It is suggested to weaken the various attributes of food raw materials

[Pig and beefalo]

In recent years, updates have added a lot of ingredients and dishes to the game, which is a very good quality of life update. However, there is a problem: the attributes of ingredients are getting closer and closer to or even surpassing those of dishes, including restoring health and sanity. Moreover, obtaining ingredients is much more convenient and faster than getting dishes. The game is almost turning into "Don't overeat". I think this situation should be changed. For now, I have two ideas:

First, reduce the various attributes of the ingredients to balance the difficulty of obtaining them. The advantage of doing so is that it makes the cooking more effective.

Second, transform the health recovery brought by food from an instant recovery to a slow increase, similar to Jellybeans. The advantage of doing so is that it makes items like Healing Salve more useful and creates a more survival atmosphere

[qwp18]

What raw ingredients surpass crockpot dishes other than cooked potatoes? Genuinely question I might be able to learn Smith idk lol

[Pig and beefalo]

18 minutes ago, qwp18 said:

What raw ingredients surpass crockpot dishes other than cooked potatoes? Genuinely question I might be able to learn Smith idk lol

First of all, please understand what I'm saying before replying. I'm not saying that ingredients have comprehensively surpassed cooking. Instead, I'm emphasizing that the acquisition of ingredients is not directly proportional to their inherent properties. Strictly speaking, dried food can also be regarded as a type of ingredient.

Secondly, since you have sincerely asked, I can answer your doubts. Apart from dried food and the potatoes you mentioned, The satiety of pumpkins is very gaming. The recovery of life by tomatoes and blue mushrooms is as excellent as that of potatoes. The recovery of rationality by cacti and green mushrooms is very significant. The above is only answering your questions from the perspective of attributes and has not considered the comprehensive acquisition method. I wonder if you are satisfied with this?

[BB Marioni]

Me and my friends personally still prefer crockpot dishes as the bearger bin is a great tool to combine with them. Specific crops are just too tedious to produce, and a lot of the other raw ingredients such as cactus cannot be replanted so traveling all the way to the desert to collect them is also a lot more tedius. Our go to dishes are always banana shakes/ jelly salads for sanity, meatballs/ omelettes/ honey hams for hunger, and pierogi/ fish sticks/ butter muffins for healing. Also Surf and turf for heal+ sanity.

however, I do believe that a reblance needs to be done with dishes as a lot of them have similar stats but different difficulty of obtaining. Examples are the barnacle dishes which are way too tedius to obtain, but offer similar stats to other dishes. There should be more crockpot dishes that offer special effects like temperature control, wetness protection, and other things. 

[Pig and beefalo]

3 minutes ago, BB Marioni said:

Me and my friends personally still prefer crockpot dishes as the bearger bin is a great tool to combine with them. Specific crops are just too tedious to produce, and a lot of the other raw ingredients such as cactus cannot be replanted so traveling all the way to the desert to collect them is also a lot more tedius. Our go to dishes are always banana shakes/ jelly salads for sanity, meatballs/ omelettes/ honey hams for hunger, and pierogi/ fish sticks/ butter muffins for healing. Also Surf and turf for heal+ sanity.

however, I do believe that a reblance needs to be done with dishes as a lot of them have similar stats but different difficulty of obtaining. Examples are the barnacle dishes which are way too tedius to obtain, but offer similar stats to other dishes. There should be more crockpot dishes that offer special effects like temperature control, wetness protection, and other things. 

A very constructive view👍

[Nikki Darks]

It is kinda insane how excessive food is in this game. And funnily enough, starving is probably the most difficult way to die in this game.

[Naifxoxo]

how about no

ppl who say getting food isnt hard bla bla , its bcz they have an insane amount of hours in this game and watching tutorials on youtube, ofc the game wont be as difficult for u as before ,, new players still struggle in early game so u wanna make them struggle more js bcz u have 9000 hours in this game and u think that its *easy* for u

Edited December 26, 2025 by Naifxoxo

[Cheggf]

21 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

dried food

This is not better than crockpot dishes, it just lasts a long time. It recovers the same health and hunger, it just increases the sanity a bit. If you don't like bundling wraps dried food combos great with the crock pot since it preserves the food longer and can still be used in the crock pot. 

