[FIXED] [CL] Recipes "Normal" when Excellent is expected

I just tried this with my Level 10 cook. Cooked some Ramen.

He's neither a Master Chef nor was I using high ingredients. Meal was excellent. 

Second test, cheated him the aspiration and it still was excellent (no on the ingredients, don't have a garden currently)

Does it happen to all CL recipes for you or only certain ones ?

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@crinrict wrote:

I just tried this with my Level 10 cook. Cooked some Ramen.

He's neither a Master Chef nor was I using high ingredients. Meal was excellent. 

Second test, cheated him the aspiration and it still was excellent (no on the ingredients, don't have a garden currently)

Does it happen to all CL recipes for you or only certain ones ?

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Thank you @crinrict After the holidays I'll do some testing with a new save and new sims. 

Now I'm wondering if it's my Sims. I never play my Master Chef unless I want to update the bakery. Bakery and Chef have been in my game since GT (lots of Ambrosia). Maybe time for a new baker and bakery. There are Sims in my game who never cook. They buy all their meals out or at the bakery. Thought my picky Celebrities could buy their meals at the bakery, too.

1) This seems to be related to having a Celebrity with the "Refined Palate" trait in the household and the mood of the Sim cooking. If they have any negative moodlets or an unrelated to the meal moodlets the meal may turn out Normal. "Seems." "May." If an energized Sim bakes an Apple Pie and there is a Celebrity in the household with the "Refined Palate" trait there is a chance of the pie being Normal. 

2) This seems to happen more often with recipes that are not basegame. 

3) I think my bakery and Master Chef need replacing. ☹️ Had them a long time. Oh, well. 

Thanks for testing. I'll add as needs input to see if others are seeing this too.

EDIT: Added 

Refined Palate plus Energized = Normal recipe. Sim has the Stove and Grill Master trait and Level 9 Cooking. This only happens in Celebrity households with the Refined Palate trait.

Are you sure this is a bug? Cooking is always a random chance dice roll on quality. You're just more likely to get good results if you have - a positive mood, cooking enhancing traits, good quailty ingredients and high quality cooking appliances. But I don't think there's ever a 100% chance to always get better food.

To test, I used Judith Ward, because she's a celeb in my game with the refined palate quirk, and I tried to get her in an Inspired mood (which is the best for cooking), but her other quirks overrided her mood with confidence.

I couldn't get Stoves and Grills Master trait to see if that did anything (not enough aspiration points). But I made her visit a City Living stall and learn Sweet and Sour Pork.

Judith starts with zero cooking skill, and makes a normal quality one, which is impressive. Her next two with level 1 skill are poor quality.

But then I cheated her skill level up to nine and she made an excellent quality version. So it is possible to get excellent quality. Even when she had negative moodlets for tense from not looking in a mirror and badly needing to pee. No special ingredients used and her stove and fridge were the Schmapple really expensive kitchen things.

Not sure what is meant by "expected" though, I don't expect to always make excellent quality meals (it's random chance, multiplied by positive factors), but your bug report sounded like you never ever get excellent or higher meals?

Maybe someone can test it with the reward trait too, just in case that is not working correctly. I have chef sims with it, but they're not currently celebrities or have any quirks in my save.

Up until GF, once my Sims had a high level of cooking skill plus better quality appliances and ingredients they were always able to cook excellent meals. The only exception has been if they have a negative moodlet like "uncomfortable" or "tense." If they're "angry" they can make "excellent" "Flaming Spaghetti."

Food quality has only been random when eating out. So, I expect for my skilled cooks to make "excellent" quality meals. I expect my Master Chef with the "Stoves and Grills Master" trait to always make "excellent" meals and sometimes make "impeccable" meals. That's why she has a Bakery where my less skilled Sims can buy high quality meals that don't spoil. Been doing this since GTW without a problem. I have Sims in my game who never cook. They eat out or buy meals from the Bakery.

If this has been deliberately changed it should be explicitly stated by the dev team. 

Why bother going to all the trouble of reaching Master Chef, maxing out cooking, gourmet cooking, baking, gardening and getting the Stoves and Grills Master trait, if the quality of meals will only be random? I worked hard to master all of those skills. I worked hard to have a perfect garden. I worked hard to fill my Bakery with high quality meals. Not one cheat was involved. If suddenly it's just random chance, that's not ok.

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@simvasion wrote:
It’s not suddenly random, it’s always been that way, I’m just saying that a normal
meal from a master chef once in a while doesn’t seem like a bug.

They should have a very high chance of making excellent meals every time. But your bug post seems to say your sim is only making normal quality all the time for City Living recipes and never excellent?

But when we tested it our sims made excellent meals. So can you clarify? That’s what my post was about.

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I'm trying to figure out what happen, why it happen and if it's intended or unintended or if it's a problem with my save. I don't want to debate.

Formally I would have looked to the forums to help sort this out as I, indeed, do not know if this is a bug. I don't like AHQ. It makes me nervous to post here and so I find it unhelpful. I have probably not made myself clear.  

 

I'd delete this and start over, but I don't know how. 

This only seems to randomly happen when a Celebrity with the Refined Palate trait marries a homeless Townie. If the Townie cooks a Normal group meal it can effect the whole households ability to cook Excellent meals for a short period of time. If no one cooks for a while it goes away. Yay! Dining Out!

The solution is to not have that Townie cook group meals if they're not Happy or Inspired. 

I think this is just a combination of a glitched Townie meets the Refined Palate trait bug*.

*Sims who use the Quick Be Gone potion, but continue to exhibit the removed trait.