Guild Wars 2

I just wanted to rant a bit about the state of being a chef in this game, a horrible state. I leveled cooking after they nerf to the karma items, so no easy ride for me. Now that I am 400 I scratch my head and wonder why I bothered.

The Dyes are not worth making, food items require far to many ingredients, half of them from karma vendors you have to go access and travel too, the other half being herbs you need to RNG from herb plants scattered across every zone in the game, regardless of your level.

The one 400 soup takes 17 ingredients to make… for a 30 min consumable. I have found it is much better to just sell my mats and buy the food people are selling for the silly prices they do. I make a profit, I dont waste my karma, I do not have to travel around 10 lowbie zones RNGing herb patches for 3 hours to find one vanilla bean, rosemary sprig, or whatever other herb I needed while spending a gold in travel costs.

If the idea was to create economy by buying from the lower level players to fill the needs of the upper level players, great idea…. only they drop so rare, so few herb patches, it makes the cost is so high, you cant actually make food and sell it to players, and make a profit.

I could go on, but I think the point is made and I feel better for ranting.

So, I wanted to throw out a few thoughts here about the state of the Chef craft.

1) I feel that many of the items that are no longer available in bulk for karma is because it allowed unreasonably fast progression of the craft and leveling.

2) I feel that use of the craft at high level is hampered by the need for low level mats.

3) Every recipe needs a ‘limiting factor’ that is governed by how easy it is to collect a key ingrediant of that recipe.

Now, I’ll be honest, I struggle with being a Chef at lvl 400 because of the ‘go back for’ mats. As an example, I’m really wanting to make Omnomberry Bars… I’ve had some guild mates ask for them, I’m running around Cursed Shore gathering them as I can… risking my thief hide and stealthing away to capture a few berries that there’s no way I could fight my way to solo… and feeling good that I’m working to earn what should be the limiting factor of how many Omnomberry Bars I can make.

But Omnomberries aren’t the limiting factor for me. Vanilla Beans are. I haven’t seen a Vanilla Bean in quite a while, which means that my Baker’s Wet Ingrediants aren’t happening… which slows down other recipies including the Omnomberry Bars I set out to make.

Now… I 100% believe that every recipe should have a limiting factor, governed by the level of what is being produced…. but, I feel that the lvl 400 Chef items have limiting factors that don’t spawn in end game zones. To return to the example, I feel that the limiting factor for Omnomberry Bars should be… Omnomberries.

I have a suggestion:

I would like to see some of those low level limiting factors available, in bulk, for karma, from the karma vendors on Orr that are available after completing an event. Want Vanila Beans? Dwayna’s temple… if you can succeed the event. Want Butter? Go talk to Balthazar… you get the idea.

Karma prices should be high for allowing bulk purchases (how high, I don’t know… 500? 1K?) But, by placing the bulk items back in areas accessed by people who are already lvl 80 you make them available to people who have no need to abuse them for leveling (though to be fair, you may get people abusing it the level the Chef discipline that weren’t already Chefs.)

It’s not a perfect solution… anything that makes it easier for an 80/400 would also make it easier for others… and would de-value produced goods in the market. I would love it… I enjoy the fact that as a lvl 400 chef, I can toss out a few dozen food items, and pass them around to guild mates at the beginning of a dungeon… but I understand that there are flaws in the idea as well.

Omnomberry Bars & Dye Packs…that is all.

Dumped it around 200 when I realized that nearly every food (with the exception of the aforementioned Omnomberry Bars) is on the TP for 1-5cp each.

I found skilling it up with the random player made mats that wouldn’t fit anywhere gathering dust in my bank or worse in my bags to be too annoying.

I’m 225 in Huntsman now. I don’t think its really profitable yet (or if it ever will be), but hey its a lot less annoying than cooking.

If vanilla beans are limiting your ability to make Omnomberry Bars, buy vanilla beans on the TP.

His whole point was that the beans cost more than the berries. It’s not Vanilla with a Splash of Omnomberry bar.

The Vanilla going into Bakers Wet Goods is the problem.

As far as I could tell, ze wasn’t talking about the cost, ze was talking about gathering them.

