i like the different mechanic that alchemy brings, but i think that the basic level mats should be farmable... i haven't seen pine wood drop anywhere (unless i need to go farm blacklake or the tower district...) or perhaps it should be available to purchase from the professions vendor.
also, how come there are less instances of Professions scheduled?
and what is with the dropping of trash items from skill nodes if you've already hit so many? is there a node timer now?
edit: yes, you can farm for pine wood in blacklake and in the tower district... vitriol also drops in skill nodes.
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dardoveMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
also, how come there are less instances of Professions scheduled?
and what is with the dropping of trash items from skill nodes if you've already hit so many? is there a node timer now?
There is still the same amount of profession bonuses scheduled. Like everything else on the schedule it is on a 6 hour rotation (with an hour or two adjustment that happens around midnight pacific). It might look less often because the Gauntgrym stuff is now showing up on the events schedule filling an hour and half gap in events that used to exist prior to launch.
I haven't GOTTEN to level two, from all appearances you have to pay money to level Alch. every other green item like that is CA$H only to get them. (e.g. bag of gems)
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dardoveMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 0Arc User
I haven't GOTTEN to level two, from all appearances you have to pay money to level Alch. every other green item like that is CA$H only to get them. (e.g. bag of gems)
You don't have to pay money to level alchemy. There are bag of gems tasks in the other professions as well. They just get you some refined crafting mats quickly and are not required.
I haven't GOTTEN to level two, from all appearances you have to pay money to level Alch. every other green item like that is CA$H only to get them. (e.g. bag of gems)
here's a good way to start without any uncommon, rare or epic assets:
hire at least 4 apothecaries. you can take up 2-3 profession slots doing this. if you are a farmer, you can farm blacklake and the tower district for mats. or after you have at least 2 apothecaries, you can grind pine wood and the blue and green vitriol in two slots every ten minutes. there is an option to grind 5 of each mat over six hours... do this if you're going to bed. if you're playing... you can make more mats in an hour than you can in 6 hours if you hit it every ten minutes.
i have been using three slots and alternate between making mats, making unstable potions required for experimentation and experimenting. currently at this posting, i'm at level 5. sometime between now and level 7, i'll need to hire more apothecaries since i'll need at least 2 or more rank 2 "mixologists" to keep the ball rolling.
you could always sell some AD for zen and get the professions booster pack... at 300z which translates to about 90-100 ad, it could be a good investment.
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kaiserschmarrnMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 390
edited June 2013
It's a joke that healing pots made with Alchemy cost almost twice as much in resources as those from the vendor.
Further: The Auction House does not find the Potion of Power (new Rank 20 Alchemy rare which gives +25% AP). You can put it up normally, but all searches come up empty. The Major Flask of Potency (and most likey the Flask of Protection too) as well as the new Distilled Healing Potions do not show up either in any search.
vierzweinullMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 31Arc User
edited June 2013
Obviously it's very unclear to players; too many people just don't even -look- at the other tasks, see that basic gathering gets them nothing, and quit the whole project. Good riddance I say!
I think it's fantastic. Potions that you can't have otherwise, like +stamina potions that heal you too, and making batches of end-game buffs for your dungeon runs? The unstable potions are interesting, though I'd -really- like to see more effects than big, small, heals and poison. Maybe the bigger ones have this, but for the first two, it seems like minor polymorphs and some hp mods are all there are. Sure, a buff here and there, but lets get some -big- visuals, here, like sparkling characters or double-image, AoE spells and such.
Well done, I say.
If weapon/artifice is done similar to the armors, and the new classes come out under existing armorsmithing, I'm a happy crafter.
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Edit; above post mentions how it costs more in resources to make a heal pot than it does to buy one... two things... one, go buy them. Two, it costs NOTHING to make them except time. Sure, if you want to consider the ratio of selling the vitae and vitrol + solvent to buying the potions, I suppose you have a point, but the fact is, you can make them in the middle of a dungeon, and in the end, it is almost ALWAYS the case in a market society that it costs more to make parts for something yourself than to just go buy pre-fab parts. In this case, buying the health potions is like buying pre-fab food for your restaurant. Sure, you could grow it out back, but isn't it just easier to buy it from <vendor>? (while I would argue not as tasty at all)
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vierzweinullMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Guardian UsersPosts: 31Arc User
edited June 2013
""SEEDYMAN42: I haven't GOTTEN to level two, from all appearances you have to pay money to level Alch. every other green item like that is CA$H only to get them. (e.g. bag of gems) ""
Why are people so concerned about Cryptic tryin' to weasel another buck out of them that they refuse to remember the game is free to PLAY. Just try doing the profession, you'd be amazed at the results. The one time a company did something NEAT, by making experimentation a part of the alchemy process, thus random results (to a point), and you gotta cry about how you -assume- they are trying to take your money... they don't get anything you refuse to spend, pal, and yes, EVERYTHING can be done for free. I haven't even been in a T2 and I've got almost all purple crafting tools for all 4 armor professions, and I've not paid a dime past the Guardian pack and one bag of holding. I guess you've forgotten about the AD:Zen exchange.
