Alchemy Nodes need a buff as Potion crafting has become increasingly expensive

Twohothardware · July 2018

The cost of Alchemy Potions is something that doesn't seem to get brought up here but I think keeps a lot of ESO players from taking advantage of crafted potions more and contributes to them being put at further disadvantage in both PVE and PVP.

For those probably reading this like myself who have a lot of gold or are master crafters doing daily writs on multiple characters the cost isn't really a problem but for the average player on ESO when you have just one stack of Corn Flower on console costing as much as 80K, or these new Summerset ingredients like Clam Gall that go for 1K each, it makes it so that you're only able to use the better potions sparingly.

When you look at especially PVP and the advantages of being higher CP or having all Gold gear you have to then also consider the guy that can afford to use Potion cooldown glyphs and chug the best pots in the game every 20-30 seconds giving him multiple buffs and loads of increased resources.

I realize that Alchemy farming is part of the grind and one of the gold sinks in the game but the time investment for Alchemy farming is excessive for the average player, which is why Regent prices are high, and I think if Alchemy Nodes gave a guaranteed 2-3 flowers every time, instead of typically only 1, it would at least make farming a little less of a grind and bring down the price some on the most expensive Regents.

Additionally can we please get some quality of life improvements to the Alchemy Station? As much fun as it is to stand at it pressing Square repeatedly for 15-20 minutes crafting 4 potions at a time I'd much rather craft in bulk.

IZZEFlameLash · July 2018

Upgrade materials are also not cheap except for single resource nodes like Dreugh Wax and Rosin. Since blacksmithing materials now share same nodes with jewelry, it is a time/gold sink. And to make things worse, some nodes refuses to respawn because of what is presumed to be a glitch.

Twohothardware · July 2018

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Upgrade materials are also not cheap except for single resource nodes like Dreugh Wax and Rosin. Since blacksmithing materials now share same nodes with jewelry, it is a time/gold sink. And to make things worse, some nodes refuses to respawn because of what is presumed to be a glitch.

The difference though is that upgrading your gear from purple to gold gives only a very small increase in overall stats outside of your weapons whereas always having a potion active that gives you Major Expedition, Immovability, Healing over Time, etc makes a big difference in PvP. The upgrade to your gear is also permanent whereas a Potion only lasts 45 seconds or until you die.

IZZEFlameLash · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Upgrade materials are also not cheap except for single resource nodes like Dreugh Wax and Rosin. Since blacksmithing materials now share same nodes with jewelry, it is a time/gold sink. And to make things worse, some nodes refuses to respawn because of what is presumed to be a glitch.

The difference though is that upgrading your gear from purple to gold gives only a very small increase in overall stats outside of your weapons whereas always having a potion active that gives you Major Expedition, Immovability, Healing over Time, etc makes a big difference in PvP. The upgrade to your gear is also permanent whereas a Potion only lasts 45 seconds or until you die.

Difference though is that you technically can do every content without making potions that gives off these buffs as skills are there to give these buffs. While weapons and armors do affect buildplays and stats significantly.

Twohothardware · July 2018

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

Upgrade materials are also not cheap except for single resource nodes like Dreugh Wax and Rosin. Since blacksmithing materials now share same nodes with jewelry, it is a time/gold sink. And to make things worse, some nodes refuses to respawn because of what is presumed to be a glitch.

The difference though is that upgrading your gear from purple to gold gives only a very small increase in overall stats outside of your weapons whereas always having a potion active that gives you Major Expedition, Immovability, Healing over Time, etc makes a big difference in PvP. The upgrade to your gear is also permanent whereas a Potion only lasts 45 seconds or until you die.

Difference though is that you technically can do every content without making potions that gives off these buffs as skills are there to give these buffs. While weapons and armors do affect buildplays and stats significantly.