That is sort of exactly the point. There isn’t a large discrepancy between the current price of Omnomberries and Vanilla Beans on the TP at the moment… 1s79c for the bean, 1s17c for the Omnomberry.

But I don’t think that’s how it should be. The limiting factor should be the higher level component, not the lower.

Believe it or not, I would be happy with a reduction in Omnomberry spawns if the feeling was that opening up the limiting factor of Vanilla Beans meant that the flip side of the recipe had to be controlled more. I understand that a +Gold drop / + MF item is highly valued and has a direct impact on the economy.

The same can be said of other high level recipes. One that I think the OP was alluding to is Orrian Truffle and Meat Stew. Is the limiting ingredient Orrian Truffles? Currently going for 13c on the trading post. No, that’s not the limiter. It’s the Rosemary Sprig you need for the Herbed Meat Stock, currently going for 1s91c on the TP.

I know that anet is pro-RNG sometimes, and I’m really fine with that to an extent. I’m working on Jewelcrafting, and it’s largely chance (aside from Coral) what gem I might get along with the mithril or orichalcum that I’m mining… but over time, I get a fair collection of crafting mats used at the level I’m playing in that I can use to work on my current level of crafting gear. Not so with Chef.

Like I said, I don’t mind the RNG element in the lower level zones for some of these mats, I understand needing a throttle on how early people get access to recipes / ingredients to prevent abuse of the system for leveling, but I do think that moving some of the low level limiting factors into the high level areas via karma vendors would help people make use of their lvl 400 discipline when they’re already at lvl 80 and are less concerned about the xp gain from crafting.

Personally, I think it makes the game more interesting if there are rare and interesting materials being dropped in all areas of the game, rather than having a situation where all the materials that anyone actually cares about – i.e the ones that go into high-level recipes – drop only in level 80 areas.

To an extent, I can agree with that, and some of those things are implemented well. Strawberries, sugar pumpkins, and some of the other items that are available in specific zones… I don’t mind that so much. (More than don’t mind, I kind of enjoy it.)

If I decide I want to make Pumpkin Pie, I’ll hack my way across Blood Tide Coast to the pumpkin patch, have fun with the Giant Troll event out there, and help people along the way. Then I’ll pick up my pumpkins and be on my happy way. But… where do I go for Rosemary ? Vanilla?

And that’s really what I’m on about here. There are base ingredients that are limiting factors of many recipes. They’re the things you use to make herbed stock, bakers wet ingredients, etc… The pursuit of those crafting mats is not reason enough to pull me away from the higher level zones I’m currently playing in… I expect in future that there will be new content in all of those zones that draws me back… and I harvest as I go any time I’m running with lower leveled guildies or just moving through an area.

Anyway, I think I’ve put in a good bit more than my $.02, so I’ll call it a night. But I hope the suggestion gets some consideration.

I would definitely be in favor of placing the lower level ingredients in higher level zones for karma, but then they would have to lift the “account bound” status from karma purchased ingredients because you currently cannot sell karma ingredients to a vendor or on the TP. I would also be in favor of being able to sell my food to a vendor that I do not personally have a use for and have it stop filling up the guild bank (or just having to destroy it). I know that they did this so people wouldn’t be able to make a profit from karma purchased items, but it seems a little silly (to me) to not allow a person get some money for the effort of the craft. I enjoy cooking (good filler profession for all characters to get rid of some mats and to help level) but it’s a little annoying that I don’t find the benefit of most food positive to my character and thus, need to destroy or store it.

I agree with some of the points here but the only thing I’ll add to the discussion is… the crap we can’t sell, don’t destroy it. Eat it if you’re high enough level for it. There is an achievement for eating food. I shame I spent so much money and karma to make two items. Just logged off in Dredgehaunt looking for that Rosemary…
Good night and be safe out there, that RNG is costs more than multiple deaths…

Yeah, that’s something I’ve been doing as well. I’m at 410 servings of food consumed at the moment.

I’m sure my character still remembers the time she gorged herself on 100 Chocolate Chip Cookies, one after the other. I feel like that can’t have been healthy, but amazingly she hasn’t really put on any weight.

