DEVS/Alchemy : don't make the same mistakes as mo1

Gulith

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Apr 5, 2021
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Hi,
I'm an old mo1 player, and one of its first alchemist.
i was the guy who posted a video of a working healing potion, just because i was tired of 'elite pvpers' pissing on starvault for alchemy 'not working for years' ... while it was working ...
there was no alchemist then, because :
1) you could loot small potions from risars
2) the amount of time you need to craft a good amount was atrocious for the gain ... you couldn't sell 10g+ small potions ...
3) there was ZERO market for most multipliers for healing potions, so you had to get everything yourself : remember alchemy is based on secrets, so you can't really ask people to gather huge amount of weird useless/rare stuff like that without revealing it to the clever.
But at one point, small pots weren't droppable anymore, and ingredients were made public.
I stopped playing around mana potion introduction if i remember correctly, just after tapii transmutation release.
there was then direct healing potion and purify potions.
for HoT potions ... just try to get thymus ... and back then values were in form of sliders ... so good luck to catch a 5% increase while multiplier hunting (base values were very small)...
Henrik claims players only found 1% of recipes ... and there was some rumors about stat potions at one point ... but there also was zero in-game clues about special potions (stats, invisibility, underwater etc ...) to get you started in any direction.
there was simply too many combinations to try, blindly, with horrible UI / banking.
all that except if stuff was improved after i left.

there was three major problems:
I] bank space
in alchemy you could use everything, so to check combinations who would trigger a new effect (like underwater breathing), you would have to stock amounts of everything ... every carcass, every meat, every mineral, every metal, every wood, every fruit, every juice, every oil, every seeds, every plant, every flour ... every THING.
-> i was using multiple trial accounts + pets just for storage near the bank, and dual boxing to trade. this was just a logistic nightmare : just to experiment, and search for hidden stuff.
solution: master alchemists could buy special bank spaces (a separate bank), where you would store 1 stack of each usable in alchemy only. You wouldn't be able to store anything else in those, and very few people will make an alchemist anyway, so it wouldn't be a server load at all ... since it wouldn't be available for newbs alchemists and other professions.
(you could however do the same thing for cooks, who have similar issues)

II] blind search for hidden effects
in mo1, before purify potions effect who actually told you a special reaction occurred, i wasn't even sure if i had to time myself at how fast i was drowning, at each blind combo potion i was trying ... to check for 1 sec extension in underwater breathing ...
there was no ingame clue, no nothing ... just henrik saying most stuff hasn't been found yet ...
While henrik is still proud to announce the X billions of combinations for alchemy, he fails to see it is actually its own downfall if there is no HOT/COLD system to steer you in the right direction ... for it is impossible to find new stuff randomly, unless the recipe is ultra simple, like the purify pot was.
the system needs a HOT/COLD system to steer you in the right direction ... and i want a difficult one, not an easy mechanic that spoils everything.
you could have weird messages when you get 'close' to something, like:
- "some sort of feint reaction occurred for a second"
- "the mixture built up some heat at reaction"
- "smoke is emanating for the mixture"

stuff like that, to show you something is near. and you could add different degrees of smoke / heat / etc to show how close or how far you are from it.
Well how to calculate how far you are from it?
@ imagine you would need 33%jadeite + 33%pirus + 33%ironsilk to obtain an underwater breathing effect.
then:
- if you have 2 of the three ingredients, with it representing more than 80% of the mixture (not too much dilution), it could 'smoke at reaction'.
- if you added ingredient who contains the right ingredient, for example you added spiderqueen carcass instead of ironsilk(contained in spider queen carcass), then the mixture could 'heat at reaction'.
- if you have the right ingredient but out of range of proportion, the mixture could do 'X' at reaction.
- if you added something of the same type, like another fruit instead of pirus, the mixture could do 'X' at reaction.
something in that regard.

