New Recipes - Feedback

[Bashrobe]

I'm enjoying the new recipes, and after finding and cooking all of them and testing all their benefits, I've been writing and would like to offer feedback on all of the new foods, and possibly start a discussion and hear others views on them.

Effects balance

First, how I rate the current bonus effects:

• Carry weight, fatigue bar instant gain are great and the most useful ones
  
• Healing is also nice, though I think it should heal over time like Birch Bark teas (just stronger for the better recipes), it doesn't make much sense a stew can instantly heal me more than steroids from a stim.
  
• The max condition doesn't matter too much as it just doesn't last long enough to be much use. Perhaps this should be a long lasting buff, like, for 2-3 days.
  
• Stamina bonus is also cool, though the nicest part is the instant gain to current stamina. So if exhausted all stamina and eat something, I can run for a bit more almost like when drinking a Go! drink. Unfortunately the boost is too low to be practical given cost of the recipes. Something like instant 50% regen or more would make it more useful.
  
• Max stamina is not very relevant given how stamina recovery works. It would be nice if our stamina regen increased (similar to Snow Walker perk) instead.
  
• Improved rest is a minor buff, but I guess it's fine, not all recipes have to be super strong
  
• The cabin fever reduction seems very insignificant. It doesn't really make a difference, whether I eat something that helps with Cabin Fever or not, I have to still deal with Cabin Fever the same way as if I didn't eat it. I think it should be a lot more effective, basically delay Cabin Fever for one day at least, or give us a certain amount of hours we can still sleep even with cabin fever.
  
• Plain warming up bonus is always nice to have, especially on Interloper. Not much more to say

Recipe balance

Another thing is the recipe balance itself. I think some of the lower level, non-unique recipes are better than the level 5 ones, way better. Why:

1. I can make 3 batches of peach/meat pies, compared to a single portion of a Bryerhouse pie or any of the stews. Both cost the same amount of flour/oil which are the hardest to get. Now I can apply a buff 3x with the generic pie recipe, or only once with the recipes that only give one portion. I think the buffs should scale with calories. a 1800 cal food should have the effect last 6x as long as a 300 cal one (if we're comparing the same bonus)
   
2. With higher calorie recipes, I typically can't even apply the whole buff because I'm rarely under 500 calories. Meanwhile I can munch on peach pies easily. Same solution as #1, though it would be nice to let us split the larger recipes into smaller portions so they are easier to eat and stack in the inventory.
   
3. All items that give multiple portions (the lvl 3 pies or fishcakes for example) let you overeat over max cals, single portion recipes do not. This might be a bug. I hope it's not and all recipes that give buffs should let you overeat. Eating these for the bonuses is often preferable than just the calories.

Ingredients balance

Some recipes will be better than others. That's fine, we can cook some earlier, some are non unique, some are cheaper to make. The main issue right now is that the most useful recipes share a lot of non-renewable ingredients with more basic recipes.

It's perfectly fine to keep some ingredients rare and non-renewable for the sake of balance, however the more basic recipes should be made with renewable ingredients only. None of the new ingredients seem renewable.

Oil, Flour, Salt and Potatoes are needed in the best recipes and are all non renewable, making it hard to justify cooking anything other than the few best food with them. Carrots, on the other hand, seem very underutilised so far. I like the oats balance, they're never used in the most useful recipes, so cooking a regular porridge still doesn't feel like a waste.

I think it would be good if the commonly shared ingredients were renewable somehow. Maybe we'll get that with the trader mechanic eventually. Or beachcombing (though I think it offers a bit too much already). I heard some people mention farming veggies indoors(?) could be an option too. It would also be nice if we could find new ingredients in kitchen cupboards like in the trailer.

Lastly, how I see the current recipe usefulness, it can be subjective but this is how I see them. I think S/A/B and maybe C are alright, the rest could use some change.

S (amazing):

• Coastal Fishcakes
  
• Ptarmigan/Rabbit/Venison pie
  
• Peach/Rosehip pie

A (amazing but only 1 portion so hard to eat whole and fully benefit from the buff):

• Dockworker's Pie

B (limited usefulness but recipe isn't expensive):

• Camber Flight Porridge
  
• regular Porridge

C (inexpensive but still share ingredients with better recipes)

• Broth
  
• Baked Potato

D (good buffs but there are better options because of ingredients required)

• Bryerhouse Pie (the generic lvl 3 recipes are a more efficient use of ingredients)
  
• Prepper's Pie (worse Dockworker's pie with more expensive recipe)

E (there are options with better buffs and less expensive recipes)

• Lily's Pancakes (the fact that it needs precious oil kills it)
  
• Ranger Stew (same but flour/broth)

F (not really worth)

• stews (costs flour and makes you tired only to give you a minor buff)
  
• bannocks (costs rare ingredients, doesn't even warm you up, low calories, why not just eat 3 cattails instead?)
  