Niim, I have felt your pain. I will offer some tips that hopefully will make the Chef experience better for you.

Have been lvl 400 for weeks now. So my first thought was “what do I do now?” Over time, I have created ways to make being a Chef fun for me. Below are just a few of my tactics.

1. I created alts. Not because I had too but because I love alts. My alts have helped me find new cooking mats that I never saw in the Human areas. Yes, I am even getting tons of vanilla beans with my Sylvari.

So if you like alts, create one in another race. That way you can naturally find the obscure cooking mats.

2. Review TP to see what cooking items are good sellers. Which ones will either consistently get you 1s per item or are high priced items? Right now the magic find items are popular. So I have been making those and selling for decent gain.

3. Even if you do not like alts, take your current character to other areas. There are fun boss events in Charr and Norn lands. Arenanet has crafted interesting areas throughout the various racial lands. I do not know what you like to do so I would suggest that you pick a few places outside of your race. Places that contain the things you like to do (e.g. DEs, jumping puzzles, 100% completion, dungeons, etc). Then as you are going through those new places, pick up the cooking mats.

4. Explore nooks and crannies. I have gone to what appeared to be isolated places or less populated areas. To my surprise, I would find places with tons of one particular cooking mat. I have since learned that each zone has these. Example: There is a place that has tons of strawberries. Not real hard to get to but easy to miss unless you are into completing all vistas, pois.

These are just a few suggestions for ways you can get the hard to find cooking mats without having to grind or change your playstyle. Mix the things you love to do in with getting the mats.

I think it’s too early to fault a system that relies on trading commodities on the trading post when markets haven’t had time to settle yet.

Materials are high and products are low because hordes of new players are crafting for the sake of levelling crafting, which means high demand for materials and a surplus of products.

I personally think when they nerfed cooking, ie when they move vanilla bean to herb patches along with the other changes, it messed with the overall end game balance of cooking. A lot of the recipes make a lot more sense with readily available materials, make no sense now that vanilla bean and others are so hard to get. It was a quick, bandaid style fix that had ramifications for end game cooking.

I have no issues with going to zones to gather food items, my issue is mostly around herbs. The spawns are sparse and entirely RNG on if your going to get what you want or not. Often I will go pick rosemary and end up spending more on the cost of traveling to waypoints then I saved by gathering it myself, not to mention the hour of my time running around getting things I have no use for.

Every time I have something made from the other professions its 5 ingredients, why are cooking items taking 17?

I dunno. I kind of want to be critical of the notion that it’s reliant on trading. Chef is punishing on inventory, and we get a warning about that when we choose to be chefs. That’s fine. It’s expensive, both in terms of coin and karma (and I’m just talking about flour / sugar, base mats from vendors here), and we get a warning about that too.

I’m one of those people who likes to craft off what I can gather / salvage. I went on a quest for peaches around level 60…. out to Fireheart Rise. Just the process of getting there (my main is Human, had done very little in Charr lands) was an adventure all it’s own, and very rewarding.

I don’t mind having to work to get to something, and I feel that Chef is about enjoying the fruits of my labor, which is the only reason I don’t have a 400lb thief… she burns off the blackberry pie callories fighing her way to yet another Omnomberry bush!

An alternate suggestion to putting the limiting factor items in Karma vendors would be to create more of the ‘farms’ for some of these items, and put them in out of the way areas or areas that are overly hostile. Maybe those centaurs out in the Harathi Hinterlands have a thing for Vanilla… or the Flame Legeon is seriously into Rosemary crusted Moa.

I don’t mind being encouraged to roam the map and dive into events that may spawn around a prized chef ingredient, would just like to be able to deliberately pursue some of the low level base ingredients and let the highest level ingredient in the recipe be the limiting factor on the recipe.

The current vanilla problem is really extreme. What I would also like to add is the huge amount of expensive complete garbage recipes.

An example?
Chocolate Omnomberry Cake.
It requires 15 crafting mats, with 2 being omnomberries and 2 being vanilla beans.
You’ll get 2 pieces of cake, which will grant you 15% longer freeze duration and 70 power.

