On potions brewing…
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FEEDBACK ON POTION BREWING:
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Dear CoAers,
i've been playing the only potion brewer (well, perhaps not the only one but let's say one of the most known in the GMT area) for a few weeks now and I'd like to give a feedback about the new crafting system to DMs and Players, hoping that my suggestion will help me and others to increase our fun.a. on the fun of playing a potion brewer
Playing a brewer is not fun (all right it's a personal choice so no rant here!).
People often request tons of potions no, wait, -tons of the same potion- batches of twenty, even thirty with each order. And they are no retailers, they buy potions for their day-to-day activity.
Moreover you end up with a few "loyal" customers who continue buying the same, without any kind of interaction with the rest of the server (I assume your only customers are those without the ability to use wands).I kept track of the last month or so of activity and my puppet had only five different customers who accounted for the 100% of activity (so all the potions I brewed have been sold to 5 customers, I exclude my Thayan Coterie from the customers obviously).
I wonder why people are not buying potions?
b. on the recipe system
While, on a theoretical basis, the recipe concept is interesting, -in my experience- it fails to work "properly" in CoA.Let me explain: the idea behind is that, in order to brew potions, you need a recipe and the proper spell memorized, then you can brew potions. Aim of the system is to have potion brewers buiying the recipes and/or, roaming the lands in order to find new recipes for rare potions. Unfortunately there is no clue to where those recipes can be found so one is doomed to wander aimlessly hoping that Tymora will smile upon the poor brewer.`[suggestion: why don't have some sages/hermits/whatever in the less accessible areas of the server who can offer recipes?]
As per potion variety, I have been asked only three kind of different arcane potions: blur, shield and invisibility.
The first, despite its usefulness, is currently non-brewable due to a bug in the recipes (at least, the two recipes I managed to obtain via RP/purchase were bugged).
Since a potion brewer brews potions -mainly- to obtain a profit, I wonder why, with the current system he should/would buy a recipe to brew a potion of "fox cunning" that costs 120 lions. The brewer knows that the request of that particular potion by his potential "market" will be equal to nil (or very close to 0).
In order to amortize the cost of such recipe he should - maintaining his prices competitives - he should at least brew 10/15 potions. Economically it's not working. I do expect that no one will brew those potions and, so that, in case, other PCs will have to go to the NPC merchant.Every brewer will then tend to specialize in brewing the potions that are used (shield, invisibility, healing) and whose recipes can be easily find, with the aim to obtain some of the used recipes (i.e. blur+ endure elements).
_Suggestion: let's avoid having recipes to brew "normal" potions, let's instead, create recipes for "particular potions". Example might be Shield potions with double the duration, empowered healing potions, blur potions with 20% concealment etc etc. So that the potion brewer could really pursue those recipes and be known as a proper brewer.
Additional note on the recipes: despite advertising the purchase of recipes, I have never received any offer to buy (apart from the mentioned two blur recipes that do not work). Perhaps increasing the rate/typology of recipes dropped as loot?
c. on the cauldron
I paid my share of coins to have access to the cauldrons of the Mage Guild.
I have brewed more than sixty potions (the vast majority of the same kind, I spent some time to record my brewing attempts) in the vicinity of those cauldrons and I have -never- witnessed any particular benefit.
Now either I have been particularly unlucky or something in the cauldron system is broken. (i.e. if the chance to obtain a benefit are, respectively 5% or 10% on each brew, the event of never receiving a benefit is in the range of 4.61% and 0.18%)FInally in order to amortize the cost of the "entrance fee" to the Cauldron Office the brewer needs a good amount of potion brewed. So far, from my experience, there is no compensation in brewing at the Mage Guild or in the middle of a tavern.
d. on the metamagic/specialization
My puppet is specialized in abjuration and transmutation magic, so far neither of the two add any kind of benefit to potion brewing. I wonder if it could be possible, in the future, to receive bonuses/peculiarities in potions brewed by chars with particular specializations (this is more a suggestion than other).There we are, discussion open._
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It seems to me, that to make th epotion brewing concept attractive, we need to have a mix of certain attibutes.
- Fun for the crafter in research and obatining recipies
- Financially profitable
- Rare or specialist potions not available from NPCs
The first is in place, to a certain extent, as far as I am aware. Except it would be nice to see the research into Spell Focus and spell school focus being rewarded with extra benefits. Also, it might be nice to see locations with "working" dire-cauldrens in dangerous and out of the way places, that give significant added benefits. For example, if you manage to work your way down to the Drow bases in the underdark, you can persuade a Drow Mage to let you use their dire-cauldren of enhanced potion brewing if you fetch for them a rare spell crafting component. Perhaps you might negociate with the sage in the swamps to use her cauldren if you return with the heart of a swamp crocodile. Each of these dire-cauldrens would involve some non-quest fed-ex style task that is expected to require adventure and challenge to locate, just like the Hedge Magic items.