• pancakes (higher lvl bannock)
  
• stalker's pie (3 weak buffs and 1 serious debuff. recipe is not too bad actually, but the buffs are weak.) suggestion: make this available at lvl 3 and make it not give us parasites. gives a unique way to use predator meat before lvl 5 cooking.
  
• thomson family stew - most expensive recipe (cans of corn are so rare) yet the buffs are insignificant. recipe price is fine if the buffs were a lot more significant, more similar to S tier recipes.

Thoughts?

EDIT:
Three additional important things I forgot:

• Let us reheat anything that can be hot! I assume this is a bug, but I'm mentioning it just in case.
  
• We should be able to prepare uncooked pies etc. before we place them on the pot/skillet. Cooking is a little awkward now that we pass ~15 mins before the food is even placed into the pot, and cooking on a 6burner isn't really possible, usually I'd juggle 4 spots at most.
  
• the UI is a little cluttered right now, when I have most of the new ingredients in the inventory and a bunch of different meat it's hard to work with it, some additional breakdown/ordering/favorites would be nice. I think what would help a lot is to let us make generic "meat" and "fruit" pies for Ptarmigan/Rabbit/Venison and Peach/Rose Hip pies. Also we should be able to make broth out of all types of meat, and a vegetable broth from carrots would be nice as carrots seems the most underutilized as I mentioned, and this would be a nice use of them.

[sqeesqad]

I mostly agree, though I'd argue the ranger's stew does have some real use. As far as I'm aware, it's the higest calorie to weight ratio food, making it excelent for traveling light. Though I could see wanting to use the ingredients for something else.

So far, my least favourite is the thomson family stew. For something that uses such incredibly rare resources. it's absolutely terrible. I haven't even found canned corn yet, despite exploring well over 60% of the world. I've heard they were a part of signal void, but I'm not sure. In any case, there's just no reason to make it. Why waste the resources only receive a bit more stamina for a few hours. It doesn't even have many calories. Only about a thousand!

[Bashrobe]

Fair enough. I was mostly looking at the new recipes in terms of buffs they offer, and how rare ingredients are. So basically I found out which recipes give the best buffs, and anything else consuming non-renewable ingredients (mainly flour and oil) were pushed down the list as a result.

But if you truly want a calorie dense food over some of the buffs then Ranger Stew can be a good pick, true.

And I agree on the Thomson Stew being garbage right now. I like that some recipe uses the corn, but the corn is so rare especially on interloper, that it should be one of the best recipes, or at least it shouldn't require other valuable, non-renewable ingredients such as flour or salt (due to broth req).

[hinterland_community]

Thank you for your feedback!

[Paya]

Originally posted by JayXL:

The stews are prohibitive for reasons you mentioned - takes too long to cook (incl broth cooking) and uses non-renewable resources. Also, they smell. If we could pour them into the upcoming thermos and travel with no smell, I'd be onboard. Also, as Aflicted mentioned, the flour is too high a cost as it's highly limited.

Porridge and baked potato are great hot meals for minimal resource. A better use of the potato than for the stew, IMO.

I desperately hope the thermos will be used for more than just the teas and can be used for any of the canned or soup-like items we already have in game. Keeping stews unsmelly would be an instant perk of using it compared to just having a stew in your backpack. I could see the downside being that with it in the thermos it would weigh more than just having it regularly.

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

I'd say remove flour from stews. While it won't make them amazing, it would bump them up a tier or two. Not going to waste flour on stews when I can make more useful recipes with it. They also take the longest to cook by far if you include the broth. This would make them renewable as well.

I think broth is not renewable because of salt, but removing flour would still help. Either that or give us renewable flour/salt and lock the best recipes behind some other non-renewable ingredient.

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by JayXL:

Excellent breakdown, Bashrobe.

My 2¢:

The stews are prohibitive for reasons you mentioned - takes too long to cook (incl broth cooking) and uses non-renewable resources. Also, they smell. If we could pour them into the upcoming thermos and travel with no smell, I'd be onboard. Also, as Aflicted mentioned, the flour is too high a cost as it's highly limited.

Porridge and baked potato are great hot meals for minimal resource. A better use of the potato than for the stew, IMO.

Meat pies aren't great for my style of play, as I never travel with smell on me. Playing max detection range discourages me from carrying anything stinky. I do love the rosehip pie though. Bannock would be great if not for the use of non-renewable resources. I can just pack 20 cattails from my stash of over 1000 at my home base instead.