Class skills only apply the buffs for a few seconds though whereas a potion gives almost permament uptime on buffs like Major Expedition, Healing over Time, ect. Tri Stat Potions also not only restore large amounts of Resources, especially for Races like Argonian, but they buff all your Recovery stats by 20% which is as much as class passives. Compare that to upgrading an armor piece from purple to gold which only gains you maybe 200 resistance and an extra 200 Stamina/Magicka.

Running the right potion makes more of a difference in PvP than if all of your gear was purple vs gold even your weapons. Something that affects gameplay that much shouldn't be too expensive for the average player base to craft and regularly use. It's the reason they made the upgrade of gear from purple to gold have such little impact so that those that have hours to farm and endless gold only gain a minor advantage.

I just think Alchemy ingredients should be a little closer to Food/Drink Provisioning ingredients in terms of cost and time investment to craft since they both have a big impact on the game.

Casdha · July 2018

I've never bought Alchemy ingredients and I always have at least 1000 on hand of anything I make potions with for use and usually don't drop below 400 for those that I only use for daily writs. To be fair, that is also one thing I don't sell to make gold from either.

Slick_007 · July 2018

alchemy nodes do not need upgrading. theres already so many mats out there, except for the non plant ones like mudcrab chitin, beetle scuttle.
some of my mats are at 3k stock

Derra · July 2018

never understood why ppl feel potions should be limited to being rich.

it´s one of the main flaws of esos gamedesign that doesn´t allow new or casual players to participate.

Dracane · July 2018

Sadly, I can't buy myself a 1000 Euro Wig in real life if I don't earn enough, which forces me to buy a 200 Euro one

Stupid example, but you simply can't use the best potions all the time if you do nothing to make gold.

Carbonised · July 2018

There's plenty of potions that don't cost much to make. There's even a million base stam/mag potions dropping that work perfectly well. Not everyone needs to run tripots or spell power pots with 3 effects.

And if your raid or content requires you to do so, then you certainly have the gold to spend on buying the ingredients.

Alchemy is fine where it is, you can even buy them with Tel Var now, which is what gutted the prices of mats to like half or a third of what it used to be.

Clam ingredients will be in Tel Var bags after next update, and hopefully in the writ reward boxes too.

Nothing else needs changing, spend the gold on expensive pots, or run regular ones, or farm/buy your own mats.

Derra · July 2018

Dracane wrote: »

Sadly, I can't buy myself a 1000 Euro Wig in real life if I don't earn enough, which forces me to buy a 200 Euro one Stupid example, but you simply can't use the best potions all the time if you do nothing to make gold.

Just that a wig doesn´t give an objective measureable advantage in - well whatever performance you need a wig for.

Syncronaut · July 2018

I will tell you a secret....

Get at least 20.000g

Wait till 00.00 - 6.00 game time (when everyone is a sleep) and wait for a merchant vendor reset (bid time).

Once this is done go araund whole map and buy out every cheap herb you can (exept those wortless mushrums).

Just be sure you use master merchant addon (and other addon) and filter it to herbs (herbs only), white to green price max.

Derra · July 2018

Syncronaut wrote: »

I will tell you a secret....

Get at least 20.000g

Wait till 00.00 - 6.00 game time (when everyone is a sleep) and wait for a merchant vendor reset (bid time).

Once this is done go araund whole map and buy out every cheap herb you can (exept those wortless mushrums).

Just be sure you use master merchant addon (and other addon) and filter it to herbs (herbs only), white to green price max.

Totally valid strategy for mr casual that´s only playing couple of hours a week...

Carbonised · July 2018

Derra wrote: »

Syncronaut wrote: »

I will tell you a secret....

Get at least 20.000g

Wait till 00.00 - 6.00 game time (when everyone is a sleep) and wait for a merchant vendor reset (bid time).

Once this is done go araund whole map and buy out every cheap herb you can (exept those wortless mushrums).

Just be sure you use master merchant addon (and other addon) and filter it to herbs (herbs only), white to green price max.

