Mike and Vlad - please read this. This is exactly it. Keep everything the same, just make new fighters better, faster.

12 months

At the end of the day, I'll repeat what I said a while ago in regards to this topic: The design philosophy should be about bringing people up rather than putting others down to level playing fields, and I think that translates to this discussion really well. The nature of anything with a remote smidge of competitiveness (nevermind one that is also a text based browser game) is that people will deviate towards whatever is 'optimal'. To direct people into playing the game how you envision, make that playstyle the best way to go about it or at least a viable alternative. IF you don't like the idea of cooking for philosophical reasons or for being unfriendly to non-VIPs and/or noobs THEN make a viable alternative, by making development better out of the box (which seems to be gathering more favour amongst users) or rewarding being active through fights with noticeable development bonuses which would be on par to cooking. Both combined with existing mechanics like the skills softcap mean that there is simply less or no advantage to cooking. Imagine if you could develop a fighter equally as well by actually fighting (within reason to prevent farming) or if that was the more optimal way to build a guy. Not many people would still choose to cook extensively, and you'd get a bunch of less 'complete' guys actually going at each other (Alfred's wet dream!). Nerfing cooking rather than providing a better alternative like more skill points or faster development just keeps the non-chefs just as depressed and now makes the chefs sadder too.  

Oi, I'm pretty sure this is my bookie's market share. It even says so in the name: Terrible Odds for Addicts Only   If you're a true degen, you'd bet even when the odds were shit - not at all these fancy places where you'd maybe actually make money.

You may be right brother, but I doubt it. For me 2 years is a bloody life time. And tbh, I love the starting stages of a new build. I like,new challenges