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Alchemy suggestion (rev. 1 by Slayerj on 07-11-17, 04:54 pm)

Posted at 07-11-17, 04:17 am Link | #1

Slayerj

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Edit: This is now going to have some stack sizes that should be altered as well in here, but I can't figure out how to alter the posts title, so....yeah.

Alchemy

First, I want to get one thing out there. THIS version of mabinogi is NOT LIVE. It is not restricted by the idea of "We need to make money first". There is no profit here. That's something you need to think into when talking about older/newer mabinogi content and content here. You need to take into account WHY things were the way they were, like what I'm here to talk about.

Alchemy Crystal stack size is ASS. It's garbage. It's worse than branches, something that has NO use other than a single collection quest. When Alchemy was introduced as this new thing after a LONG time of just 3 combat types: melee, magic, and range. Nexon capitalized on this in their design choices in order to make money. While we all have service built in for free, that wasn't the case on live. Alchemy bags REQUIRED SERVICE TO USE. Alchemy crystals, for a good while, STACKED VERY VERY LOW. The current stack size for the base crystals is 50, for some skills crystals 10, and for a few 5 (golem). Think about how much HELL that is to someone WITHOUT SERVICE doing alchemy who can't use that bag. You would have to have either an empty inventory OR a PET full of crystals OR service and several bags. That or risk running out a lot and requiring to go back to buy more FREQUENTLY.

What I am about to suggest is something that is time consuming to code, as it involves things that are hard coded (God what the hell isn't in this game) but I feel it FITS old school Mabinogi while improving how things are now without going over the top.

1. Base Crystal stack sizes to increase to 100 or 150.
2. Skill (not golem) crystals to stack to 50 or 100.
3. Golem to stack to 10 or 25.

Now for the big one. Craft-able base crystals. First let me explain why. You cannot craft the base crystals yourself yet they are sold in mass in Tara and Tail. I believe these things are mass produced as fast as possible or in a fashion that would be speed & quantity > quality. This would result in crystals with less than desirable shapes and would take up more room in a stack, thus stacking less.

Crafted crystals stack 150 or 200 more. I would say they deal more damage, but I see a million and one problems with implementing that with skills that stack the charges, like WC, FB, and Sand blast.

Water crystals come from using a water bottle (gives you the bottle back) and gives 15-25 crystals. Maybe just 20 with no randomness.

Fire Crystals come from branches (1 branch per go) for 10 crystals each. (You're using the branch as fuel for fire in the oven to crystallize.)

Clay comes from the culin stones. To give them another use. 10 for low grade, 25 for common, 50 for fine, and 100 for finest (Because who is going to actually make these anyway with sand burst the way it is lol).

Wind comes from an empty bottle, using the bottle up. Gives 50 a pop.

Pros:
- Makes alch mastery somewhat easier to train for those early ranks that have no business being JUST crafting crystals without having to rank a skill you might not want to use at the time, like golem (who wouldn't lol) or spikes just to have a higher % to make crystals. It's still an option, but this makes a bit more sense, right?

- Gives us an explanation as to how the base crystals are made.

- Follows Alchemies entire thing of crafting your armo while rewarding you with larger stacks for your trouble.

Cons:
- A lot of work to do this. While changing the base stack size isn't a mountain of work, everything else is.

-More coding to link the base crystals to having a % based upon each rank of.

- LOTS. OF. CODING.

- Someone is going to be angry even if you just changed the base stack sizes.

ProCons:
-Now you need to do something similar with stack sizes for handicrafted arrows/bolts and base arrows/bolts and quivers to allow them to compete with the 1k stacks.

-Still not as powerful as on live with it's 500 stacks.

Stack sizes in general

There are many stack sizes in this game that could use an increase for one reason or another to keep the game the same way it already is, while making it a bit less... aggravating as a whole.

Wool. Wool stacks to 10 in a 2x2 inv space and up to 20 in a wool pouch, doubling your wool to inv space but still only letting you take 10 out at a time. Wool is a large part of weaving and thus tailoring and a tiny bit to refine. It's a chore to collect without getting a sheep stuck using a wolf pet and demands a lot of inv space for how much it's needed in crafting. Five wool makes a thick thread ball. So without a bag you get two goes for a full stack, and with a bag you get four. Let's increase the base stack size to 15 or 20 and the pouch to either 30 or 40. You can spend more time at the sheep in one go, and then even more time at the spinning wheel for your trouble. A little less back and forth and a little less inventory panic.

Cobwebs. Similar to wool in its uses, but these little things only stack to FIVE. Sure they take up a 1x1 slot but FIVE? A little bundle of webbing only stacks to FIVE? Please, please make this 10 at the very least.

Thin/Thick thread balls. Yeah, nothing really to say but increase these to 10 as well. No explanation why, it just feels right if you alter the others to alter this one too. (I know all you weavers out there would love this.)

