Please increase the yields of alchemical nodes and/or crafting

idk

BenevolentBowd wrote: »

Good points overall, OP.

Reason 1: Alchemy is currently the most inaccessible of all of the crafts.

A clothier plant yields 3-4 items per node, with a 10% chance to yield 6-8 with the PH perk. A flower yields just 1 mat per node, with a 10% chance to yield 2 with the PH perk. This makes no sense, esp. since potions are consumables that last around 45 seconds while a piece of gear can last you indefinitely.

I have a few comments on this point.

1. I wouldn't say alchemy is the most inaccessible of all crafts because with enough mats you can level to level 50 in less than 1 hour.
2. In the context of usable mats per node, alchemy nodes result in higher yields. e.g. you need 10 raw mats to obtain 1 refined unit usable for crafting. Alchemy passives allow you to make multiple potions without requiring additional reagents. However, comparing the two are similar to apples and oranges (potions need solvents and at least 2 reagents, equipment needs style item, trait item, upgrade item, require a lot more materials, and wear over time).

@Benevictus yiur information in your second point is incorrect. Refining 10 raw matts for armor/weapon crafting yeilds 6 to 10 matts usable for crafting in addition to a chance for additional matts including and up to gold upgrade matts.

From there anything crafted with it is usable long term.

Might as well address the first point as well. Leveling up a craft is not very relevant to the discussion. OP's point that the pots crafted from 3 flowers lasts 3 minutes in raiding. Extrapolate that out to an hour plus per raid. It really adds up. That is what is relevant.

code65536

Autolycus wrote: »

I support this suggestion in the OP. Also:

STEVIL wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

STEVIL wrote: »

Ok so what about something more focused.
I am generally against making world wide changes to deal with a narrow content problem.

Add "resource packs" to rewards (inc drops but rarely) in end-game high end content at say vet mode or hard mode.which contain a better than average assortment of alchemical goods?

That way those engaging in the high consumption content get "a lot more" supplies to help replenish their stuff.

reduce demand not by giving everyone who doesn't do trials more stuff but by giving those who do that high end content more stuff to replace their losses.

I am generally against making world wide changes to deal with a narrow content problem.

It's not just PvE. I speak about PvE because that's what I mostly do. But the most expensive mats in the game (at least on PC/NA) aren't Corn Flower or Lady's Smock or Dragonthorn--those are primarily the PvE mats. No, the most expensive ones are actually Columbine (some use in PvE tanking, but mostly in PvP) and Namira's Rot (used mostly in PvP).

While I do like the idea of this sort of compensation, I'm not sure it'll be robust enough to cover all the kinds of content that people like to do. And, regardless of what content you do, getting 3 minutes of usage out of a single set of mats when the mats are available in singletons just doesn't seem very reasonable.

Actuslly, in most content you wont burn potions much at all.

I get the appeal of lots more mats for everyone or hey even potions for free but imx outside of the higher end combat potions are once in a while use at most.

What if in content designated as potion hostile you multiply the duration by 4x.

I'm inclined to agree with you for most content, but from experience I'd say that this is not true for competitive pve content and in many pvp circumstances (particularly those of smaller group, duo or solo experiences). I think a duration buff is a decent suggestion as well.

It can be pretty rough for inexperienced players and/or players without CP.

I've spent a little bit of time in recent weeks leveling up a character on my bank mule account. So, no CP. I was running a magblade (so better sustain than most builds), with Atronach, one or two pieces of cost reduction jewelry, and I was struggling with resources at various points when I did Group Finder pledges and random dungeons using trash pots (which I actually ran out of at one point). I wasn't going to use my precious mats on this character, but if they were cheaper and easier to get, I definitely would've like to use them for the larger resource return and longer regeneration bonus.

Take away the CP, take away coordinated groups that can help with sustain, add in the PUG factor, and a lot of content that we faceroll can be tough for other players--more easily accessible crafted potions could help people in these situations. They don't need such potions, just as I didn't need them. But they sure would've helped, if the opportunity cost of their use wasn't so high. This is why I really don't think that this is an issue that's limited to just the endgame content, and why I listed the accessibility of the craft first in my list of reasons.

