Spell Components & Brewing/Scribing

[Anista]

Please take a moment to express your opinion about the current brew & scribe system. 

This poll specifically regards spell "formulas:"  that is, the number and quality of components required to brew or scribe a spell.

Results will be displayed at the end of the polling period.

[Tajs]

I'll add that while I think the comp combination is fine for most spells (and complex for alchemy ones - which is fine really), the scribed/brewed decay too fast and even in vaults they do. Also it would be nice if they had a proper label on them, so any char could see which spell was scribed/brewed

[Jorquin]

Spellcraft is fine. Brew and scribe are borked.

The component requirements are prohibitive for any decent spell, all of which can be sourced by seasoned players from zones with relative ease. Using brewed or scribed potions/scrolls is so inefficient that it makes the system redundant for prep purposes. In their current state, those skills are basically only used for completing the alchemy quest or as a legendary requirement.

[Hoodoo]

While these words may never again be uttered... I agree with Jorquin.

[Jorake]

I also agree with the labeling.

I would like to see higher end components sold in the shop. Even if they cost 1-2k a piece. If you had to invest ... 5-8k to brew a stone skin or 10-15k for a heal pot. It makes the skills practical and useful while not breaking the game from people trying to prep a full chest of them. I would keep offensive spell components mostly still on mobs. Unless you make the cost very high to scribe a spell like nightmare etc.

So you have the options of either spending cash to prep for a zone or just collecting components the old fashion way. I suspect you would see a fair bit of both.

[Caine]

I agree with a lot of the points raised by Jorquin and Tajs, but I will say that even with the combined help of a lot of clannies tossing me components this wipe, it has often been the case that when we go to brew things we are still missing one or two choice components of certain spheres, often because they decay, the spell requires a lot of components (6 lows for some spells) or the components are hard to find. Exceptional combats, plants, and weathers, specifically. I can't count how many abjurations and divinations I've come across in comparison to these. Maybe my locator would love drowning in saints tears, but like Jorquin said, for prep this feels a little off.

Usually the only recourse to stop decays until I have enough is to vault these rarer components, and I often find myself vaulting lows as well, which I think is kind of ridiculous. And of course once you brew something, it will decay even in the vault, which makes storing actual finished prep for long periods even more infeasible. Why should potions decay if I can just store the components? Okay, I guess it takes up 10x more vault space, but most players wouldn't really care about that. All it ends up being is a hassle.

I think either recipes should be made a little easier, components should decay slower, more components should be sold in stores, or a better balance found for more lows and exceptionals of 'rarer' spheres loading on mobs. I got quite tired of farming the hierophant druid 30 times just to get 1 exceptional plant, or doing component runs and getting 20 pond ices. Tajs' point for making brewed potions not decay in vault would be super as well.

Looking forward to seeing what direction this goes.

[Tajs]

Oh yeah, and make them weight 0 or max 1!

[Vasagh]

I think brewing and scribing formula difficulty is OK in principal but not very convenient for normal day-to-day use.

It's too much of a hassle to bother with alchemy except for things that have a unique effect / general purpose like Soulkeep potions for example.
Another good example might be to scribe a scroll for a PK battle or to do a difficult solo quest. Something that requires a lot of preparation.

I don't think alchemy will ever be convenient enough without reducing formulas to a single component or making components so common that you may as well remove them all together.

Things that could change / ease the pain:
. Components could last longer before decaying
. Components sold to shops could increase the supply if they didn't decay so fast and were more accessible (a world component merchant in major cities?)
. Components weight could be reduced, so more could be carried
. Components decaying could have a distinct message from Items decaying (and could be toggled off. Mages who carry components see constant component decay)

Spellcraft:
. Superb Spellcraft should not stun the mage so frequently when component casting.

[Lloth]

Things that could change / ease the pain:
. Components could last longer before decaying - Agreed
. Components sold to shops could increase the supply if they didn't decay so fast and were more accessible (a world component merchant in major cities?) - 100% agree with this idea
. Components weight could be reduced, so more could be carried - would be nice, but not the biggest deal for me personally
. Components decaying could have a distinct message from Items decaying (and could be toggled off. Mages who carry components see constant component decay) - "A component decayed from your pouch while you slept."

Good ideas all around. I think either making more components accessible via a merchant but having a higher price than normal would certainly help. Maybe mobs that load components now ONLY load the high-exceptional components and all low-mid could be purchased via a shop.

[Gnua]

Many of the suggestions seem to revolve around quality of life (as opposed to length and level of recipe)

[Lloth]

If you make the components more abundant and accessible, the annoyance at the length of the recipe diminishes. 

[Caine]

I feel like 90%+ of components are abundant enough already. The problem for me is that small percentage of components that I always seem to be missing.

[Lloth]

Right, what I'm saying is, if the mobs that load components now ONLY load the high-exceptional ones(maybe adjusting to load more weather/combat/plant ect) and the lower ones were all store bought, that would ease the trouble but still require some farming. 

One big change I think could really help out, especially the non-mages is having mobs that load components not be 'class' specific. Mage mobs can load any of those spheres, not just ones they would use. If I imagined a caster mob who loads components, they would collect all components in hopes of trading them to other casters, from a RP standpoint. So if they just loaded any kind of component, you wouldn't be forced as say a druid to just farm druid mobs.

[Gnua]

So as a thought experiment (not an actual suggestion), what if quality of life improved but everything else (requirements and loads and decays) stayed the same.
e.g. you could store your components at your vault and all your characters shared the vault and when you scribed/brewed you would have access to every component in the shared vault?  Although this unrealistic, the answer to this "what if" question would help determine if have mostly quality of life problems or if we have problems in addition to quality of life.  (e.g. if this unrealistic situation would make people start scribing/brewing then it sounds like a quality of life thing, but if even this solution isnt enough because of some other reason, then it sounds like there is stuff in addition to quality of life)

[Tajs]

While I appreciate the openess on this subject - thank you! It does strike me as a bit odd to focus on this, while things like decay system, medals, ranks and pwipe have been brought up by us players as something we'd like to see changes into. Afaik noone actually brought component system up.. ?
Are those other subjects being worked on or what's the status there?