Look, i'd agree that something about cooking needs to change. Right now, it is not worth my time waiting 5 minutes to cook 1 complex recipe, when I can pump out 20 cooked steaks for more overall stamina. It requires too much time and babysitting.

But I believe the problem is the upper end of cooking (and food) is balanced wrong, not the lower end.

Complex recipes are locked behind items like salt and pepper, which drop from one encounter (in an area that doesn't have WW encounters so no one wants to go there) - they are now sold for tickets once every 2 months or so but it's not enough. Recipes should either remove the need for stuff like salt or pepper, or have it constantly available for purchase in the MM (or also add a WW encounter to all locations).

Some recipes need to drastically reduce / change ingredients, the pot should be bigger, or possibly both. The limited number of cooking spaces for recipes like wheat means these recipes are essentially useless; and then locks out the higher recipes as expanding the cooking pot is locked behind premium currency - sorry LW but I am not spending $20+ dollars on cooking, and i'm not wasting my time cooking 6 wheat into 1.

As far as stamina goes, I don't agree with a straight out nerf, if it's *only* a food nerf (no surprise, right). Campaigning is a ton of fun, and these changes seem like a reaction to one person abusing the campaign. You can burn through a whole bar of stamina in 2 minutes from average campaigning.

Nerfing food stamina will nerf the biggest drawcard and structured activity on the site and you will see a significant drop in activity onsite if it's done wrong.

If stamina points were to be nerfed, then it should be balanced by more passive ways to regain stamina other than just waiting an hour or so, such as removing the swap out timer on wolves, significantly faster regeneration of stamina, lower the stamina cost per encounter, increase the food drops in campaign etc.

Long story short, I do think careful and well-balanced changes could have a positive impact on the site and make cooking more desirable - it should be desirable! But it will kill a lot of interest in LW if you make it impossible to play for long periods of time (or really more than 2 minutes every 15 minutes) because stamina is so restricted.

I think basing cooking slots on finished food rather than raw food would solve a lot of problems. At that point you wouldn't need to reduce the stamina output of grey cooked food, because cooking 12 catfish to get 240 points of cooked fish would be much less attractive than cooking 12 pumpkin pies for 720 stamina points. As it is un-expanded pots only have room to cook 2 pies for 120 stamina, so the fish are a better deal.

Making this change rather than reducing the stamina of low level food will provide an incentive for people to improve their cooking skill without penalizing new and casual players who can only cook fish without burning things.

I never had a problem with the food system, I always had enough food to play as much gauntlet/campaign/mining as I wanted, I throw stuff in the pot whenever and never felt pressed or desperate to do so.

Hah! I've been sitting here trying to word my thoughts, and HallowedKnight said it better than I ever could!

I cook a lot, it has become a core part of my gameplay more than the wolves at this point. I'm a fan of just about every update and the one proposed is no exception. I do however agree with the common sentiment that no food should be nerfed to below the stamina required for one exploring turn, especially with how difficult it is to balance stamina as a new player already. Little support on the single-slot complex recipes though; I like the idea of less slots because yes it fills up the pot, but multiple slots feels more sensible since it's such a big meal. If we reduced meals down to selected slots, I'd compromise with 3 slots for the most complex recipes and 2 for mid-tier recipes. Huge support on moving crop yields to a higher category than exploring foods, i've never thought about that and I love the idea.

That being said, I still wish expansions were in pebbles. Like everyone else saying it, I would not benefit from this but if it was in pebbles I could have probably been making sales for pebbles more often. I don't really like the idea of tiers in the sense of incorporating sales and trade; it depends a lot on new players giving up their limited cooking slots to produce ingredients that they themselves do not benefit from. I can't expect that from a new player who has only the vaguest idea of how lorwolf works. The reason why I managed to balance my food and stamina was because I played the beta where it was a tremendous problem I had so of course I wish that on no one. Definitely push out the new recipes before the nerf at least. I only have so much food I can give away to the people affected.

I have a lot of thoughts, and some of the things other people have said here I agree with! So I'll start with my opinion.

As it is, Lorwolf is HEAVILY reliant upon food, stamina, and having a consistent stream of: cooking -> feed wolves -> do actions -> get more ingredients -> cook more food. repeat. That's essentially the only meaningful "gameplay loop" that the game desperately clings to. If you're going to change it, be smart about it. Like many have said, the way cooking works right now is heinous. The only reason to cook complex recipes is to collect them for funsies, like I enjoy doing. There aren't even achievements for cooking specific hard dishes or any associated reward, as the stamina output compared to cost requirement (ingredients, time, and space used in the pot) are absolutely not worth it unless you like the commodity of completing a recipe book.

Reducing the amount of ingredients needed helps, but only..... a smidge. I'm still not going to wait 30 minutes over and over just to make PB&Js because I need to grow crops, then make flour, and then bread, and then the jam, an--
You see where that can get extremely annoying? Especially if I can only make 4-5 of those things at once. I don't have the time nor patience to do that. BUT! I do really like the idea that's here! It's imperfect right now, but that's to be expected, and I appreciate you communicating this change with us to listen to feedback! If I didnt think it mattered, I wouldn't be typing this lol.

What can be done instead?

Like I said, I do like the concept that's going on here. Having ingredients lead to lower tier foods then mid and higher tier foods makes sense. It can make for fun ideas in the future, and honestly I'd have a ton of enjoyment just exploring to see if things like honey and bacon can be combined into a dish, and then see if I can add eggs or something. But I think the method should be different.
I like Gaia's idea for there being a restriction to the amount of PRODUCT. Not a limit on ingredients, often leaving you with not enough room to do something so you just fill it with fish or whatever. I'm pretty sure putting a pumpkin pie and fish in a pot isn't going to end well...

On top of that, I want to offer an additional idea. A "prep station" as I'll refer to it. After you have cooked the food, you can go to the prep station part of the cooking page and combine things. Perhaps as you "level" you gain new tools, styles and expertise? This can mean chopping meat into bits for soups early on, then when you get better you can unlock glazes and seasonings, and that could lead to new recipes in the pot! If a player tries to make something that doesn't quite exist yet, rather than getting ashes from the prep station they could get something that just does a little stamina or could be traded in for a single ingredient (since it will likely cost ~3 at least to make something, plus cook time and such. It's a small trade off but something better than.... Yay, ashes...?)

I think the team has the right idea, and many wonderful ways to go about it! I'm hesitant about how it will work going forward, but I'll remain optimistic. I don't like how horribly grind-y EVERYTHING is, so having things change is very welcomed!!

Personally, I'm excited to see these changes and what they look like when they are actually ready for release!

I can't judge how specific nerfs will affect gameplay overall, so I'll wait to see how it all comes together. It does like these are in conjunction with other updates (as someone said, the gold pickaxe reduces reliance on stamina).... so maybe there's a plan to direct where stamina is supposed to be a relevant limiting factor and where it shouldn't hinder things? Curious how that will shake out for sure.

Also, I have huge stashes of food building up despite my grind, so I don't hate the idea of some nerfs in general.... but I'd have to see how sustainable food is in the long run. And it may affect gameplay differently for new players, so hopefully balances are being considered at both ends of the user experience.