Totally valid strategy for mr casual that´s only playing couple of hours a week...

Mr. casual can use dropped mag and stam pots that can be bought in stacks at traders for 8 gold each, can he not?

It's not as if Mr. casual desperately needs tripots and spellpower pots to do the content he's doing.

Hells, I'm a vet player, and I use dropped pots constantly, 'cause I'm too stingy to waste my alchemy mats on crafted pots other than to sell.

ZeroXFF · July 2018

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

Twohothardware · July 2018

ZeroXFF wrote: »

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

This. Have they ever said why there is a Hireling for everything but Alchemy? It's like they want Regents to be overly expensive.

Carbonised · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

This. Have they ever said why there is a Hireling for everything but Alchemy? It's like they want Regents to be overly expensive.

There isn't one for jewelry either, and that one is a lot more pertinent than alchemy, sorry.

Dracane · July 2018

Derra wrote: »

Dracane wrote: »

Sadly, I can't buy myself a 1000 Euro Wig in real life if I don't earn enough, which forces me to buy a 200 Euro one Stupid example, but you simply can't use the best potions all the time if you do nothing to make gold.

Just that a wig doesn´t give an objective measureable advantage in - well whatever performance you need a wig for.

If you know how to use it, you can capitalize on it and make money with it. Just like potions, the better the wig, the better the effect.

Erraln · July 2018

I don't know what server you're playing on, but on PC-NA nearly every alchemy ingredient has gone down 10-30% in price since Summerset dropped. Crafted pots are down to match... for just one example, at one point last year Spellpower potions were at 170-200g each, and now they're at 130-150. Improvement mats and other base materials are also down a good deal. If I had to guess why, I'd say that a large amount of invested, endgame players all needed lots of gold at the same time to level their jewelry crafting with. Selling their unneeded mats provided liquidity, and supply for crafting items of all types went up as those subscriber craftbags got emptied out.

So, what epoch are you comparing today's prices to? Because unless you want to cook with Pearl Powder, most combinations are cheaper to craft this month than any time this year so far. At least on my server.

And as for 80k Corn Flower stacks, That's not common at all:

BNOC · July 2018

You can kill all 6 IC district bosses in ~20-30m for 90k stones.

Every 100k stones I find you get at least a 200 stack of everything and more of the less rare flowers.

In Coldharbour you can collect 25-40 of each plant per hour on average, running around the loop in speed gear.

Even if they buff it, it's not going to be close - Just start farming stones, they're so easy to come by now that it's no big deal when you lose some.

Carbonised · July 2018

Erraln wrote: »

I don't know what server you're playing on, but on PC-NA nearly every alchemy ingredient has gone down 10-30% in price since Summerset dropped. Crafted pots are down to match... for just one example, at one point last year Spellpower potions were at 170-200g each, and now they're at 130-150. Improvement mats and other base materials are also down a good deal. If I had to guess why, I'd say that a large amount of invested, endgame players all needed lots of gold at the same time to level their jewelry crafting with. Selling their unneeded mats provided liquidity, and supply for crafting items of all types went up as those subscriber craftbags got emptied out.

So, what epoch are you comparing today's prices to? Because unless you want to cook with Pearl Powder, most combinations are cheaper to craft this month than any time this year so far. At least on my server.

And as for 80k Corn Flower stacks, That's not common at all:

Same on PC-EU, prices on flowers dropped to almost half of what they used to be. I stopped selling them for the same reason.

And as others have said, farming TV stones is a sure way to gather huge amounts of alchemy mats.

No reason to make a problem out of this when there is none.

Twohothardware · July 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

This. Have they ever said why there is a Hireling for everything but Alchemy? It's like they want Regents to be overly expensive.

There isn't one for jewelry either, and that one is a lot more pertinent than alchemy, sorry.