Every single recipe which adds duration to a single condition is bad. They are often expensive, and useless.

Rare veggie pizza adds 40% to all conditions, and that is a food you might consider when going for conditions. Even then, it is still one of a few choices. You could also eat some defensive stuff or stats etc…

This becomes even worse in low levels. Take a look at these single conditions low level meals. 3% bonus duration for burning… like WHAT? That doesn’t do anything. Unlike stat items, which of course have to be lower, 40% condition duration on level 5 isn’t much different from 40% condition duration on level 80.
And then, some of these low level recipes which are basically useless require mats like rosemary and vanilla.

The chef has so many possible recipes and just such a few produce really usefull food that I would really hope for a huge overhaul of the chef…

Having some of the ingredients that everyone wants in lower level areas promotes players going back and playing those areas too instead of staying exclusively in the 70-80 zones.

I feel like the people complaining about this are too used to how older MMOs do things. It’s really not that hard to revisit Caledon Forest and harvest some Herb Seedlings for vanilla beans. Going back there at level 80 will even give you experience and drops that scale to your level, and scale you down to make sure the content still provides a challenge. There’s no reason for people to avoid low level zones at as a high level character.

And if you really refuse to leave Orr, you can buy all harvested ingredients on the trading post with the money you get from playing in Orr.

I suppose they want to keep all the zones active, rather than just people sticking around the level 80 areas.

This means that new players would see people wandering around, and have people to help with DEs and such.

I like cooking more than the other crafts. Everything I make is useful to some extent with the +10 xp. The recipe discoveries are more like puzzles. The ingredients are regional and give me an excuse to travel to places I might not have had a reason to explore. The large number of ingredients adds an organization/inventory management mini game.

I would hate to see it “dumbed down” to be as dull as the other crafts. Folks are given fair warning that it’s different before they sign up to be a chef. I’m still only around 250 and I’ve been cooking since the pre-purchasers could play, so I did get some advantage from when certain ingredients were on the vendors. I’m one of the two or three people that actually liked those cooking ingredients being moved into bags, nodes,, and trees though.

I’m 79 and about to hit level 80 and I’ve never set foot in the Cursed Shore or Orr. I’ve been too busy looking for dill sprigs and rosemary.

I wouldn’t mind seeing a slightly better return from the herb nodes though. There aren’t that many in a region, and the variety of things they can drop is so large. It might be nice to have some flavor text in the tooltips of certain ingredients to give a hint of the best place to look for them.

I basically just leveled up cooking to get some levels for my warrior alt because I had hit a leveling wall. But I noticed some of what the OP said and definitely think it is an issue.

I think that any of the base ingredients (like cookie dough and baker’s wet ingredients) should be all from ingredients bought from karma venders. The key ingredients should be the farmable stuff.

Once I have actually finished leveling cooking to 400 I doubt I will use it much. Oh and why in the world aren’t all the base ingredients storable in the collectible tabs? Same with some other crafting ingredients. Annoying.

@EnemyCrusher I understand what you are saying about lvl 80 being willing to go back to lower lvls to get cooking mats. But I do not think that Arenanet considered one thing with this. Altaholics.

I have come to accept that I am an Altaholic. I love creating multiple characters in MMOs and single player games. One of the reasons is that in many cases I get to experience new content. Having a lvl 1 character go into a starting area for the first time gives me the same feeling as opening a present on Christmas. I’m serious. There is a newness and awe about it that is hard to reproduce.

And here is the issue. When I went to the other races’ zones on my lvl 80, I started getting frustrated because I did not want to “spoil” the experience for my alt. It was real hard passing up DEs and hearts but I had to because I want to do those on my alt. So instead I just stopped and decided to create an alt earlier than I had planned. Now I can freely roam in the zones and still get that new experience feel. Plus I now get my cooking mats.

It might just be me but this is why I would rather have cooking mats available in all the race lands instead of just a particular one.

I only reason I went with cooking was for the gift that requires the use of a 400 chef. I thought that anyone could make the gift for me, but I soon found out that it was account-bound…. stinks for me and I had to go and level chef to 400. OH well.