I like it better than the other professions, but there are quite a few issues that could use some tweaks:
1. I'm assuming, at this point, that experimenting yields nothing but unstable potions once you get enough scrolls to advance to the next rank? But I'm not sure. The UI offers no explanation or indication and the experimentation task disappearing once you rank up creates a very awkward and frustrating dilemma for the player. This needs to be clearer. If nothing else can be gotten from experimenting, the task should disappear. If you want players to still be able to craft unstable potions, make those a separate task.
2. Now that potion and elixir prices are settling back down after the initial rush, 99% of tasks are completely useless because the materials and time are more valuable than the product. Why bother making potions and elixirs if you can just buy them much cheaper than it costs to make them? Not to mention getting them instantly... The rare batch jobs, in particular, need to be much more time and material efficient.
3. On the matter of batch jobs, I'd question the usefulness of having a task that creates only 1 potion or elixir at all. This might make sense for other crafting professions... but we're talking gear vs stackable consumables here. One piece of armor is useful. One pair of pants is useful. What good is one single potion? The normal tasks should already create batches of 10 or more. Or, at the very least, 5. The rare jobs should create much larger stacks still, and much more cost efficiently.
4. More on cost efficiency... For most jobs, the main price the player ought to be paying is the time it takes to run the job. Material costs should be negligible / symbolic. Again, consider that most of these potions have other sources... which means they will be available on the AH for quite low prices. There needs to be some benefit to crafting them over buying them. Some kind of trade-off. As it stands, it's both more expensive and it takes a lot of time to run the jobs. Ergo, no reason to run the job. Of course items that have no other source but alchemy are a different story..
5. Dyes. They are quite cool. It appears the class dyes you get from rank 7 rare jobs are all there is though? I haven't seen or heard of any more, anyway. Why stop there? These are pretty much the main attraction of alchemy. As mentioned, almost everything else has other sources. Please add more dye packs at various ranks of alchemy. If you really want to spoil us, come up with a way for alchemy to "mix your own dyepack" where we can influence the main, accent and highlight colors using different ingredients or assets.
6. Also, for the dye trade to pick up, we could really use a preview feature that doesn't require having the dye in your inventory. IE, people should be able to preview a dye given an item link for the dye in chat.
That's all I can think of for now, I might add more later.
Edit; above post mentions how it costs more in resources to make a heal pot than it does to buy one... two things... one, go buy them. Two, it costs NOTHING to make them except time. Sure, if you want to consider the ratio of selling the vitae and vitrol + solvent to buying the potions, I suppose you have a point, but the fact is, you can make them in the middle of a dungeon, and in the end, it is almost ALWAYS the case in a market society that it costs more to make parts for something yourself than to just go buy pre-fab parts. In this case, buying the health potions is like buying pre-fab food for your restaurant. Sure, you could grow it out back, but isn't it just easier to buy it from <vendor>? (while I would argue not as tasty at all)
It costs whatever AD you don't make from leadership during the time it takes to make a healing potion.
Use the <removed exploit lead-in> to interact with the auction vendor.
This is harsh, but it is how I feel. This profession sucks and is only useful for getting that 3rd profession to lvl 20 and unlocking another slot. Other than that it is pretty useless. The potions cost way too much to make and take way too long to make it useful. Alchemy tools are a joke. You don't even need a single tool to level Alchemy to 20. I feel sorry for those who blew millions of AD to buy Mithral tools when Alchemy was first introduced because all they do is give you a 60% chance to get TWO more pots or dye packs (this is ONLY if you have 4 Mithral tools). I sold all my tools on the AH because there is just no point in having them.
There are maybe 3 pots that are useful when you max out alchemy and that is about it. More than likely others will make these pots and sell them on the AH so I wont even have to bother making them myself. The HUGE amount of man hours put into creating one pot is amazingly stupid and it just makes the profession a total waste to use. None of the pots are cost efficient to make and can be gained in other ways that are much cheaper. I was really hoping it would be worth it to make my own pots, but it is just a waste of time and profession slots.
