The problem with potions and what can be done to fix it.

dilla65ub17_ESO

I have a few problems with potions as they currently are in the game.

1) When crafting a potion sometimes I can get different results but it won't show it as a result or even when I try to make it even if the Icons are lit up showing that it would work. You seem to have just so many combos they are willing to let you do.

2) Taking and maxing out the passive Snakeblood does absolutely nothing when crafted.

3) There is a large part of what can be done with potions that are just plain omitted. Let me explain on this one. When you craft potions there are helpful potions and harmful potions; yet the harmful ones only harm you and are not usable in any other fashion but to cause our own harm. Yet in all other Elderscroll games we are allowed to make the harmful ones and use them on weapons as an added bonus ( although temporary ) to weapons.

OK that is the end of my rant and now for something most don't do. Here is what I purpose on how a possible fix could be like.

1a) Really open it up and let us make any combo possibilities we want not just the ones you want us to do.

2a) Fix Snakeblood to were it actually works for us. Even if it is just the crafter that gets the bonus; hell that would make being an Alchemist even greater as you would have better pots than others that just buy them for use. Or not make it permanent so when it is crafted it stays that way even for resale or trades; giving an added incentive for getting the passive.

3a) Let us make poisons to use on our weapons as an added bonus like in the other Elderscroll games. You can make it as temp as say 5-10 min. so not too be overly powerful but still useful in game. There are so many herbs not being used right now due to this either overlook or intentional omission on your part.
Thanks for your time. Any positive feed back is appreciated.

SirAndy

ZOS has already said that a use for poisons is in the making.
Right now, all you can do with them is to sell them for gold.

Srugzal

This same series of questions cycles through this forum time and again. Look at some of the other threads before posting this kind of thing. But I'll make a pass at answering some of your questions, though naturally, opinions will vary. However there are some factual errors that are made often enough that they're worth bringing up again.

dilla65ub17_ESO wrote: »

I have a few problems with potions as they currently are in the game.

1) When crafting a potion sometimes I can get different results but it won't show it as a result or even when I try to make it even if the Icons are lit up showing that it would work. You seem to have just so many combos they are willing to let you do.

You'll need to be specific. Do you mean it didn't craft, or the stats were wrong, or the applied effect was different?

2) Taking and maxing out the passive Snakeblood does absolutely nothing when crafted.

People repeat this canard a lot, and it simply isn't true. Snakeblood, like it says on the tin, "Reduces the duration of negative effects." And that is exactly what it does. Something like "lower weapon power by X for Y seconds," if you've maxed the passive and take the potion, reduces Y to 0.

For negative effects with immediate effect, like "Ravage Health X immediately," they remain unchanged. Again, there is no claim that Snakeblood does anything but mitigate/remove effects over time.

3) There is a large part of what can be done with potions that are just plain omitted. Let me explain on this one. When you craft potions there are helpful potions and harmful potions; yet the harmful ones only harm you and are not usable in any other fashion but to cause our own harm. Yet in all other Elderscroll games we are allowed to make the harmful ones and use them on weapons as an added bonus ( although temporary ) to weapons.

Poison damage is currently applied to weapons using enchantments, as is armor debuff, spell power and spell crit debuffs, and all that. Yes, changes will be made in the future, perhaps, to make it more like other ES games, but we aren't without poisoned weapons altogether.

OK that is the end of my rant and now for something most don't do. Here is what I purpose on how a possible fix could be like.

1a) Really open it up and let us make any combo possibilities we want not just the ones you want us to do.

There about 135 possible different potion combinations. Some of them have negative effects; some of these can be mitigated with Snakeblood. Alchemy isn't a sure thing in ESO, and it isn't in ES, either.

2a) Fix Snakeblood to were it actually works for us. Even if it is just the crafter that gets the bonus; hell that would make being an Alchemist even greater as you would have better pots than others that just buy them for use. Or not make it permanent so when it is crafted it stays that way even for resale or trades; giving an added incentive for getting the passive.

It works. You may want it to work DIFFERENTLY, which is fine. But don't start from "it doesn't work at all," because it does. You can prove it to yourself with some test potions and Harmon's Extended stats. I've written about this in another thread here.

3a) Let us make poisons to use on our weapons as an added bonus like in the other Elderscroll games. You can make it as temp as say 5-10 min. so not too be overly powerful but still useful in game. There are so many herbs not being used right now due to this either overlook or intentional omission on your part.

