Request: Original Recipes for Warly

[Shatner]

I'm enjoying the newest character, Warly, quite a bit but I do wish his theme was taken a bit further. Wickerbottom was fine as a walking science machine but she got more interesting with books. Ditto for Wolfgang with his hunger-based strength and Willow with her fire-boosted sanity and ever-burning lighter. I don't mean to bring up questions of balance (after all, the aforementioned characters gained additional disadvantages along with their Strange New Powers), but rather of theme and fun.

 

What I'd really like is for Warly to have some unique recipes he could make. Give him two or three ingredients that only he can manufacture (e.g. seeds + ash = pepper, seaweed + sand = sea salt) and then make those necessary to some new crockpot recipes and BOOM a newer, more interesting, but still thematic Warly.

 

Here are some off-the-cuff ideas for these new recipes:

• Have some sort of super duper spicy food that will save you from freezing and/or help dry you off.
• Have some sort of recipe that will provide lasting cooling to help during the hot season.
• Have some sort of recipe that will cure poison (the juice purge he brews actually costs you hunger but it'll clear the toxins out of your body).
• Have some sort of heavy-healing food (maybe with little-to-no hunger or sanity gain) so Warly goes into battle with a couple of servings of beefcake at the ready.

Recipes that aren't simply improvements of existing foods will make Warly a more interesting and thematic character without turning him into "that guy that can make superior meatballs".

Thoughts?

[jj42883]

I agree that he needs his own recipes.  BUT i think those special foods can only be made in his portable crock pot, so that you can't just make 10 regular crock pots and churn out a ton of this special food.

[Rebekah]

Good idea! Could make him lose sanity if you force him to eat raw food, to balance it out.

[Shatner]

34 minutes ago, jj42883 said:

I agree that he needs his own recipes.  BUT i think those special foods can only be made in his portable crock pot, so that you can't just make 10 regular crock pots and churn out a ton of this special food.

That'd work too. I assume it'd be simpler for the devs to introduce new ingredients that are crock pot agnostic because that fits within the existing paradigm (i.e. there exist character-specific craftables but not multiple types of crockpots). However, if the devs are willing to add a bit more complexity to the cooking subsystem than it'd open up a lot of possibilities for modders as well as being an additional means of balancing the new recipes.

[Shatner]

16 minutes ago, Rebekah said:

Good idea! Could make him lose sanity if you force him to eat raw food, to balance it out.

Or, if necessary, go to Wigfrid levels and have him refuse to eat non-crock pot food. Even stranded in an inhospitable swath of ocean and jungle, a man of his discerning pallet will not stoop to eating mere ingredients.

I feel like the devs have a lot of ways of counter-balancing any buffs Warly ends up getting by way of new recipes. And that means said recipes can and should be pretty cool and, at least circumstantially, potent.

The key is making it interesting and useful without simply being better. A meatball that restores 2x hunger would be a big boon, but a boring one. A banana and jellyfish sandwich that gives you a sanity boost for a few minutes like a top hat, well that'd just be plain neat.

[jj42883]

5 minutes ago, Shatner said:

Or, if necessary, go to Wigfrid levels and have him refuse to eat non-crock pot food. Even stranded in an inhospitable swath of ocean and jungle, a man of his discerning pallet will not stoop to eating mere ingredients.

I feel like the devs have a lot of ways of counter-balancing any buffs Warly ends up getting by way of new recipes, making him a more interesting and distinctive character, which is why said recipes can and should be pretty cool.

if you went to the level of only allowing him to eat crock pot food, how about this idea: his portable crock pot has only 3 slots in it, and it has a three-ingredient version of every recipe (along with a set of his own special ones).  Regular crock pots would behave normally.  

[Meneervis]

His unique recipes he'd get would also be helpful in Don't starve together, as your the only one capable of making those things. And the crock pot isn't really good in late game, except maybe caves, his food could give bonuses to the other people.