A common theme for me (and other Loper players possibly) is not travelling with anything stinky. Coastal fishcakes and rabbit/ptarmigan pies attract predators when travelling. I actually really like the Prepper's Pie for this purpose... high calories, low weight, no smell.

disclaimer - I've not yet found all of the recipes, still searching.

Fair enough about the smell, I suppose it deters a lot of players from using it. I kept some on me at all times and felt it was worth it. I kinda like the high risk/reward idea of smelly food that can give interesting bonuses, it prevents it from being too strong.

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

I thought Bannocks were great at first. Until I realised you got 3 pies at a time. Never made a bannock since.

I agree that the meat pies lose appeal due to the stink. The buff is great but you can't carry them with you to keep it up. You can keep some at bases though and eat before you leave. This is why I would rate them either A or B instead.

Was thinking about making stalker pies as it uses acorns and all that predator meat I accumulate. If it lowers your max carry weight I may not bother then.

Yeah as I suggested I think Stalker Pie being available at lvl 3 cooking and not giving parasites would make it interesting enough, as it would be the only way to use bear/wolf meat parasite free before cooking 5

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

Originally posted by Bashrobe:

I think broth is not renewable because of salt, but removing flour would still help. Either that or give us renewable flour/salt and lock the best recipes behind some other non-renewable ingredient.

Broth only uses 0.01kg of salt so you can get about 25 batches of broth from each pot of salt, that's 100 broth. Just from one salt pot. While still limited you can make a lot of broth. I don't think salt is used in many other recipes.

Hopefully they expand on the cooking as the updates drop. Maybe tweak some recipes a bit (looking at you Thompson's family stew). You would be lucky to make one, let alone the three you can only make due to the corn.

Salt is definitely not as bad as flour/oil, but personally I'd still rather use it on Fishcakes and Dockworkers pie. Those are really good and salt, even if not rare, is still not renewable, at least currently

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

Originally posted by Bashrobe:

Salt is definitely not as bad as flour/oil, but personally I'd still rather use it on Fishcakes and Dockworkers pie. Those are really good and salt, even if not rare, is still not renewable, at least currently

Been trying to look up some of the unique recipes as I don't have them all but the information isn't finished yet. I spotted fishcakes and they are definitely worth it more than broth. What ingredients does the dockworkers need and buffs, calories, etc?

Potato 2
coho salmon 0.5
rockfish 0.5
oil 1
water 0.1
salt 0.01

1500 cal

cabin fever reduction
35% condition recovery instantly
3h increased max condition
15% more sprint penalty

[David]

Originally posted by Bashrobe:

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

I'd say remove flour from stews. While it won't make them amazing, it would bump them up a tier or two. Not going to waste flour on stews when I can make more useful recipes with it. They also take the longest to cook by far if you include the broth. This would make them renewable as well.

I think broth is not renewable because of salt, but removing flour would still help. Either that or give us renewable flour/salt and lock the best recipes behind some other non-renewable ingredient.

Renewable salt could be theoretically done by boiling sea water from CH, BI, or DP. You'd have to boil it dry, then collect some small amount of salt when you pick up the tin... Would be cool...

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by AfLIcTeD:

That's not too bad actually. Handy if you need emergency condition. Is that just one pie per batch? I would say the fishcakes are better generally though, plus you get 4 at a time.

Exactly. I think a 35% heal is huge so it's definitely worth considering, and it doesn't need flour. Good recipe. Only things holding it back from S tier is that it's a single portion, and at 1500 cals you need to be at 1000 cals or lower to be able to get the full benefits, not being to overeat Dockworker's Pie like you can with any of the S tier foods make it more inflexible. You could find yourself in a situation where you're low condition after a fall or mauling but your hunger bar is almost full, and then you can't use this to heal..

[Bashrobe]

Originally posted by David:

Originally posted by Bashrobe:

I think broth is not renewable because of salt, but removing flour would still help. Either that or give us renewable flour/salt and lock the best recipes behind some other non-renewable ingredient.

Renewable salt could be theoretically done by boiling sea water from CH, BI, or DP. You'd have to boil it dry, then collect some small amount of salt when you pick up the tin... Would be cool...

Yes I heard a bunch of great ideas from people regarding renewability, and I'd love if they were not all renewable from the same source. This would be a good solution for salt. Though maybe it would be hard to limit its availability that way, perhaps we would have to do it in a specific place (such as Hibernia, or Perseverance Mills when it comes out).

