[Suggestion] Warly - The Chef

[Luponius]

Warly - The Chef

Pretty straightforward intent with Warly, which is to make him a chef.  Some assumptions first… cooking is his “thing” and in this case it’s crock pot recipes.  This is derived... from the fact… he’s a chef.  Suggestions therefore will strengthen such a quality.

Is a nomad-like character, such an assumption being derived from the fact he has a portable cooker and fridge. If they didn’t expect us to play him as a nomad, why would they be portable?  Suggestions will therefore support this approach, without hurting him for base-centric play.

Pre Patch Problems

Prior to the chef pouch update (which increased slots from 4 to 8), Warly was bothersome to play, and while not impossible, very punishing (due to his elevated starvation rate, reduced raw/simple cooked food penalties) and his tiny little chef pouch that was simply unusable.

Raw food spoiled too quickly before you had enough ingredients to combine, and as a nomad it’s really hit or miss with what ingredients you find in the various islands you stumble upon, leaving both the good and bad behind.

Bottom line is he just wasn’t fun as a nomad, he was just this whiny character who brought absolutely no perks to the table, and a big chunk of negatives.

Post Patch Analysis

He’s even pickier now about food, gaining even less stats from simple foods and doesn’t even like eating the same recipe in a row, resulting in loss of stats.  You must think I’m furious right?  You’d be wrong.

He’s actually playable now since his cooling pouch was made into the size of a backpack.  It’s no piggyback but at least it gives enough storage to keep all the food in there, and its cooling functionality keeps it fresh long enough to actually cook with it.  Also, because of the increased negatives he’s had his character brought out even more which is always a positive in my book!

Recipes used for those interested in trying him like a nomad:

• Meatballs (MM + 3 seaweed)
• Ratatouille (seaweed + random crap)
• California roll (2 seaweed, 2 limpets)
• Pierogi (MM + egg + 2 seaweed)

Yeah, don’t take my seaweed away from me please, I’m screwed without it – and while I would like to see substitutes, I honestly can’t  think of any other abundant ingredient I can pick anywhere as I explore and travel ahead.

So… fixed?  Hmm, I would say yeah, from a “broken or working” comparison, I’d say he isn’t broken anymore, and he does work out as a nomad.  However…

The Current Gameplay + Suggestions

I don’t feel he’s quite where he should be.  His primary strength of portable cooking still genuinely feels like it’s only there to make up for his weakness, something no other character has to deal with.  In addition it comes at the cost of disabling your backpack slot and occupying an additional inventory slot when not cooking.

I can’t say I know for sure what suggestions to provide to result in a “heck yeah this chef is awesome” gameplay as a nomad, however here’s a few suggestions I’d like discussed by those interested in nomadic play (and others who would like to use Warly in general):

• Change Portable Crock Pot to Portable Stove: Occupies no inventory slots, presented as an icon similar to the boat, on the opposite side (left).  Usable near a campfire / firepit (not Chiminea or cold fires), by placing it directly over the pit and using the heat to cook.
• Logs can still be consumed over the stove/campfire combination to stoke the flames back up
• Allow the crafting of an upgraded Chef’s Pouch similar to a Piggyback? (If not extra slots, at least make it inflammable please, since the piggy back recipe is kind of useless for a nomadic Warly, despite being one of the most important elements for any nomadic player)
• Have Warly directly involved during the “Cook” process after the ingredients are placed in the stove.  Instead of taking the usual predefined recipe time it will take around +/- 6 seconds to cook (similar time to chopping a medium tree).
• Fire must be well stoked (won’t die in the next 6 seconds he spends cooking, excluding hurricane winds) and if it isn’t Warly comments fire needs to be stoked more.
• Consider making campfire flame’s strength affect the cooking speed - bigger the flame, quicker the cooking process, going from 3 seconds to 9 seconds.
• While cooking Warly may not move (similar to gathering grass or twigs) and chants furiously generic cooking comments as he goes into his trance.  At the end of the recipe he gains 1 sanity, and the recipe is done.
• His involvement in cooking will therefore explain the resulting more nutritious meals made, thus restoring more stats than others would, and that little sanity boost is more symbolic than functional, but that’s what he’s about.
• If the food is made with stale / rotting ingredients, punishments should be involved, such as losing 1 (stale) or 2 (rotting) sanity at the end of the recipe instead of gaining it.
• Consider shifting around some recipe priorities so he’s less likely to mess the recipes up by placing suboptimal ingredients (he’s a chef after, should be able to make the best of it)

Would these changes make or break Warly?  Nah.  Are they necessary?  Most definitely not.  But it would definitely show his love for cooking and translate into an involving character who would very easily become my favorite.