Yeah, and the novelty of a charr linking to a cheeseburger runs off pretty quickly.

Dark.6083:

I suppose they want to keep all the zones active, rather than just people sticking around the level 80 areas.

This means that new players would see people wandering around, and have people to help with DEs and such.

I have no issues with that, but if you go to the zone for herb X I want to get that herb, not 10 of something else because the herb RNG gods were not happy with me. I waste my time, travel costs, and still have nothing.

EnemyCrusher.7324:

Having some of the ingredients that everyone wants in lower level areas promotes players going back and playing those areas too instead of staying exclusively in the 70-80 zones.

I feel like the people complaining about this are too used to how older MMOs do things. It’s really not that hard to revisit Caledon Forest and harvest some Herb Seedlings for vanilla beans. Going back there at level 80 will even give you experience and drops that scale to your level, and scale you down to make sure the content still provides a challenge. There’s no reason for people to avoid low level zones at as a high level character.

And if you really refuse to leave Orr, you can buy all harvested ingredients on the trading post with the money you get from playing in Orr.

This would be a valid point, if going to a lower level area to harvest herbs actually guaranteed getting the herb you need.

I have 8 characters, ranging between 13-74. I think I could count on both hands the number of times I’ve harvested vanilla beans from actual herb nodes. The majority of my vanilla bean stock is from when they used to sell them in bulk on the heart vendors.

And Vanilla Beans are only one ingredient that has this problem. I’ve only harvested 4 yams since I began playing this game during the headstart weekend. Four. Most of the “root vegetable” nodes I run into give me carrots, and I occasionally get potatoes out of them as well.

As somebody else posted earlier, what they need to do is place patches of specific ingredients around the world. It would encourage going back to lower levels, without the frustration and ridiculousness of fighting the RNG for high-demand ingredients.

I got to 400 cooking after the change. about 95% of my cooking level was just from discoveries. It was satisfying when I discovered all the recipes using the base items from the cooking ingredient window. Empty discovery tab, full storage.

I have a 400 cook. I would never do it again. Waaay too much karma and coin are required to get anywhere with the skill. Its horrid.

And vanilla.. Yea jfc Vanilla.. Its not even remotely funny.

Question for those of you who make omnombars for sell.. You dont have an issue with selling your karma?? (buttermilk), that urks me so bad.

Yeah, having to use buttermilk does slightly annoy me, but karma isn’t generally that big a deal anyway.

Still, since my character hasn’t left Rata Sum for a long time, she’s almost out of karma now

I admit the title of this post isn’t going to get any developers attention or win any sympathy, but this definately deserves a developer response. I am a 400 chef – it was the first crafting profession I did, mostly because I think chefs are fun.

But I also anticipated to be able to do something with it – I mean make at least a bronze off something I sell. Not so. There isn’t anything I can make at level 400 chef that doesn’t cost me more in time and silver than I can sell it for on the TP.

Contrast that to my level 400 weaponsmith who made 10 gold this weekend crafting and selling.

Making chef harder was a mistake. I’ve go no incentive to ever use it again now that I’ve mastered it. I can buy my food cheapper on the TP than I can make it myself – you can say selling Omnibars makes your money back if you want. But I’m the 400 level chef who will be selling you the omniberries for a silver each and not worrying about the chump change.

I kind of feel the same way. I spent hours yesterday leveling one of my alts to 400 cooking, and now I think I wasted my time and resources. Live and learn, I guess.

I think there’s a disconnect somewhere about what a crafter does, and maybe what a chef does.

There are 2 schools of thought on what crafting is for in general, and one of them hits the Chef paticularly hard.

School A) I want to craft things that I can use / help my friends / guild mates / alts
School B ) I want to craft things that I can sell for a profit

In many ways, Chef excels at School A: If you look to Chef as a craft to have at lvl 400 so you can be self reliant, go to the mats you have gathered and make some things you can use… it’s generally pretty good at that.

Where does Chef struggle for School A? It struggles in that some of the key mats (Rosemary, Dill, Vanilla, etc) that allow for more variety in the craft suffer from an excess of scarcity. They don’t spawn reliably in all zones, they don’t have specific methods to gather, etc.