I will say one positive thing. I did not mind the process to level the skill. It wasn't too bad and was a nice change over grinding out pot after pot just to crawl through each level. Now just make it so pots don't take forever to make or give a lot more per recipe and this might be a useful profession. Alchemy doesn't have to be a money maker, but it should at least be useful.
Can anyone tell me if lvl 3 alchemy is bugged, I did the experimentation until I had 4 basic alchemical knowledge I then did the research and got 300xp my level bar is at 600/600 (the bar is full) but it didn't roll over to level 4.
So I thought I just need to grind 4 more knowledge scrolls, since yesterday evening I have done over 10 experimentation but have not received a single scroll.
Is this the only way to level? Am I doing something silly?
Thanks
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kaiserschmarrnMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, Neverwinter Guardian Users, Neverwinter Knight of the Feywild UsersPosts: 390
Edit; above post mentions how it costs more in resources to make a heal pot than it does to buy one... two things... one, go buy them. Two, it costs NOTHING to make them except time. Sure, if you want to consider the ratio of selling the vitae and vitrol + solvent to buying the potions, I suppose you have a point, but the fact is, you can make them in the middle of a dungeon, and in the end, it is almost ALWAYS the case in a market society that it costs more to make parts for something yourself than to just go buy pre-fab parts. In this case, buying the health potions is like buying pre-fab food for your restaurant. Sure, you could grow it out back, but isn't it just easier to buy it from <vendor>? (while I would argue not as tasty at all)
8X Gather Simple Components - 10 min - No Cost
8X Simple Vitrol Extraction - 10 min - 16 Solvents
4x Aqua Vitae - 10 min - 8 Solvents
2x Aqua Regin - 40 min - No cost
3x Gather Complex Components - 20 min - No cost
3X Complex Vitrol Extraction - 20 min - 6 Brimstone
1X POTION OF MAJOR HEALING - 1hr 15min
Cost of Potion of Major Healing from Vendor = 7 Silver
Time required to buy it from vendor = Almost none
What's the point of even having them ?
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beckylunaticMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 14,231Arc User
edited June 2013
So far, all my efforts have been entirely focused towards levelling, which I've gotten up to 7 and am now biding my time accumulating stuff before I do the personnel upgrade.
I haven't done any of the fast, expensive vitriol extraction. I have always done the time-consuming, cheaper extraction, and ground skill nodes for the rest of my materials. Likewise, I only brewed potions in batches, with cheap tools filling the bonus slots to have a reasonable chance at getting extras. This provided enough stuff to level, although it took a long time for one rare task I needed to crop up. I made no single potions. I AHed the leftovers. I made no healing potions because I had them from drops.
I wouldn't mind seeing tasks to gather wood without pelts, with reduced time. I have loads of pelts already and don't require more. I do not have that kind of reserve of wood, and right now it's far better to get wood from nodes because I may also get vitriols, or rare materials.
Batch brewing of Aqua Vitae and possibly Aqua Regia as a common or rare task would be very useful (or common to make 5 and rare to make 10? or bigger stacks even? something like that?). Same usual trade-off mechanic of it requiring less raw material but taking longer. This would reduce some of the overall grindiness of needing Aqua Vitae for absolutely everything.
Not sure how the ingredient cost math works out for doing everything in batches instead of individually, but it does seem like a pretty big money sink, and potentially only worth making things you can't get any other way.
Observation about not being able to run multiple experiments: I'd think this is a limitation of the tracking mechanic for acquiring knowledge. I'd foresee glitchiness if the game thought it should be awarding you the same recipe multiple times.
A designer explained in another thread on the subject that the experiment tasks are not removed after you've accumulated the knowledge to progress for people who really like playing with the unstable potions.
Hum mine seems bugged or screwed up... ive been doing the gather, making potions and only have 1 alchemy scroll... this is frustrating to say the least...it's not like I can spend all day reading and trying to understand the hows of this. I also like to play the game a bit to. But I guess for some its a mess and others found it reasonable. I am yet to figure out what the heck I'm supposed to do to get to L 3?
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"Sir, were now surrounded"!
Thats great news son, now we can attack from ALL sides"!
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shiaikaMember, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero Users, SilverstarsPosts: 0Arc User
2. Now that potion and elixir prices are settling back down after the initial rush, 99% of tasks are completely useless because the materials and time are more valuable than the product. Why bother making potions and elixirs if you can just buy them much cheaper than it costs to make them? Not to mention getting them instantly... The rare batch jobs, in particular, need to be much more time and material efficient.
