Alchemy: A + B != B + A

Sorpaijen_ESO · April 2014

Everyone may know this but I just realized it last night with my alchemist. If you combine Ingredient A and Ingredient B you don't always get the same potion!

I didn't invest the time to research the exact mechanics of it, but if there are multiple shared qualities among the ingredients, the ORDER in which you combine them determines your final product.

So, for example, if you put Ingredient A in the first spot and Ingredient B in the second slot you get a healing potion but if you put Ingredient B in the first slot and then Ingredient A in the second slot, you get a ravage-health potion... for example --- I don't remember the exact variations (perhaps it was detection / invisibility)...

Anyway, just something to keep in mind. Assuming this isn't all some bug.

EDIT: Forgot I couldn't use the < and > symbols for Not-Equal in an HTML setting

Brennan · April 2014

Needs more information please. Please detail what plants you're using and in what order so that it can be tested and if it is something that can be recreated.

SirAndy · April 2014

Yeah, it's pretty annoying. I reported this a long time ago on PTS but it's still there.

You end up with two stacks of a potion doing extacly the same thing but you can't combine the two stacks because they read:

- A doing x while B doing y
- B doing y while A doing x

Both potions are completely identical in their effect (and potion name!) but they don't stack because in one effect A comes first and in the other one effect B comes first.

So, for now, you need to remember which ingredient to put in which slot when making a potion.

A + B does *not* equal B + A in ESO ...

Brennan · April 2014

SirAndy wrote: »

Yeah, it's pretty annoying. I reported this a long time ago on PTS but it's still there.

You end up with two stacks of a potion doing extacly the same thing but you can't combine the two stacks because they read:

- A doing x while B doing y
- B doing y while A doing x

Both potions are completely identical in their effect (and potion name!) but they don't stack because in one effect A comes first and in the other one effect B comes first.

So, for now, you need to remember which ingredient to put in which slot when making a potion.

A + B does *not* equal B + A in ESO ...

Oh, I thought the OP was saying that we was getting different results for the same ingredients. A+B = Potion of Health B+A = Potion of Ravage Health. Are you sure you're not misreading his OP? Or am I?

SirAndy · April 2014

Brennan wrote: »

Oh, I thought the OP was saying that we was getting different results for the same ingredients. A+B = Potion of Health B+A = Potion of Ravage Health. Are you sure you're not misreading his OP? Or am I?

@Brennan
No, i'm not sure if i'm misreading his post or not.

But i am sure that:

A + B = Potion of Health (Potion adds Health and Stamina)
B + A = Potion of Health (Potion adds Stamina and Health)

Same ingredients and effects on both potions. Same name. Yet they don't stack in my inventory.

Because for the first one i put ingredient A in the first slot, the health effect is listed first.
For the second one i put ingredient B in the first slot so the stamina effect is listed first.

All the stats on the two potions are exactly identical, the potion even has the same name, but they won't stack in your inventory.

Sorpaijen_ESO · April 2014

The "feature" I was mentioning causes the "problem" that SirAndy notes. In that case, the two "different" potions seem to do the same thing. But the thing that really made me notice was that I got ~entirely~ different potions using A+B versus using B+A.

I don't remember the particular combination but it should be easy enough to figure out:

I think if A has "restore health" as its FIRST quality, and "B" has "restore health" as its THIRD quality and they share NO other qualities, then A+B will make a "restore health" potion.

If A has "restore magikca" as its THIRD quality and B has "restore magicka" as its FIRST quality and they share no other qualities, then B+A would be a "restore magicka" potion.

Where it gets interesting is where they share multiple traits. If A has "restore health" as FIRST quality and "restore magicka" as THIRD and B has "restore magicka" as its FIRST quality and "restore health" as its THIRD... then

A+B = restore health with some restore magicka

and

B+A = restore magicka with some restore health

The more I think about it, I think it was the invisibility / detection combination that first brought this to light. I want to say Nirnroot and Entiloma (blue mushroom)... they both have Detection and Invisibility (let's say)...

If you put the one with Detection as a primary stat and invisibility as a tertiary in "A" and the one with invisibility as primary and detection as quaternary in "B" then you get a Detection potion....

... but if you swap the two, then the primary trait of "B" (in the first slot) dictates that it is an Invisibility potion, since "A" shares that trait (in its tertiary position).

I need to look at this in more detail when I can log in because say you had two (fictional) ingredients:

A - restore health, restore magicka, ravage stamina, invisibility
B - invisibility, ravage stamina, detection, ravage health

A + B looks like it would find the FIRST trait in "A" that matches one in "B"... which is Ravage Stamina... so that would be the potion that gets made?

B+A has invisibility FIRST, so even though "A" has Ravage Stamina before Invisibility (it's quaternary stat), since Invisibility is the primary stat of "B", that's the potion that gets made?

When you can mix THREE ingredients, I imagine it gets REALLY interesting, figuring out how A + B + C compares to C + A + B and so on....

Food4Thought · April 2014

All I can comment on this thread is .... interesting

Natjur · April 2014

Yes, when make the super healing, magic and stamina recovery potions ( Columbine, Bugloss, Mountain Flower) I always combine them in the same order as not having them stack is annoying.

Brennan · April 2014

@Sorpaijen_ESO‌ - If you have some time in the next day or two try to recreate this phenomenon you're seeing. It is very interesting.

Salsadoom · April 2014

Very interesting, makes sense once you think about it

Sorpaijen_ESO · April 2014

I only played my alchemist a little bit last night and didn't think to make detailed notes but one wrinkle in my plan is that I ~think~ the interface lists the qualities of ingredients in a square GRID, not a 1-2-3-4 list. So it's not immediately clear whether it goes:

1 2
3 4

or

1 3
2 4

One interesting thing I ~did~ note is that Increase Weapon Crit potions DID seem to stack, even if they were created from totally different ingredients. Like, A + B and C + D... that may be because in both cases the Weapon Crit was the ~only~ common trait among the combined ingredients, so the final product was "just" Weapon Crit.

I suspect the reason the healing potions aren't stacking is that there are multiple shared traits, like restore magicka AND restore health. I ~think~ that if a potion is ONLY restore health, it will stack regardless of the ingredients used to create it. The reason they DON'T stack sometimes is just the game considering (restore health + restore magicka) to be different from (restore magicka + restore health), I suspect.

Regarding the A + B != B+ A premise.... last night I didn't have any Blue Entoloma (however it's spelled) to test the Invisibility (A+B) / Detection (B+A) potion difference that I THINK will make this phenomenon obvious.

Ulvich · April 2014

I don't even bother with alchemy anymore. I think I tried it in beta, and a few times after launch then I just walked away from it.

Dragonheart013 · April 2014

If the effects are listed in the same order on the product's info box, they stack. If they're listed in a different order, but still the same effects, they don't stack. I've noticed this a few times, because one of my friends is the alchemist in the group and he sends me potions (I collect ingredients for him), and sometimes they will stack, other times they don't.

Rev Rielle · April 2014

I've noticed this too. So yes, at this point in time it's best to take note and just be a bit careful. Once you do so it's not very hard to keep on top of at all, as Alchemy's pretty simple at the moment.

In reality this is how it works sometimes in the real world though, so it's not completely without precedent: I.e. Adding A to B will not give the same result as adding B to A. But be that as it may, really for game purposes they should provide the same result regardless of the order, and stack too.

Alchemy needs a bit of love, and I'm sure it will get it at some point.