Cookbooks are good

[Etteragic]

Literally gives you the ability to craft the unlimited consumables. People complaining about "another cookbook" just telling that they don't understand the importance of buffs in this game, and were rawrushing it to this point. Maybe try crafting something and this will change the experience for you lol

[Xengre]

It depends. Some of them are extremely good. Some are hilariously so bad they're extremely close to unusuable.

[yttik]

Sure, but you fail to consider that these people don't want to play an RPG, they want to press R1 exclusively. Elden Ring really should dynamically change its genre to accommodate to these players.

[rabureta]

Option 1: Find a cookbook, collect or buy materials, craft consumables
Option 2: Buy consumables

The only reason for crafting/cookbooks is to make endorphins go brrrrrr from picking up otherwise-useless items and because the industry thinks every game needs a crafting system right now