You should expand on this part, because here you start talking about changes you'd like to see, and I think some of these ideas have merit and should be discussed.


EDIT: added link to the other thread.

Ser Lobo

I know when I shop for potions, I'm always looking for combo benefits. Health that also boosts stamina/magicka, etc.

But applicable poisons would be a great addition to melee combat.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

ruze84b14_ESO wrote: »

I know when I shop for potions, I'm always looking for combo benefits. Health that also boosts stamina/magicka, etc.

But applicable poisons would be a great addition to melee combat.

My standard potion gives 300 spell critical, I can do weapon crit as well, health and magic.

Very useful.

PlagueMonk

Srugzal wrote: »

2) Taking and maxing out the passive Snakeblood does absolutely nothing when crafted.

People repeat this canard a lot, and it simply isn't true. Snakeblood, like it says on the tin, "Reduces the duration of negative effects." And that is exactly what it does. Something like "lower weapon power by X for Y seconds," if you've maxed the passive and take the potion, reduces Y to 0.

For negative effects with immediate effect, like "Ravage Health X immediately," they remain unchanged. Again, there is no claim that Snakeblood does anything but mitigate/remove effects over time.

2a) Fix Snakeblood to were it actually works for us. Even if it is just the crafter that gets the bonus; hell that would make being an Alchemist even greater as you would have better pots than others that just buy them for use. Or not make it permanent so when it is crafted it stays that way even for resale or trades; giving an added incentive for getting the passive.

It works. You may want it to work DIFFERENTLY, which is fine. But don't start from "it doesn't work at all," because it does. You can prove it to yourself with some test potions and Harmon's Extended stats. I've written about this in another thread here.

Actually no, Snakeblood does NOT work as stated. At lvl 3 it "should" remove 100% of negative effects.

Exact wording Reduces duration of negative effects in potions by 100%.

100% to me means even an immediate effect will be neutralized because NO negative effects should be working at this point (hence the 100%)

And to be SURE I just did an experiment where I created and drank a ravage potion that did 234 immediate damage and 200 DoT for 10 secs.......guess what, I took 234 damage and THEN took 200 DoT fo 10 secs. I watched for 10 secs as the inward or negative arrows displayed on my health bar and my health bar went down.

I have tried other negative potions with durations (like move speed, decreased damage, stunned. etc) and they ALL still function. Not a single tick is removed with snakeBS.

Even by your definition there should be no DoT component at lvl 3 but guess what....THERE IS. The damn ability is completely broken and always has been.

This ability not functioning really ruins the alchemists ability to make a wide variety of potions. We are reduced to looking for 5-7 plants only to make 3-4 potions. I feel slighted by Zenimax for gimping this craft and never fixing it (or even mentioning it!)

Srugzal

PlagueMonk wrote: »

Srugzal wrote: »

2) Taking and maxing out the passive Snakeblood does absolutely nothing when crafted.

People repeat this canard a lot, and it simply isn't true. Snakeblood, like it says on the tin, "Reduces the duration of negative effects." And that is exactly what it does. Something like "lower weapon power by X for Y seconds," if you've maxed the passive and take the potion, reduces Y to 0.

For negative effects with immediate effect, like "Ravage Health X immediately," they remain unchanged. Again, there is no claim that Snakeblood does anything but mitigate/remove effects over time.

2a) Fix Snakeblood to were it actually works for us. Even if it is just the crafter that gets the bonus; hell that would make being an Alchemist even greater as you would have better pots than others that just buy them for use. Or not make it permanent so when it is crafted it stays that way even for resale or trades; giving an added incentive for getting the passive.

It works. You may want it to work DIFFERENTLY, which is fine. But don't start from "it doesn't work at all," because it does. You can prove it to yourself with some test potions and Harmon's Extended stats. I've written about this in another thread here.

Actually no, Snakeblood does NOT work as stated. At lvl 3 it "should" remove 100% of negative effects.

Exact wording Reduces duration of negative effects in potions by 100%.

100% to me means even an immediate effect will be neutralized because NO negative effects should be working at this point (hence the 100%)

And to be SURE I just did an experiment where I created and drank a ravage potion that did 234 immediate damage and 200 DoT for 10 secs.......guess what, I took 234 damage and THEN took 200 DoT fo 10 secs. I watched for 10 secs as the inward or negative arrows displayed on my health bar and my health bar went down.

