Did Arenanet ruin food?

[Khisanth.2948]

1 hour ago, Zeivu.3615 said:

 

They could have at least added the butter to the drop table....

Edit: Come to think of it, why can't we make butter?

lack of raw milk as an ingredient

[Kozumi.5816]

Festival foods ruined cooking. It's about time they were deleted.

[Astralporing.1957]

21 hours ago, Khisanth.2948 said:

So has there been any evidence that research notes is the reason other than pure speculation?

All the food/utilities/tonics removed from halloween/wintersday/dragonbash bags were those that were salvageable with the research kit. The very few that weren't salvageable were left alone. And the removal happened at the same time Anet was doing a lot of other research note-related adjustments (like removing salvage options from bread, nerfing salvage from potions etc).

Is that a hard proof? No. Do the clues strongly suggest that kind of reasoning behind it? Yes, they do.

[Astralporing.1957]

11 hours ago, Kozumi.5816 said:

Festival foods ruined cooking. It's about time they were deleted.

Oh, really? And here i thought that unreasonable crafting costs and most food being pretty much useless was more responsible. Example of writs shows, that once crafting price becomes high enough, even most hardcore minmaxers just stop considering it a serious option.

Edit: A longer explanation.

First, there's a price point above which people will just stop using the food. That is tied to the second point - most of the food from cooking does not offer useful buffs. When taken together, it means that vast majority of food is well above that abovementioned price point - they are way too costly for what they offer for people to even consider them.

Then, usually, when people start looking for food, they look at two options: first, the best food available for their build, and, second, a cheap alternative. Then they decide based on the price and effectiveness difference.

Now, let's look at festival food. It's generally not the "BiS food". In the game's history i remember only two exceptions (Delicious Rice Balls and Fried Golden Dumpling) that made it to the meta. Notice, that neither of those is meta nowadays... and that neither of those was craftable, nor is there an existing craftable food that might have served as a replacement then if those two did not exist.

So, apart from those two examples, there are only two reasons someone might want to use festival food. First, to use them as a cheap replacement to an existing meta food, and , second, to use them for karma buffs.

The second option will likely be just taken over by birthday cakes (if it hadn't been already). First option in less demanding content will probably be taken over by the same cakes as well. And in more demanding content it wasn't being used already. What has been sometimes used, were the festival utility items. And those are not being made by cooks.

In short: festival food did not ruin cooking. If you consider cooking (probably the most useful nowadays of all the crafts) to be "ruined", the only thing responsible would be the cooking (and its recipees) itself. But that's only when we agree with the premise that it has even been ruined in the first place.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Astralporing.1957

[Hashberry.4510]

Well I agree the festival food helped ruin cooking, the cake mocks any attempt to reign it in. Anet clearly enjoys engineering the players to clean up game issues, scattershot and contradictory efforts are just a signature.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Hashberry.4510

[Ashen.2907]

15 hours ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Oh, really? And here i thought that unreasonable crafting costs and most food being pretty much useless was more responsible. Example of writs shows, that once crafting price becomes high enough, even most hardcore minmaxers just stop considering it a serious option.

Edit: A longer explanation.

First, there's a price point above which people will just stop using the food. That is tied to the second point - most of the food from cooking does not offer useful buffs. When taken together, it means that vast majority of food is well above that abovementioned price point - they are way too costly for what they offer for people to even consider them.

Then, usually, when people start looking for food, they look at two options: first, the best food available for their build, and, second, a cheap alternative. Then they decide based on the price and effectiveness difference.

Now, let's look at festival food. It's generally not the "BiS food". In the game's history i remember only two exceptions (Delicious Rice Balls and Fried Golden Dumpling) that made it to the meta. Notice, that neither of those is meta nowadays... and that neither of those was craftable, nor is there an existing craftable food that might have served as a replacement then if those two did not exist.

So, apart from those two examples, there are only two reasons someone might want to use festival food. First, to use them as a cheap replacement to an existing meta food, and , second, to use them for karma buffs.