[Polish Hustler]

I agree with most of what is being said.
Putting the buffs discussion to one side for the moment, I find it is a bit silly that you can't make a stew without flour, or you can't make pancakes without maple syrup. I think cooking should be encouraged, otherwise there is no point using these new recipes, and we will all just resort to cooking pieces of meat off the snow like we did before.

In a survival situation you would use whatever you had available, and wouldn't skip a meal because you were missing a potentially superfluous ingredient, you would improvise. For e.g. I've read players ask for years for a rabbit stew, with water, rabbit and reishi mushrooms, so making flour mandatory seems very unrealistic.

Therefore, I think there should be different levels of each recipe that could unlock with cooking skill, based on different combinations of ingredients with higher perks. The special recipes could become an S tier option, with proportionate buffs but at significant cost.

For e.g.
Basic broth -> Water, ptarmigan meat
Medium broth -> Water, ptarmigan meat, salt
Gourmet broth -> Water, ptarmigan meat, salt, carrots
Greymother's broth -> Water, ptarmigan meat, salt, carrots, moose bone, reishi mushroom, cooking oil

Basic stew -> Basic Broth, meat, reishi mushroom
Medium stew -> Medium broth, meat, flour, reishi mushroom
Gourmet stew -> Gourmet broth, meat, flour, carrots, potatoes
Ranger Stew -> Greymother's broth, rabbit, venison, carrots, potatoes, reishi, pork and beans.

Basic Pancakes -> Animal fat/tallow, Acorn flour, water, ptarmigan egg
Medium pancakes -> Cooking Oil, Old mill flour, water, ptarmigan egg, maple syrup
Gourmet pancakes -> Cooking Oil, Old mill flour, water, ptarmigan egg, maple syrup
Lily's Pancakes -> Cooking oil, Acorn flour, old mill flour, water, ptarmigan egg, maple syrup, peaches

You could then calibrate the buffs according to the level of recipe.

Finally, to encourage cooking, there should be some nerf to health or ability if you continue to only eat cooked meat, with the most severe effect coming from rabbit meat, which in real life can cause serious malnutrition if you try to live on it alone.

[I'll be the one]

Originally posted by Bashrobe:

I'm enjoying the new recipes, and after finding and cooking all of them and testing all their benefits, I've been writing and would like to offer feedback on all of the new foods, and possibly start a discussion and hear others views on them.

Effects balance

First, how I rate the current bonus effects:

• Carry weight, fatigue bar instant gain are great and the most useful ones
  
• Healing is also nice, though I think it should heal over time like Birch Bark teas (just stronger for the better recipes), it doesn't make much sense a stew can instantly heal me more than steroids from a stim.
  
• The max condition doesn't matter too much as it just doesn't last long enough to be much use. Perhaps this should be a long lasting buff, like, for 2-3 days.
  
• Stamina bonus is also cool, though the nicest part is the instant gain to current stamina. So if exhausted all stamina and eat something, I can run for a bit more almost like when drinking a Go! drink. Unfortunately the boost is too low to be practical given cost of the recipes. Something like instant 50% regen or more would make it more useful.
  
• Max stamina is not very relevant given how stamina recovery works. It would be nice if our stamina regen increased (similar to Snow Walker perk) instead.
  
• Improved rest is a minor buff, but I guess it's fine, not all recipes have to be super strong
  
• The cabin fever reduction seems very insignificant. It doesn't really make a difference, whether I eat something that helps with Cabin Fever or not, I have to still deal with Cabin Fever the same way as if I didn't eat it. I think it should be a lot more effective, basically delay Cabin Fever for one day at least, or give us a certain amount of hours we can still sleep even with cabin fever.
  
• Plain warming up bonus is always nice to have, especially on Interloper. Not much more to say

Recipe balance

Another thing is the recipe balance itself. I think some of the lower level, non-unique recipes are better than the level 5 ones, way better. Why:

1. I can make 3 batches of peach/meat pies, compared to a single portion of a Bryerhouse pie or any of the stews. Both cost the same amount of flour/oil which are the hardest to get. Now I can apply a buff 3x with the generic pie recipe, or only once with the recipes that only give one portion. I think the buffs should scale with calories. a 1800 cal food should have the effect last 6x as long as a 300 cal one (if we're comparing the same bonus)
   
2. With higher calorie recipes, I typically can't even apply the whole buff because I'm rarely under 500 calories. Meanwhile I can munch on peach pies easily. Same solution as #1, though it would be nice to let us split the larger recipes into smaller portions so they are easier to eat and stack in the inventory.
   
3. All items that give multiple portions (the lvl 3 pies or fishcakes for example) let you overeat over max cals, single portion recipes do not. This might be a bug. I hope it's not and all recipes that give buffs should let you overeat. Eating these for the bonuses is often preferable than just the calories.

