The Art of Cooking - Flexible Recipes

I have presented this concept a few times but I sometimes wonder if I really did so adequately. So I thought I would give it one more go.

The concept is based on the idea of defining what makes a certain type of food. For example: What makes bread.. bread as opposed to say.. a pie? There is something about any given recipe that defines the outcome as a specific type of food. You would not be able to create bread for example if you only have ingredients for BBQ pork. It just doesn't work that way..

The current way the crafting system is set up is that every recipe has to be unique. Any variation at all means a new recipe must be defined.

What I have suggested in the past.. and am doing so one more time.. is that crafting define what makes the final product what it is. Then define the various ingredients as fulfilling part of that definition of the final product.

My favorite example I've used in the past is pie.. so I'm going to stick with that. What is pie? Well a pie a crust with a bowl-like shape with filling yes? So you have a pie dish.. dough.. and filling..

Pie dish (or pan.. whatever your fancy.. pan may be better) + dough + filling = filling pie.

Oh what makes dough? well dough recipes include flour.. water, probably yeast etc.. pretty simple.. so that's pretty much a no brainer.. for simplicity let's just say there's only 1 dough recipe.

Now.. filling.. what makes filling? Well just about anything. Chopped meats, custard.. fruits etc.. A lot of recipes can produce these.. and they call carry a hidden definition of 'filling'.. as such that means they could also be used as is in any recipe that uses a 'filling' component.

You see what I'm getting at here? So if you wanted to make dumplings or something.. you'd have dough + rolling pin + a knife or shape to cut the dough.. + filling maybe something that defines portions or size to indicate how you prep.. in a similar way that a pan would give a pie it's pie shape.

One pie recipe could potentially produce dozens of different types of pies.. or dumplings or what have you.

The nutritional value would come from the main components.. if the filling was meat.. you get a meat pie.. ergo.. protein. etc..

I expanded on this concept in cooking with the idea of 'inactive' ingredients.. such as spices.. or other flavoring which wouldn't effect the final output except for minor properties and overall quality based on cooking skill.

Cooking skill itself is important.. while simple bread remains simple bread no matter how high your skill.. overall quality can be improved (or worsened) by how well 'inactive' ingredients are used in higher tier foods.. to improve flavor and nutritional value.

I once asked about doing this in a hangout to which Richard responded that complexity with this approach would simply balloon out of control. I have never been quite convinced of that since base recipes remain more or less simple. You're just adding an extra step in converting ingredients into whatever form a food's definition requirs.. and there are only so many different forms meats or fruits and veggies can take right?

So you group ingredients by assigning definitions to them.. ie this can be a filling.. or a main ingredient.. or a whatever..

Recipes are basically definition1 (ie dough) + definition2 (ie filling) + inactives(optional) = <filling type) pie..

I could further say number of 'inactive' ingredients could increase difficulty.

I think the benefits of this approach are obvious. Give the option to name a recipe and players can create their own unique variations on food. And cooking skill will really mean something.

I can understand it's unlikely we'll switch over to this.. at least not anything soon. But it would be easier to do sooner than later.. and I can't help but wonder how transitioning could be done?

I further wonder how to apply the same idea for other crafting skills.. but I originally came up with this specifically for cooking so I'm purposefully remaining in that context.

 

So much yes!!!

Ark has a custom consumable feature. (i.e. food you create with a recipe you name) and it isn't overly complicated at all. I would love to see something like that here! I especially like the idea of being able to name a dish. Since removing the "maker's mark" from food.. there isn't much of a way to "make a name for yourself" as a chef. And, I think this would be a great addition.

Spoiler: How Ark does it for comparason

from: http://ark.gamepedia.com/Cooking
RP Oriented Cooking System[edit | edit source]
The Custom Cooking System allows survivors to create their own Custom Consumable items with custom names and ingredients to provide different effects. In order to create a custom recipe, the items one wishes to use in the recipe should be placed into a Cooking Pot (However, this is not required as they can be added into the recipe in the cooking screen).

• A Note MUST be placed in the Cooking Pot before continuing. Once the note is placed inside the inventory, exit the inventory and hold E to access the options menu and select the Create New Recipe option. A new menu will appear with the ingredients in the cooking pot and other options as well, such as the options to choose the name and description of the consumable, as well as the dish type and icon/icon color, with 3 icons for each and a precise RGB color slider with color presets. Currently, the menu does not allow hotkey transfer of items, so they must be moved by dragging and dropping the items.
• Once satisfied with all options, click Make Recipe to finalize the recipe, and the new recipe will placed into the character inventory.
• Place the finished recipe into the cooking pot or Industrial Cooker with the required ingredients and light the fire to begin the cooking process.

 

Great idea!

 

yes please.

 

very good idea - i just start to cook some recipes, buyed a butchering and cooking station for my house and going to craft my Food buffs for myself.

