Proposal
Cooking currently is quite shallow. You go up to a cooking pot, put 4 ingredients into the pot, press Q and get a meal. In reality, there is so many different methods, frying, roasting and, of course, cooking. So these are the few changes that I think would be good.
Details/background on your proposal
Base slot
A new slot would be added that would allow you to put an extra item to change the type of cooking. Depending on the item, you could cook, fry or roast foods. Different type of technique would have a different outcome.
Secondary use
Certain already made foods could be used again in cooking pots to make more advanced meals. This applies to:
- Fish patties, made with one fish
- Simmered fruits that don’t involve large fruits like watermelons
- Steamed ushrooms, made with one mushroom
- Mushroom stews, made with multiple mushrooms
- Bread, made with any amount of wheat
- Combinations of fruit, fish and mushrooms that do not make large meals
These secondary ingredients may also be seasoned. When secondary ingredients are added, the meal changes. Raw foods can be mixed with secondary ingredients as well. Status effects of a meal with secondary ingredients also have their tier and duration changed.
The hunger of the effect is determined as a sum of all restored hunger from the secondary ingredients. For example, two ingredients that restored 20 hunger and two ingredients that restored 30 hunger would produce a meal that restores 100 hunger.
The tier of the effects is equal to the highest tier effect from the ingredients. For example, if you mix a Recovery IV fish patty and Recovery 3 and Invigorating 3 spaghetti, the meal would have Recovery IV and Invigorating 3.
The duration of the effects is equal to the average duration of all status effects in the meal, rounded up. For example, if you mix a 5-minute Invigorating meal with a 3-minute Invigorating meal, the effect of the final meal would last for 4 minutes.
Ingredients that can’t be used are as follows:
- Mistakes
- Large fish meals, made with 2 or more fish
- Pies, made with pumpkins
- Foods that were made with secondary ingredients
- Smoothies
Using any of these ingredients would make a normal mistake.
Frying
Fried foods can be made by adding whale blubber into the Base slot. This will make fried food. Frying ingredients has a bonus of adding 25% hunger restoration, but also decreases status effect duration by 50%.
Adding one bread to a cooking pot that has whale blubber in Base slot will change the meal into a “breaded” version. This will give the meal a sand-like texture to represent the breadcrumbs. Other than changing the name and appearance, breaded food functions the same as any other, meaning status effects are added.
Cooking
Cooked foods can be made by adding seawater bottle into the Base slot. This will make cooked or steamed food. Cooked food has a bonus of adding 50% status effect duration, but also decreases hunger restoration by 25%. Upon cooking, the bottle is given back to the player.
Using seawater bottle as a base has the exclusive ability to add bones. Adding bones into a meal makes gelatin. Mixing bones and and ingredients will make jelly. Using only bones without anything makes plain gelatine. Using nothing else but bones and fruits makes a desert jelly that restores 10% more hunger. Jellies are generally foggy-white in color, with pieces of food inside them. Each piece is colored the same as an ingredient.
Using less than 3 ingredients makes a soup. Soups work the same as any other food, except it visually looks the similar to the current mushroom stew. Soups with 4 fish are called bridets, whilst those with 4 fruits are called a compote. The liquid in the soup has the average color of the ingredients used to make it, but each piece of food inside is colored the same as a food used as an ingredient.
Roasting
Roasted foods, unlike the other types, are made by not putting anything into the Base slot. Roasted foods work the way they currently are, meaning no restored hunger and status effect duration is lost or added.
Mixing together ingredients in a ratio of 2/2 or 1/4 makes a skewer. For example, mixing 2 fish and 2 mushrooms makes a Fish and mushroom skewer, whilst mixing a fish, a fruit, a mushroom and a seasoning makes Mixed skewers. Large skewer meal can also be made by mixing multiple skewers as secondary ingredients. It looks similar to a fish dinner, but instead has multiple skewers. The skewers have 4 pieces of food on it, and each is colored the same as the color of one food used.
Using only wheat and fruits makes cakes. Cakes work have one special mechanic, and that is the fact that no fruits used in it lose any hunger restoration. This means that fruits like oranges and coconuts do not restore less hunger when cooked as a cake than when eaten raw. Large cakes can also be made using large fruits like watermelons. They look similar to pies, but they are on a plate instead and have a more round shape. Their color is the average color of the fruits.
Reason to add/change
I think that, with how many different culinary techniques and meal types, it’s a pity that in Arcane Odyssey, the most advanced meal we can get is a large fish dinner or a giant pumpkin pie. It would be nice if the resources that already are in the game get some more use for making different food types.
Seawater bottles would gain a use outside from being used for sailor style meter and, since it is boiled, any potential contamination is removed anyways, avoiding potential issues.
Whale blubber is literally the fat of whales and it’s only used for gel potions. Frying is done on oil or fat, so using whale blubber can work as a substitute.
It also makes sense to re-use already made food further to make more complicated foods, like using cooked ham to make sandwiches. Alongside that, it allows the player to mix all kinds of foods, fried, cooked, roasted, as well as food, fish, mushrooms and seasonings multiple times.