Items 2 and 3 are probably an either/or. And, given that this server is more about making adventure than SecondLife merchanting, I would opt for attribute 3. If the brewers, with some degree of relative ease, were able to brew exciting, long duration, or rare potions, we have something that is attractive and unique for brewers to pursue. Lets move away from the bulk orders of 20-30 potions from players to ordering 5 enhanced potions. This implies that characters can obtain their bulk orders from somewhere, perhaps quests can drop a greater amount of basic potions, or NPC prices are adjusted to price PCs out of the basic potion market into the rarer potions, where they can excel
My tupenny worth.
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I don't bother with potions at the moment. It's just something more to grind quests and spend coin on, so players with less time to invest in the server miss out on even more. I'm probably among the most active of players here, but I'm just not a fan of having to buy recipes/find recipes in order to craft something I've already sunken a feat into, and paid 700 coins in order to get access to the appropriate crafting stations.
And this isn't as a merchant; Merin can craft wands and potions, but only does so for her own purposes, or as gifts for other PCs.
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I have to agree with the above post. Having taken brew potion early in hopes of actually making use of the feat, I've ended up trying to brew two potions ever. This for a lack of interesting recipes that my character has access to and the lack of potential profit. It's just very low. And as people tend to order bunches, and you can only make 5/rest cycle it cuts down on efficiency and profits more.
I'd say about 80% of the server has some ability to use wands (UMD, ranger levels etc). While this number is taken out of the air, the market for wands is just so much larger, more profitable and practical. Here you get 25 uses in one pound and slot of space, as opposed to stacks upon stacks of potions that are far more expensive per use and more ungainly for those with the ability to use wands. There just seems to be no real reason to brew potions when recipes are so hard to get by, and wandcrafting don't require anything but the memorized spell and the mages guild access.
I understand the thoughts behind the recipe system, and the idea is good. I just don't think its working like intended. And so far; from all my questing on both low, mid and high-level quests, near and far, I've seen -one- recipe drop ever, and that was the invis one from fairies that seems to be a regular. So where do they come from in then?
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Let me give some insights, as it was I who designed it, I can surely provide some directions on -why- certain things are as they are.
- Having rare recipes available on the server
I have not had the time to implement this yet. Part of the reason is that I want to make sure there are no bugs with the system. Making changes to the system once there are recipes and sellers scattered everywhere around the server is no small task. Once I've figured out why the treasure system doesn't copy variables properly (the last known bug), I will start on this. The other setback I have is that making it -really- rewarding and -random- is not something easy, and I want to prevent any kind of abuse.
- Making cash and the cost of recipes
This is necessary. If everyone has easy access to all the recipes (at a small cost), no one can distinguish himself for having a wide variety of potions to offer. There needs to be a choice for the player (Do I want high availability and spend the initial amount to buy many recipes, or do I spend nothing and keep my availability low). This will most likely not change. On another note, we (the DMs) never wanted for potion brewing to be a cash-making machine. Gathering gold needs effort (and when possible, risk).
- People do not want a variety of potions.
Sadly, there's nothing I can do about it. If people only want Shield/Blur/Invis, that's because they are the most useful mechanically. If you want to sell different types of potions, you have to work at it IC. I've seen potion brewers in the past (I think it was Mr.Geek's Fivestar), doing a wonderful job of IC-ly advertising his potions in a way that would make people want to buy all sorts of potions, even if their mechanical usefulness were low. People need to go further than the normal posts on the forums to advertise and go beyond to get results here. And no modification to the Potion Brewing system is going to change that.
- Benefits of crafting near a cauldron
Okay, I'll let it out since I think there's no need to keep this secret anymore. If you are within 10 meters of a cauldron while you brew, you have a 10% chance to brew an extra potion. I'm surprised no one ever experienced this benefit yet, or remarked their potions stacks going up two potions sometimes. However, to be honnest, it's perfectly possible that there are stacking bugs with this approach, and that it's not working correctly (I haven't taken the time to brew hundreds of potions to test it out). Yes, it's possible that I will add different types of cauldron giving other types of benefits in the future. But be patient on this, this takes a considerable amount of time, just as much time as point #1
- Benefits for certain feats.
