea would to make a difference between making say for example a Meatball (3x ice, 1 Meat monster) vs a Meatball (3x carrot, morsel)

this would reward players who go from different sources of food when preparing dishes

This ofc would be super hard to accomplish

 

damn that's smart. 

But I think that nerfing the meaty stew and meatballs would already make the player think more before cooking. 

Adding some cool variations for the meatballs, like a terrible one with ice, the default one with veggie fillers, and a new, better recipe with fish meat.

[Harthur90]

28 minutes ago, 3TimesFernando said:

damn that's smart. 

But I think that nerfing the meaty stew and meatballs would already make the player think more before cooking. 

Adding some cool variations for the meatballs, like a terrible one with ice, the default one with veggie fillers, and a new, better recipe with fish meat.

We could have 3 variations prefix per dish as 

Disgusting (made with low quality ingredients)
Plain (regular ingredients)
Tasty (premium ingredients)

which could be also an indication to players to look for better ingredients