III] retroactivity
you try 1 million unsuccessful combinations, you are organized, and you cross all it from the realm of possibilities.
then a new expansion comes out ... and there is new type of potions to be found ...
do you have to retry everything all over ... again ... blindly ... at every major patch ? if new secrets potions would be even mentioned in patch notes ...
that's fun.
solution: well new secrets recipes down the road would have ingame clues, in new dungeons / npc discussions / book etc ... that would give away clues about one of the basic ingredient / mechanic.

conclusion :
this can't stay the same as mo1 anyway, or it won't rise above it.
this shouldn't be the nightmare it was in mo1 ...
and yes i searched everywhere in the world for clues, even in weird places, and i tried every combination of plants i saw in special npc garden & stuff, nothing there without an HOT/COLD system.
 
Last edited:

Kameyo

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Aug 14, 2020
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You might remember that video Henrik posted where he made a pot that healed for something like 275 and said no one would ever make it because it was so costly in mats. Anyways good post.
 

bbihah

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Jul 10, 2020
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Well the multiplier materials are pretty well known, and so is direct healing materials. If you added literally all of the higher end ones into one potion you'd get stupid amounts of healing. Problem is, yes. It'll basically cost more than anything else you could possibly put on your character.
 

2Op4Scrubs

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Sep 11, 2021
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I like the idea of having different text appear on screen as a hint, Also when book writing comes out maybe you could find some clues from a book of some NPCs journal they were buried with. Or a piece of burnt paper in an urn with some possible ingredient possibilities.
 

barcode

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Jun 2, 2020
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henrik is full of lies. well... perhaps not lies directly, but lots of half-truths and promises of things in the future that never come to fruition. his 'vision' if you will. do not take what he says at face value but scrutinize it heavily.

there's so much more that could be done with alchemy, but i wouldn't hold your breath.

i dont think the generic ore extraction messages are even working anymore. You used to get messages like 'there looks to be more to extract here, but you dont know how' if you didnt have lore for certain mats. if you were extracting too little, you might get messages like 'there are remnants of materials here but too little to form anything useful' meaning you need to input more mats or increase your lores or otherwise increase your thruput. These kinds of hints should still exist, and would be interesting to see similar 'hint' messages for alchemical reactions (combine action) as the op mentions.

-barcode
 

Gulith

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Apr 5, 2021
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Well the multiplier materials are pretty well known, and so is direct healing materials. If you added literally all of the higher end ones into one potion you'd get stupid amounts of healing. Problem is, yes. It'll basically cost more than anything else you could possibly put on your character.
yup, but even if you tried to find cheaper recipes regarding multipliers ...
for example i had a character perma logged out at the big salvia spot, and i was connecting every 4 hours to gather it all ... and man, it was so long to even get the amount for a reasonable amount of potion ... and if you were to convert that in Gold per hour you would get so much more easily at minotaurs ... potions would cost so much shit ...
as for potions when farm appeared ... well my 10 players guild filled with 20 trials account couldn't fill 4 houses so ... mass farms ... mass ugly square farms ... can't tell.
 

Amelia

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Jun 6, 2020
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I agree that space bank Is too Little for alchemists/cookers . I read somewhere that we'll have illimited space bank in the future, but not sure.
 

barcode

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Jun 2, 2020
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I agree that space bank Is too Little for alchemists/cookers . I read somewhere that we'll have illimited space bank in the future, but not sure.
is this really still the case? theres no limit to bags anymore so you can have 16 slot bags in each spot for what... 800 slots in each town? maybe you wont have multiple stacks of everything but seems workable anymore. who's to say as sv increases the number of materials but for now it seems mostly ok

-barcode
 
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bbihah

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Would be cool if we had more than just normal bankers. Specialized storage. Makes sense there would be a storage cellar just for raw food items, would probably be in like a tavern basement or something similar.
 
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Rorry

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If Cooking recipes are more complex in MO2, and if furthermore they need to be researched all over again with different formulae to be found by comparisons-- that might not be enough.

Unless they change the reserve system, cooking will never be a profession in MO2.
 

Gulith

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Unless they change the reserve system, cooking will never be a profession in MO2.
well if sophistication plays a huge role in what you have access to in different cities / secrets (as they plan to), then it will.
 
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Gulith

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is this really still the case? theres no limit to bags anymore so you can have 16 slot bags in each spot for what... 800 slots in each town? maybe you wont have multiple stacks of everything but seems workable anymore. who's to say as sv increases the number of materials but for now it seems mostly ok

-barcode
well if it's almost enough now, still alchemist need space for stuff too, since they aren't full alchemist now ... especially if you play the one account game, as it is supposed to be played ... then it might be way not enough.
 