3. On the matter of batch jobs, I'd question the usefulness of having a task that creates only 1 potion or elixir at all. This might make sense for other crafting professions... but we're talking gear vs stackable consumables here. One piece of armor is useful. One pair of pants is useful. What good is one single potion? The normal tasks should already create batches of 10 or more. Or, at the very least, 5. The rare jobs should create much larger stacks still, and much more cost efficiently.
5. Dyes. They are quite cool. It appears the class dyes you get from rank 7 rare jobs are all there is though? I haven't seen or heard of any more, anyway. Why stop there? These are pretty much the main attraction of alchemy. As mentioned, almost everything else has other sources. Please add more dye packs at various ranks of alchemy. If you really want to spoil us, come up with a way for alchemy to "mix your own dyepack" where we can influence the main, accent and highlight colors using different ingredients or assets.
Only potions worth would those of the max rank maybe? I'm going to sit for a while in rank 7 just for the class dyes and eventually raise it to be one of the three of my main.
About dyes, the most interesting thing to me, I do agree that it would be nice if we could get extra dye packs and/or individual colours from it (not the Zen Store ones, of course). A White dye bottle would be quite valuable. Getting the class colours as individual colours would be sweet (dye packs are so limiting... my courtesan set knows).
Otherwise, I enjoy that Alchemy doesn't work like, let's say, Tailoring or Leatherworking. From that point of view, as interesting as Leadership, my big favourite (who doesn't love free ADs or boxes or gold or exp?). Not intuitive enough to use as newbie maybe, but still not so difficult to figure out.
I'd love to have potions that replicate some of those unstable potions (and for longer time). Being a bear running around Protector's Enclave is fun!!! Or being smaller than my skeletal dog! Also makes me wonder about a shapeshifting druid class but that's another story.
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bioshrikeMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,729Arc User
edited June 2013
To mirror what others have stated:
1. The amount of time and resources to make 1 potion is just not worth it. If they always made batches of 3-5, then it might be a little better. Additionally, I think that they should also yield at least 1 "experimental potion" - these would be different than the unstable potions in that they'd tell you what they did - like an experimental shrink potion, or an experimental chicken-ification potion, or such. That would add value to the profession, too. They should also have a simply potion fusing task, which takes 2-4 of a lower tier potion and makes them into 1 of the next higher tier - like 4 minors for 1 regular healing potion. That could take 1 min + 1 min/tier of the potion or something. Or, just allow fusing of potions from your inventory if your alchemy profession is equal to or greater than the tier of potion you want to fuse.
<::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::::)xxxo <::::::::::::)xxxxxxxx(:::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> oxxx(::::::::::::::> "Is it better to be feared or respected? I say, is it too much to ask for both?" -Tony Stark Official NW_Legit_Community Forums
I was the second Master Alchemist on Dragon server (first guy beat me by 30 min he said). How? I quickly figured out how to experiment for Knowledge scrolls and then stockpiled experimentation materials using AH potions to save time. And then I speed up all Experiments and the training sessions. That was an investment of 4 weeks of level 60 farming and selling, for which there is 0 return.
Major Flasks do not appear in AH when posted. I submitted a bug report on that.
Major Flasks disappear upon death.
Alchemy dyes are rare recipes. In the days since I got to level 20, I haven't been online once, not once!, when my Guardian Fighter Dye Pack was an optional recipe.
Why don't we have the rare recipe to Distill healing potions in groups of 10?
What possible value do we get from the purple assets? Whooptydoo! Rank 3 of a Dye Pack produces a total of 6 instead of 4! Or to actually make creating healing potions cheaper than buying them from the vendor, you have to have reliable chance of getting rank 3 on the rare recipes to make 10.
I absolutely loved the flavor of leveling this profession, but I have answered more questions than I can count on "how do you level alchemy?" since it is not at all clear nor intuitive. I believe your current patch on the test shard addresses this, so I'll be grateful for that.
2 hours to make a single potion that does not persist through death?
Half an hour to create potions one by one?
Absolutely no point to transmuting the Ooze since they can only go back and forth at horrible conversion rates?
No personal experience for leveling alchemy?
Can transmute oozes into crafting crystals and shards but not dragon eggs? This one is seriously baffling.
I'm a Master Alchemist on Dragon Server, and I warn my guildies to not waste their time, AD, and energy on this profession as it currently exists. That's my impression of what had to potential to be the absolute coolest profession.
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guidolsMember, Neverwinter Beta UsersPosts: 2Arc User
edited June 2013
As someone that's trying to 'work' my way through the skill, via drops, profession nodes, etc, in addition to extraction and collection tasks (no knock on those that can afford to do it via the AH, or Zen, or whatever), this skill is really beginning to be a drag.