The second option will likely be just taken over by birthday cakes (if it hadn't been already). First option in less demanding content will probably be taken over by the same cakes as well. And in more demanding content it wasn't being used already. What has been sometimes used, were the festival utility items. And those are not being made by cooks.

In short: festival food did not ruin cooking. If you consider cooking (probably the most useful nowadays of all the crafts) to be "ruined", the only thing responsible would be the cooking (and its recipees) itself. But that's only when we agree with the premise that it has even been ruined in the first place.

Bingo.

[Jukhy.2431]

On 12/16/2022 at 10:06 PM, Doggie.3184 said:

We just live off healthy diet of birthday cake.

Same, that "health food" is my most used one. Wish we had similar utility consumable.

As for the research notes talk in this thread: the "problem" here with some of the festival foods is that they also have a crafting recipe, so they can be salvaged for dirt cheap research notes. The prices will likely balance after the initial price hike.
Personally I went from salvaging foods to potions. Quite cheap to make and the cheapest TP buyout is currently Potent Potion of Sons of Svanir Slaying. And this way I can use the composter for food items to make seed pouches for the asc feasts.

Edited December 17, 2022 by Jukhy.2431

[Sobx.1758]

On 12/17/2022 at 3:25 AM, Astralporing.1957 said:

Oh, really? And here i thought that unreasonable crafting costs and most food being pretty much useless was more responsible. Example of writs shows, that once crafting price becomes high enough, even most hardcore minmaxers just stop considering it a serious option.

Edit: A longer explanation.

First, there's a price point above which people will just stop using the food. That is tied to the second point - most of the food from cooking does not offer useful buffs. When taken together, it means that vast majority of food is well above that abovementioned price point - they are way too costly for what they offer for people to even consider them.

Then, usually, when people start looking for food, they look at two options: first, the best food available for their build, and, second, a cheap alternative. Then they decide based on the price and effectiveness difference.

Now, let's look at festival food. It's generally not the "BiS food". In the game's history i remember only two exceptions (Delicious Rice Balls and Fried Golden Dumpling) that made it to the meta. Notice, that neither of those is meta nowadays... and that neither of those was craftable, nor is there an existing craftable food that might have served as a replacement then if those two did not exist.

So, apart from those two examples, there are only two reasons someone might want to use festival food. First, to use them as a cheap replacement to an existing meta food, and , second, to use them for karma buffs.

The second option will likely be just taken over by birthday cakes (if it hadn't been already). First option in less demanding content will probably be taken over by the same cakes as well. And in more demanding content it wasn't being used already. What has been sometimes used, were the festival utility items. And those are not being made by cooks.

In short: festival food did not ruin cooking. If you consider cooking (probably the most useful nowadays of all the crafts) to be "ruined", the only thing responsible would be the cooking (and its recipees) itself. But that's only when we agree with the premise that it has even been ruined in the first place.

...then again the food still isn't somehow ruined just because festival ones are not dirt cheap anymore.

Edited December 18, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Astralporing.1957]

7 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

...then again the food still isn't somehow ruined just because festival ones are not dirt cheap anymore.

Which food? Festival one had an use only because it was dirt cheap.

[Sobx.1758]

48 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Which food? Festival one had an use only because it was dirt cheap.

Karma+mf food and utility (and access to some cheap replacements for some meta food too, btw) -that food had use because of the effects it had. It was only mindlessly spammed by default because it was in overabundance so it was dirt cheap, pushing out any potential "competition". I don't know why some people here think that if food with effects those players want isn't thrown at them then the food is somehow ruined. It isn't, if it was only used because it was dirt cheap and not because it had meaningful effects then why is this even a complaint in the first place?

[Astralporing.1957]

4 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

It isn't, if it was only used because it was dirt cheap and not because it had meaningful effects then why is this even a complaint in the first place?