21 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

and the potatoes you mentioned, The satiety of pumpkins is very gaming. The recovery of life by tomatoes

These are very time consuming to acquire, they require farming. 

21 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

blue mushrooms is as excellent as that of potatoes. The recovery of rationality by cacti and green mushrooms is very significant

These are very time consuming and/or expensive to acquire, and they have stat debuffs like the huge sanity loss for eating raw bluecaps. They require going to specific locations (possibly during specific times) or spending a huge amount of resources like living logs and manure.

Everything you listed is worse and/or harder to acquire than crockpot dishes. These are not making the crockpot irrelevant. 

[gaymime]

22 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

In recent years, updates have added a lot of ingredients and dishes to the game, which is a very good quality of life update. However, there is a problem: the attributes of ingredients are getting closer and closer to or even surpassing those of dishes, including restoring health and sanity. Moreover, obtaining ingredients is much more convenient and faster than getting dishes. The game is almost turning into "Don't overeat". I think this situation should be changed. For now, I have two ideas:

First, reduce the various attributes of the ingredients to balance the difficulty of obtaining them. The advantage of doing so is that it makes the cooking more effective.

Second, transform the health recovery brought by food from an instant recovery to a slow increase, similar to Jellybeans. The advantage of doing so is that it makes items like Healing Salve more useful and creates a more survival atmosphere

this only benefits people who a) already are doing well in the game and b) are unwilling at any level to change their game settings/playstyle.

for people who are new to the game, struggle with the game, or are just in unideal circumstance(populated pubs) the food situation can often be difficult to navigate. instead of asking that the devs nerf things so that you are forced to struggle whether you want to or not you could just use the world settings to lower birds, lower berries, lower carrots, raise damage-taken(to make meat acquisition more risky) and otherwise just change your playstlye to not be quite so passive. i max berries and carrots and carrats in my worlds but i make an effort to not pick them most of the time and focus on things like pigs or kelp or eggs for my ingredients. it is a small way you can be proactive about how you play without asking for the burden of your desires being put on the back of the entire community.

[Pig and beefalo]

2 hours ago, Naifxoxo said:

how about no

ppl who say getting food isnt hard bla bla , its bcz they have an insane amount of hours in this game and watching tutorials on youtube, ofc the game wont be as difficult for u as before ,, new players still struggle in early game so u wanna make them struggle more js bcz u have 9000 hours in this game and u think that its *easy* for u

Your concerns are actually more applicable to the early version of "Don't Starve" rather than the current one.

First, for players who don't like survival and adventure, klei has specially provided some options in the world Settings for these players. They can avoid freezing to death, starving to death, or even dying from dark and shadow creatures. They just need to explore the world easily. I respect this group of players. They may not be good at survival, but it cannot be denied that they have talents in other aspects. As an open world, "Don't Starve" is not only open in gameplay but also in the spirit of inclusiveness. The Constant becomes more wonderful because of their existence.

Secondly, for players who enjoy survival and adventure, there is no need to worry about them at all. Survival and adventure bring them pleasure rather than pressure. For some players, even if all the resources in the world are shut down, they will do everything possible to survive. No matter how many deaths they experience, I respect this group of players. They are the ones who truly practice "defining adventure with death". A true hero.

Thirdly, the duration of a game can only indicate the extent to which a player loves it, rather than being a matter of experience or comparison. Whether they play for one hour, ten hours, a thousand hours, or ten thousand hours, they are all "don't starve" players, and this also applies to my aforementioned idea.

2 hours ago, Cheggf said:

This is not better than crockpot dishes, it just lasts a long time. It recovers the same health and hunger, it just increases the sanity a bit. If you don't like bundling wraps dried food combos great with the crock pot since it preserves the food longer and can still be used in the crock pot. 

These are very time consuming to acquire, they require farming. 

These are very time consuming and/or expensive to acquire, and they have stat debuffs like the huge sanity loss for eating raw bluecaps. They require going to specific locations (possibly during specific times) or spending a huge amount of resources like living logs and manure.