Aqua Vitae requiring items that, if foraged, require what's basically slumming in the lowest 2 or 3 levels of zones, only to be rewarded far too often with 1ft poles, bent forks, bags of holes, and other misc worthless <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. To make it even better, with the currently broken Gauntltgrym events, a time slot that used to be allocated to professions has been removed, making some of the 'rare' drops from other skills even more rare, as they are now needed for alchemy AND the original skill (and not marked as such).
As a time sink, I guess it's ok for the hardcore tradeskiller - which I am. But overall, on a 1-10 scale, this barely rates a 3. To much sink, too little reward.
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dirge1692Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 4Arc User
Why don't we have the rare recipe to Distill healing potions in groups of 10?
What possible value do we get from the purple assets? Whooptydoo! Rank 3 of a Dye Pack produces a total of 6 instead of 4! Or to actually make creating healing potions cheaper than buying them from the vendor, you have to have reliable chance of getting rank 3 on the rare recipes to make 10.
I absolutely loved the flavor of leveling this profession, but I have answered more questions than I can count on "how do you level alchemy?" since it is not at all clear nor intuitive. I believe your current patch on the test shard addresses this, so I'll be grateful for that.
2 hours to make a single potion that does not persist through death?
Half an hour to create potions one by one?
Absolutely no point to transmuting the Ooze since they can only go back and forth at horrible conversion rates?
No personal experience for leveling alchemy?
Can transmute oozes into crafting crystals and shards but not dragon eggs? This one is seriously baffling.
I'm a Master Alchemist on Dragon Server, and I warn my guildies to not waste their time, AD, and energy on this profession as it currently exists. That's my impression of what had to potential to be the absolute coolest profession.
I agree with your assessment 100%. The leveling process is painful, the recipes are lackluster, and the end results are pitiful. The only reason anyone is leveling Alchemy is because it's the only new thing to do in game right now. Once everyone gets to lvl 20 and they realize that they've been hornswaggled, there will be an angry swarm of very disgruntled players.
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seedyman42Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
here's a good way to start without any uncommon, rare or epic assets:
hire at least 4 apothecaries. you can take up 2-3 profession slots doing this. if you are a farmer, you can farm blacklake and the tower district for mats. or after you have at least 2 apothecaries, you can grind pine wood and the blue and green vitriol in two slots every ten minutes. there is an option to grind 5 of each mat over six hours... do this if you're going to bed. if you're playing... you can make more mats in an hour than you can in 6 hours if you hit it every ten minutes.
i have been using three slots and alternate between making mats, making unstable potions required for experimentation and experimenting. currently at this posting, i'm at level 5. sometime between now and level 7, i'll need to hire more apothecaries since i'll need at least 2 or more rank 2 "mixologists" to keep the ball rolling.
you could always sell some AD for zen and get the professions booster pack... at 300z which translates to about 90-100 ad, it could be a good investment.
I will point out that being stuck at level one means no additional apothecaries. And no real interest in moving forward, I tend to like crafting in MMOs and, as others have said, this had high potential; I think it fell flat.
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seedyman42Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
You don't have to pay money to level alchemy. There are bag of gems tasks in the other professions as well. They just get you some refined crafting mats quickly and are not required.
Well, I see that NOW, but before I wandered into the forums and started looking it up it had the appearance of the other asset requiring tasks, only this one was the only one that yielded XP; it looked profoundly lame, so I shelved it.
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seedyman42Member, Neverwinter Beta Users, Neverwinter Hero UsersPosts: 0Arc User
""SEEDYMAN42: I haven't GOTTEN to level two, from all appearances you have to pay money to level Alch. every other green item like that is CA$H only to get them. (e.g. bag of gems) ""
Why are people so concerned about Cryptic tryin' to weasel another buck out of them that they refuse to remember the game is free to PLAY. Just try doing the profession, you'd be amazed at the results. The one time a company did something NEAT, by making experimentation a part of the alchemy process, thus random results (to a point), and you gotta cry about how you -assume- they are trying to take your money... they don't get anything you refuse to spend, pal, and yes, EVERYTHING can be done for free. I haven't even been in a T2 and I've got almost all purple crafting tools for all 4 armor professions, and I've not paid a dime past the Guardian pack and one bag of holding. I guess you've forgotten about the AD:Zen exchange.