First, because it was a cheap (if inferior) replacement for other stuff for many. Second, because taking away nice things players had for years is rarely met with positive response in MMORPGs. Third, because the food constituted most of the actual value of the presents. And when they were removed from drop tables, they weren't replaced with something else players might have liked (or found equally useful) instead. This indirectly affected even people that didn't care about food at all, but were selling presents on tp - because there's way less people interested in buying those now, and they definitely aren't offering similar prices for them as before.

All this should not have been a surprise to you, because it has already happened with Halloween.

Seriously, i can see not even a single positive from that reward nerf. Do you?

[Sobx.1758]

45 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

First, because it was a cheap (if inferior) replacement for other stuff for many. Second, because taking away nice things players had for years is rarely met with positive response in MMORPGs. Third, because the food constituted most of the actual value of the presents. And when they were removed from drop tables, they weren't replaced with something else players might have liked (or found equally useful) instead. This indirectly affected even people that didn't care about food at all, but were selling presents on tp - because there's way less people interested in buying those now, and they definitely aren't offering similar prices for them as before.

All this should not have been a surprise to you, because it has already happened with Halloween.

Seriously, i can see not even a single positive from that reward nerf. Do you?

You've asked a question, received the answer to that question and completely avoided it. Interesting.

I still see no reason to start claiming food was somehow ruined. I'm also not sure where your "money for presents" take fits into what I wrote, even if we only talk about the strict, rather limited part you've quoted since, without change, we're talking about ruined food here and "someone potentially making less gold for farming gifts now" does nothing for the "food ruined" claim.

Edited December 19, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Solvar.7953]

I often used festival food and utilities for normal play.  I knew they were not the best, but the fact they were very cheap and for the vast amount of PvE play, they were good enough, it filled my need.  I have crafted build appropriate food to use for the content that needs it.

If at some point I run out of festival or other generic food, I probably won't bother crafting any - once again, for the vast majority of content, it really isn't important.  Actually, I'll probably just use my endless birthday cakes (talk about something 'ruining' crafting of food).  But I've already gotten to the point where I often don't run with utilities because I'm not going to craft it when I'm spending my time killing trash mobs or in instanced content that doesn't drop anything.

Cooking could certainly be revamped/improved, but I don't think that food dropping (or not) during festivals have much relation to that.

 

[Dreams.3128]

On 12/15/2022 at 1:21 PM, Khisanth.2948 said:

I mentioned the cupcakes in a previous post. The ones people are complaining about are those that used to drop from Wintersday Gifts so the MF food is https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Peppermint_Omnomberry_Bar

Plain Omnomberry Bars are a closer replacement than the cupcakes and they are also much cheaper than the Peppermint version. They are missing the +10% karma.

I personally don't use any food most of the time since I find them unnecessary.

This is purely speculation on my part but I think a major reason for these complaints is that there are people who find an answer to something and then expect that to be the correct answer to be correct for the rest of eternity. That has never been true but people keep expecting it to be true for some reason. Some people also seem to think complaining is better than adapting.

Ah I see, thank you for the clarification. Thought I was going crazy when I saw your numbers. 

[Morticoccus.6540]

On 12/15/2022 at 7:21 PM, Khisanth.2948 said:

I mentioned the cupcakes in a previous post. The ones people are complaining about are those that used to drop from Wintersday Gifts so the MF food is https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Peppermint_Omnomberry_Bar

Plain Omnomberry Bars are a closer replacement than the cupcakes and they are also much cheaper than the Peppermint version. They are missing the +10% karma.

I personally don't use any food most of the time since I find them unnecessary.

This is purely speculation on my part but I think a major reason for these complaints is that there are people who find an answer to something and then expect that to be the correct answer to be correct for the rest of eternity. That has never been true but people keep expecting it to be true for some reason. Some people also seem to think complaining is better than adapting.

Plain Omnomberry bars are still mostly desirable for the MF though, and the cupcakes are significantly cheaper regardless of if you craft or buy the bars.

[Astralporing.1957]

10 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

You've asked a question, received the answer to that question and completely avoided it. Interesting.

