Introduction

The aim of this rework is to provide a large rebalance to the use of Food throughout the game, while also providing more options to the Player in what they wish to produce. Some much requested Quality of Life features have been added, alongside a new Passive Cooking mechanic that should provide an extra pair of hands throughout your Melvor journey.

Cooking Furnace and Cooking Pot

Alongside the Cooking Fire, we have now introduced the Cooking Furnace and Cooking Pot. These new Cooking Utilities (That's what I call them) unlock a wide range of new unique multi-ingredient products you can cook and use in Combat or Thieving. They act the same way as the Cooking Fire does, while also providing their own unique bonuses within Cooking itself. Each Cooking Utility is home to different types Food for you to Cook that can only be obtained by using the respective Fire, Furnace or Pot. These are required to be purchased from within the Shop prior to being able to use them.

Active Cooking and Passive Cooking

A new mechanic you will notice straight away is the Active Cooking and Passive Cooking buttons implemented into the Cooking UI for each Cooking utility.

Active Cooking

This is your standard way to Cook Food. This will provide you with Skill XP, Mastery XP, Mastery Pool XP and all relevant bonuses and items relating to the Food you are Cooking. Only one product can be Actively Cooked at any given time.

Passive Cooking

A brand-new way to Cook Food which will assist with your progression throughout the game. Passive Cooking is a method of food production that can be done alongside the food you are Actively Cooking, at the same time. Any Cooking utility that is not being used can perform Passive Cooking as long as you are Actively Cooking something on a different Cooking Utility. For example: You can be Actively Cooking Fish on the Cooking Fire and can then start Passively Cooking Food on the Furnace and Pot at the same time. Passively Cooked Food is added to something called a Stockpile. There is one Stockpile for each Cooking Utility, and this Stockpile can only house one type of Food until it is collected by you. The game will not let you Passively Cook anything if the item sitting in the Stockpile is different from the one your are attempting to produce. Passive Cooking comes with some very important mechanics that you need to be aware of:

• No Skill XP, Mastery XP, Mastery Pool XP or Bonuses are provided to Passively Cooked Food. This is solely a Food production mechanic.
• It takes much longer Passively Cook a Product than it does to Actively Cook it.
• Recipe costs are the same.
• Passive Cooks do not count as an "action", therefore they cannot roll for Pets, Mastery Tokens, or other Global Rare Items.
• Passive Cooking does work Offline, and your Passively Cooked Food will be stored in your Stockpile. The Offline Progress notification will tell you what has been stored in the stockpile.
• Passive Cooking is a Food generation mechanic that is designed to be used alongside any item you are Actively Cooking.

In the event you stop Actively Cooking something, all items you are Passively Cooking will also stop. You cannot Passively Cook until you are Actively Cooking something.

Perfect Cook

Perfect Cook is a new mechanic that produces an upgraded version of the base product you are Cooking, providing extra Food Healing values as well as a much higher base Sale Price. Each Active Cook action has a chance to provide a Perfect product. This chance can be increased using Mastery and other means. It is possible to acquire 100% Perfect Cook chance at later stages of the game. Perfect Cook is classed as a bonus; therefore, it is not possible to produce a Perfect product using the Passive Cook mechanic.

Successful Cook and the removal of Burnt Items

One thing we discussed during the planning process was the use that burnt food provides to the game. We were quick to decide that burnt products add literally no benefit to the game. This led to the decision that burnt products will no longer be obtainable as we transition to a Successful Cook mechanic. Now, products that fail to cook will be yeeted into oblivion, providing nothing for your efforts to Cook something delicious. For those concerned about a specific item that requires Burnt Cave Fish to obtain take a look at the drop table for the Tentacle Monster in Sandy Shores when the update drops. This also means all Burnt Food, except the Burnt Cave Fish, is no longer required for 100% item completion (They are also worth 0 GP now).

New Shop Upgrades

Along with the rework, we have two new Shop upgrades for you to purchase. These are Quality of Life upgrades that will help streamline your progression.

• Cooking Upgrade 1 - Automatically equip Food that is Actively Cooked if that Food is already equipped, or an empty Food slot is available. This can be toggled on or off.
• Cooking Upgrade 2 - When running out of Food in Combat, automatically swap to a different Food Slot that contains food. This can be toggled on or off.

Food Source & Usage Rebalancing

Along with all the new content added within this rework, we need to address another part of the update. This rework gave us the opportunity to look at the whole picture in terms of Food and how it is used throughout the game and come to a solution to balance this to our expectations of the game. Here are the main points for the rebalance (Details below in changelog).:

• Healing value for all Farming products have been nerfed quite a lot, in favour of using these products in Cooked Products. These Farming products are used in the items that provide the highest HP healing value other than Whales and Manta Rays.
• The base interval for Cooking Carps, Sharks, Cave Fish, Manta Rays and Whales has been increased.
• The base sale price for above-mentioned Fish has been increased to accommodate for the increased intervals.
• The minimum base interval in Fishing for all Cookable Fish has been increased by 1s - 3s. Maximum base interval remains unchanged. This means on average they will take longer to catch.
• The healing value of Fish remain unchanged.

It's all well and good to address the Food itself, but we also took the opportunity to address food usage within Combat which will also provide some interesting new mechanics throughout the Combat Areas:

• All Monsters within the Spider Forest Dungeon now have a Special Attack which introduces the brand new Poison mechanic.
• All Monsters within the Icy Hills Combat Area, and Frozen Cove Dungeon now have a Special Attack, introducing the brand new Frostburn ailment.
• All Monsters within the Dragon Valley Combat Area now have a Dragonbreath Special Attack (Weaker than existing ones). This also means these Monsters that appear in the Dragon's Den also contain the new Special Attack.
• All Monsters within the Arid Plains Slayer Area now have a Lesser Sandstorm Special Attack. The Sandbeast keeps it's existing Sandstorm Special Attack.
• The Elementalist now has 4 different Special Attacks. All with a low chance to proc, they will either inflict Stun, Burn, Freeze or Frostburn upon you.
• The Bandit Leader in the Bandit Camp Dungeon has a new Special Attack.
• The Elder Dragon in the Dragon's Den also has a Special Attack now.

Conclusion

The update is not too far away! I've got some more announcements to make over the next few days. Keep your eyes peeled! - Malcs