I feel thaf the cooking skill could really use an overhaul if it went into much more depth.
First of all, the ingridiengs. Zois would require ingredients to cook a dish. For example, cooking a salad would require tomatoes, cucumbers and onions. The ingredients could be grown yourself or purchased at the market. If the salad is made with homegrown ingredients, the zois will get a moodlet like “farm to table”. Maybe even give us the ability to substitute ingredients? Like, if a dish requires meat, our zois could substitute it for tofu and make a vegetarian dish.
Secondly, the serving amount. Zois should be able to have the option to cook multiple servings at once as opposed go one dish at a time (leftovers), though I’m sure you hear it all the time.
Third, the food quality. As opposed to simply just unlocking recipes, skills should also determine how good the food tastes. At lower skill levels, the food could be burned, oversalted, underseasoned, ect. There should also be a hidden tracker that tracks how many times a zoi cooked a certain dish that is basically a hidden skill level for a single dish. The more times a zoi cooks this dish, the more the zoi will improve their proficiency and the dish will be of higher and higher quality, and upon mastering this hidden skill, the zoi will cook a “divine” dish every time. Each dish level gives better moodlets, with the divine dish moodlet lasting the longest.
Finally, unlocking dishes. Simply cooking enough until you can cook another dish upon leveling up is… well… boring. And not at all how it works in real life. So I propose this: first of all, the simple recipes should be unlocked without any special requirements (because everybody knows how to make a salad and fry an egg). We shall call those basic tier. The more complex recipes however… would require some discovery. You can research online for a chance to find a common recipe (so cupcakes, spaghetti in tomatoe sauce, ect). For uncommon recipes, your zois would need to purchase a recipe book from a store and finish reading it before learning how to cook a dish. (So bread, kimchi, sushi, ect). This is where it gets interesting. The rare dishes could only be acquired from npc zois with a high cooking skill level. Befriending those zois and talking about cooking has a chance to reveal a rare dish recipe (so, baked Alaska, Angel food, souffle, lobster thermidor, beef wellington, ect). And finally… the legendary tier. These are the rarest dishes that can only be acquired by actually eating them a few times. Each time you each them has a small chance of learning the recipe with a high enough cooking skill. Each restaurant in every world can serve a few of those legendary dishes, but in order to discover them all, youll need to each in each restaurant in every world. This will encourage the players to actually travel, and we will feel a massive sense of accomplishment upon discovering them all. (those can be dishes unique to inzoi which will make players feel connected to the game). cooking said recipes would still require a certain skill level (and the legendary recipes can only be unlocked for discovery at level 10), but it will give players much more meaningful gameplay. this could even be tied into the skill itself and introduce skill challenges that aren’t tied to skill level. so if a zoi unlocks all recipes in the game, they could get a perk that allows them to improve dish proficiency twice as fast. nobody will ever call the gameplay shallow again XD