Weird, because i sure responded to what you asked. And the "question" you responded to wasn't mine. I never claimed the food was ruined.  That would be stupid - the food itself did not change, after all. Only the methods of its acquisition had. And those had been significantly nerfed. For no good reason.

And i didn't see you saying otherwise - the best you can say in defence of that nerf is that it wasn't as bad as some people claim (which is highly subjective, btw). There's still no positive aspect to that nerf at all.

 

[Sobx.1758]

1 minute ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Weird, because i sure responded to what you asked. And the "question" you responded to wasn't mine. I never claimed the food was ruined.  That would be stupid - the food itself did not change, after all. Only the methods of its acquisition had. And those had been significantly nerfed. For no good reason.

And i didn't see you saying otherwise - the best you can say in defence of that nerf is that it wasn't as bad as some people claim (which is highly subjective, btw). There's still no positive aspect to that nerf at all.

 

"Which food? Festival one had an use only because it was dirt cheap." um... whose question was it then?

[Morticoccus.6540]

4 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

Weird, because i sure responded to what you asked. And the "question" you responded to wasn't mine. I never claimed the food was ruined.  That would be stupid - the food itself did not change, after all. Only the methods of its acquisition had. And those had been significantly nerfed. For no good reason.

And i didn't see you saying otherwise - the best you can say in defence of that nerf is that it wasn't as bad as some people claim (which is highly subjective, btw). There's still no positive aspect to that nerf at all.

 

From what I understand they introduced the research notes to cause people to use up crafting mats instead of selling them, but the only positive aspect I can see so far was for the people who bought up a ton of materials the instant the changes became known, and again for those who emptied TP of holiday foods the instant it became clear that Anet had removed them from the drop table.

 

I don't know how Anet is going to spin that as a good thing for everyone, so they will probably just do what has worked in the past and not say anything.

 

Yeah, these changes suck. At least we still have cupcakes.

[Astralporing.1957]

Just now, Sobx.1758 said:

"Which food? Festival one had an use only because it was dirt cheap." um... whose question was it then?

If it's about that question, then i did answer it, didn't I. You were the one that ignored the answer. But in that case i will spell it out for you - if a food is useful only because it's dirt cheap, and then it stoips being dirt cheap, it stops being useful. You tried to respond but you even agreed with this in what you said, without seeing that you did. You said:

15 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Karma+mf food and utility (and access to some cheap replacements for some meta food too, btw) -that food had use because of the effects it had.

You just didn't see that the key point of that sentence was "cheap replacements". Sure, effects were important, but they still were inferior to what other options could offer, and thus were good only because they were a cheaper (if inferior) replacement. When it stopped being cheaper, it stopped being "cheap replacement". It became "equally or more costly, but still inferior replacements". And there's no need for those. Technically the food didn't get ruined - it was just never all that good in the first place. The only good quality of it was the price. And that quality is now gone.

The only elements that didn't completely get that treatment were the utilities (for their unique karma boost, which no other utilities have), but then we were speaking about specifically food, and i have even mentioned in my post that utilities are a bit different.

Still, the utilities overall also became mostly useless. After all, burning gold for karma is generally just not worth it (it's the conversion in the opposite direction that people mostly aim for, after all). As such, they have been downgraded from general usefulness karma buff, and a cheap replacement for some meta utilities, into a karma buff for a very niche usage only.

And still i fail to see a single good reason for all this to happen.

[Sobx.1758]

7 minutes ago, Astralporing.1957 said:

If it's about that question, then i did answer it, didn't I. You were the one that ignored the answer. But in that case i will spell it out for you - if a food is useful only because it's dirt cheap, and then it stoips being dirt cheap, it stops being useful. You tried to respond but you even agreed with this in what you said, without seeing that you did. You said:

You just didn't see that the key point of that sentence was "cheap replacements". Sure, effects were important, but they still were inferior to what other options could offer, and thus were good only because they were a cheaper (if inferior) replacement. When it stopped being cheaper, it stopped being "cheap replacement". It became "equally or more costly, but still inferior replacements". And there's no need for those. Technically the food didn't get ruined - it was just never all that good in the first place. The only good quality of it was the price. And that quality is now gone.