BenevolentBowd wrote: »

1. I wouldn't say alchemy is the most inaccessible of all crafts because with enough mats you can level to level 50 in less than 1 hour.
2. In the context of usable mats per node, alchemy nodes result in higher yields. e.g. you need 10 raw mats to obtain 1 refined unit usable for crafting. Alchemy passives allow you to make multiple potions without requiring additional reagents. However, comparing the two are similar to apples and oranges (potions need solvents and at least 2 reagents, equipment needs style item, trait item, upgrade item, require a lot more materials, and wear over time).

1. Leveling of the craft is very different from actual usage of the craft. As far as leveling goes, enchanting is the most difficult. But it is also by far the easiest to use. You need to learn traits for set crafting. You need to collect recipes for provisioning. The ratio of material acquisition to usage time is exceptionally high for alchemy. Whereas with enchanting, you can make any glyph of any color as long as you have the 3 runes for that glyph and have the passives, and that glyph will be useful for the entire life of that piece of equipment.
2. Every 10 raw mats refine into an average of 8.5 refined mats (7-10), not 1 (unless you're talking about style stone scraps).

Armitas

I have seen columbine for 500g a flower.

MasterSpatula

Some really good ideas here.

STEVIL

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

BenevolentBowd wrote: »

Good points overall, OP.

Reason 1: Alchemy is currently the most inaccessible of all of the crafts.

A clothier plant yields 3-4 items per node, with a 10% chance to yield 6-8 with the PH perk. A flower yields just 1 mat per node, with a 10% chance to yield 2 with the PH perk. This makes no sense, esp. since potions are consumables that last around 45 seconds while a piece of gear can last you indefinitely.

I have a few comments on this point.

1. I wouldn't say alchemy is the most inaccessible of all crafts because with enough mats you can level to level 50 in less than 1 hour.
2. In the context of usable mats per node, alchemy nodes result in higher yields. e.g. you need 10 raw mats to obtain 1 refined unit usable for crafting. Alchemy passives allow you to make multiple potions without requiring additional reagents. However, comparing the two are similar to apples and oranges (potions need solvents and at least 2 reagents, equipment needs style item, trait item, upgrade item, require a lot more materials, and wear over time).

@Benevictus yiur information in your second point is incorrect. Refining 10 raw matts for armor/weapon crafting yeilds 6 to 10 matts usable for crafting in addition to a chance for additional matts including and up to gold upgrade matts.

From there anything crafted with it is usable long term.

Might as well address the first point as well. Leveling up a craft is not very relevant to the discussion. OP's point that the pots crafted from 3 flowers lasts 3 minutes in raiding. Extrapolate that out to an hour plus per raid. It really adds up. That is what is relevant.

just a point of fact - anecdotal but basically fact.

i got two master clothiers.
i got one master blacksmith
i got one master woodsman.
i got one master alchemist.

i have never run short of mats for potions - at LEVEL - ie the waters part. the levelling agent for potions is ubiquitous and generate four products per item.

As the poster said - the levelling agent for armor/weapon mats is the material itself but you also have the quality item which is 8 yellow at the gold level.

i have often run short of having enough yellow material to make the gold armor or weapons. mostly i run purple.

So just counting the mat vs reagent and discounting the quality agents for a comparison of how much you get for crafting between alchemy and smithing is a flawed comparison.

That said, i still could get behind a duration boost for potions keyed to specific "potion hostile" basically end game content IF indeed the norm there is to burn potions.

But ramping up all mats for alchemy everywhere... not in scope of the problem. its throwing the baby into the ocean for a bath.

Joysheeped

@code65536 I agree with you wholeheartedly. Great post with detail. But I also want to point out that potions are not just a PVE problem because of the set Clever Alchemist and PVPers use potions (tripots, detection, spell power, etc) a lot too.

Please hear us out and don't make the potions such a heavy burden that makes having fun such a hard thing in this game.

EnOeZ

/agree

+ all nodes
+ legendary incumbents

Don't make money rule the world everywhere, including games for god's sake !

Circuitous

Even just two per node would be a huge improvement.

Jar_Ek

As an Argonian I would like to point to a racial reliance on pots is not helped by mat costs.