Again, I have no problem with the Farms that draw people to specific zones / areas of a specific mat… I don’t mind leaving Orr to go get grapes in Lornar’s pass or wherever. But, the scarcity of the Herbs is a bit punishing.

School B: Cooking for $$ really suffers from a glut of goods that are not worthless, but the market is saturated by easily spam crafted items. + Magic Find / + Gold Find is currently dominant in the market, and all other crafted food items fail to achieve the kind of value that draws people to the food items.

The problems with School A have been pretty well discussed, and some potential solutions suggested… I won’t go further down that road.

For School B, I have a suggestion that I hope will catch some attention: Remove the +XP portion of the food bonus on lvl 400 chef goods and replace it with a + Magic or + Gold find. This doesn’t have to be at the level of an Omnomberry item. +10% gold or +10% MF in addition to the other bonus of a food item will get people thinking about them… “Do I want the full up MF? Or do I want to give up a little MF for some extra life steal / toughness / something else that may be helpful?”

In a way, the market is dominated by a single facet of the player demand. Players really want the Magic Find / Gold bonus, and any food item that doesn’t offer it… players don’t see the value in. But, I think at lvl 80 / 400, players don’t much value the +XP bonus that comes with food items… so stripping it off lvl 400 food items for something they do value… might be a good idea. (And yes, I know that the +XP is still useful for gaining skill points, needed for legendaries, etc… but I think it’s under valued as opposed to more + Magic Find / Gold bonus.)

Just more food for thought… since we’re all here for the food

I wanted to add one thing on the notion of ‘Cooking for $$’, and that is to have a reasonable expectation for Return on Investment. One of the things that sets Chef apart from other crafts is that we have the ability to craft in bulk in a way that outstrips most other crafts.

Our product is usable by every profession which should create a broad demand… our product is consumable which means there will be a constant demand.

But… our product is craftable in bulk… which creates a supply that matches demand. And, our product is consumable and has a short duration… which leads to it having less Value than the items produced by other crafts.

I make a few gold selling exotic lvl 80 rings that I can make from mats I gather as a jeweler. I expect that’s reasonable. But a ring will live on a character’s hand for days / weeks / months…. a food buff lasts 30 minutes. It has less inherent value.

to get a good return on investment in crafting, it seems to me that we have to work in large numbers… 1s profit on a lvl 400 food item is good… when you can craft 50+ of them.

Right now, there’s nothing in Chef that gets you close to that… the items that sell (omnomberry bars… is there anything else?) don’t sell for significantly over the cost of the mats… and because the limiting factor ingredient (vanilla beans) can’t be reliably gathered… choosing to deliberately craft this item for profit sort of fails.

Hmmm… okay., that was kind of more rambly than I wanted it to be, but I hope it underscores some of the problem.

I think dye crafting gets overlooked as a money maker for chefs. Unidentified dyes sell very well. The ingredients requirements seem a bit steep because of the variety of things you can get from one node and because some require spending karma, but they don’t seem that out of line with similarly valuable products from other crafts.

I was lucky enough to hit 400 before the karma was changed. However, now that I’m here... I’m at a loss.

Some of the consumables made are great (+40% Condition Duration, +70 Condition Damage for us Necros as an example). The process of procuring these mats however is asinine. I find myself buying gems to turn into gold just to get them from the TP in large enough quantities to supply my guild, and I make it a point to selectively choose those recipies that don’t require too many "off-ingredients)... those that require 1-3 pieces that I can find relatively easier.

This of course heavily limits my ability to make maximum use of my own craft. A difficulty I should not have after hitting 400 with the kitten thing.

I’d be happy if I could just sell food to vendors. As it is now, cooking is just a huge credit sink until you can make dyes and Omnomberry Bars.

Even Omnomberry Bars are a sink, you don’t make money off that by comparison. The dyes take so many resources to make that you’re not making comparable profit imho, particularly for time invested in gathering the necessary ingredients.