I did try the profession, it was dull and accomplished nothing. I did several iterations of the tasks I could do and saw zero results, profession-wise. So here I sit at lvl 1 with zero experience points and no desire to waste a slot continuing to get zero XP, with NO INDICATION that that will change. So yeah I see a green item as a requirement for the only task that levels you up, and I look around at all the other tasks with green item requirements and figure that it's something I have to buy, I didn't say I wouldn't, I'm just not going to waste time on a skill that I can't level before doing so.
i have another suggestion. there should be more of a variety of drops of professions materials in skill nodes. i see hundreds of iron ore and shimmerweave scrap drops in there... i have been seeing other alchemy mats drop but it's so hard to farm blacklake because it's such a small map with fewer nodes than other places but if you want alchemy mats, you don't have very many choices in where to farm.
Comments
also, how come there are less instances of Professions scheduled?
and what is with the dropping of trash items from skill nodes if you've already hit so many? is there a node timer now?
edit: yes, you can farm for pine wood in blacklake and in the tower district... vitriol also drops in skill nodes.
There is still the same amount of profession bonuses scheduled. Like everything else on the schedule it is on a 6 hour rotation (with an hour or two adjustment that happens around midnight pacific). It might look less often because the Gauntgrym stuff is now showing up on the events schedule filling an hour and half gap in events that used to exist prior to launch.
I haven't GOTTEN to level two, from all appearances you have to pay money to level Alch. every other green item like that is CA$H only to get them. (e.g. bag of gems)
You don't have to pay money to level alchemy. There are bag of gems tasks in the other professions as well. They just get you some refined crafting mats quickly and are not required.
here's a good way to start without any uncommon, rare or epic assets:
hire at least 4 apothecaries. you can take up 2-3 profession slots doing this. if you are a farmer, you can farm blacklake and the tower district for mats. or after you have at least 2 apothecaries, you can grind pine wood and the blue and green vitriol in two slots every ten minutes. there is an option to grind 5 of each mat over six hours... do this if you're going to bed. if you're playing... you can make more mats in an hour than you can in 6 hours if you hit it every ten minutes.
i have been using three slots and alternate between making mats, making unstable potions required for experimentation and experimenting. currently at this posting, i'm at level 5. sometime between now and level 7, i'll need to hire more apothecaries since i'll need at least 2 or more rank 2 "mixologists" to keep the ball rolling.
you could always sell some AD for zen and get the professions booster pack... at 300z which translates to about 90-100 ad, it could be a good investment.
Further: The Auction House does not find the Potion of Power (new Rank 20 Alchemy rare which gives +25% AP). You can put it up normally, but all searches come up empty. The Major Flask of Potency (and most likey the Flask of Protection too) as well as the new Distilled Healing Potions do not show up either in any search.
Bump my bug report: http://nw-forum.perfectworld.com/showthread.php?367102-Auction-House-bug-Potions-of-Power-not-showing
I think it's fantastic. Potions that you can't have otherwise, like +stamina potions that heal you too, and making batches of end-game buffs for your dungeon runs? The unstable potions are interesting, though I'd -really- like to see more effects than big, small, heals and poison. Maybe the bigger ones have this, but for the first two, it seems like minor polymorphs and some hp mods are all there are. Sure, a buff here and there, but lets get some -big- visuals, here, like sparkling characters or double-image, AoE spells and such.
Well done, I say.
If weapon/artifice is done similar to the armors, and the new classes come out under existing armorsmithing, I'm a happy crafter.
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Edit; above post mentions how it costs more in resources to make a heal pot than it does to buy one... two things... one, go buy them. Two, it costs NOTHING to make them except time. Sure, if you want to consider the ratio of selling the vitae and vitrol + solvent to buying the potions, I suppose you have a point, but the fact is, you can make them in the middle of a dungeon, and in the end, it is almost ALWAYS the case in a market society that it costs more to make parts for something yourself than to just go buy pre-fab parts. In this case, buying the health potions is like buying pre-fab food for your restaurant. Sure, you could grow it out back, but isn't it just easier to buy it from <vendor>? (while I would argue not as tasty at all)
Why are people so concerned about Cryptic tryin' to weasel another buck out of them that they refuse to remember the game is free to PLAY. Just try doing the profession, you'd be amazed at the results. The one time a company did something NEAT, by making experimentation a part of the alchemy process, thus random results (to a point), and you gotta cry about how you -assume- they are trying to take your money... they don't get anything you refuse to spend, pal, and yes, EVERYTHING can be done for free. I haven't even been in a T2 and I've got almost all purple crafting tools for all 4 armor professions, and I've not paid a dime past the Guardian pack and one bag of holding.