Everything you listed is worse and/or harder to acquire than crockpot dishes. These are not making the crockpot irrelevant. 

First of all, the attributes of dried food are not merely as you said, merely enhancing sanity. I'll just give one example. If you play the latest version, you will know how useful dried fish are. They have a long shelf life, high attributes, and can be obtained in large quantities. It's quite normal that they can cook because they are also ingredients.

Secondly, farming is an important gameplay in "Don't starve", which can be traced back to the single-player game era. At that time, the cost of farming was indeed high, and it was normal not to recommend it. However, after the update of "Reap What You Sow", farming has now become one of the important sources of obtaining food, and there are also "Wormwood" and "Applied Horticulture". Farming is not as time-consuming and laborious as you think.

Finally, you said that mushrooms and cacti are bad and hard to obtain. I really can't understand. Cacti don't stop growing with the seasons, and they even grow cactus flowers in summer. As for mushrooms, apart from being cultivated, there are also a large number of wild ones distributed in caves. And you are so fond of cooking them. Don't you collect their raw materials in advance? Or will the dishes grow out of the cooking pot automatically?

[brednas7]

The problem is less that raw and cooked ingredients have good stats, but that some crockpot dishes are inefficient, needs twigs to be efficient and that most veggies give the same value when in the crockpot. Outside of lowering the 20 health from farm crops to 8-12 health i don't see a reason to nerf most veggies.
 
Maybe some farm veggies should have 1,5 or 2 veggie value and have a dish that needs a value of 5 or 6 veggies and buffing some underwhelming dishes to give people a reason to use those in a crockpot. It's kinda annoying when i play Warly and got pumpkins, corn or eggplants with all three having only mediocre dishes.

[wormwood123]

30 minutes ago, Pig and beefalo said:

Your concerns are actually more applicable to the early version of "Don't Starve" rather than the current one.

First, for players who don't like survival and adventure, klei has specially provided some options in the world Settings for these players. They can avoid freezing to death, starving to death, or even dying from dark and shadow creatures. They just need to explore the world easily. I respect this group of players. They may not be good at survival, but it cannot be denied that they have talents in other aspects. As an open world, "Don't Starve" is not only open in gameplay but also in the spirit of inclusiveness. The Constant becomes more wonderful because of their existence.

Secondly, for players who enjoy survival and adventure, there is no need to worry about them at all. Survival and adventure bring them pleasure rather than pressure. For some players, even if all the resources in the world are shut down, they will do everything possible to survive. No matter how many deaths they experience, I respect this group of players. They are the ones who truly practice "defining adventure with death". A true hero.

Thirdly, the duration of a game can only indicate the extent to which a player loves it, rather than being a matter of experience or comparison. Whether they play for one hour, ten hours, a thousand hours, or ten thousand hours, they are all "don't starve" players, and this also applies to my aforementioned idea.

First of all, the attributes of dried food are not merely as you said, merely enhancing sanity. I'll just give one example. If you play the latest version, you will know how useful dried fish are. They have a long shelf life, high attributes, and can be obtained in large quantities. It's quite normal that they can cook because they are also ingredients.

Secondly, farming is an important gameplay in "Don't starve", which can be traced back to the single-player game era. At that time, the cost of farming was indeed high, and it was normal not to recommend it. However, after the update of "Reap What You Sow", farming has now become one of the important sources of obtaining food, and there are also "Wormwood" and "Applied Horticulture". Farming is not as time-consuming and laborious as you think.

Finally, you said that mushrooms and cacti are bad and hard to obtain. I really can't understand. Cacti don't stop growing with the seasons, and they even grow cactus flowers in summer. As for mushrooms, apart from being cultivated, there are also a large number of wild ones distributed in caves. And you are so fond of cooking them. Don't you collect their raw materials in advance? Or will the dishes grow out of the cooking pot automatically?