And then there’s the feast recipes… to get all of them (assuming OCD and need for completeness) you’d be looking at dumping several hundreds of gold and an equivalent amount of skill points into the mystic forge. No other tradeskill comes anywhere close to that level of investment…

…and gets so little in return. Yep, it’s frustrating, all right, and it’ll remain so until a number of issues regarding the economy are resolved.

You know that the NPC gives you a warning that cooking is an expensive profession, right? Just saying.

Consumable buffs rarely sell very well in MMOs. When they do, it usually means they are deemed necessary somehow by some players, and I definitely don’t want that. It already became something of an issue when they added them in Guild Wars 1, where nobody wanted to do some of the hardest content without full “consets.” Really, I wish they had not even put cooking in the game, but it is what it is, I guess.

That said, I always use the magic find buff with my level 80 character, when I think about it.

I don’t really quite know what the point is of throwing the vendors around all over the place. I was entertaining the idea that maybe at one point they had farming as a profession in their internal testing and they took it out, and somehow this is what they decided to do instead, but who knows?

For me, it’st he chili pepper. It’s very low level. I don’t think I’ve found 1 (I have a level 80 & 72, and I’ve been working on map completion so I wander a lot). There is a ton of food that is dependent on this. 14 direct recepies, 10 secondary, and 10 tirciary (ie, the derivatives of the direct recepies, etc). That’s 34 recepies according to the GW2 wiki. and as of this writing, one on the TP goes for 2s2c-2s50c. There is no karma vendor for these that I’m aware of.

Signet of Forums.4397:

Consumable buffs rarely sell very well in MMOs. When they do, it usually means they are deemed necessary somehow by some players, and I definitely don’t want that.

Wow you are way off on this assumption. Consumable buffs have been a big moneymaker in every MMO i have played that has cooking. FFIX for one, WOW.

Yeah i agree with above posters the vanilla bean is ridiculously rare for what it is, herb seedlings are few and very far between, and then there is the RNG. I dont like to waste my time in MMO’s, at all. This needs a fix like yesterday………

Vanilla is very expensive in the real world, so I find it amusing that it’s so expensive in this game.

Well I agree that the travel cost for cooking can add-up but there are a number of zones that you can access without paid travel. Bloodtide Coast, Grendarren Fields, all the newbie areas, Dredgehaunt cliffs and other non-newbie areas that are linked to major cities. I guess it comes down to the question, are we worse off (travel cost included) from other professions who have to buy ectos for their 400 crafting stuff or even the other professions who make consumables like artificers. I don’t think anyone currently is making money off consumables. So you cant really say that Anet hates chefs.

I mean, the limit to of how much you can bulk buy from NPCs scattered around the world is currency (in the form of karma). But if you have enough karma, you can travel once and stock-up. Plus while you are there you can kill a few mobs and make-up the travel cost.

However, to think slightly outside the box, for chefs who completed 100% of the map and thus unlocked all renowed heart karma vendors etc – maybe they can have a special NPC in their home instance who sells them every available bulk purchase from around the world. I mean, as it requires 100% map completion, chefs would have to put in extra work to unlock this vendor. Only thing this NPC would do is save chefs travel costs by being a one stop shop in their home instance.

Still wouldn’t solve the vanilla bean issue and you would still have to go out in the field to gather things like the Omnomberry BUT it would make gathering bulk purchases for cooking seems less expensive.

What’s really interesting is that the items that were moved to Herb Nodes are a problem (Vanilla, Chili Peppers, etc) but items that are in loot bags (Butter, Chocolate) are not much of a problem.

Maybe the answer is that we need some of these items to come up in loot bags from monsters?

I think the biggest frustration is feeling blocked by difficult to acquire ingredients with no reliable way to obtain them.

When I compare to other crafts, I feel like I have way more venom sacs, totems and other flotsam and jetsam than I have Vanilla Beans, Rosemary Sprigs, Dill and the like.

(Have to say btw, that this has been a pretty darn nice thread and a great discussion all around!)

Tinni.4351:

However, to think slightly outside the box, for chefs who completed 100% of the map and thus unlocked all renowed heart karma vendors etc – maybe they can have a special NPC in their home instance who sells them every available bulk purchase from around the world. I mean, as it requires 100% map completion, chefs would have to put in extra work to unlock this vendor. Only thing this NPC would do is save chefs travel costs by being a one stop shop in their home instance.