1. I'm assuming, at this point, that experimenting yields nothing but unstable potions once you get enough scrolls to advance to the next rank? But I'm not sure. The UI offers no explanation or indication and the experimentation task disappearing once you rank up creates a very awkward and frustrating dilemma for the player. This needs to be clearer. If nothing else can be gotten from experimenting, the task should disappear. If you want players to still be able to craft unstable potions, make those a separate task.
2. Now that potion and elixir prices are settling back down after the initial rush, 99% of tasks are completely useless because the materials and time are more valuable than the product. Why bother making potions and elixirs if you can just buy them much cheaper than it costs to make them? Not to mention getting them instantly... The rare batch jobs, in particular, need to be much more time and material efficient.
3. On the matter of batch jobs, I'd question the usefulness of having a task that creates only 1 potion or elixir at all. This might make sense for other crafting professions... but we're talking gear vs stackable consumables here. One piece of armor is useful. One pair of pants is useful. What good is one single potion? The normal tasks should already create batches of 10 or more. Or, at the very least, 5. The rare jobs should create much larger stacks still, and much more cost efficiently.
4. More on cost efficiency... For most jobs, the main price the player ought to be paying is the time it takes to run the job. Material costs should be negligible / symbolic. Again, consider that most of these potions have other sources... which means they will be available on the AH for quite low prices. There needs to be some benefit to crafting them over buying them. Some kind of trade-off. As it stands, it's both more expensive and it takes a lot of time to run the jobs. Ergo, no reason to run the job. Of course items that have no other source but alchemy are a different story..
5. Dyes. They are quite cool. It appears the class dyes you get from rank 7 rare jobs are all there is though? I haven't seen or heard of any more, anyway. Why stop there? These are pretty much the main attraction of alchemy. As mentioned, almost everything else has other sources. Please add more dye packs at various ranks of alchemy. If you really want to spoil us, come up with a way for alchemy to "mix your own dyepack" where we can influence the main, accent and highlight colors using different ingredients or assets.
6. Also, for the dye trade to pick up, we could really use a preview feature that doesn't require having the dye in your inventory. IE, people should be able to preview a dye given an item link for the dye in chat.
That's all I can think of for now, I might add more later.
It costs whatever AD you don't make from leadership during the time it takes to make a healing potion.
There are maybe 3 pots that are useful when you max out alchemy and that is about it. More than likely others will make these pots and sell them on the AH so I wont even have to bother making them myself. The HUGE amount of man hours put into creating one pot is amazingly stupid and it just makes the profession a total waste to use. None of the pots are cost efficient to make and can be gained in other ways that are much cheaper. I was really hoping it would be worth it to make my own pots, but it is just a waste of time and profession slots.
I will say one positive thing. I did not mind the process to level the skill. It wasn't too bad and was a nice change over grinding out pot after pot just to crawl through each level. Now just make it so pots don't take forever to make or give a lot more per recipe and this might be a useful profession. Alchemy doesn't have to be a money maker, but it should at least be useful.
So I thought I just need to grind 4 more knowledge scrolls, since yesterday evening I have done over 10 experimentation but have not received a single scroll.
Is this the only way to level? Am I doing something silly?
Thanks
What's the point of even having them ?
I haven't done any of the fast, expensive vitriol extraction. I have always done the time-consuming, cheaper extraction, and ground skill nodes for the rest of my materials. Likewise, I only brewed potions in batches, with cheap tools filling the bonus slots to have a reasonable chance at getting extras. This provided enough stuff to level, although it took a long time for one rare task I needed to crop up. I made no single potions. I AHed the leftovers. I made no healing potions because I had them from drops.
I wouldn't mind seeing tasks to gather wood without pelts, with reduced time. I have loads of pelts already and don't require more. I do not have that kind of reserve of wood, and right now it's far better to get wood from nodes because I may also get vitriols, or rare materials.
Batch brewing of Aqua Vitae and possibly Aqua Regia as a common or rare task would be very useful (or common to make 5 and rare to make 10? or bigger stacks even? something like that?). Same usual trade-off mechanic of it requiring less raw material but taking longer. This would reduce some of the overall grindiness of needing Aqua Vitae for absolutely everything.
Not sure how the ingredient cost math works out for doing everything in batches instead of individually, but it does seem like a pretty big money sink, and potentially only worth making things you can't get any other way.
Observation about not being able to run multiple experiments: I'd think this is a limitation of the tracking mechanic for acquiring knowledge. I'd foresee glitchiness if the game thought it should be awarding you the same recipe multiple times.
A designer explained in another thread on the subject that the experiment tasks are not removed after you've accumulated the knowledge to progress for people who really like playing with the unstable potions.
