Crafting Reagent Detector

[Egon the Monkey]

Now, some of the stuff you require for alchemy, herbalism etc. is obvious from the description, but some you can't easily guess as there's no hint in that. I'd never have figured out some of the recipes without getting them off other PCs. Much like the conjurative sand for conjuring reagents, an item you could use to see if an item is a alchemical, Herblore or Consecration component would be helpful to dissuade people from giving up if they can't see a use for something.

That way, the key is trying logical combinations of known stuff, not random combining in the hope you have things that work. Much in the same way that sand helps you act on your conjuring hunches without having to waste days worth of spells trying out reagents on a focus.

[Ommadawn]

I like this!

[Anonymous Bosch]

A also like this.
IMO there's a little too much trial and error (mostly error) involved.
 
Recipes dropping as loot would also be a good thing.

[MoonlitNight]

Well after the spammage i did on Irc -ill just say: Awese=ome Egon. I agree.

[Drakill Tannan]

It would certianly help not no wait 3 months before you discovered a single formula. At least we should be given a guideline: something like 1 reagent of each, at least 3 reagents. That would shorten the list of posible combintaions A LOT.

I haven't discovered 1 formula yet.

[FleetingHeart]

You're not meant to discover them through trail and error, really. You're meant to seek out recipes and learn them that way. I know that in the UD several dropped as random drops on quests. The most powerful are generally reserved as DM loot.

[MoonlitNight]

I would love to fleeting heart. Neither trial and error-nor FINDING a recipe has happened to me.

[Cruzel]

I do not like this simple for one reason;

Anything and everything is potentially an ingredient as more and more recipes are added. It is too impractical to make a 'detector'.


As for hints, I could probably write some since I know all the recipes anyways, I could write them during the slow/ boring travel parts of my vacation!

Anyways, I did make a 'mentor-ish' PC just to help out people struggling with these systems, when I am back from my vacation (Maybe a moth or two more?) I could bring him back if you noobs are still struggling!

[MoonlitNight]

Cruzel i need you on tofubu badly tomorrow, i mean it, your the ONLY one who can teach..on te knees i am.

[Cruzel]

Sadly I am three provinces away from my home PC right now, and posting from my mp3 player. I have no way to get ig sorry.

[Professor Death]

I have to agree that the lack of ability to (IMHO) discern recipes through trial and error on old EFU left me with a bad taste - as I recall, when I developed a PC to try it, the ingredients AND the alchemy kit (or was it an herbalism bag - I forget) disappeared after so many tries (at least mine did!).  Thus, I felt that it was a waste of time to continue exploring it when each try cost me quite a bit of coin.

Despite the mention that the recipes are sometimes left as loot, I have NEVER seen one in several years of play on EFU and now EFUA.  My opinion became that the lore was held IC by a select few who shared only with their compatriots, and OOC that those with the knowledge had a good thing that "miraculously" all their subsequent characters would have too due to metagaming.  In short, I gave up bothering even though it sounds like a really cool and underused part of the server - I'd love to see more characters selling herbal kits - I've seen ONE on EFUA so far.  

Maybe a book with hints or tips in the library would help us out?  I'm not saying all the recipes, but maybe some hints on common usages and amounts would be helpful.  For instance - are there common "binders" used in the process, like rags or pipeweed, or oils?  Heck, anything is better than where we sit now, IMO.

[Jayde Moon]

Or even failure messages that give you some kind of hint as to what went wrong, based on your skill rolls.

[Egon the Monkey]

The DMs told me there *are* recipe drops up here, but I've not seen any yet. There definitely were in the UD. Egon got into Alchemy after finding a book on how to make acid and choking powder, then started seeking more out and writing a manual.

[Anonymous Bosch]

Cruzel makes a good point about the original idea.
 
Maybe the recipe drops could be a bit more common?
At least common enough for somebody to find one occasionally. ;)
Heck, the relatively weak ones could probably drop like flies.
Knowing even very minor recipes would at least keep aspiring alchemists interested.

[Cruzel]

I have to agree that the lack of ability to (IMHO) discern recipes through trial and error on old EFU left me with a bad taste...(snip)

EFU Alchemy/herbalism/cooking  were kind of  meh to get started in, but there were patterns and similarities in the systems that made it fairly easy to pick up once you knew your first 1-2 recipes.  In EFU:A the recipies (Well, most of them) are a bit more diverse, but there is still something of a logic to them. Once you figure out a couple, you are golden and on your way to figuring out a bunch more.  The biggest problem really is the speedbump of learning your first couple!

Or even failure messages that give you some kind of hint as to what went wrong, based on your skill rolls.

I thought about suggesting something similar but in order for it to be able to provide actually useful information to help you get the recipe right they would need to add a ridiculously complex formula to compare what you have in your toolkit with possible recipes and then provide some kind of feedback.

I think I suggested a while back something like critical failure rolls, where you would get explosions or a big wad of goo for your trouble when mixing certain things that should not be mixed or in improper quantities. It would be easier to do this but it would still require a somewhat big change to the alchemy system which I do not think any of the DMs would do because the alchemy thing is johannes' afaik.


Either way I submitted some more hints to them (not posted in this forum due to omg spoilers)  and I plan to submit more as time allows during my trip. It is up to them to decide if they want to use them or not though!