Fishy jerky gains an extra 10 health and 15 sanity it’s good sure but it’s still not as good as tall scotch eggs or dragon pie. Now if you could put fishy jerky into a Bearger bin that’s 300 days it would stay fresh which is absurdly powerful for how easy you can gather them on mass. It turns an already prevalent issue of food being too easy and makes it so late game food is negligible at best and you get loads of health and sanity on top of it. You can get there but you’d need atleast 2 different foods to do that in your Bearger bin which are significantly more difficult in comparison to obtain large amounts of. 
 

also based on your post history the main reason you want this is so you can have… nightberries in there? Why? Just take a few with you if you need them so bad the effect lasts 4 minutes so just take 4 with you to ruins and that’s 2 days and at the point you are in the game where you reasonably have nightberries you’ll probably spend less time in ruins than 2 days 

[Pig and beefalo]

First of all, this is a discussion. I'm not asking developers to force themselves to do something. You have your ideas and I have my opinions. That's quite normal. So there's such a section for us to discuss.

Secondly, for the new players who have joined the game and those who are troubled by survival as you mentioned, you can refer to my thoughts above. What I have in mind is merely to raise the upper limit of the game rather than lower it. It's not about making it impossible for all players to move forward, because this game can now be very harmonious.

Finally, it makes no sense for me to reduce their quantity either, because I have many ways to easily obtain them in large quantities, not to mention the stone fruits, as long as I invest time and patience.

2 hours ago, gaymime said:

this only benefits people who a) already are doing well in the game and b) are unwilling at any level to change their game settings/playstyle.

for people who are new to the game, struggle with the game, or are just in unideal circumstance(populated pubs) the food situation can often be difficult to navigate. instead of asking that the devs nerf things so that you are forced to struggle whether you want to or not you could just use the world settings to lower birds, lower berries, lower carrots, raise damage-taken(to make meat acquisition more risky) and otherwise just change your playstlye to not be quite so passive. i max berries and carrots and carrats in my worlds but i make an effort to not pick them most of the time and focus on things like pigs or kelp or eggs for my ingredients. it is a small way you can be proactive about how you play without asking for the burden of your desires being put on the back of the entire community.

 

48 minutes ago, brednas7 said:

The problem is less that raw and cooked ingredients have good stats, but that some crockpot dishes are inefficient, needs twigs to be efficient and that most veggies give the same value when in the crockpot. Outside of lowering the 20 health from farm crops to 8-12 health i don't see a reason to nerf most veggies.
 
Maybe some farm veggies should have 1,5 or 2 veggie value and have a dish that needs a value of 5 or 6 veggies and buffing some underwhelming dishes to give people a reason to use those in a crockpot. It's kinda annoying when i play Warly and got pumpkins, corn or eggplants with all three having only mediocre dishes.

First of all, thank you for your valuable suggestions. Currently, some vegetables are indeed not much different in other aspects except for the textures.

Secondly, what I'm saying is not just to weaken the vegetables, but to weaken all the ingredients. The reasons are as mentioned above.

38 minutes ago, wormwood123 said:

Fishy jerky gains an extra 10 health and 15 sanity it’s good sure but it’s still not as good as tall scotch eggs or dragon pie. Now if you could put fishy jerky into a Bearger bin that’s 300 days it would stay fresh which is absurdly powerful for how easy you can gather them on mass. It turns an already prevalent issue of food being too easy and makes it so late game food is negligible at best and you get loads of health and sanity on top of it. You can get there but you’d need atleast 2 different foods to do that in your Bearger bin which are significantly more difficult in comparison to obtain large amounts of. 
 

also based on your post history the main reason you want this is so you can have… nightberries in there? Why? Just take a few with you if you need them so bad the effect lasts 4 minutes so just take 4 with you to ruins and that’s 2 days and at the point you are in the game where you reasonably have nightberries you’ll probably spend less time in ruins than 2 days 

First of all, I need to correct your mistake. The attributes of dried small fish and dried large fish are respectively to restore 12.5/25 satiety points, 20/15 sanity points, and 10/30 health points. There is no such thing as dried meat that restores sanity to 15 points and has 10 health points as you mentioned. They are indeed not as good as the two dishes you mentioned, but it's still excellent enough.

Secondly, Polar Bearger Bin is an item obtained in the later stage of the game. At this stage, the source of food is no longer the focus. What kind of food we stuff into it should be reasonable, and there is no need for more than two kinds of food. In terms of the existing food attributes, Dried meat is a very good thing.

