New World is getting ready for Season Five, Season of the Guardian, and a big rework of Cooking and food in the game, reducing the number of recipes, improving fishing, and making what remains especially useful. In the latest Forged in Aeternum video, the team dives into all the details of the cooking overhaul.
This is the first Tradeskill that the team is planning to rework, so there’s a lot of importance on PTR feedback and ongoing feedback on the new system when more have had the chance to try it all out.
One of the reasons they’re starting with Cooking is it has just become too complex. The number of food types, buffs, recipes, and even the process have become rather overwhelming, especially if you’re new to the game. “One of our goals with some of the loot reduction was to make that inventory management a little easier for players, because playing inventory sim, it's not the most engaging part of our game,” Lead Seasons Designer Patrick Smedley says in the video. To make the skill feel viable, but leaner and not overwhelm the inventory also.
So they will be getting rid of a lot of the food. Split attribute foods are underused, so they’re being phased out, and only pure attribute foods will remain. They're also streamlining access to this pure attribute food. Along with leaving the most useful foods and recipes, the level requirement for consuming tier 5 Gathering and Tradeskill foods will be reduced to 15. Ingredients that you have in your inventory will be replaced if the item you needed them for is being deprecated in the overhaul. old recipes you know won't be usable in the future but physical recipes in your inventory will be replaced with new versions, so if you have a bunch of duplicates laying around, hold on to them.
Moving forward you will create bundles of three instead of one meal at a time. Also an attempt to make it more enjoyable because you'll have to gather more resources in advance but you'll also get more XP and a first craft bonus for creating a new item.
The other big change with this overhaul is to Fishing. Legendary fish weren’t feeling very legendary because they’ve been so easy to catch. This update will change that, and make them an ingredient in many of the most valuable recipes.
Find out more over at New World.