And to conclude, and I believe I speak for the majority of forum users, thanks Capy / Klei for the work thus far and for listening to the community.  I would never bother writing detailed documents such as these if results wouldn’t show.

[Serph]

Chef Pouch doesn't need an upgrade, it's almost overpowered in my opinion. It's better than Insulated Pack and infinite times easier to create and makes fridges look useless. I would take it over piggyback on any character. None of this would be a problem if the pouch used a head slot but Klei thinks using a chef hat as backpack is funny for some reason...

IMO, these ideas to make Warly more nomadic would only make him more annoying to use. The point of the portable pot is to use it anytime anywhere, the best time to use the pot is to cook something while you work around or wait the night, when hunger comes your pouch is filled. If you have to make a campfire everytime, then Warly is losing a bunch of precious time watching the fire and chopping wood. The stale penalty is easy to overcome with fire cooking and the pouch itself. 

Overall he is a good character but his concept is boring. His downsides are directly negated by his upsides and his entire gameplay revolves around fighting hunger with ease, which let's be honest, by the time anyone unlocks Warly they should know how to make meatballs. I wish he would gain something more than food/pot gimmicks.

With that being said, I think the exclusive recipes are an amazing addition to him (i love cooking for everyone in DST so i would love playing with him). I'm glad devs are listening to feedback.

[Luponius]

The piggyback's inflammability is massive for a nomad where you can temporarily become a tank without risking losing everything to random fires, which can happen quite unexpectedly sometimes as I have unfortunately learned.

The Pouch doesn't really need an upgrade, I can agree with that to an extent, however it's a pouch, not a hat, and containers have always been worn on the back.

His style is not too bad, I still feel like a chef seeking ingredients for the next best meal while playing Warly.  Unfortunately there's a repetition you can't easily remove, since no randomization exists with what recipes are made and thus nothing "unexpectedly nice" to come out of it.

I also can't simply "leave" the crock pot unattended as a nomad since the environment is often times hostile, and several creature will attempt to consume the cooked food.  Thus the suggestion for sped up and direct cooking.

Unfortunately, I guess such suggestions would never see implementation if they're not released as a package from the beginning since many players get used to one style and don't welcome complete overhauls later on.  And whichever overhaul is picked (if), it's sure to leave a portion of other players dissatisfied.

[MatteSan]

Why would u make california rolls if u can make Fish Sticks?

[rezecib]

18 minutes ago, MatteSan said:

Why would u make california rolls if u can make Fish Sticks?

For the extra 6 sanity.

^Kappa

Seriously, though, I don't know why all the Shipwrecked recipes have so little hunger in them. There's nothing comparable to meatballs, even. The hunger on california rolls was barely even worth it before the nerf with this update. I love the fact that Warly has his own recipes now, and they look great, but... all of them are either worse than just eating the ingredients, even accounting for the multipliers, or there's a better recipe you could make with similar ingredients:

• Sweet Potato Souffle: just barely breaks even with eating the ingredients. So... meh.
• Monster tartare: drop one monster meat and add one filler and you can have meatballs, for much better stats. You don't even need the egg now.
• Mussel Bouillabaise: Mussels are pretty terrible as a food source now that the limpet/mussel/crab cluster got nerfed into the ground, and if you somehow ended up with two on hand... you could make two fishsticks for double the hunger (the idea of making fishsticks for hunger is honestly pretty hilarious to me, but that's just how bad the hunger stats are on Shipwrecked recipes, I guess...).
• Fresh Fruit Crepes: These are actually good. But... butter. When I get butter in shipwrecked, I use that on lobster dinners, so I can get a boat cannon from the Yaarctopus. Both of those things are rare enough that I can't see ever taking away a butter for crepes.

Edit: So I'm complaining about hunger in the recipes here, and you might say "but hunger isn't really a problem in Shipwrecked". My counterpoint is that hunger is never a problem once you get to crock pots, and at that point it becomes more about convenience, what's worth the time investment to make (which is why farms get so much hate, because they're pretty time-inefficient compared to the alternatives).