Finally, I wanted to put nightberries in the Polar Bearger Bin. For no reason at all, I spent a lot of time and effort to get this item. This is the convenience we deserve. The introduction of the Polar Bearger Bin is a portable refrigerator. Isn't it quite normal to put nightberries in the refrigerator? I've spent such a long time at sea looking for it.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Pig and beefalo

[Nikki Darks]

3 hours ago, Naifxoxo said:

how about no

ppl who say getting food isnt hard bla bla , its bcz they have an insane amount of hours in this game and watching tutorials on youtube, ofc the game wont be as difficult for u as before ,, new players still struggle in early game so u wanna make them struggle more js bcz u have 9000 hours in this game and u think that its *easy* for u

I wish I had a screenshot of that one reply... "People used to be ashamed of being bad at games."

[wormwood123]

41 minutes ago, Pig and beefalo said:

First of all, this is a discussion. I'm not asking developers to force themselves to do something. You have your ideas and I have my opinions. That's quite normal. So there's such a section for us to discuss.

People are discussing it’s just most people are disagreeing.

42 minutes ago, Pig and beefalo said:

 

First of all, I need to correct your mistake. The attributes of dried small fish and dried large fish are respectively to restore 12.5/25 satiety points, 20/15 sanity points, and 10/30 health points. There is no such thing as dried meat that restores sanity to 15 points and has 10 health points as you mentioned. They are indeed not as good as the two dishes you mentioned, but it's still excellent enough.

Secondly, Polar Bearger Bin is an item obtained in the later stage of the game. At this stage, the source of food is no longer the focus. What kind of food we stuff into it should be reasonable, and there is no need for more than two kinds of food. In terms of the existing food attributes, Dried meat is a very good thing.

Finally, I wanted to put nightberries in the Polar Bearger Bin. For no reason at all, I spent a lot of time and effort to get this item. This is the convenience we deserve. The introduction of the Polar Bearger Bin is a portable refrigerator. Isn't it quite normal to put nightberries in the refrigerator? I've spent such a long time at sea looking for it.

I am not confused about the stat gains of the fishy jerky I was talking about the additional stats added to the cooked version of the food(that’s my bad for formatting it like that), and even if I was wrong that would just further show how strong they would be in the Bearger bin.

And just because an item is obtained late game doesn’t mean it should be an absurdly powerful item with no other choices because of how good it is. Because quite frankly if the Bearger bin could hold non crockpot dishes then it would make ice boxes, salt boxes and icker preserve kits far less valuable and would be pointless to have (not so much so for the icker but it would still make it less useful) and you might think “oh well it doesn’t matter if those early game items like ice boxes or salt boxes are useless now because that’s progression” that’s not how progression should work because while the shadow maul is ‘better’ than the shadow reaper there are still advantages to using it over the maul (E.G having to feed the maul/ level it up) it’s nice to have variety

 

and finally the nightberries should probably just get a crockpot dish lowkey

 

[qwp18]

I think instead of nerfing all non-crockpot foods, crockpot foods should have some sort of a 2nd sweep over on their stats and usefulness. Nerfing raw ingredients impacts every stage of the game, but they're not actually that good, even all the good examples such as blue mushcaps, cactus, potatoes either have a drawback (sanity), are very out of your way and sparse (only found in the desserts, no way to farm and mass produce) or require time and effort to get. Instead of nerfing all of those, which feel good to engage with while playing the game, give us an incentive to eat crockpot dishes, I don't necessarily agree with the post here, I think having certain raw ingredients be overall equal in utility as crockpots can be good as it provides more options and ways to approach hunger, it'd only be an issue if the effort to get those was marginally less of crockpot dishes, which they aren't really, even drying rack stuff takes a bit to dry which isn't the most optimal, but it's fine because it's good. The real issue is that crockpot dishes or not, a major amount of food gets over shadowed due to not providing anything unique, the reason for no one using a lot of crock pot dishes isn't that everything else is close to surpassing it or even is easier to make them it, the ease of acquiring those is *fine*, the issue is that those expensive and difficult dishes don't have any reason to ever get them comparatively to EVERYTHING else

[Pig and beefalo]

1 hour ago, wormwood123 said:

People are discussing it’s just most people are disagreeing.