I have tried other negative potions with durations (like move speed, decreased damage, stunned. etc) and they ALL still function. Not a single tick is removed with snakeBS.

Even by your definition there should be no DoT component at lvl 3 but guess what....THERE IS. The damn ability is completely broken and always has been.

This ability not functioning really ruins the alchemists ability to make a wide variety of potions. We are reduced to looking for 5-7 plants only to make 3-4 potions. I feel slighted by Zenimax for gimping this craft and never fixing it (or even mentioning it!)

Yeah, apparently the wording needs to be clarified, as I don't think that your contention is supportable by the current wording. Whatever.

Yet I have made potions where the DoT actually is removed. So it may be that it works in some cases and is broken in others, particularly when the DoT is part of an immediate. Let's identify what those cases are so that ZOS can set about fixing the broken parts.

But I can't dismiss "duration" as limiting the mitigation to DoT, and not including immediates, I just don't read the description that way. If you want to maintain that is what it should mean, then by all means do that.

Srugzal

PlagueMonk wrote: »

This ability not functioning really ruins the alchemists ability to make a wide variety of potions. We are reduced to looking for 5-7 plants only to make 3-4 potions. I feel slighted by Zenimax for gimping this craft and never fixing it (or even mentioning it!)

I don't want to beat a dead horse here, but this is just wrong. These are the potions that I regularly make and use:

Corn Flower + Lady's Smock + Namira's Root (or Water Hyacinth)
Blessed Thistle + Dragonthorn + Wormwood (or Water Hyacinth)
Blue Entoloma + Columbine + Wormwood
Blue Entoloma + Columbine + Namira's Rot
Bugloss + Columbine + Mountain Flower
Columbine + Lady's Smock + Mountain Flower
Bugloss + Mountain Flower
Columbine + Luminous Russula
Luminous Russula + Water Hyacinth
Blessed Thistle + Columbine
Columbine + Dragonthorn
Dragonthorn + Mountain Flower
Bugloss + Corn Flower

That's 11 of the 18 ingredients, making 13 useful potions, many of which do the same or similar things (i.e., there are several different recipes for each).

But that's just a small sample.

There are 51 different 2 and 3 ingredient potions that include "Restore Health" (plus other things in many cases) that have no negative effects.

There may be, as you contend, things that need fixing, and I'm all in favor of finding out what they are, and fixing them.

But let's stop making negative claims that are not factually supportable.

Srugzal

PlagueMonk wrote: »

And to be SURE I just did an experiment where I created and drank a ravage potion that did 234 immediate damage and 200 DoT for 10 secs.......guess what, I took 234 damage and THEN took 200 DoT fo 10 secs. I watched for 10 secs as the inward or negative arrows displayed on my health bar and my health bar went down.

@PlagueMonk‌, what potion was that exactly? I'm running some tests, and I'd like to test with your potion.

My test, as I mentioned in the other thread (which you might not have seen) was with the armor buff potion (Imp Stool + Mountain Flower), in which the DoT is entirely removed for me.

Enough people are claiming that it doesn't work, contrary to my experience, that it seems worth it to me to try to chase this down as much as possible and present proof to ZOS to force them to do something about it if, indeed, there is an unacknowledged problem. I've invested a lot of time and effort into understanding and using Alchemy effectively, and would very much like to get all this in front of the developers in the clearest way possible.

Thanks!

EDIT

Okay, now I'm getting angry. After running a series of tests using 4 different potions, it appears that the potion that I initially tested... appears to be THE ONLY ONE in which Snakeblood works as advertised. (%$&**!!@!!) It doesn't seem to work even in the limited sense that I've been arguing for. So ZOS, you've made a fool out of me, and I don't much like that.

I'm working on a video with proof of the problems, as well as the one that works (which might just be an accident, come to think about it...) which I'm going to put on YouTube and send to ZOS as well as post in this forum.

I'll save further recriminations for my followup post.

EDIT 2

I made the video, but I've decided not to post it publicly since it reveals things like my account name, character names, etc. Not that anyone might want to troll my characters, noooo, of course not... You're all far too nice for that.

But I did submit a /bug with a link for the ZOS devs. I've made videos like this before, and they've always responded positively.