However I have another solution... deconstruction of potions. We get oodles (ie lots) of trash pot drops that if they could be deconstructed could provide ingredient substitutes. These could be different ingredients to the current ones as long as they had the necessary traits to enable substitution of some of the expensive ingredients like columbine.

In theory snakeblood which (unless something changed and I missed it) is still basically garbage could be reappropriated to improve or allow such deconstruction.

hrothbern

Jar_Ek wrote: »

As an Argonian I would like to point to a racial reliance on pots is not helped by mat costs.

However I have another solution... deconstruction of potions. We get oodles (ie lots) of trash pot drops that if they could be deconstructed could provide ingredient substitutes. These could be different ingredients to the current ones as long as they had the necessary traits to enable substitution of some of the expensive ingredients like columbine.

In theory snakeblood which (unless something changed and I missed it) is still basically garbage could be reappropriated to improve or allow such deconstruction.

nice suggestion

idk

STEVIL wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

BenevolentBowd wrote: »

Good points overall, OP.

Reason 1: Alchemy is currently the most inaccessible of all of the crafts.

A clothier plant yields 3-4 items per node, with a 10% chance to yield 6-8 with the PH perk. A flower yields just 1 mat per node, with a 10% chance to yield 2 with the PH perk. This makes no sense, esp. since potions are consumables that last around 45 seconds while a piece of gear can last you indefinitely.

I have a few comments on this point.

1. I wouldn't say alchemy is the most inaccessible of all crafts because with enough mats you can level to level 50 in less than 1 hour.
2. In the context of usable mats per node, alchemy nodes result in higher yields. e.g. you need 10 raw mats to obtain 1 refined unit usable for crafting. Alchemy passives allow you to make multiple potions without requiring additional reagents. However, comparing the two are similar to apples and oranges (potions need solvents and at least 2 reagents, equipment needs style item, trait item, upgrade item, require a lot more materials, and wear over time).

@Benevictus yiur information in your second point is incorrect. Refining 10 raw matts for armor/weapon crafting yeilds 6 to 10 matts usable for crafting in addition to a chance for additional matts including and up to gold upgrade matts.

From there anything crafted with it is usable long term.

Might as well address the first point as well. Leveling up a craft is not very relevant to the discussion. OP's point that the pots crafted from 3 flowers lasts 3 minutes in raiding. Extrapolate that out to an hour plus per raid. It really adds up. That is what is relevant.

just a point of fact - anecdotal but basically fact.

i got two master clothiers.
i got one master blacksmith
i got one master woodsman.
i got one master alchemist.

i have never run short of mats for potions - at LEVEL - ie the waters part. the levelling agent for potions is ubiquitous and generate four products per item.

As the poster said - the levelling agent for armor/weapon mats is the material itself but you also have the quality item which is 8 yellow at the gold level.

i have often run short of having enough yellow material to make the gold armor or weapons. mostly i run purple.

So just counting the mat vs reagent and discounting the quality agents for a comparison of how much you get for crafting between alchemy and smithing is a flawed comparison.

That said, i still could get behind a duration boost for potions keyed to specific "potion hostile" basically end game content IF indeed the norm there is to burn potions.

But ramping up all mats for alchemy everywhere... not in scope of the problem. its throwing the baby into the ocean for a bath.

I didn't start the comparisons of smithing and alchemy. I was merely pointing out someone's info was incorrect.

The OP has commented on the same post on further detail to a similar conclusion, but much better information.

When one goes through 400 pots on a slow week, really don't want to count how many I go through on a normal week. The upcoming changes are big. Add in the upcoming changes will make alchemy matts more rare and that raiding trials will become a pure cash sink it's a really big issue.

Draxys

Jar_Ek wrote: »

As an Argonian I would like to point to a racial reliance on pots is not helped by mat costs.

However I have another solution... deconstruction of potions. We get oodles (ie lots) of trash pot drops that if they could be deconstructed could provide ingredient substitutes. These could be different ingredients to the current ones as long as they had the necessary traits to enable substitution of some of the expensive ingredients like columbine.

In theory snakeblood which (unless something changed and I missed it) is still basically garbage could be reappropriated to improve or allow such deconstruction.