Still wouldn’t solve the vanilla bean issue and you would still have to go out in the field to gather things like the Omnomberry BUT it would make gathering bulk purchases for cooking seems less expensive.

And there is already perfect place for that NPC: unused “The Undermarket” on Hooligan’s Route in Lion’s Arch. I dont mind if that vendor-to-be sells those bulks for a bit higher price (in karma) than those in fields.

CassieGold.7460:

I have a suggestion that I hope will catch some attention: Remove the +XP portion of the food bonus on lvl 400 chef goods and replace it with a + Magic or + Gold find. This doesn’t have to be at the level of an Omnomberry item. +10% gold or +10% MF in addition to the other bonus of a food item will get people thinking about them… “Do I want the full up MF? Or do I want to give up a little MF for some extra life steal / toughness / something else that may be helpful?”

In a way, the market is dominated by a single facet of the player demand. Players really want the Magic Find / Gold bonus, and any food item that doesn’t offer it… players don’t see the value in. But, I think at lvl 80 / 400, players don’t much value the +XP bonus that comes with food items… so stripping it off lvl 400 food items for something they do value… might be a good idea. (And yes, I know that the +XP is still useful for gaining skill points, needed for legendaries, etc… but I think it’s under valued as opposed to more + Magic Find / Gold bonus.)

This is a really good idea and if you haven’t made this a separate suggestion in the suggestion thread, I hope that you do. I would LOVE to see this happen. I think it would add dimension to the craft, but it would also be nice for those of us that don’t want the additional XP…like me.

I have a leveling partner, and despite the fact that the content does scale, it’s not fun when one of the two of you gets too far ahead, due to the discrepancy with drops and the fact that higher content doesn’t scale a lower player up, which means the person that is ahead is always having to re-do content.

Additionally (not to go too off-topic) I find that personally, I’d rather level slower in this game because the down-scaled content isn’t quite as fun or challenging. This is a personal opinion, and despite the fact that I love the feature overall, I would love the option to get higher level buffs without the additional XP. I can’t be the only one.

I also think some way to have some of these food items last an hour (or more!) instead of a half hour would generate income for Chefs and also be nice for players. This could be done with additional recipes, enhancement items, or procs (ala Aion style). {In a way, I like the rare proc idea best, because the market wouldn’t be flooded with 1 hr foods, keeping its value up.} If I wasn’t a Chef myself I’d pay for the hour. It’s annoying to refresh every half hour. Especially if you are trying to stay within the same level as someone else and you both need to make sure you are vigilant about refreshing the food every 30 minutes!

Personally, it also bugged me when dyes were introduced (or maybe they were always there and just highlighted recently) as purchasable with gems. Seems to me that is something that will directly impact Chefs and the economy as dyes are a potential profit item for them. Especially if the dyes can be re-sold and aren’t account-bound. (I wouldn’t know; I haven’t bought any.) There does not seem to be too many other items in the Gem store that directly impact other crafting professions, and seems another reason that, per the OP’s title, Anet hates chefs.

I also liked the idea raised in this topic about a special vendor for chefs if you get 100% map completion. And/or it would be fun if the vendor could slowly offer mats as you complete the map. I don’t think the issue is laziness and not wanting to leave Orr for Chefs; sometimes I think it is the waypoint costs. For items with very little margin already that travel cost seems to add insult to injury.

I second the fact that this is a great thread with good ideas. I’ve enjoyed this discussion so far.

And where are my kitten Oranges? I need me my Vitamin C! But seriously tho Arena net, I’ve only had one orange drop ever since you nerfed cooking and I have been level 80 for a while (it came from a moldy bag from a pirate). My cooking level has not moved ever since the nerf. Where te oranges, BRING EM OUT BRING EM….please.

so some people complain that there’s no reason to go back and play lower level content @ 80. other people complain that they have to go back and play lower level zones.

i don’t remember the tier of bag that you can open for vanilla but i know it’s out there (maybe high tier 2, lower t3?).