In the video I demonstrate testing 4 different potions, and show that for all but one of them, the Snakeblood passive doesn't do anything. I also took the one that worked and applied it to a character who doesn't have the passive at all, and it did what you'd expect it to. Just in case it was something about that potion that was behaving differently, and not the passive.

So sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, which is something that we didn't know before this.

And finally, for all of you who have enjoyed my discomfiture at this discovery, thank you for making it possible for me to get the 100 LOLs badge. I'm so proud.

Finally, @ZOS_AjanJ‌, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌, and others.... please take note.

dilla65ub17_ESO

Thanks one and all for taking part in this discussion. Now as Srugzal pointed out that yes some of these things have been posted or pointed out in other posts, but I really think the more they see stuff like this and yes new posts on which some goes over the same stuff already discussed will help bring as much to the attention of the devs as possible and we can get a real and tangible fix for alchemy. Now as for trying to make some things that are just not allowed if you really want I can take a few screens and post them to show. What I really was shooting for in my post was first to bring up a few things to the devs were I thought things were wrong with alchemy and what a few of my ideas were to make changes to give them some idea of what we expect out of it and last but and surely not least was to get other talking about it and getting ideas that maybe weren't mine but still good and valid. When I get in game later I will take a few screens of what I was talking about.

dilla65ub17_ESO

OK here are a few screens of what I am talking about when you get some herbs combined together that just won't produce anything even though it shows it should buy the areas lighting up



And this one shows that 3 areas are lit up yet will only produce 2 affect instead of the 3 it show lit up

Just to show you yes I do have the proper skills chosen to do these things it is no t letting me do


Now as for my Ideas I will do that latter. I just wanted to give you a few examples of what I see when I try to really play with the Alchemy profession.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

I don't think my Alchemist has ever taken a potion. A level 14 Wood Elf with Alchemy at 30 and Enchanting at 17.

He is part of my army. He only fights when he has to, usually when boosting a sky shard from some "twice his level" place. My running away skills are good.

Sasky

I would expect to see poisons introduced with the Dark Brotherhood. Also, I'd expect them to be very limited in time and/or number of hits. Short-term effects is alchemy - long term buffs is from provisioning.

Snake blood really should just remove the negative effect from the potion altogether. On some potion combinations (Columbine + Mountain Flower + Imp Stool) the presence of the negative effect bumps one of the positive effects from appearing. Even if it doesn't manifest on use, you're still missing out on a positive bonus that should appear.

As well, some of the progressions should be looked at for the potion effects. Some do very well in that they increase properly with level but others get their full effect on level 1 potions.

Overall, however, I do feel alchemy is pretty well off in terms of utility. You create potions you simple cannot get from pickup or NPC shop, as well as creating superior magnitude for health, stamina, magicka. And then you get multiple traits on top of that. Compare with clothing/woodworking/blacksmithing where a lot of times you are (at best) even with dropped items.

Srugzal

@dilla65ub17_ESO, thank you for your post, it got me digging. I like digging ;-)

I think that there's an explanation for what you're seeing.

Look at the difference between the result using the first two ingredients, and then when you add the third ingredient. In every case--every case--the third ingredient has something that cancels one or all of the effects.

The problem, if there is one here, is that the display doesn't dim the canceled effects.

dilla65ub17_ESO wrote: »

OK here are a few screens of what I am talking about when you get some herbs combined together that just won't produce anything even though it shows it should buy the areas lighting up

Here's the 2 ingredient version of this potion, with the Ravage Magicka



...which is canceled, along with the Ravage health, in the three ingredient version:



The next one is more interesting.

It's an armor buff and a weapon damage debuff, and the icons are lit up accordingly, in the 2 ingredient version.



But in the 3 ingredient version:



You'd expect three effects (Armor buff, Weapon damage and Stamina debuffs), because there's three pairs of effects, but for every possible effect, there's an offsetting contrary effect. That cancels ALL of the effects, whatever they might have been.

And this one shows that 3 areas are lit up yet will only produce 2 affect instead of the 3 it show lit up

This one is the most interesting of all. The two ingredient version is a good double potion, with pairs of Magicka and Health lighting up:



But when you add the Blessed Thistle:



It adds a Stamina pair, which is great, but it cancels the Health pair, resulting in a Magicka/Stamina potion, and not the 3-stat super potion you expected.

I agree that the negative should make the icon dim. Whether one negative should cancel two positives, that's another question, but clearly it does, at least in this case.