This doesn't really make sense, not in a realism type way, just in general. I'd rather see that passive increase the amount of gathering we can do.

silvereyes

I fully support scrapping Snakeblood in favor of a new Alchemy Hireling passive.

Wrecking_Blow_Spam

Have a flower merchant: sell each ingredient for 50g each.

They would become a billionaire overnight. And crafting bags would explode I think, biggest gold sink ever

Jar_Ek

@Draxys Well deconning a potion wouldn't give columbine, but it could give an essence or unguent. In my mind you would be distilling the potion down to its primary active component. A bit like making spirits from beer. Then you would reuse the active ingredient in a new and better potion (a cocktail in my analogy).

code65536

Jar_Ek wrote: »

Well deconning a potion wouldn't give columbine, but it could give an essence or unguent. In my mind you would be distilling the potion down to its primary active component. A bit like making spirits from beer. Then you would reuse the active ingredient in a new and better potion (a cocktail in my analogy).

But let's be realistic. That's complicated, and would require a lot of changes to how the system works. It's not something that they can do before Update 12 goes live. Most likely something that won't even make it into 13 or 14 even if they wanted to. Update 12 and the loss of multiple harvest instances is coming in a matter of weeks, and a simple practical solution is what we need. Which is why I said earlier in the thread that, while hirelings are nice, they can't be realistically implemented in this short time window. Whereas tweaks to the node yields or crafting yields would be simple changes that can be easily done in what little time that we have.

Jar_Ek

@code65536 True, but then my starting position was use snakeblood to get extra components from harvesting. The deconning was more of a following the chain of other crafts, but as you can't really get your columbine back out of a potion, deconning would indeed mean more work. It need not be alot of work though if they replicated existing ingredients wrt traits.

Haxnschwammer

I hear people all the time complaining about how rare potions and flowers are. But I'm wondering if demand is that high, why does nobody buy my potions? Yesterday my potions expired from trader and I got 10 stacks spell power, 5 stacks weapon power and 10 stacks tri pots back. Listed for 15k per 200 potion stack. Nothing sold. Advertising in zone chat: Nothing sold.

Do you buy only flowers and water but no potions at all?

clv

100% agree tbh

STEVIL

Haxnschwammer wrote: »

I hear people all the time complaining about how rare potions and flowers are. But I'm wondering if demand is that high, why does nobody buy my potions? Yesterday my potions expired from trader and I got 10 stacks spell power, 5 stacks weapon power and 10 stacks tri pots back. Listed for 15k per 200 potion stack. Nothing sold. Advertising in zone chat: Nothing sold.

Do you buy only flowers and water but no potions at all?

I tend to agree with this. have made a fortune off selling glyphs in the last few weeks while spell power, tri-pot and even immovability potions have sat waiting.

This fever is so off kilter - i can sell columbine (and have repeatedly) per ingredient for more than i can sell four tri-pot potions or immovability potions and the columbine will move in 24 hours while the potions might sit for weeks or not move at all.

code65536

That may be because most people craft their own potions. I never buy crafted potions--only the ingredients to make them. This is in large part because all serious users of potions will have maxed out alchemy on every character in order to get Medicinal Use.

Evil_Rurouni

Haxnschwammer wrote: »

I hear people all the time complaining about how rare potions and flowers are. But I'm wondering if demand is that high, why does nobody buy my potions? Yesterday my potions expired from trader and I got 10 stacks spell power, 5 stacks weapon power and 10 stacks tri pots back. Listed for 15k per 200 potion stack. Nothing sold. Advertising in zone chat: Nothing sold.

Do you buy only flowers and water but no potions at all?

Potions are a PITA to identify in guild stores or banks.
A tripot will have a generic description that's no different to that of a junk health potion or a bunch of other crafted potions.
Same goes for various other crafted potions.

Also, some character prefer very specialised potions outside of the typical tristat or damage+crit+DPS resource potions.

These things together make potion selling not really worth the effort.
Just sell the raw mats and let the customer handle the rest.

runagate

@code65536 I, of course, completely agree. You also inspired me to check out the DB passive Shadowy Supplier, which turned out to be better than nothing and worth 1 skill point per character, as I log toons on twice a day to collect my 25ish Hireling mails every day despite the paucity of useful mats awarded. At least all the garbage like trait stones goes into my crafter bag now. It used to take way, way longer to sort through all the trash. I haven't checked but I imagine I have a billion bone and diamonds and such now.