I am not confused about the stat gains of the fishy jerky I was talking about the additional stats added to the cooked version of the food(that’s my bad for formatting it like that), and even if I was wrong that would just further show how strong they would be in the Bearger bin.

And just because an item is obtained late game doesn’t mean it should be an absurdly powerful item with no other choices because of how good it is. Because quite frankly if the Bearger bin could hold non crockpot dishes then it would make ice boxes, salt boxes and icker preserve kits far less valuable and would be pointless to have (not so much so for the icker but it would still make it less useful) and you might think “oh well it doesn’t matter if those early game items like ice boxes or salt boxes are useless now because that’s progression” that’s not how progression should work because while the shadow maul is ‘better’ than the shadow reaper there are still advantages to using it over the maul (E.G having to feed the maul/ level it up) it’s nice to have variety that’s progression” that’s not how progression should work because while the shadow maul is ‘better’ than the shadow reaper there are still advantages to using it over the maul (E.G having to feed the maul/ level it up) it’s nice to have variety

 

and finally the nightberries should probably just get a crockpot dish lowkey

 

First of all, it's fine to have ideas, but it's a fact that simple negation can't hide reasonable ideas, and the people in the comments don't necessarily represent the majority of players.

Secondly, I don't understand where the absurdity lies. Wouldn't it be absurd to put in two sets of "Surf 'n' Turf"? Since klei has added this item, isn't its purpose to enable players to gain convenience from it? It doesn't make much sense to impose restrictions here. It would be better to optimize the cooking.

Thirdly, the acquisition periods of the two weapons you mentioned are very close. The time gap is much smaller than that of obtaining the "Spear" and the "Brightshade Sword". Meanwhile, the "Shadow Maul" is not necessarily a very good weapon. As you said, its advantages and disadvantages are both very obvious,  This example has little reference value.

Finally, I really appreciate your idea of making a dish with nightberries. Enable nightberries to acquire more reasonable attributes and characteristics in cooking, This is what I mean by making cooking more cost-effective rather than forcing players to cook.

Edited December 26, 2025 by Pig and beefalo

[Pig and beefalo]

1 hour ago, qwp18 said:

I think instead of nerfing all non-crockpot foods, crockpot foods should have some sort of a 2nd sweep over on their stats and usefulness. Nerfing raw ingredients impacts every stage of the game, but they're not actually  nerfing all non-crockpot foods, crockpot foods should have some sort of a 2nd sweep over on their stats and usefulness. Nerfing raw ingredients impacts every stage of the game, but they're not actually that good, even all the good examples such as blue mushcaps, cactus, potatoes either have a drawback (sanity), are very out of your way and sparse (only found in the desserts, no way to farm and mass produce) or require time and effort to get. Instead of nerfing all of those, which feel good to engage with while playing the game, give us an incentive to eat crockpot dishes, I don't necessarily agree with the post here, I think having certain raw ingredients be overall equal in utility as crockpots utility as crockpots can be good as it provides more options and ways to approach hunger, it'd only be an issue if the effort to get those was marginally less of crockpot dishes, which they aren't really, even drying rack stuff takes a bit to dry which isn't the most optimal, but it's fine because it's good. The real issue is that crockpot dishes or not, a major amount of food gets over shadowed due to not providing anything unique, the reason for no one using a lot of crock pot dishes isn't that everything else is close to surpassing it or even is easier to make them it, the ease of acquiring those is *fine*, the issue is that those expensive and difficult dishes don't have any reason to ever get them comparatively to EVERYTHING else those expensive and difficult dishes don't have any reason to ever get them comparatively to EVERYTHING else that those expensive and difficult dishes don't have any reason to ever get them comparatively to EVERYTHING elseEVERYTHING else

First of all, I appreciate your idea of optimizing the dish. This is a problem. As many people have mentioned before, for instance, pumpkin cookies, even just add fifteen more sanity points. And obviously, we wouldn't specifically make this dish to restore sanity.