And they said from the start that they wanted Jewelry crafting to be costly and a slower process which is why you couldn't deconstruct any old jewelry and why it still currrently costs a million worth of mats to upgrade a set to Gold.

Carbonised · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

This. Have they ever said why there is a Hireling for everything but Alchemy? It's like they want Regents to be overly expensive.

There isn't one for jewelry either, and that one is a lot more pertinent than alchemy, sorry.

And they said from the start that they wanted Jewelry crafting to be costly and a slower process which is why you couldn't deconstruct any old jewelry and why it still currrently costs a million worth of mats to upgrade a set to Gold.

They said a lot of things, and hey look, they just cut upgrading costs in half for jewelry tempers cause they realised that their current implementation was BS.

Gorrest · July 2018

Easy way to make gold

1. Buy Crowns
2. Sell Crown Store Items for Gold
3. Profit

Twohothardware · July 2018

Erraln wrote: »

I don't know what server you're playing on, but on PC-NA nearly every alchemy ingredient has gone down 10-30% in price since Summerset dropped. Crafted pots are down to match... for just one example, at one point last year Spellpower potions were at 170-200g each, and now they're at 130-150. Improvement mats and other base materials are also down a good deal. If I had to guess why, I'd say that a large amount of invested, endgame players all needed lots of gold at the same time to level their jewelry crafting with. Selling their unneeded mats provided liquidity, and supply for crafting items of all types went up as those subscriber craftbags got emptied out.

So, what epoch are you comparing today's prices to? Because unless you want to cook with Pearl Powder, most combinations are cheaper to craft this month than any time this year so far. At least on my server.

And as for 80k Corn Flower stacks, That's not common at all:

I'm on PS4 and the economy on console isn't like it is on PC, trader pricing runs higher for everything and theres no mods that helps you find deals.

Syncronaut · July 2018

ZeroXFF wrote: »

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

There is...from assasins guild perk...kinda meh herbs tho.

Carbonised · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

I don't know what server you're playing on, but on PC-NA nearly every alchemy ingredient has gone down 10-30% in price since Summerset dropped. Crafted pots are down to match... for just one example, at one point last year Spellpower potions were at 170-200g each, and now they're at 130-150. Improvement mats and other base materials are also down a good deal. If I had to guess why, I'd say that a large amount of invested, endgame players all needed lots of gold at the same time to level their jewelry crafting with. Selling their unneeded mats provided liquidity, and supply for crafting items of all types went up as those subscriber craftbags got emptied out.

So, what epoch are you comparing today's prices to? Because unless you want to cook with Pearl Powder, most combinations are cheaper to craft this month than any time this year so far. At least on my server.

And as for 80k Corn Flower stacks, That's not common at all:

I'm on PS4 and the economy on console isn't like it is on PC, trader pricing runs higher for everything and theres no mods that helps you find deals.

Then it's a console problem and not an alchemy mat problem, you see.

This also goes for pretty much everything else on console, regarding prices and traders.

Mureel · July 2018

BNOC wrote: »

You can kill all 6 IC district bosses in ~20-30m for 90k stones.

Every 100k stones I find you get at least a 200 stack of everything and more of the less rare flowers.

In Coldharbour you can collect 25-40 of each plant per hour on average, running around the loop in speed gear.

Even if they buff it, it's not going to be close - Just start farming stones, they're so easy to come by now that it's no big deal when you lose some.

No YOU/WE can.

I can solo the CP ones and 2 man the no CP, but the majority of players cannot.

Coldharbour - yes - you can rack up a lot very quickly there!

Minno · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

ZeroXFF wrote: »

An alchemy hireling would be even better.

This. Have they ever said why there is a Hireling for everything but Alchemy? It's like they want Regents to be overly expensive.

Being able to make 4 pots/16 poisons is the compensation. They have stated this if I'm not mistaken.

