Zenimax, we need an Alchemy overhaul (reference chart inside)

Srugzal

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Blkadr wrote: »

I think the hireling should bring you water. I can't find any damn water that's not level 5. If I can't make potions, I can't GET that far.

Water is zone-level specific, and overlaps somewhat from zone to zone. The only exception seems to be Filtered Water, Level 40, which appears to be vanishingly rare anywhere but Cyrodiil and Coldharbour.

So you need to get out of the beginning zones, unless you're willing to buy it from a guild store or get it from a guild bank.

Srugzal

Samadhi wrote: »

Thank you for the insight.
I wonder if this is because Invisibility is considered a special instance, or if Snake Blood passive simply hasn't been fixed since Beta. I remember seeing reports of it having no effect.

It works for some things but not for others. CS has told me that they have reproduced the problem and that a fix has been scheduled for an upcoming release.

Varicite

dharbert wrote: »

Out of a possible 306 two-reagent combinations, 162 don't do anything at all, 54 are harmful, and 16 have harmful side effects. Only 74 combination of out 306 are beneficial. Those numbers need to be adjusted. The number of harmful potions and invalid combinations far outnumber the useful combinations.

Alchemy is the only crafting skill line without a Hireling. Why is that? Get rid of the useless Snake Blood passive and replace it with Hireling.

Make ALL potion effects scale according to the level of solvent used. A VR5 potion shouldn't have the same potency as a level 3 potion.

Do you at least plan on letting us use the negative effect potions as poisons later? That's the only reason why I can see there are so many of them....

Let me start by saying that I am NOT against Alchemy changes.

But I do think it's a bit more realistic this way, as out of all of the possible reagents in the real world, there are relatively few that can be combined to make beneficial substances.

Anyway, the reason Alchemy doesn't have a Hireling is because Alchemy does not use any rare ingredients. ZOS has mentioned this a few times already, so this is their official stance on Alchemy hirelings currently.

Evandus

Samadhi wrote: »

Evandus wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

dharbert wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

My concern has always been that putting points in the Snake Blood passive would cause these potions to only give me the Move Speed increase; Speed is represented as a white/positive effect, while Invisibility is represented as a black/negative effect.
Alchemically Invisibility is represented as a negative effect that can be applied to beneficial potions.

I don't know about that. I've never invested points in Snake Blood as I don't see any point in crafting a potion that has negative side effects in the first place.

That is unfortunate, I was hoping someone had tested it.

I think it was designed with the idea that some beneficial effects are available only in a mix that contains negative effects, unless a third reagent is added. Kind of an alchemical cost-reduction passive that doesn't actually hold appeal.

The Increase Armour Potion is only available with a Reduce Weapon Damage effect attached to it. (Mountain Flower + Imp Stool)
Adding Blessed Thistle to the mix gets rid of the Weapon Damage reduction.

Similarily, Increase Spell Resistance is only available when combined with Reduce Spell Damage (Bugloss + White Cap)
Adding Corn Flower to the mix gets rid of the Spell Damage reduction.

Armour and Spell Resistance aren't really all that beneficial though; by contrast, the Invisibility mixture is. I wouldn't want to put points into a passive that cancels Invisibility just for these buffs when I can throw an extra reagent in the mix.

Not sure if this is helpful, but I have made many 100 stacks of invis pots (among others) with the snakeblood passive active. There were no issues past having difficulty selling them, lol.

Thank you for the insight.
I wonder if this is because Invisibility is considered a special instance, or if Snake Blood passive simply hasn't been fixed since Beta. I remember seeing reports of it having no effect.

I actually have a day off for once, so I'll take a little time this evening and play with potion making a bit. I've assumed that the passive simply doesn't work. Perhaps it can be confirmed one way or the other. I'll update with my results.

Araflin

As previously stated, I believe they were intending to implement poisons as well as potions. I think it got canned about the same time fishing for provisioning items went out the window too.

I hope it does get a look at - mostly as I want the potions labels to reflect what they actually do as opposed to the current system. Now an alchemist has a hard time selling in a store 'cos you don't see anything past the first effect made so any bonus is not obvious unless you click it. If there's even half a page of the things you are looking for - feh!
Some form of shorthand in potion labelling is probably in order for this, due to the long text it will produce probably not fitting in the store interface clearly.
(What is the MAX number of effects you can get from 1 potion?)

Samadhi

Araflin wrote: »

...
(What is the MAX number of effects you can get from 1 potion?)

I'm fairly certain 3 is max.
I can't recall ever managing to make a 4 effect mixture.

frwinters_ESO

someone needs to go outside.

Srugzal

frwinters_ESO wrote: »

someone needs to go outside.

When you come back, would you let the cat back in?

Araflin

I am sure there's alchemists out there that could make more than 3 effects. Not necessarily positive ones!

Tapio75

Sounds to me like TES alchemy. Naturally when you randomly combine reagents, not all or even half of them should work at all and harmful potions are always been part of TES as have been Side effects?

EDIT: Not sure about if Harmful ptions been in TES before Skyrim, memory falters.

UrQuan

Araflin wrote: »

I am sure there's alchemists out there that could make more than 3 effects. Not necessarily positive ones!

I'm not sure about that. I've played around with a lot of different combos trying to get 4 effects, and it seems like every time I manage to find 3 ingredients that combine to have doubles of 4 traits, one of them always has a negative version of one of those 4 traits, which seems to cancel it out and prevent the potion from having that effect.

Tarascon

All ingredients with "increase armor" also have "ravage weapon power"
It's not a super useful potion, but increase armor / ravage weapon power / restore health could be useful for turtling if you weren't already armor capped.

A fun revamp of snakeblood would be if level 3 read:
"increase the positive effects of potions by 25% if the potion contains at least one negative effect"