I hope this helps.

Sasky

Srugzal wrote: »

I agree that the negative should make the icon dim. Whether one negative should cancel two positives, that's another question, but clearly it does, at least in this case.

I hope this helps.

Probably the rationale is it's canceling only one of the two. However, it's applied before the potion effects are calculated, so you don't have the 2 required traits to make the potion.

Regardless, this is somewhere you'd expect snake blood to be able to work out the negative effects (like Purity in Skyrim)

Srugzal

Sasky wrote: »

Srugzal wrote: »

I agree that the negative should make the icon dim. Whether one negative should cancel two positives, that's another question, but clearly it does, at least in this case.

I hope this helps.

Probably the rationale is it's canceling only one of the two. However, it's applied before the potion effects are calculated, so you don't have the 2 required traits to make the potion.

Regardless, this is somewhere you'd expect snake blood to be able to work out the negative effects (like Purity in Skyrim)

Your analysis makes perfect sense to me.

As a side note, the 2 ingredient version of Imp Stool + Mountain Flower (above) is the one potion I've found where Snakeblood appears to work...

Fshober28b14_ESO

We keep SEEING THIS TOPIC RE-THREADED so much because it is in direct correlation to how long ZoS has let SnakeBlood linger unfixed since launch. People are extremely frustrated and fed up, and I am sure ready to walk away.

I am stunned at some of the off the wall fixes that made it into the game along the way first since launch before this was fixed. Even more troubling, looking at the next big update notes 1.3.0 and even the following 1.3.1 on PTS, they took time to fix fishing achieves and still no fix for SnakeBlood...really???

This is a hard, crude, rude, flaming, insulting, slap in the face of the player base with prioritization!

dilla65ub17_ESO

Ok first off snakeblood as I read only works after the potion is ingested. Bummer I know and it still doesn't seem to work.

Now as Srugzal posts as per your digging you I think you fail to take one thing into account for a cancellation effect. Remember that to make anything in Alchemy you need to have 2 icons lit up to make an effect. So in keeping with this principle that they (Zenimax) have stated that that is the way to have an effect the only way to cancel out an effect ( if that is possible) is to have 8 icons lit up on the Bugloss, Columbine, and Blessed Thistle potion at the end. Also if it was a cancellation effect why did the health part lite up 2 times as if too make a health part too the potion. Ok going to stop ranting now.

Ok one last thing Fshober28b14 I understand that these broken and weird quirks are very frustrating and this is why we make posts like this so the devs hear and see these problems. But we need to try and keep this as civil and constructive as possible so the devs understand exactly what is going on and maybe how to fix it or properly explain it better to use so we understand.

Srugzal

dilla65ub17_ESO wrote: »

Ok first off snakeblood as I read only works after the potion is ingested. Bummer I know and it still doesn't seem to work.

Now as Srugzal posts as per your digging you I think you fail to take one thing into account for a cancellation effect. Remember that to make anything in Alchemy you need to have 2 icons lit up to make an effect. So in keeping with this principle that they (Zenimax) have stated that that is the way to have an effect the only way to cancel out an effect ( if that is possible) is to have 8 icons lit up on the Bugloss, Columbine, and Blessed Thistle potion at the end. Also if it was a cancellation effect why did the health part lite up 2 times as if too make a health part too the potion. Ok going to stop ranting now.

Okay. Here's the calculation. Figure a positive effect = 1, a negative effect = -1. In order for a potion result, there must be a total effect for a given attribute >= 2 (for a positive), or <= -2 (for a negative). Effects of -1, 0, and 1 don't produce results.

So here's the potion:

Bugloss: Spell Resistance +1, Spell Power +1, Health +1, Magicka +1
Columbine: Health +1, Stamina +1, Magicka +1, Armor +1
Blessed Thistle: Stamina +1, Health -1, Weapon Power +1, Speed + 1

Add together the attributes (in italics above):

Health + 1. (1 + 1 - 1) No effect
Stamina +2. Boost Stamina.
Magicka +2. Boost Magicka
(all the others present are just +1 and so don't produce results)

...giving you the potion you see. The Health -1 in the Blessed Thistle erases the health effect of the first two.

I think you'll find that these rules hold for every possible potion.