Crafted Arrows and bolts and javelins. They're made by you and are a higher grade than in the shops. Yet because they only increase your damage by a small amount, the 1k bags are always going to be the answer. They take no time to acquire, only cost a minor 10k, and give you 1k for the same amount of space. Let's bump up the crafted stuff to 250 for arrows and 450 for bolts. It still takes you a bit to make a full stack of them, but now they're just a good of an option for both space to amount as the 1k with their added damage. The 1ks still have value and are still really nice, but now the crafted ones have a market to boot!

Crafted bandages. I feel these should at least go up to 15 in a stack. They're fine at 10 if you see a reason other than them being crafted by the player instead of easily bought.

Ore stack size. Mining is a joke compared to combing the beach. You don't even have a change to get a gem, and the ores take up so much more space! Sure you have more chance at x type overall, but that's really not saying much. You have prod mastery + a skills chances helping you get the tiny ore but mining just has the prod mastery skill and nothing else. Either stack up to 40 or 50. 40 to be on par and 50 to be better. At 40, you still have the added bonuses of higher chance to gather (+ the chance to gather up to 3 without upgrades needed) and the chance at a gem, and at 50...you get an extra mini stacks worth in that 2x2 space. That might honestly not be enough but I don't know where to stop at.

red, blue, green, and silver gems. Why don't these stack....? Quite honestly making them stack wouldn't help them out TOO much as there's almost nothing you can auto production them with, but it would save some space when making mana preservation stones...to the 5 people that do that LONG task of making more than 10...on that ntoe.

Mana stones to stack to 20. They're already annoying as all fucking hell to make and while they take up 1x1, inv space is key in this game and the reason everyone buys 20+ minics (and still fills them up wanting more space)

Gold pouches. Small to be 35k and large to be 100k. There are a few items in this game that cost NEARLY 100k but not quite, so you can't direct bank transaction them. Why the hell do you need to buy TWO gold bags to handle this. This one is personal, so I really don't have a proper reason why, feel free to shoot is down lol.

Posted at 07-11-17, 04:52 am Link | #2

Selzyr

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I do agree with increasing the stack size and size of the Alchemy Bags, Alchemists suffer on that a bit too much.(not sure if you did any reference to it, just took a quick read on the post, Alch Bag sizes I mean.)

About the other points, I can't really say much tbh, never bothered with Alchemy on this version other then Synt.

Posted at 07-11-17, 05:01 am Link | #3

Slayerj

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Posted by Selzyr

That's fair. I'm trying to both ease the burden that is early ranks of alch mastery (why is this crafting only...) and even late ranks a bit, while explaining lore wise how the base crystals are made and rewarding players for making them instead of just buying them WHILE at the same time making buying them still worth while. I don't like the fact that training alch mastery is done mainly, by the community, via rank B summon golem for like 99% stone golems, or mid/late ranks of barrier spikes and thus nothing but chopping wood (should add wood to the fire list actually) and mining stones only and buying clay crystals to use in the crafting. That would still be the bulk of it, but you wouldn't have to rely on the rank of another skill for your % at making the crystals. Not to mention for the MASSIVE amount of crystals you're required to make to rank up the early and later ranks, it makes MUCH more sense for the bulk of them to be your base crystals.

That leaves in question if the game would count EVERYONE of them made in the batches for training or just as once. Personally just one count of training total per batch would work fine.

Posted at 07-11-17, 12:56 pm Link | #4

redclad

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Supporter

I'm not an alchemist but I agree with the points raised here.
The stack limit increase could be done easily as it was done for firewood and this could be in the next content poll (wasn't it already in one of the firsts ? can't check right now).

For the rest, it would be interesting but as you said Slayerj: too much coding. I believe there are more urgent matters for coders currently.

If recipes can be added easily (or will be in the future), we could always add new recipes for base crystals but probably not make a different kind with bonuses. Also, if we're talking about recipes, I would suggest to give a use to tin, zinc and nickel ores produced by metal conversion since they're currently completely useless (similarly to these giant potatoes I get all the time: a rare "drop" which is less interesting than the common drop, what a joke).

Posted at 07-11-17, 02:26 pm Link | #5

Slayerj

Posts: 121
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Posted by redclad

That is true, though it never hurts to suggest something that could be written down as a "This could be done later" thing. As for those ores, using them both in synth, refine (as well as defrag), and blacksmithing would be the best thing to do. That in itself would takes a LOT of coding and thought. What new items brought in could use them, what new items created as custom content could use them, and what older items could use them as a replacement for something else without making the skill harder to train than it already is?

As for the bonuses, with all there is going on in the formula and how 3 different alch skills use multiple crystals in the skills loading, the only real answer to a 'bonus' to crafting would be a larger stack size than normal and in that case, aside from making the new item itself (as I don't know how much work that is), making it have a larger stack size still would be easy.