TheDuke86 wrote:All of the mass production stems from the need to mass Alts for end game content. I think if we did away from the near sure death of leaving scents it would reduce the need to amass Alts and thus cut down on the mass production.
No. The mass production in terms of gluttony stems from there being very few recipes that are worthwhile for use with gluttony on characters that have higher biles. Regardless of if players are going to spam hundreds of baigels or several different recipes, it requires storing a bit in order to get enough to make enough to be worthwhile for a gluttony session. People mass produce so that they can put the stuff aside and enjoy game play inbetween waiting for the next gluttony session. Otherwise you're nickel and diming yourself to death with time. We have a town and we've lost two "chefs" (since Concord started) that way... because the need to keep up food for a group of people kept them so busy they quit because the game wasn't any fun for them. Typically in all honesty we DON'T gluttony every time the fork is up now because we'd rather do other things and can't keep a person committed to being a chef because it sucks. Alts is your excuse to get crime removed.
As for your original topic JC. As I've only played 2 years I know my opinion is far less valued as the "vets" but I feel the overall gluttony structure is decent. I'd like to see a few changes to recipes that made adding variety to our diets worthwhile. Not in terms as a nerf on existing spammable items but as in an adjustment on other recipes that made them worthwhile for gluttony.
For example... funky pumpkins are close to baigel points. The difference is pumpkins take 8 days to grow. You can use dross and other speed increasers but you're doing it at the loss of plenty. When you want to gluttony, you want to get enough points to make your time worth it, so you want more then 2 or 3 foods made at a time. Funky pumpkins take SIX types of pumpkins and some pumpkin flesh. Typically if we make it, we grow a few different types of pumpkins and then, once those are done, grow the others (which decay is going to make more a pain). Then the item has a 95% chance of reducing pumpkins by 95%. Further limiting their usefulness. The restore is a Red October which requires bacon and another type of pumpkin, which increases the cost of making it in addition to the time used to make it. Now granted one could say, "well those are meant for restore and not gluttony". Fine then but the point is to show WHY other recipes aren't used as much as others .. As for as using it for restores, one funky pumpkin bunch weighs 4kg. A bar of pig iron is 5kg. They are I think.. 8 uses to the funky pumpkins (not positive on that one). There are far better things to carry that can restore for less work, weight and cost. My point is not to complain about funky pumpkins but to explain why most of us look at some of these recipes like... um no... and end up sticking with the same things over and over again. It would be nice if each food group had a few more fairly decent recipes that could be used when a player has more biles without needing 6+ foods per 1 point of 1 bile and then needing a ton of restore foods or quitting gluttony after only a point.
Comparable game meat recipes are windy pooh but that requires a bear heart which is why it's not appealing to use. How many bears does one need to kill to get that ONE heart? Comparable vege recipes require jalapenos which... require spamming vege pots because they're rarish. So while I see what you mean about "don't make the game a grind" but the higher tier recipes you are concerned about people not using ARE a grind. I mean.. I don't normally make dragon's breathe salad UNLESS I get a jalapeno (I don't spam pots), so why isn't that recipe used more often? Because unless I spam (aka grind).. I cannot make it. The lower tier recipes are good for lower bile people but once they get around 180 biles they become obsolete.
I do like the craving system though. Sure we'll get an annoying craving but those we can pass over either with a necklace or a "similar" foodgroup item. I think they add to the gluttony system nicely. However using only the craving system wouldn't be a good idea because it would severely limit advancement.
So in conclusion. I think gluttony and craving are both nice features to the game. Craving I would probably leave alone if it was up to me. Gluttony I would personally adjust a few recipes to make them more favorable. That could be done by making their restore less grindy or costly, making their actual ingredients not AS rare (as in still not common but a little more common), or tinkering with their reduction percentages so you can use the item more then once before that food group was useless to you. For example: you could go with something like "one windy pooh causes no reduction but the second one causes a 90% chance of a 100% reduction. Then people would benefit from adding the windy pooh to their diet but not benefit from spamming them.