Secondly, since you can't avoid the ingredients when cooking, if eating the ingredients directly is more cost-effective than cooking, you can imagine how players would choose. What if the cost-effectiveness of cooking is much higher than that of eating directly?

Thirdly, after the recent update, the "Drying Rack" has a very high cost performance. Now it is one of the best sources for you to obtain high-quality attribute recovery in the early stage. If the world is filled with foods that do not require cooking, are easy to find, and have excellent three basic attribute recovery, then this place is no longer "The Constant", but "Hamlet's"food store”.

Finally, if there is less food, cooking can indeed be a good way to achieve a higher satiety. The problem is that as the game progresses, we can't always be in a situation of food shortage. At that time, batches of dried meat and vegetables will constantly fill your three attributes. When you are hungry and the fridge is full of stone fruits and dried meat, how will you choose?

[AliceShiki]

3 hours ago, Nikki Darks said:

I wish I had a screenshot of that one reply... "People used to be ashamed of being bad at games."

The problem here is that the OP's suggestion makes things harder for newer players.

There is nothing wrong with expecting people to get better at a game over time, but there is a lot wrong with trying to purposefully make the new player experience harder, because new players are bad by default, and making things too hard for them might just make them want to quit, essentially lowering the player retention of the game.

As in, realistically speaking, Klei will never nerf the values of raw food. Maybe it could be done for food that is hard to get and that only experienced players go after, but by that point, it would be just removing the point of this hard-to-get food existing, so... Probably not happening either way.

[Pig and beefalo]

1 hour ago, AliceShiki said:

The problem here is that the OP's suggestion makes things harder for newer players.

There is nothing wrong with expecting people to get better at a game over time, but there is a lot wrong with trying to purposefully make the new player experience harder, because new players are bad by default, and making things too hard for them might just make them want to quit, essentially lowering the player retention of the game.

As in, realistically speaking, Klei will never nerf the values of raw food. Maybe it could be done for food that is hard to get and that only experienced players go after, but by that point, it would be just removing the point of this hard-to-get food existing, so... Probably not happening either way.

Reducing the attributes of ingredients does not mean making them completely ineffective, but rather rebalancing their acquisition difficulty and attributes. The reasons are as mentioned above. There are still many food sources in the game. New players can set hunger to non-fatal to explore slowly and change the Settings after getting familiar with it.

If klei really doesn't want new players to gradually adapt to the game, they don't have to add non-lethal Settings in the world Settings and some prompt statements. Instead, they should keep the single-player Settings, along with Maxwell's words -"Say pal, you don't look so good. You better find something to eat before night comes!"

Edited December 26, 2025 by Pig and beefalo

[Cheggf]

10 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

If you play the latest version, you will know how useful dried fish are. They have a long shelf life, high attributes, and can be obtained in large quantities. It's quite normal that they can cook because they are also ingredients.

Even if they added some way to bulk obtain raw fish that's actually good that I'm unaware of, raw fish spoils really fast so you need to make a ton of drying racks, and drying racks are really expensive. You just keep listing ways that you can put in way more effort than the crock pot in order to get food that's comparable to what you can get with the crockpot and acting like it's somehow making the crockpot irrelevant. 

10 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

Secondly, farming is an important gameplay in "Don't starve", which can be traced back to the single-player game era. At that time, the cost of farming was indeed high, and it was normal not to recommend it. However, after the update of "Reap What You Sow", farming has now become one of the important sources of obtaining food, and there are also "Wormwood" and "Applied Horticulture". Farming is not as time-consuming and laborious as you think.

Finally, you said that mushrooms and cacti are bad and hard to obtain. I really can't understand. Cacti don't stop growing with the seasons, and they even grow cactus flowers in summer. As for mushrooms, apart from being cultivated, there are also a large number of wild ones distributed in caves. And you are so fond of cooking them. Don't you collect their raw materials in advance? Or will the dishes grow out of the cooking pot automatically?

How are you bulk obtaining fish but you don't even know about really simple and basic methods of food production like pig houses?