Twohothardware · July 2018

Carbonised wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

I don't know what server you're playing on, but on PC-NA nearly every alchemy ingredient has gone down 10-30% in price since Summerset dropped. Crafted pots are down to match... for just one example, at one point last year Spellpower potions were at 170-200g each, and now they're at 130-150. Improvement mats and other base materials are also down a good deal. If I had to guess why, I'd say that a large amount of invested, endgame players all needed lots of gold at the same time to level their jewelry crafting with. Selling their unneeded mats provided liquidity, and supply for crafting items of all types went up as those subscriber craftbags got emptied out.

So, what epoch are you comparing today's prices to? Because unless you want to cook with Pearl Powder, most combinations are cheaper to craft this month than any time this year so far. At least on my server.

And as for 80k Corn Flower stacks, That's not common at all:

I'm on PS4 and the economy on console isn't like it is on PC, trader pricing runs higher for everything and theres no mods that helps you find deals.

Then it's a console problem and not an alchemy mat problem, you see.

This also goes for pretty much everything else on console, regarding prices and traders.

Yeah but you can't base whether or not something should be adjusted on external factors like the number of people currently farming for something on PC is high so it therefore drives down the price in PC Traders. You also can't base it on the ease of getting Alchemy mats through farming Tel Var from IC district bosses which is a separate DLC that's barely even active any more on console.

Carbonised · July 2018

Twohothardware wrote: »

Carbonised wrote: »

Twohothardware wrote: »

Erraln wrote: »

I don't know what server you're playing on, but on PC-NA nearly every alchemy ingredient has gone down 10-30% in price since Summerset dropped. Crafted pots are down to match... for just one example, at one point last year Spellpower potions were at 170-200g each, and now they're at 130-150. Improvement mats and other base materials are also down a good deal. If I had to guess why, I'd say that a large amount of invested, endgame players all needed lots of gold at the same time to level their jewelry crafting with. Selling their unneeded mats provided liquidity, and supply for crafting items of all types went up as those subscriber craftbags got emptied out.

So, what epoch are you comparing today's prices to? Because unless you want to cook with Pearl Powder, most combinations are cheaper to craft this month than any time this year so far. At least on my server.

And as for 80k Corn Flower stacks, That's not common at all:

I'm on PS4 and the economy on console isn't like it is on PC, trader pricing runs higher for everything and theres no mods that helps you find deals.

Then it's a console problem and not an alchemy mat problem, you see.

This also goes for pretty much everything else on console, regarding prices and traders.

Yeah but you can't base whether or not something should be adjusted on external factors like the number of people currently farming for something on PC is high so it therefore drives down the price in PC Traders. You also can't base it on the ease of getting Alchemy mats through farming Tel Var from IC district bosses which is a separate DLC that's barely even active any more on console.

Yes I can. Several furniture recipes do not exist on PC EU due to lower playerbase, yet they are for sale in guild stores on PC NA. There are population differences, and that's just how it is.

Also, I suspect the issue is not population, but rather the lack of pricing addons. On PC we have heavy use of MM and TTC which drives down prices due to easy competition, whereas console prices have always been higher due to less transparency of the market.

That's just how it is, have always been, and that is the console problem I was referring to. Putting more alchemy mats into circulation does not in any way or form adress this console problem, it's just a small band aid on this very small aspect of a larger problem.

And as has been said multiple times, if you don't want to pay prices you think are too high, then you can either farm mats yourself in Coldharb or elsewhere, you can farm TV stones and buy them, or you can do writs and harvest from surveys, and you can use the Dark Brotherhood daily alchemy option.
That's plenty of options already. Like two people have already mentioned, prices have been cut in half or more on both PC EU and NA, so no, we do not want the market flooded with even more alchemy mats and lower prices, just because they are more expensive on consoles, just like everything is more expensive on consoles.

And like I have said like 4 times already, why do you simply not use the extremely cheap dropped potions? What kind of content do you really need to do with tripots and spellpower pots? The vast majority of the players can stick to dropped pots with no notable difference.