During the past months (and years?), several skills received major updates. Gardening in prep for Seasons, Photography now (even though I never used this skill and have no clue what they did), Fishing and Fitness for IL...
I think it's time to get the updates to the kitchen...
First, Mixology, Cooking, and Gourmet Cooking should have the Notebook implemented (just as Fishing and Gardening), listing the recipes for you to look them up on the go without checking the bar/fridge - and possibly list the base quality as well (useful for foodie sims and their negative reaction to low-quality consumables). Furthermore, when it comes to food, the notebook would list the preparation time (and whether it's cold-cooked), vegetarian 'safeness', caloric value (yes, it's a thing in TS4) and 'efficiency' (some foods don't fully fill your hunger bar - mostly desserts and grand meals, this would be listed here as well).
Now, on to the specifics:
Mixology:
This skill is currently very bland, all it has are cool animations. Drinks should get real recipes - use plants from gardening for spicing them up, fruits for fruit-based drinks, etc. Also, an overhaul would be a chance to add a peppermint plant to the game which would see major use in Mixology. Drinks could also get caloric value (currently they are all at 0).
Cooking & Gourmet Cooking:
The first issue I have is the lack of new Gourmet recipes since the game launched and very few new recipes added with the last packs (there were some in the early DLCs, like Outdoor Retreat, but less and less with each). Yes, there were some free new recipes tied to the free holiday updates but not so much in DLCs. Island Living was a missed chance for some seafood recipes - including gourmet ones (yes, I know we got the pit BBQ, but that's it - there was OR-size potential for new recipes). Likewise, the patches/DLCs that add clothing from a specific culture/setting could do with adding a meal or two from the same culture as well.
The Garnish action could also use herbs instead of coming out of thin air.
Other:
Some other ideas I had:
-Returning the 'food replicator' item from TS3 as an expensive satisfaction reward (priced a bit below the 'never hungry' as it helps the whole household)
-Adding 'food preference' to sims. Not in the scope as in TS3 down to specific meal but I'd go with a simpler version down to categories, such as salad, sweet/dessert, fish/seafood, meat, grilled (including fruit/veggies/insects from OR), junk food, etc. - with the notebook listing the appropriate category for each meal. Eating a meal from the favorite category would add a short +1 happy buff in addition to the quality-based one.
-As I mentioned above, adding new recipes when the pack theme fits should be a thing. Both for normal and gourmet cooking.
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What I find annoying is that for example all recipes added with City Living are level 1. It is rather unrealistic and kind of "clutters" the level 1 recipes which really should be only easy to prepare. It would be nice if those meals would be appropriately spread over all levels when they update the cooking skill(s).
Also I think I once heard in a video that newer recipes often dont have calories, probably an oversight or maybe a bug. It would be nice if that was fixed too.
when there was option to pick 4 ingredients to make meal instead of just choosing specific meals like ''burrito'' or whatever
you actually could just pick ingredients that your sim have and see what it results to and it was so much fun
the ingredients were categorized by type too like ''milk products, meat, vegetables, fruits...'' etc
and you could make total disaster meals if you wanted to like
'oh I think I'll make milk potato with bananas and mushroom yeah that makes sense''
there was also few ingredients you could not use if you didn't grow those first which was neat
there was recipes tab too so technically you could still make meal according to existing recipes though
and I think sims reacted more positively to food if it matched one of the recipes
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One of my Sims has maxed the Mixology skill; he and his household have consumed drink after drink. And there have been no negative effects whatsoever---it just lowers the Bladder motive.
That is too bad. But being a game geared towards "teens" I can see now wanting to glamorizing drinking.
I think there might be potential issues if they added alcohol - either they'd need to hard-code which drinks are alcoholic and make sure non-adults can't drink them or possibly face lawsuits for showing underage drinking. For the same reason, it's unlikely we'd ever get a casino pack (due to gambling laws) - just as the same teens can't woohoo despite looking way over 15 (which is the usual consent age in Europe, not sure about the USA).
There might be mods for alcohol, though. I haven't looked myself.
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i think those would be fair addition at least for realism
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Agreed.
I was wondering with regards to the drinking in this game. How did it work with nector in other Sim games, I understand you could make wine, did you just not get drunk from that, I am assuming?
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and it should make them fat if they keep drinking too much just like with food if your sim eats too much they get fat
drinks are no different they can definitely make you fat
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Well, my original posts mention the suggestion of giving drinks a caloric value. As for getting sick... I made another post suggesting a health system so that could work with that aspect. I was merely saying that there might be legal issues with depictions of alcohol (or overdose) due to the 12+ rating TS4 has.
I also like wandering the hills.