I see no reason why we should make certain feats go beyond their standard Bioware usefulness and have an additionnal effect on potions. The spell focus feats already are balanced within the game, and adding effects to potion brewing on top of that would unbalance it, for no reasonable reason. Altough, see points #6 for more info on customization.
- Potions with custom effects / different durations
That is something possible, but as with other scripting tasks, takes a considerable amount of time. This is always something I'm more than happy to do as part of an application-character. The rationale is that I don't have enough time on my hands to add this on a large scale (read: for all players, on the whole server). As I explained in another post, potions are using the same spell scripts as when you cast the spell through your spellbook in the normal way. Making changes to individual potions means modifying those spell scripts, one by one. Bottom line once all this is explained is that I'd rather do it on a few selected spells, for an application character, rather than open it to everyone and have to maintain a long list of custom changes.
My approach with all things scripting is: minimize the effort, maximize the impact. If it takes me only one night to add a few custom potions, and then I deliver them to one character only, I minimize the scripting/debugging/amount of grunt work to do and maximize the effect on the playerbase, since this application character will hopefully impact the playerbase in lots of fun ways
- Craft Wand
Craft Wand will most certainly work -exactly- like Potion Brewing, unless someone can cast Time Stop and give me loads of time to go into a more in-depth concept. The only notable exception is that I will make sure that summoning themes are locked into the wands, ensuring that people of different deities/races/with the proper items can make wands for their themes.
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I like the idea of how its working but there are a few points need to be worked on. I don't know if the DM's have added everything in as they have intended though so you guys might be complaining too early.
As for comparing it to making wands, they said thats going to change soon as well, but yes. Most of the server buys wands instead of potions.
Ive experienced the cauldron effect, having brewed 6 Bravery potions instead of the normal five. This seems to happen very rarely though.
Edit: Oh, yard posted :p
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Some Maths, it may be wrong but it might trigger a statestician to work through the correct math
From memory, it costs about 800 for a pass to a brewing hall. Now if there is a 10% chance of an extra potion, and the average sale price of a potion is 50 gold, you are going to have to do, on average, 16 potion brewing trips to recover the cost of the pass. That's an awful lot of chance and only an average. Some folks might take 20-30 trips to make up the cost of the pass.
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Some Maths, it may be wrong but it might trigger a statestician to work through the correct math
From memory, it costs about 800 for a pass to a brewing hall. Now if there is a 10% chance of an extra potion, and the average sale price of a potion is 50 gold, you are going to have to do, on average, 16 potion brewing trips to recover the cost of the pass. That's an awful lot of chance and only an average. Some folks might take 20-30 trips to make up the cost of the pass.
What's the point? You're making a choice by buying a pass. Nothing says we need to make it -easy- to recover that cost. You can also brew potions without a pass.
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Some Maths, it may be wrong but it might trigger a statestician to work through the correct math
From memory, it costs about 800 for a pass to a brewing hall. Now if there is a 10% chance of an extra potion, and the average sale price of a potion is 50 gold, you are going to have to do, on average, 16 potion brewing trips to recover the cost of the pass. That's an awful lot of chance and only an average. Some folks might take 20-30 trips to make up the cost of the pass.
The 10% chance is not bad at all, in particular if you get a new potion for free and justifies the cost of the pass if you plan to have a brewing character.
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last i checked, mage guild pass is 700.
been wondering, concerning the spells you can brew, is it still limited to 3rd lvl spells or will there be recipes for stronger spells? Example: will we be able to make stoneskin potions?
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I'm not a brewer, but I -DID- find a interesting recipe and intend to get someone to brew it, if i ever find a potion brewer.
and if they can decipher what spell the recipe calls for.
(it doesn't say in the recipe description… not being a brewer, maybe one uses it and it pops up telling you then ?)
Dont want to give spoiler, it would be obvious where it came from, from the description.I can definetly see the benefit of recipes, and people specializing in certain potions. I can even see the usefulness of only being able to learn int-mod*2 recipes or some such.
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I'm not a brewer, but I -DID- find a interesting recipe and intend to get someone to brew it, if i ever find a potion brewer.
and if they can decipher what spell the recipe calls for.
(it doesn't say in the recipe description… not being a brewer, maybe one uses it and it pops up telling you then ?)
Dont want to give spoiler, it would be obvious where it came from, from the description.I can definetly see the benefit of recipes, and people specializing in certain potions. I can even see the usefulness of only being able to learn int-mod*2 recipes or some such.