[SirBuizelton]

I really like this idea, but I think that his theme should still remain dominant. So, for example, he can still make the normal crock pot dishes but he looks down upon them for lack of creativity (meatballs especially) and gets slightly less than normal out of those but he really loves his own unique dishes, which will be difficult to make but seriously fulfilling.

[dthorn88]

If he does get unique crock pot recipes I think he should have to craft Recipe books similar to Wickerbottom. Have a few made with science machine and a few made with alchemy machines. That way he doesn't just have only unique, hard to make recipes  but some ones you can make early on that don't have amazing bonuses but are still good enough to encourage making them. The books thing might be too easy an idea though

[AnonymousKoala]

Ok I had a crazy idea.

Maybe, since he's such a great chef and even carries a crock pot with him constantly...He has some guide thing that shows him what to expect when he'll be making something.

Like, say you have a book, you equip it, put stuff in the crock pot, and a new prompt appears that lets you check what would end up from this. 

I think it should be unlimited and un-destroyable.

It would also be cool if on top of that he had recipes that work like blueprints, but using them lets you make new stuff in the crock pot like you suggested with the special crock pot meals for him. They can be craftable like Wickerbottom's books, and upon reading one, the unlimited book and the portable crock pot would make this new recipe a possible outcome.

Also, I really like the disadventage @Shatner suggested.

[CameoAppearance]

Making him refuse to eat anything other than crockpot food would be a huge disadvantage if he ever gets to Adventure Mode though. Can you imagine trying to clear Darkness without being able to eat jerky, green or blue mushrooms, or cooked meat?

Although... bringing a stack of honey instead of a stack of jerky might make that less of a problem, since you could make taffy for sanity and turn assorted meats into Honey Ham/Honey Nuggets. So it wouldn't make Adventure Mode unworkable, although it doesn't seem like any of the other characters have a disadvantage quite so daunting. He'd have to have some really good recipes to make up for it.

[AlternateMew]

On 1/25/2016 at 4:09 PM, jj42883 said:

if you went to the level of only allowing him to eat crock pot food, how about this idea: his portable crock pot has only 3 slots in it, and it has a three-ingredient version of every recipe (along with a set of his own special ones).  Regular crock pots would behave normally.  

The three-slot idea is cool, though there wouldn't need to be a three-ingredient version of every recipe. Most recipes don't actually need four ingredients in the first place, and as for the few that do; Warly is a chef. He should know that different tools are needed for different dishes.

A three-ingredient crock pot would actually be a cool perk. Since most dishes require filler, having only three slots lessens the amount of filler needed, meaning you can save some ingredients while still making good recipes.

[mitboy]

Completelly against this idea. If we will have his own recipes, it will imply that they are worth cooking, which will imply that other recipes are not really worth cooking. I also find it as quite cheap tactic to make character more unique - yeah, let's just give him more recipes. 

In the same way I feel about Wallani's surfboard. I want characters to have interesting style of playing, not some items and different stats.

[Shatner]

1 hour ago, mitboy said:

Completelly against this idea. If we will have his own recipes, it will imply that they are worth cooking, which will imply that other recipes are not really worth cooking. I also find it as quite cheap tactic to make character more unique - yeah, let's just give him more recipes. 

In the same way I feel about Wallani's surfboard. I want characters to have interesting style of playing, not some items and different stats.

I have three rebuttals to this:

1. There is a pretty broad amount of conceptual space left unexplored (or, at least, under-explored) for new recipes to inhabit, so we aren't to the point where any new recipe MUST be a strictly superior or inferior version of some other recipe. If Warly's recipes are distinct enough then they can be circumstantially useful (e.g. a food that cures poison, a food that makes you dry faster) without being mere upgrades.
2. New, character-specific content that helps reinforce a character's theme and improve their playability without making them overpowered is okay, even when some of that content is a direct improvement of something else. Wigfrid's spear and helmet are both superior versions of the spear and football helmet, respectively, but they allow her to be a fighter from Day 1 and reinforce her iconic look as a Wagner-inspired brawler. The game isn't worse because Wigfrid has spear++ and the game need not be worse if Warly has similar improvements... provided Klei's dev-team can thread the needle and keep the character balanced.
3. New items and varied stats contribute (in some cases, heavily) to the interesting style of play for the different characters. Example: Wendy, when stripped of her theme, is little more than "that character that carries Abigail's flower". Other than two small stat tweaks, that starting item is the only mechanical difference between Wendy and a clean-shaven Wilson. Walani's problem is that she has too few mechanical tweaks and novel items and, like Warly, I hope the devs will circle back around and make some tweaks to her in a subsequent release.