Jar_Ek

@Haxnschwammer The reason is the sales interface as mentioned by @Evil-Rurouni. It is basically not possible to be sure you've found tri pots without seeing the details rather than titles. Making potion purchasing an incredibly frustrating task compared to making your own. Most therefore buy ingredients which are far easier to find.

Circuitous

In my experience with selling my alchemical expertise, putting potions up for sale in Guild Stores don't work for reasons that have already been explained: they're all but impossible to sort through. There's a bit more to it than that, though.

Generally speaking, the people who need potions the most and can't or won't craft them themselves will have "a guy" - someone they can reliably go to for materials or ready-made potions at a consistent price. Usually guildmates. You could compare it to how drug dealing is perceived: buyer wants a product, asks where to get it; they receive the product and like it; they go back to that same seller for more. Few people just go out shopping for potions because they don't have to.

This all actually ends up raising another point: there's actually a really huge supply of potions out there. Plenty of people who stockpile ingredients and can make potions, but that simply don't have buyers. Those who consistently sell have something of a monopoly at the top-end. What we could end up seeing is an expansion of the market as people who need potions start shopping around for people willing to let them go cheaper. Up-and-comers who previously had no customers can undercut the established sellers and start making gold, at least for a while. I have no idea how long it can go on before the prices people can reasonably buy potions at is no longer worthwhile for your average alchemist, and one side of the equation fizzles out.

BrianDavion

so I ahd an idea while chatting with a friend, I was initally thinking of this for food items but it might be even more benifical for alchemists. giving us a garden with our player housing.. we go out, find a flower or vegetable etc we want, and we can plant it and have a small bed of it growing, a garenteed personal supply of said resource.

Kaendor

Agree 100% with the OP.

Artis

mmm, I think you make it seem to be worse than it is. People will still pick up flowers and they will still end up in guild stores or as pots of those people (so they won't buy those pots -> less demand from them).

It's clear how it's less convenient for you (or me) if you want to be self sufficient with pots. But look at it this way - if you can't farm flowers consistently, you can spend that time farming gold somewhere else and then buy those flowers from other players who messed up your farm (the flowers will still end up in stores). Farm sewers or farm all nodes you see, some will be flowers, some will be ore etc which you can sell .

That being said, sure, why not It will only make game better for everyone if we increase the yields.. except for those who farm flowers for gold since the overall supply of flowers in game will obviously increase if we increase the yield.

AlnilamE

Do you do alchemy writs on all your characters? Did you know you can stock up on appropriate potions and essentially autocomplete the writs? And that you will get mats from it even if you don't get a survey?

Did you know that there are many places other than the Hollow City where you can get alchemy mats? Like everywhere? And that you'll be able to stack survey maps and still go do them all in one batch, but instead of going to three different locations in Wrothgar, you just go to a couple of different zones instead?

If you want to be self-sufficient and gather your own mats, yes, you will have to put in some time. But as others have pointed out, the fact that the potions they make for sale don't sell even if they are priced below the cost of the mats means the problem is not the supply of materials.

code65536

AlnilamE wrote: »

Do you do alchemy writs on all your characters? Did you know you can stock up on appropriate potions and essentially autocomplete the writs? And that you will get mats from it even if you don't get a survey?

I do, and yes, I pre-craft my alchemy writs. I personally prefer to be self-sufficient. And despite doing that on multiple characters every day of the week, I still needed to do loops in the Hollow City to supply just two nights worth of vMoL progression each week, back when I was working on getting that first clear.

Even with precrafting, the writs take time. Loading screens, zoning into Wrothgar, riding around, collecting surveys, etc. It's fine on one character. But once you do it on several, it becomes a huge time sink. And it doesn't help people who don't have the time to do this kind of farming. I know people who get home from work right before raid time, and after that's done, it's time for them to go to bed. Yes, people can spend half their time workingfarming instead of actually playing the game, but is that really the kind of game we want ESO to be?

And the problem with selling potions has already been addressed: Most people buy reagents, not potions, since every serious potion user already has maxed alchemy for Medicinal Use.