[soggynachos]

His personal dishes shouldn't be so bland, they should be game changing. (Like Wickerbottom's books.)

[Meneervis]

Just now, SoggyNachos said:

His personal dishes shouldn't be so bland, they should be game changing. (Like Wickerbottom's books.)

Yup, Extra damage or defense maybe

[soggynachos]

Just now, sirscrubbingtont said:

Yup, Extra damage or defense maybe

Not just that, think bigger.

 

how aboutttt:

-Recipe that instantly cools you to the freezing point.

-Recipe that heats you up by an insane amount.

-Recipe that makes allies follow you longer.

-Recipe that makes you mine/chop/hack/swing faster

and that's off the top of my head.

[Meneervis]

Just now, SoggyNachos said:

-Recipe that makes allies follow you longer.

 

This one is pretty interesting, nice idea! Would you have to give it to your followers or eat it yourself?

[soggynachos]

1 minute ago, sirscrubbingtont said:

 Would you have to give it to your followers or eat it yourself?

Hmm... Nice point, I'm not sure.

[Meneervis]

5 minutes ago, SoggyNachos said:

Hmm... Nice point, I'm not sure.

Maybe give the followers a boost of damage when you give it to him. And give an extended timer when you eat it yourself and give meat to a follower.

[mitboy]

15 minutes ago, SoggyNachos said:

 

how aboutttt:.

As some other person said, current recipes should give him buffs, not new ones. For example, fish stuff hels you with sailing or drying, sweet stuff extra sanity gain, vegatables running speed and so on. 

Exclusive recipes always sounded as pointless idea to me, so I just simply unlocked them for other characters.

[Meneervis]

Just now, mitboy said:

As some other person said, current recipes should give him buffs, not new ones. For example, fish stuff hels you with sailing or drying, sweet stuff extra sanity gain, vegatables running speed and so on. 

Exclusive recipes always sounded as pointless idea to me, so I just simply unlocked them for other characters.

Nah, the current execution of exclusive recipes are just bland. It adds nothing new to the table.

[soggynachos]

4 minutes ago, mitboy said:

As some other person said, current recipes should give him buffs, not new ones. For example, fish stuff hels you with sailing or drying, sweet stuff extra sanity gain, vegatables running speed and so on. 

Exclusive recipes always sounded as pointless idea to me, so I just simply unlocked them for other characters.

Ah, i remember those older posts, as for the exclusive recipes, I gotta agree, there pretty useless

[mitboy]

8 minutes ago, sirscrubbingtont said:

Nah, the current execution of exclusive recipes are just bland. It adds nothing new to the table.

I don't see how it possibly be not bland. Other characters could cook a vast variety of stuff, what kind of food could be considered as special enough so only Warly can cook it? And I mean not as interesting buff gain, but as kind of dish. It doesn't make any sense to lock anything for him, unless we pretend that he invented these recipes, which again is hardly an argument, I don't think other characters actually know what they cook anyway.

[Serph]

25 minutes ago, rezecib said:

For the extra 6 sanity.

^Kappa

Seriously, though, I don't know why all the Shipwrecked recipes have so little hunger in them. There's nothing comparable to meatballs, even. The hunger on california rolls was barely even worth it before the nerf with this update. I love the fact that Warly has his own recipes now, and they look great, but... all of them are either worse than just eating the ingredients, even accounting for the multipliers, or there's a better recipe you could make with similar ingredients:

• Sweet Potato Souffle: just barely breaks even with eating the ingredients. So... meh.
• Monster tartare: drop one monster meat and add one filler and you can have meatballs, for much better stats. You don't even need the egg now.
• Mussel Bouillabaise: Mussels are pretty terrible as a food source now that the limpet/mussel/crab cluster got nerfed into the ground, and if you somehow ended up with two on hand... you could make two fishsticks for double the hunger (the idea of making fishsticks for hunger is honestly pretty hilarious to me, but that's just how bad the hunger stats are on Shipwrecked recipes, I guess...).
• Fresh Fruit Crepes: These are actually good. But... butter. When I get butter in shipwrecked, I use that on lobster dinners, so I can get a boat cannon from the Yaarctopus. Both of those things are rare enough that I can't see ever taking away a butter for crepes.