I do buy recipes. Check the forums!!!
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I can even see the usefulness of only being able to learn int-mod*2 recipes or some such.
CLERIC HARASSMENT!!!
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One additional consideration about RP, potion brewing and questing.
That's more a "trade 0ff" consideration of the player who decides to play a potion brewer as his/her main character.Often, if not always, when the player brews he brews 5 potions of the same kind (that's what the customers want and we can't do anything about it), that means that - supposing for simplicity a 6th lvl caster (ie. 5 1st lvl spells and 5 2nd lvl spells) - will have his first/second circle spells depleted for the duration of a rest cycle.
On one side this is good: the 8 IG hrs cycle can be used to RP. However, if opportunity to quest arises (DM quest, exploration, normal sending etc etc) our brewer character will often be hampered in his normal functions having substantially less spells than his non-brewing counterpart.
Interestingly, the "recipe" search and the brewing sessions become one the fundament of the other. To the extreme,that means that a brewer will exist and quest only (mainly) to be able to brew.
That is, to my understanding, what DMs wanted to avoid. Characters devoted to crafting.What will then be a possible development?
The optimal situation (to me) will be the following: to play a main character focussing on exploration and plot furthering AND to play a secondary character who will brew the potions in order to help the player base who needs, to keep their potion stocks updated.I have the impression that - unless you have loads of time to play - brewers will become a rarity.
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As a thought, a character who has the ability to brew potions does not need to make that available to the entirety of the player base.
I understand that Almadyr is playing a merchant-type character and that's fine. You can however approach that differently. Supply "your" people with those potions, make a slight profit from that but don't advertise to the general public. In doing so you give your "team" and edge over others and you create yet another reason to have people "play on your team".
It may not make for huge profits, but the current system doesn't seem to do that. Holding the ability to brew and provide another character with potions over their heads is just another way to string your puppets along.
Anyhow, just my 2 cents worth.
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The DMs see Brew Potion much like we do Skill Focus: Appraise–its meant to save you money. It isn't meant to be your adventurer's career.
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The DMs see Brew Potion much like we do Skill Focus: Appraise–its meant to save you money. It isn't meant to be your adventurer's career.
This would be true if it applied to all classes but potions are mostly used by fighters and barbarians, and can only be made by mages or clerics who can easily make wands for themselves which are always better then potions.
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The DMs see Brew Potion much like we do Skill Focus: Appraise–its meant to save you money. It isn't meant to be your adventurer's career.
This would be true if it applied to all classes but potions are mostly used by fighters and barbarians, and can only be made by mages or clerics who can easily make wands for themselves which are always better then potions.
Yeah, and unlike mages and clerics, fighters and barbarians NEED potions to survive significant battles at higher levels. i.e: High level quests, DM-quests, PvP, Plot-battles.
Without anyone to provide them with a degree of reliability and reasonable pricing, they're royally screwed or forced to multiclass, or be forever stuck doing the 4-8 quests. Or at least never quest without an army of plate users.
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The DMs see Brew Potion much like we do Skill Focus: Appraise–its meant to save you money. It isn't meant to be your adventurer's career.
This would be true if it applied to all classes but potions are mostly used by fighters and barbarians, and can only be made by mages or clerics who can easily make wands for themselves which are always better then potions.
Yeah, and unlike mages and clerics, fighters and barbarians NEED potions to survive significant battles at higher levels. i.e: High level quests, DM-quests, PvP, Plot-battles.
Without anyone to provide them with a degree of reliability and reasonable pricing, they're royally screwed or forced to multiclass, or be forever stuck doing the 4-8 quests. Or at least never quest without an army of plate users.
No actually.
That IS how DMs see it. You can't disagree with how we see it.
Brew Potions is to save clerics and wizard's a little gold or make a little.
Yes, potions are used more by classes that can't brew them. That is why many shops already sell these potions at reasonable prices and the module over the last 8 years has been adjusting these prices and increasing drops of potions and providing more specific healing for some of the classes who need it most.
Brew potions is not here as a career. We roleplay adventurers on CoA, not merchants.
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But Shield potions cost around 130 gold at NPCs and last but a single encounter(that's with roleplaying and scouting).
Brew potions is not here as a career. We roleplay adventurers on CoA, not merchants.
Then increase the potion cap per rest. Why can wand-crafters 25 uses of a spell in a single rest with one cast, when a potion brewer does the same with five rests and twenty five casts. The current system hardens adventuring for brewers.