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About dyes, the most interesting thing to me, I do agree that it would be nice if we could get extra dye packs and/or individual colours from it (not the Zen Store ones, of course). A White dye bottle would be quite valuable. Getting the class colours as individual colours would be sweet (dye packs are so limiting... my courtesan set knows).
Otherwise, I enjoy that Alchemy doesn't work like, let's say, Tailoring or Leatherworking. From that point of view, as interesting as Leadership, my big favourite (who doesn't love free ADs or boxes or gold or exp?). Not intuitive enough to use as newbie maybe, but still not so difficult to figure out.
I'd love to have potions that replicate some of those unstable potions (and for longer time). Being a bear running around Protector's Enclave is fun!!!
1. The amount of time and resources to make 1 potion is just not worth it. If they always made batches of 3-5, then it might be a little better. Additionally, I think that they should also yield at least 1 "experimental potion" - these would be different than the unstable potions in that they'd tell you what they did - like an experimental shrink potion, or an experimental chicken-ification potion, or such. That would add value to the profession, too. They should also have a simply potion fusing task, which takes 2-4 of a lower tier potion and makes them into 1 of the next higher tier - like 4 minors for 1 regular healing potion. That could take 1 min + 1 min/tier of the potion or something. Or, just allow fusing of potions from your inventory if your alchemy profession is equal to or greater than the tier of potion you want to fuse.
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Major Flasks do not appear in AH when posted. I submitted a bug report on that.
Major Flasks disappear upon death.
Alchemy dyes are rare recipes. In the days since I got to level 20, I haven't been online once, not once!, when my Guardian Fighter Dye Pack was an optional recipe.
Why don't we have the rare recipe to Distill healing potions in groups of 10?
What possible value do we get from the purple assets? Whooptydoo! Rank 3 of a Dye Pack produces a total of 6 instead of 4! Or to actually make creating healing potions cheaper than buying them from the vendor, you have to have reliable chance of getting rank 3 on the rare recipes to make 10.
I absolutely loved the flavor of leveling this profession, but I have answered more questions than I can count on "how do you level alchemy?" since it is not at all clear nor intuitive. I believe your current patch on the test shard addresses this, so I'll be grateful for that.
2 hours to make a single potion that does not persist through death?
Half an hour to create potions one by one?
Absolutely no point to transmuting the Ooze since they can only go back and forth at horrible conversion rates?
No personal experience for leveling alchemy?
Can transmute oozes into crafting crystals and shards but not dragon eggs? This one is seriously baffling.
I'm a Master Alchemist on Dragon Server, and I warn my guildies to not waste their time, AD, and energy on this profession as it currently exists. That's my impression of what had to potential to be the absolute coolest profession.
Aqua Vitae requiring items that, if foraged, require what's basically slumming in the lowest 2 or 3 levels of zones, only to be rewarded far too often with 1ft poles, bent forks, bags of holes, and other misc worthless <font color="orange">HAMSTER</font>. To make it even better, with the currently broken Gauntltgrym events, a time slot that used to be allocated to professions has been removed, making some of the 'rare' drops from other skills even more rare, as they are now needed for alchemy AND the original skill (and not marked as such).
As a time sink, I guess it's ok for the hardcore tradeskiller - which I am. But overall, on a 1-10 scale, this barely rates a 3. To much sink, too little reward.
I agree with your assessment 100%. The leveling process is painful, the recipes are lackluster, and the end results are pitiful. The only reason anyone is leveling Alchemy is because it's the only new thing to do in game right now. Once everyone gets to lvl 20 and they realize that they've been hornswaggled, there will be an angry swarm of very disgruntled players.
I will point out that being stuck at level one means no additional apothecaries. And no real interest in moving forward, I tend to like crafting in MMOs and, as others have said, this had high potential; I think it fell flat.
Well, I see that NOW, but before I wandered into the forums and started looking it up it had the appearance of the other asset requiring tasks, only this one was the only one that yielded XP; it looked profoundly lame, so I shelved it.
I did try the profession, it was dull and accomplished nothing. I did several iterations of the tasks I could do and saw zero results, profession-wise. So here I sit at lvl 1 with zero experience points and no desire to waste a slot continuing to get zero XP, with NO INDICATION that that will change. So yeah I see a green item as a requirement for the only task that levels you up, and I look around at all the other tasks with green item requirements and figure that it's something I have to buy, I didn't say I wouldn't, I'm just not going to waste time on a skill that I can't level before doing so.
... Well, are you a GF? Because if you are then, yes, coloring your GF armor in the traditional colors of GF armor won't change anything.
The point of those dye packs is to color your armor in the default colors of other classes.
Really? because my armor is not grey by default.