Apparently the lit up icon means "a common attribute exists" and not "a result exists"

dilla65ub17_ESO

Ok so after playing around it does seem that that is what is going on and here is why I believe that now. When I make the first potion all is fine you can see here that you get a speed boost[img][/img]



But buy changing one herb like this [img][/img]


The speed boost is now gone even though it show the 2 icons lit up for speed boost.

Or we could be horribly wrong and it is broken but we won't know this unless a dev says something.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

The entire snakeblood and medicinal use lines are useless to anyone who is not doing Alchemy on their main char. I have no points in either them or the 'make em' glow' line as I can see the mats easily and I make my potions for my fighters.

Srugzal

dilla65ub17_ESO wrote: »

Or we could be horribly wrong and it is broken but we won't know this unless a dev says something.

@dilla65ub17_ESO, that's it. It's all there in the numbers:

Speed 1 + 1 - 1
Unstoppable 1 + 1

That's a good example, too, because the substitution preserves the Unstoppable and cancels the Speed.

Srugzal

poodlemasterb16_ESO wrote: »

The entire snakeblood and medicinal use lines are useless to anyone who is not doing Alchemy on their main char. I have no points in either them or the 'make em' glow' line as I can see the mats easily and I make my potions for my fighters.

I've taken the opposite tack, in that I've taken the passive for every character, so they're all looking for mats for each other.

However, I certainly don't need them any more, since I can recognise them all now (and not just the Alchemy mats, all the others too). So when the cheap/free respec comes along, I'm going to put those skill points elsewhere.

It was good training for the eye, however.

poodlemasterb16_ESO

I run at 2560x1600 so the glow deal is pretty well useless. I can see mats across valleys from my horse. Finding Alchemy mats is child's play, I leave a lot of the useless ones. I have 4 fighter and 3 crafters, and a mule. The fighters gather stuff from all over the map.

I put one in the clothing line because flax in Ghratwood is just another blue flower in a mass of other blue flowers. I don't need that anymore.

dilla65ub17_ESO

Now I was asked to make a list of a few ideas I had for Alchemy fixes.

Now the first thing I can think of would be to make poisons usable on all weapons as a temp buff lasting say 5-10 min and maybe have a passive that can increase it's time as well as maybe it's potency.

Also I have heard that the Dark Brotherhood is getting put into the game ( if this is true) and this would be the perfect way to introduce poisons into the game along with the passive and maybe have them depended upon one being an alchemist first ( just to have the understanding of proper alchemy use) and the passives I was talking about being a part of the DB passive line as poison and murder seem to go hand in hand.

Now as for any other passives I was thinking about the passive that increases the duration of potions up too 100% and that maybe have it be a permanent boost for a resalable product that increasing the viability of having an alchemist and have that same passive but for poisons as well.

dilla65ub17_ESO

dilla65ub17_ESO wrote: »

Now the first thing I can think of would be to make poisons usable on all weapons as a temp buff lasting say 5-10 min and maybe have a passive that can increase it's time as well as maybe it's potency.

Or even an icrease of a chance of poison be applied as a passive idea.

TinyMHG

Alchemy in ESO sucks big time. ZOS has nerfed it so bad, out of fear of unbalancing the game, as to make it just about as worthless as *** on a boar hog. Invisibility lasts only 3 or 4 seconds no matter what level the potion happens to be, the same with spell and weapon critical potions 300 for 10 seconds, totally illogical and counter intuitive to boot. The passives are odd and underpowered. The component list, and the effects list are both woefully short and uninspired. I did a re-specification and didn't put a single skill point into Alchemy. Improve it, which wouldn't be hard to do because the solutions are both simple and obvious, or get rid of it entirely.

Srugzal

TinyMHG wrote: »

Alchemy in ESO sucks big time. ZOS has nerfed it so bad, out of fear of unbalancing the game, as to make it just about as worthless as *** on a boar hog. Invisibility lasts only 3 or 4 seconds no matter what level the potion happens to be, the same with spell and weapon critical potions 300 for 10 seconds, totally illogical and counter intuitive to boot. The passives are odd and underpowered. The component list, and the effects list are both woefully short and uninspired. I did a re-specification and didn't put a single skill point into Alchemy. Improve it, which wouldn't be hard to do because the solutions are both simple and obvious, or get rid of it entirely.

Sorry, but there just isn't much worthy of comment in this rant, though I do agree that the invisibility potion has very limited utility. I've used it to provide extra safety when sneaking past mobs, but it's not terribly useful for anything else.