And on an irreverent note, I couldn't help but think of Jasper's tirade from Steven Universe when you said that "[new recipes are a] quite cheap tactic to make character [sic] more unique".

[PhelsarusBeel]

2 hours ago, mitboy said:

Completelly against this idea. If we will have his own recipes, it will imply that they are worth cooking, which will imply that other recipes are not really worth cooking. I also find it as quite cheap tactic to make character more unique - yeah, let's just give him more recipes. 

In the same way I feel about Wallani's surfboard. I want characters to have interesting style of playing, not some items and different stats.

You'r logic fails because there are already a good chunck of Recipes not worth cooking.

Stuffed Eggplant is not worth making because the Ingrediences are worth more Hunger and Health. Same can be said about a lot of recipes like Ratattoulie, Kabobs etc. so having Recipes that are better then others is not an excuse.

Also you claim you want interesting playstyles yet OP basicly gave a pretty good idea to make Warly stick out due to him having special food only he can make and further strenghten his idea of a foodbased char something no one else is really focused around (except you count Wigfrid only eating meat and Wolfgangs Mitghtynes as foodrelated).

Also it's not really cheap to just add more recipes to a char to make him stick out i mean what would Wickerbottom be without her booktab? Right just another variation of Wilson that has acces to the Sience Machine recipes from the getgo can't sleep and refuses to eat spoiled food. Her Booktab is what makes her stick out compared to the rest so Warly can also get his own special recipes only he can make.

[Mobbstar]

@Shatner @jj42883 All my likes are belong to you.

I don't even have SW, but from what I picked up, this idea you wove seems to fit perfectly into the fabric of DS.

Excuse me, then! you know my heart;
But dearest likes, alas! must part.

[Echowing]

I love playing as Warly (I love using the crock pot), but I agree that his benefits don't particularly change gameplay all that much.  I'd love to see different benefits given whenever he eats different types of food, such as a small health gain from fruit-based dishes, or a damage buff from meat.  It would make Warly a more unique character beyond simply starting with a weaker backpack and a crock pot, which are benefits that become irrelevant fairly quickly.

[SapphireBullets]

Maybe he could have access to a few food items he can whip up from the crafing menu rather than just the crockpot.

[Shatner]

5 hours ago, SapphireBullets said:

Maybe he could have access to a few food items he can whip up from the crafing menu rather than just the crockpot.

This is similar to the idea of him having ingredients that only he can craft. I think his food should (primarily) come from a crockpot as opposed to over a campfire or (in the case of crafting them outright) from his bare hands, but him grinding his own wasabi would work. Have that wasabi be an ingredient in cooking spicy tuna rolls or some such and you have an easy way of implementing Warly-only recipes.

Though jj42883 also pointed out that having the new recipes only come from Warly's portable crockpot would also work for making them character-unique.

[mitboy]

17 hours ago, Mr.P said:

You'r logic fails because there are already a good chunck of Recipes not worth cooking.

Actually, it is a game's failure.

If we would add more recipes, again, I don't see reason to lock them for Warly. With books, spear, helmet and other things it makes sence that they are locked.

Why he should be able cook some stuff that other characters don't?  In crockpot, characters scould cook extremelly various meals - from ice cream to fin soup and hot chili. How oddly specific foods could Warly cook that It would actually make sence to lock them for this character? Name them.