Edit: So I'm complaining about hunger in the recipes here, and you might say "but hunger isn't really a problem in Shipwrecked". My counterpoint is that hunger is never a problem once you get to crock pots, and at that point it becomes more about convenience, what's worth the time investment to make (which is why farms get so much hate, because they're pretty time-inefficient compared to the alternatives).

Thanks for the info, i wasn't aware that his recipes were so bad. What a shame, i don't see much utility in his perk as it is.

Shipwrecked launches 3 new characters with faster hunger rate and yet keeps nerfing it's exclusive food sources for some reason. There are a lot of good hp dishes but compared to non SW they give less hunger than frog sandwiches/butter muffins and are harder to make. Aside from banana pop and surf n turf (worth the sanity IMO), i don't like any of SW recipes.

 

27 minutes ago, SoggyNachos said:

His personal dishes shouldn't be so bland, they should be game changing. (Like Wickerbottom's books.)

Wicker loses sanity with books and has actual downsides tho, aside from certain dishes that rely on specific foods (ice, moles, milk/butter, drumstick, wobster, etc), everything works the same pot and most ingredients are easy to obtain.

I guess it could work Warly could use specific pot dishes in the pot and mixed them to create some Super foods / Tier 3 dishes.

[Luponius]

1 hour ago, MatteSan said:

Why would u make california rolls if u can make Fish Sticks?

Even though what Rezecib said might be true, I honestly never checked recipes on wiki so I wrote down what I discovered by combining random crap, it's been a very long time since I had a crockpot available because of how I choose to play.

I agree on his exclusive recipes, but shouldn't they give us the list of ingredients necessary?  I guess in this case I'll try to look up the ingredients but if he's a chef he should know them, and therefore so should I, or so I figure anyways.

And I still think if you're giving him portable things and making him a nomad, actually support the needs of the nomadic players.  If the design doesn't intend to support nomadic play and instead gives him portables for convenience or whatever other reason, I guess that's fine too.

[Hugeisno1]

I actually like Warly as he is. He's a fun character. 

[SapphireBullets]

Maybe Warly could have some powerful unique recipes for boss monster drops like

Tigershark Bread (Made from Eye of the Tigershark) Temporarily grants amazing map revealing radius.

Krak l'Orange (Made from a Quacken item drop) Tempoararily grants faster sea movement.

Eye's Cream (Made from Deerclops Eyeball) Maintains a low body temperature for a few days.

[SenhorLevi00]

Warly is ok now with the last update, he got a good buff from 4 addicional slots on hes pouch and some exclusive dishes. I have much fun while play him, isn't very difficult but requires some skill to play with him.

[Luponius]

11 hours ago, SenhorLevi00 said:

Warly is ok now with the last update, he got a good buff from 4 addicional slots on hes pouch and some exclusive dishes. I have much fun while play him, isn't very difficult but requires some skill to play with him.

Yeah, since the pouch was increased in size he's playable now, and an interesting and unique character to run nomad playthroughs with.  It's a fresh feeling being able to make crock pot food while camping out in the wild, welcome addition and I'm having to learn a few recipes since he encourages you to diversify.

He's definitely got a solid base design, but something's still missing - such as a unique mechanism. For example:

Wendy may have Abigail, just like Warly has a Portable Crockpot however Abigail can fundamentally rework the way Wendy is played (combat wise, in this case).  The Crockpot on the other hand, doesn't - it does instead (as discussed above) turn into a negator of Warly's negatives, and instead of giving an incentive to cook for benefits, you instead cook to negate his negatives.

I suppose Capy's intent was to provide the basis of a niche gameplay, without making the character overly reliant on such changes (that meant the chef pouch starting as a meager 4 slots, and his negatives being rather faint).  Now that players liked the idea of the chef pouch (but felt it too weak) and enjoyed the negatives (but were also too faint) Capy has bumped them up to a better place, and introduced subtle exclusive recipes to see how they're received.  This is a sound approach that doesn't feel like a rollercoaster in between patches.

From a personal pov, the concept of the recipes themselves is good, and players seemed to receive it well initially.  Their execution requires rebalancing as I'm sure was the original intent anyways.

My original suggestions are also intended to bring out more character, particularly for nomadic play and to exploit his portable equipment, without altering anything statistically or provide any actual advantages / disadvantages.

Either way, many other players have discussed several other interesting suggestions, particularly @SapphireBullets's super foods, as also mentioned by @Serph.