Ingredients balance

Some recipes will be better than others. That's fine, we can cook some earlier, some are non unique, some are cheaper to make. The main issue right now is that the most useful recipes share a lot of non-renewable ingredients with more basic recipes.

It's perfectly fine to keep some ingredients rare and non-renewable for the sake of balance, however the more basic recipes should be made with renewable ingredients only. None of the new ingredients seem renewable.

Oil, Flour, Salt and Potatoes are needed in the best recipes and are all non renewable, making it hard to justify cooking anything other than the few best food with them. Carrots, on the other hand, seem very underutilised so far. I like the oats balance, they're never used in the most useful recipes, so cooking a regular porridge still doesn't feel like a waste.

I think it would be good if the commonly shared ingredients were renewable somehow. Maybe we'll get that with the trader mechanic eventually. Or beachcombing (though I think it offers a bit too much already). I heard some people mention farming veggies indoors(?) could be an option too. It would also be nice if we could find new ingredients in kitchen cupboards like in the trailer.

Lastly, how I see the current recipe usefulness, it can be subjective but this is how I see them. I think S/A/B and maybe C are alright, the rest could use some change.

S (amazing):

• Coastal Fishcakes
  
• Ptarmigan/Rabbit/Venison pie
  
• Peach/Rosehip pie

A (amazing but only 1 portion so hard to eat whole and fully benefit from the buff):

• Dockworker's Pie

B (limited usefulness but recipe isn't expensive):

• Camber Flight Porridge
  
• regular Porridge

C (inexpensive but still share ingredients with better recipes)

• Broth
  
• Baked Potato

D (good buffs but there are better options because of ingredients required)

• Bryerhouse Pie (the generic lvl 3 recipes are a more efficient use of ingredients)
  
• Prepper's Pie (worse Dockworker's pie with more expensive recipe)

E (there are options with better buffs and less expensive recipes)

• Lily's Pancakes (the fact that it needs precious oil kills it)
  
• Ranger Stew (same but flour/broth)

F (not really worth)

• stews (costs flour and makes you tired only to give you a minor buff)
  
• bannocks (costs rare ingredients, doesn't even warm you up, low calories, why not just eat 3 cattails instead?)
  
• pancakes (higher lvl bannock)
  
• stalker's pie (3 weak buffs and 1 serious debuff. recipe is not too bad actually, but the buffs are weak.) suggestion: make this available at lvl 3 and make it not give us parasites. gives a unique way to use predator meat before lvl 5 cooking.
  
• thomson family stew - most expensive recipe (cans of corn are so rare) yet the buffs are insignificant. recipe price is fine if the buffs were a lot more significant, more similar to S tier recipes.

Thoughts?

EDIT:
Three additional important things I forgot:

• Let us reheat anything that can be hot! I assume this is a bug, but I'm mentioning it just in case.
  
• We should be able to prepare uncooked pies etc. before we place them on the pot/skillet. Cooking is a little awkward now that we pass ~15 mins before the food is even placed into the pot, and cooking on a 6burner isn't really possible, usually I'd juggle 4 spots at most.
  
• the UI is a little cluttered right now, when I have most of the new ingredients in the inventory and a bunch of different meat it's hard to work with it, some additional breakdown/ordering/favorites would be nice. I think what would help a lot is to let us make generic "meat" and "fruit" pies for Ptarmigan/Rabbit/Venison and Peach/Rose Hip pies. Also we should be able to make broth out of all types of meat, and a vegetable broth from carrots would be nice as carrots seems the most underutilized as I mentioned, and this would be a nice use of them.

Trying to look over the recipes to see which ones are worth it. Because there seems to be a limit of ingredients. Hopefully The Trader will give us what we need. So I am going to cook sparingly and for special occasions.

Having a venison pie for breakfast so I could carry a bunch of lead from BRR to BI was a big help. So glad we can use reshi mushrooms and rose hips more than just tea.

Just collected the 4 cans of corn and brought it to the PV Farmhouse. Might make the TF Stew just so I said I did it.

[Paya]

Originally posted by David:

Renewable salt could be theoretically done by boiling sea water from CH, BI, or DP. You'd have to boil it dry, then collect some small amount of salt when you pick up the tin... Would be cool...

I think that'd be a neat use there and tie into the new fishing stuff. Could drop a pot into the fishing hole in CH or BL or cut a hole in the ice and do the same thing there to get salt water. Salt water could be boiled to have less water but be quicker than melting / boiling water normally. For salt, you'd just have to let that boil away and scrape out sea salt from the pot which could then go bad if not used within a few days just to balance things.