[Well-met]

almost all dishes already provide more stats than the ingredients combined, klei already thought of this. Sure there's a few ones that don't but they are a minority.

The second idea is also absolutely never happening because the piergo outcry would be overwhelming.

[reddocc]

add puking mechanics if you overeat (value based of max hunger) of your max hunger in the span of a single day. Also make ipecaca work in players not just mobs  

 

It could work like grogginess and make drop your tool like moosegoose.

Edited December 26, 2025 by reddocc
please

[AliceShiki]

7 hours ago, Pig and beefalo said:

New players can set hunger to non-fatal to explore slowly and change the Settings after getting familiar with it.

New players always work with default settings. They don't know enough about the game to know what they should tune. No company will work with the assumption that new players will actually tweak the game to make it fit their intended experience, that would just be a guaranteed way of losing player retention.

Besides, if you think new players should just tweak the settings... Just tweak them yourself instead. You are the experienced player. You are the one who knows what you want.

[Pig and beefalo]

6 hours ago, Cheggf said:

Even if they added some way to bulk obtain raw fish that's actually good that I'm unaware of, raw fish spoils really fast so you need to make a ton of drying racks, and drying racks are really expensive. You just keep listing ways that you can put in way more effort than the crock pot in order to get food that's comparable to what you can get with the crockpot and acting like it's somehow making the crockpot irrelevant. 

How are you bulk obtaining fish but you don't even know about really simple and basic methods of food production like pig houses?

First of all, I have never said that cooking is unimportant. You are distorting the facts. I am emphasizing that the attributes of the ingredients are so high that the cost-effectiveness of eating them is higher than some cooking methods. Moreover, drying racks are not as rare as you said. Materials are everywhere. If you are just wandering around, they are indeed very "expensive" for you.

Secondly, I know that pig people are basic creatures. I don't mention them just because they don't have such a high cost-performance ratio, so I don't need to keep an eye on them all the time. Besides, their meat can also be placed on the clothes drying rack.

Thirdly, let me stress it again. It's not difficult to obtain a large amount of fish meat, but I have no obligation to explain the method to you. If you are really interested, you can search for it yourself.

Finally, if you want, you can get more Crock Pot and pig people. Meatballs and Meaty Stew will be enough for you. At least you won't starve.

6 hours ago, Well-met said:

almost all dishes already provide more stats than the ingredients combined, klei already thought of this. Sure there's a few ones that don't but they are a minority.

The second idea is also absolutely never happening because the piergo outcry would be overwhelming.

Yes, the cooking attributes are generally better, and you're absolutely right. But there will eventually be so many ingredients that eating them directly is more convenient than cooking. We won't always be wandering around the world. As for the slow recovery, this is an exploratory idea. There are two reasons why I have this idea:

First, the instant recovery of ingredients will make more people overlook Healing Salve and tents because they are easy to obtain in large quantities, have good properties, and have a short pre-shake.

Secondly, you can imagine what would happen if Wolfgang were equipped with marble armor and baked potatoes.

4 hours ago, reddocc said:

add puking mechanics if you overeat (value based of max hunger) of your max hunger in the span of a single day. Also make ipecaca work in players not just mobs  

 

It could work like grogginess and make drop your tool like moosegoose.

This is indeed a way of thinking to restrict food recovery and it is quite reasonable. However, compared to changing the data and existing mechanisms, I don't know if they will introduce new food mechanisms. After all, the slow recovery mechanism exists in the current version and only requires simple changes.

4 hours ago, AliceShiki said:

New players always work with default settings. They don't know enough about the game to know what they should tune. No company will work with the assumption that new players will actually tweak the game to make it fit their intended experience, that would just be a guaranteed way of losing player retention.

Besides, if you think new players should just tweak the settings... Just tweak them yourself instead. You are the experienced player. You are the one who knows what you want.

klei has added an easy mode preset. I believe most players will notice this. As for whether I will adjust my world Settings, it doesn't affect my suggestion. And you said no company would do this. I want you to go to Terraria and take a look at their difficulty Settings. Such Settings might even affect the game content. In comparison, my suggestion is already quite restrained.

Edited December 27, 2025 by Pig and beefalo