The only elements that didn't completely get that treatment were the utilities (for their unique karma boost, which no other utilities have), but then we were speaking about specifically food, and i have even mentioned in my post that utilities are a bit different.

Still, the utilities overall also became mostly useless. After all, burning gold for karma is generally just not worth it (it's the conversion in the opposite direction that people mostly aim for, after all). As such, they have been downgraded from general usefulness karma buff, and a cheap replacement for some meta utilities, into a karma buff for a very niche usage only.

And still i fail to see a single good reason for all this to happen.

How did I "ignore it" when I literally addressed it right away in the very same post I've gave the initial response in?

16 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

Karma+mf food and utility (and access to some cheap replacements for some meta food too, btw) -that food had use because of the effects it had. It was only mindlessly spammed by default because it was in overabundance so it was dirt cheap, pushing out any potential "competition". I don't know why some people here think that if food with effects those players want isn't thrown at them then the food is somehow ruined. It isn't, if it was only used because it was dirt cheap and not because it had meaningful effects then why is this even a complaint in the first place?

That food wasn't "useful because it was cheap", that food was "mindlessly spammed" because it was dirt cheap.

I fail to see a single reason for having usful food be dirt cheap which kills any other potential "competion". Which... is also what I already wrote in the previous post. It also doesn't really matter what way the conversion is generally worth it in your opinion, since one way or the other it just beacuse a potential option. If it's worth for someone, they'll use it. If it's not worth it... then they won't, what's the issue with making an informed decision about food/utility usage based on your needs instead of spamming them by defaul because it's in such an overabundance that nobody gives it a second thought anyways?

Edited December 19, 2022 by Sobx.1758

[Khisanth.2948]

3 hours ago, Morticoccus.6540 said:

Plain Omnomberry bars are still mostly desirable for the MF though, and the cupcakes are significantly cheaper regardless of if you craft or buy the bars.

Maybe. Although the other thing I forgot to mention is that people are probably being mislead by the numbers(and former dev's statements). As indicated in the Notes section of https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Magic_Find that +30% MF isn't actually going to improve your chances of getting a particular drop by 30%, it is only 3%. Also MF only applies to loot dropped by things you kill and specifically labeled containers but a lot of the game's loot is not from foes but from chests. There are also probably some people out there stuck on outdated information. There are probably still videos and articles around telling people that unid gear is affected by MF.

Then there is the math part. If the base rate is 0.7%(seems suitable for something rare and valuable) then increasing it be 3% changes it to 0.721%. 0.021% isn't something to obsess over.

What if the base rate was higher like 50%? Well it now goes to 51.5% but that was an item you were getting every other kill anyway.

[Pie.2167]

Agree the best solution would have been to make them not salvageable

[Astralporing.1957]

9 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

That food wasn't "useful because it was cheap", that food was "mindlessly spammed" because it was dirt cheap.

Yes, it was used because it was dirt cheap.

9 hours ago, Sobx.1758 said:

I fail to see a single reason for having usful food be dirt cheap which kills any other potential "competion".

It was exactly because it was cheap that there was a competition. Remember, the alternatives it was competing against are better. So, it was competing only on the virtue of being cheap. Now it is not, so there's no longer any competition to be had.

[SinisterSeven.2781]

oh well, i guess i can sell my stacks for dank golds now though. farewell wintersday foods lol

Edited December 19, 2022 by SinisterSeven.2781

[Firebeard.1746]

On 12/14/2022 at 1:12 PM, Fern Gully.9634 said:

That is such an unfortunate oversight; this time of the year means something different to each individual and should definitely be an exception to the general rule. I agree they should just block salvage on festival foods instead of allowing their price to surpass the foods they have replaced in the past. 

Devil's advocate: they need to keep the economy alive for something as they've tanked the value of normal legendary mats across the board.