[voyager156]

His recepis should:

17 hours ago, sirscrubbingtont said:

Yup, Extra damage or defense maybe

&

17 hours ago, SoggyNachos said:

-Recipe that makes allies follow you longer.

-Recipe that makes you mine/chop/hack/swing faster

These are just awesome ideas! I think that developers should go this way with Warly

[rouxdoux]

Interesting topic. I feel like the most important change in this last update is the fact that he now dislikes eating the same food twice in a row. It's making me plan out my meals much more carefully. When I first unlocked Warly and saw his description say "has distinguished tastes" I actually assumed that he would refuse plain "ingredients" and could only eat crock pot food, similar to Wigfrid who refuses all non-meat foods. Alas, that was not the case.

Lots of interesting thoughts in this thread. I do like the idea of cooking for benefits rather than to negate the negatives, as @Luponius said.

[PhelsarusBeel]

So far i do enjoy the new changes to Warly however i also agree that his Kit really has nothing Interesting going on.

I mean lets cover the bases of Warly

- 150 HP Base HP value for most chars

- 200 Sanity what is above average

- 250 Hunger again above average but he also has his increased Hungerdrain what renders his Hunger to effectively 175 (as in he starves just as quickly as Webber does from full to empty)

- Portable Crockpot his main gimmick

- Chefpouch basicly an upgraded Backpack what slows down Foodspoilage going hand in hand with his Crockpot to keep food fresher for longer.

- More statgain from Crockpot foods but less gain from unprepared foods (although he seems to still get decend stats from Dried Food like Jerky and dried Jellyfish).

So in short his entire kit is based on cooking however as said this really only negates his downside that being his faster Hungerdrain with no other upside. His recipes for example are pretty bland yes they look cool but really foodwise they are worse then similar dishes (as mentioned by @rezecib).

I think the main problem is that there is really no upsides to use his special recipes as well as some of the other hard to make ones. For example my current Warly playthrough i alternate between basicly 3 dishes those being Meatballs, Rattatioule (i got so much Seaweed i need to cook it away) and sometimes California Rolls or Fishsticks. There is still no reason to cook his other dishes because statwise they are worse and there are better option that give you the most bang for the ingrediences you put in. Also another small gripe about his exclusive recipes but almost all of them require fooditems form the SW worlds meaning you can only really utilize his perk in those worlds. I mean he already got 4 special recipes so i guess i can't be so hard to make recipes that use stuff like Meat (suprised he has no Steak Dish tbh) or Froglegs so he also get special recipes for RoG Worlds.

So what does he need?

Well for 1 boost his Specialrecipes to make them worth cooking. I though about increasing Hungervalues but instead how about giving them really good Sanity recovery? I mean Sanity for the most part is recoverd trough dapper means (Top Hat, Dapper Vest, Maxwell etc.) and all of his foods are pretty much high class food items so it would make sense for them to restore a high amount of sanity (for that maybe make his sanity drop pretty supstancialy if he eats the same dish to often). Another idea would be that his special dishes satisfy is tastes a lot what slows his increased Hungerate down to Wilson levels and maybe even slower if he eats a full pallete of his special dishes.

Second thing is make him have so more Interactions with food like not just un terms of eating but also letting him get special benefits from food because eating is one of his main ideas (well that and his Nomadic Playstyle). Doesn't need to be something breaking but little things like faster walking speed from specific dishes or increase his workspeed with other ones just anything that makes me want to actually cook something else then Meatballs and Fishsticks.

[Kuirem]

On 26/2/2016 at 4:34 PM, Luponius said:

• Allow the crafting of an upgraded Chef’s Pouch similar to a Piggyback? (If not extra slots, at least make it inflammable please, since the piggy back recipe is kind of useless for a nomadic Warly, despite being one of the most important elements for any nomadic player)

Why not just make the Chef's pouch 12 slots or even 14 slots but with the limitation of an Ice Box? That way it is a really unique feature (instead of just an upgraded Insulated Pack) and you also have a reason to switch with Piggyback/Krampus' Sack when you need to move a lot of loot that isn't food. It will also allow to move a lot of food around, right now I still have trouble to make more than 1-2 recipes when I play nomadic.

Also I think Warly really needs a recipe with Berries. I was really sad to end up on one of those island full of berries and unable to use them for anything else than Meatballs. If he speaks French so much he should have worthy desserts!