Rorry

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well if sophistication plays a huge role in what you have access to in different cities / secrets (as they plan to), then it will.
They said those sort of things a bunch in the last game, too. Guess we'll see in a few years. Eating for sophistication will be a painful exercise with this reserve system, at any rate.
 
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Najwalaylah

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Unless they change the reserve system, cooking will never be a profession in MO2.
Good argument for changing the reserve system?

Some players will want certain foods, whether its something Sophisticated or 'Liquid Bacon'. They did in MO1, no matter how much the ideal Tavern there was a place where you could 'go to bed hungry'. They will again in MO2, even if there end up being two professional cooks.

If you want to be a Cook, you're going to need a LOT of bank space. You're also going to have to have some room for armour & possibly weapons-- because there'd be some point to it, thus you can, thus you will be expected to do so.

I know that a faction of players have always thought that the need to eat is just a nuisance.
 

Bladeer01

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i tried to cook some thing in mo 1 ;

well , i always heard of secret recipes but never saw one ( well it's a secret :d ) but frankly , given money per hour ration , simple pork or cereal was probably the best ;

ho yeah here in mo2 as a human i just need to rest to get my reserve back , funny right , pretty useful but sort of a game breaker

never touched alchemy ( fuck yeah give use something to work on be it message or anything )

rework cooking and alchemy , it's mo2 not mo 1
 
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Gulith

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They said those sort of things a bunch in the last game, too. Guess we'll see in a few years. Eating for sophistication will be a painful exercise with this reserve system, at any rate.
was also a cook in mo1, i could do decent sophistication + all reserve food, cheaply enough ... i.e not the alchemist nightmare.
they said a bunch of things yes, but they had like 2 programmers + henrik .... so it was impossible. now they have some means, and i don't think anyone would think they tried to scam people with mo1, they just couldn't deliver because of ridiculously small dev team.
 
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Rorry

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Good argument for changing the reserve system?

Some players will want certain foods, whether its something Sophisticated or 'Liquid Bacon'. They did in MO1, no matter how much the ideal Tavern there was a place where you could 'go to bed hungry'. They will again in MO2, even if there end up being two professional cooks.

If you want to be a Cook, you're going to need a LOT of bank space. You're also going to have to have some room for armour & possibly weapons-- because there'd be some point to it, thus you can, thus you will be expected to do so.

I know that a faction of players have always thought that the need to eat is just a nuisance.
The reserve system isn't the same as MO1. Characters gain weight quickly, even from food that has zero health reserve gain. It could definitely be changed for the better.

We still have the same old issue that single ingredient foods are so good that there is no practical reason to go deeper into the system. Also, one can cook pretty good food with zero points invested, so anyone who wishes can cook for themselves.

I was one who built a cook in MO1 only to delete it after I realized that there was little reason to devote an entire character to it.

Banks are much bigger than last game, that part is nice, being able to name bags would be very helpful, too, house chests will hopefully be sufficient once they enter the game finally as well.
 

Najwalaylah

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The reserve system isn't the same as MO1.
And everything about it that you did helpfully outline about it, and about cooking, after that just says 'needs to be changed from what it is now'. It still seems like a placeholder of a system.
being able to name bags would be very helpful, too
For a lot of reasons!
house chests will hopefully be sufficient once they enter the game finally as well.
Not sure if Houses can be sufficient for all things related to Cooking at its optimum. What I found, from making a Cook in the MO1 system, was that I needed a Cook and a half-- a Cook, and a Prep Cook to Press Oils, Grind Flours, and Gather 'the good stuff'. Fortunately, I knew a Fisherman. JJust the number of Appliances used in preparing the ingredients never really fit inside a House during my tenure. But that is water under bridges.

I guess if SV can't do it right, they'll have to do it over.
 

Magestica

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Alchemy they could drop run recipes every now and again - it guides you to the ingredients but you can only use it once. So say health potion ingredients 100 pots. 1 run ... you make the 100 pots (1 run) and the recipe is gone BUT you can still make it if you get the same mats.