[rouxdoux]

On 25.1.2016 at 11:00 PM, Shatner said:

Or, if necessary, go to Wigfrid levels and have him refuse to eat non-crock pot food. Even stranded in an inhospitable swath of ocean and jungle, a man of his discerning pallet will not stoop to eating mere ingredients.

I feel like the devs have a lot of ways of counter-balancing any buffs Warly ends up getting by way of new recipes. And that means said recipes can and should be pretty cool and, at least circumstantially, potent.

The key is making it interesting and useful without simply being better. A meatball that restores 2x hunger would be a big boon, but a boring one. A banana and jellyfish sandwich that gives you a sanity boost for a few minutes like a top hat, well that'd just be plain neat.

Funny thing is, I actually assumed he was like Wigfrid and couldn't eat non-crock pot food when I first unlocked him and read his description ("has distinguished tastes"). It was a huge surprise to me when he was totally okay with eating cooked seaweed and didn't even lose sanity or anything. I think refusing "plain" foods would be a neat addition to him, though it would need to be counterbalanced with some perk (like unique recipes). A lot of people on the forums seem to think he's too OP because of his starting item but let me tell you, I actually find myself starving with him much more often than with other characters thanks to his faster hunger drain.

[mitboy]

Honestly, I don't see a way to make him balanced until crockpot meals are balanced, so we won't cook same meatballs over and over again.

 

[PhelsarusBeel]

3 hours ago, mitboy said:

Actually, it is a game's failure.

If we would add more recipes, again, I don't see reason to lock them for Warly. With books, spear, helmet and other things it makes sence that they are locked.

Why he should be able cook some stuff that other characters don't?  In crockpot, characters scould cook extremelly various meals - from ice cream to fin soup and hot chili. How oddly specific foods could Warly cook that It would actually make sence to lock them for this character? Name them.

Because he's a chefcook plain and simple.

It has been said multiple times that Warly was a Chef in a restaurant before getting transported to the DS world so him having the knowledge of Recipes that others don't have is pretty simple. Even then it could also be that he has some special recipes only he knows you know how some chefs add a specific types of spice to a dish and thus give the dish their very own spin.

Should Warly get a Spicetab for crafting this can be explained even better because only he has the knowledge to create the spices and how to properly integrate them into a dish. I mean everyone else doesn't really care what they really eat as long as it fills their bellys (best explained by most char not really caring when eating Monstermeat) but Warly is a Gourmet so him adding some Spice to his dishes because they taste better that way again makes sense.

[mitboy]

2 minutes ago, Mr.P said:

 Even then it could also be that he has some special recipes only he knows

I don't think characters actually know what they cook in crock pot. If they do, it's oddly specific that characters from different places of Earth know same recipes.

Actually, that might be cool way to bfuf him - you will see which recipe will be cooks, like in smart crock pot mod.

Adding spices does make sence, actually. Maybe there could be some venom spice, to make meal curing, brain spice, to get extra sanity. But you will add spice as possible 5th ingridient in portable Crock Pot, without actually adding new meals.

[PhelsarusBeel]

Just now, mitboy said:

I don't think characters actually know what they cook in crock pot. If they do, it's oddly specific that characters from different places of Earth know same recipes.

Actually, that might be cool way to bfuf him - you will see which recipe will be cooks, like in smart crock pot mod.

Adding spices does make sence, actually. Maybe there could be some venom spice, to make meal curing, brain spice, to get extra sanity. But you will add spice as possible 5th ingridient in portable Crock Pot, without actually adding new meals.

I think the spice should just be added into the pot aswell so that it can cancel out specific Food and spicecombos (and instead create wet goop).

Cause i don't know about you but Chili Taffy doesn't sound to tasty to me and Sugary Meatballs are much of the same.

And we still would need to add new types of recipes since each base recipe would need a spiced up version because otheriwse i can immagine that it would otherwise create a lot of problems with the stacking of fooditems (like say you got 2 stack of meatballs one spiced and the other one isn't they need to be seperate entities so the game can easily differentiate what is spiced food and what is not)