 

I should point out that one caveat is that it would be impractical to create unique art or meshes for every possible variation on a recipe.. so even though you might end up with 12 dozen pies they'd all look the same. Though I suspect most people wouldn't really mind so long as a tooltip can identify it by name.

 

I love this idea. Could work really well with brewing too!

 

I love this idea too!

If we could establish a distinct buff for each ingredient added to a meal, and then have a system that allows us to pick and choose which get added into the pot... then we could create specialized foods for different uses. To control it, just allow x amount of stats based on cooking proficiency level. Level 0-25 can only have 1 stat, 26-50 2 stats, etc. That way, you don't have people adding 50 ingredients to get 50 stats with one food.

Go one step further... vary the ingredients with regards to strength and duration. For example, wolf or bear meat might add 1 str for 3 hours, Obsidian meats might add 3 str for 1 hour, dragon meat might add 5 str for 8 hours, etc. Now we have to choose between longer duration, more str for shorter time, or stronger and longer from a harder to acquire meat. But with this option, we could tailor the food to our needs.

So we would not only be able to mix and match any combination of str, dex, int, health/focus regen, attunements, etc... but we can also mix and match intensities by selecting custom ingredients that vary the potency of the food.

Or maybe the base type could control potency/duration? A bowl of soup/stew could have different potency and duration than a pie, and they would both be different from a plate/meal. Now, the varying base type recipes handle how strong/long the buff lasts, and then the "filling" as Bowen describes it will control what types of buffs we get. Now it comes down to requiring skill level needed to make the base types.

There are many possibilities here but I would approve any that allowed us to decide what kind of buffs and how strong or long we want to have in our foods.

 

I think the concept of tier'd recipes can or does already cover some of this if only in basic principle as they seem to deal with both quality and difficulty.

I would be wary of two things here.. first.. making it too complex and secondly the temptation of min/maxing foods.

I think any recipe is going to have a maximum volume for ingredients.. so you couldn't as you say.. just keep adding 50 ingredients for more and more stats. And the benefits will almost always vary directly with the amount of ingredients. So what we have right now if I recall rightly.. is 3 basic benefits.. 1 for each of the main stats. So let's say a meal designed for all Str would be a +3 Str.. if you mix in other ingredients you may add a Dex +1 but at the cost of 1 Str so the food would then be Str +2 and Dex +1 because the ratio of ingredients in the recipe.

I think you could do that if simply assign certain hidden variables to raw ingredients such as strength or int boosts and add them up and average them out into the final product. Then you can let skill bonuses act as a multiplier with critical success and failures acting on the final result.

 

OT maybe but since it's a recipe wish maybe I'll sneak it in here? Sorry

Wish they'd also add in failed recipe creations - when you fail the final product would have failed results. Success - Apple pie! Fail - Apple dumpling! 1/2 the benefits of the success or something. Would make failing fun, to some extent.

 

An interesting twist. I would take that idea and say.. there are hidden recipes you could only discover in this manner.. where a critical fail has (based on skill) a recovery chance that when successful results in the new recipe. A feature perhaps to be added further down the line but one that is certainly interesting. The work load to implement could be substantial I imagine.

 

While cooking, while adventuring, while doing anything in Shroud of the Avatar you should be open to your character discovering or noticing something, then bam you've learned something new. The process of cooking is fine, it is the discovery part that isn't making surprises available. For example In the game Project Gorgon which is being made btw, your avatar discovers things through out the world a musical tada or whimsical sound goes off to advise and a tool tip says hey you've just figured out how to make apple juice, or you've just learned autopsy from doing actions. It gives the player surprises and a ton of things to do. And back on topic I do like the suggestions to what we have coming out of this topic. I love the idea of food in SOTA and I hope we take advantage of the possibilites.

 

I'm all for failed recipes! Make a great horror themed restaurant.

 

Seriously? Richard of all people was concerned about an idea ballooning out of control? I could understand Chris or DS... but Richard is usually the first to get carried away with an interesting concept.

I agree that it should be a lot more simple than he was thinking (especially with the concept that all similar items share a certain image). The idea that you can't flag certain items with a tag (like the filling in your example) is ridiculous. Should be easy to code "[ingredient] filling" with a replaceable name based on the ingredient. You still have the same issue as now with very specific recipes. Just now it is filling tag + crust tag + topping tag + pie pan = fancy [ingredient] pie (plain version doesn't have the spiffy topping added in) and displays pie with whipped cream flowers or something.

I think it would be interesting to look into this, as it would make it far more interesting and give more fun to the current tedious grind concept of crafting in general.

 

To be fair I was paraphrasing. I think is words were closer to exponentially complex or something to that effect. Though as someone with at least amateurish programing skills I feel like I could design code that would be able to do this which is why I wonder if Richard understood what I was getting at. I'm actually really interested in what @Chris and/or @Bzus think in general.. just what their initial reaction is from a programing standpoint.

Oh and.. bonus points for the Shokugeki reference.