As for it being worthless... well, have you noticed that the potency of purchased and dropped potions is significantly less than for crafted ones of equal or even lower levels? Have you ever picked up a 3-effect potion from a mob? No?

And I wouldn't turn up my nose at 10 seconds of spell/weapon power or crit, especially not when combined with the corresponding restoration (magicka/stamina). A burst of damage and crits can end a fight in your favor pretty quickly. Combine that with unstoppable, and, well, sometimes you need to get your tank on... Ever found one of those potions? No, I didn't think so.

So though there are issues (and we've talked about them at length), let's not throw the baby out with the bath, shall we?

Srugzal

Srugzal wrote: »

But I did submit a /bug with a link for the ZOS devs. I've made videos like this before, and they've always responded positively.

In the video I demonstrate testing 4 different potions, and show that for all but one of them, the Snakeblood passive doesn't do anything. I also took the one that worked and applied it to a character who doesn't have the passive at all, and it did what you'd expect it to. Just in case it was something about that potion that was behaving differently, and not the passive.

So sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, which is something that we didn't know before this.

And finally, for all of you who have enjoyed my discomfiture at this discovery, thank you for making it possible for me to get the 100 LOLs badge. I'm so proud.

Finally, @ZOS_AjanJ‌, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌, and others.... please take note.

UPDATE

My initial report has been ignored (i.e., no views on the video... Oops). ZOS, I'm disappointed. I've submitted another ticket today, 140730-002617. We'll see.

Srugzal

Srugzal wrote: »

Srugzal wrote: »

But I did submit a /bug with a link for the ZOS devs. I've made videos like this before, and they've always responded positively.

In the video I demonstrate testing 4 different potions, and show that for all but one of them, the Snakeblood passive doesn't do anything. I also took the one that worked and applied it to a character who doesn't have the passive at all, and it did what you'd expect it to. Just in case it was something about that potion that was behaving differently, and not the passive.

So sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, which is something that we didn't know before this.

And finally, for all of you who have enjoyed my discomfiture at this discovery, thank you for making it possible for me to get the 100 LOLs badge. I'm so proud.

Finally, @ZOS_AjanJ‌, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌, and others.... please take note.

UPDATE

My initial report has been ignored (i.e., no views on the video... Oops). ZOS, I'm disappointed. I've submitted another ticket today, 140730-002617. We'll see.

UPDATE 2

The problem has been escalated, and I've heard from 2nd level support that it's been escalated further. They were able to reproduce my results, and have agreed that the Snakeblood passive gives inconsistent results and is not working as expected. The problem has been further escalated to the 3rd level. I will pass on whatever I hear next.

Srugzal

Srugzal wrote: »

Srugzal wrote: »

Srugzal wrote: »

But I did submit a /bug with a link for the ZOS devs. I've made videos like this before, and they've always responded positively.

In the video I demonstrate testing 4 different potions, and show that for all but one of them, the Snakeblood passive doesn't do anything. I also took the one that worked and applied it to a character who doesn't have the passive at all, and it did what you'd expect it to. Just in case it was something about that potion that was behaving differently, and not the passive.

So sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't, which is something that we didn't know before this.

And finally, for all of you who have enjoyed my discomfiture at this discovery, thank you for making it possible for me to get the 100 LOLs badge. I'm so proud.

Finally, @ZOS_AjanJ‌, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom‌, and others.... please take note.

UPDATE

My initial report has been ignored (i.e., no views on the video... Oops). ZOS, I'm disappointed. I've submitted another ticket today, 140730-002617. We'll see.

UPDATE 2

The problem has been escalated, and I've heard from 2nd level support that it's been escalated further. They were able to reproduce my results, and have agreed that the Snakeblood passive gives inconsistent results and is not working as expected. The problem has been further escalated to the 3rd level. I will pass on whatever I hear next.

FINAL UPDATE

SNAKEBLOOD IS SET TO BE FIXED IN AN UPCOMING PATCH

I received this from support today:

I've got some good news for you, this has been identified as a bug and a fix should be rolled out in an upcoming patch. I'd like to thank you for your due diligence in taking the time to report this to us in such depth.

If there is anything else you require, please feel free to reply directly to this email and I'll be more than happy to assist.

We'll all be interested in verifying the fix when it comes out, of course.