OK, so it makes perfect sense that the relative ease of getting the materials (even very early in the game, though fiber slows things down until later). But I've been so psyched that foraging has been getting some loving, and can get anywhere close to competing with the other professions for money. I've been playing since the beginning and I've started who knows how many farms... and I was getting tired of the same farming to skill 6 for sprinklers, fishing when it rained, and using spare time to make a bee-line to the bottom of the mines routine. I missed the addition in 1.4 that already made a first spring foraging focus viable for making some money and progressing like the others. The Tea Saplings are worth a good bit, and don't require deep dungeon delving to get the materials. Still, the slight difficulty in farming fiber makes the price fair. The Cookout Kit's price point was obviously too high for the materials that it used, and at 3000g each, you'd have a hard time using it for it's actual purpose rather than selling it. But ultimately, the price wasn't all that far above what other professions make at a comparable skill and time investment. By the last half of the first Spring, a fishing day will net 5k-10k gold without rain, 10k-15k with rain, and around 20k if you get Legend one day. A fairly large farm can get you 5-10k profit every 6 days or so, but allows time to do other things. A focus on mining/fighting in that time can pretty easily get you 5-10k/day. Before the Tea Sapling and Cookout Kit, focusing on foraging would lag WAY behind the others, and never really caught up. Not to mention it's usually the hardest skill to get to 10. Bee Houses sort of counted, but you needed to link it to both farming (at least to skill 4), and spelunking (L40+ in the mines) to really start. As I said, the Cookout Kit change makes sense, but the money balance per profession was much better since it was added. So I suggest leaving the Cookout Kit change as it is, so it's useful as a tool, and to add a couple new recipes of stuff that is mainly to sell for foraging. Probably at around skill 4 and 8, and whatever it is should probably use mostly foraging materials. Maybe something like wood carvings, that could maybe be used decoratively or functionally. You could have normal wood carvings for the first, and hardwood carvings for the second. In any case, foraging has become a lot more interesting, and just a tiny bit more would make it a whole viable focus in the game if you choose.
