Alchemy/Herbs revamp

Moi · December 2017

So, it was mentioned in a clan that the Overhaul stripped a lot of the value out of Alchemy and Herbalism. It was also mentioned that maybe someone should come up with a list of ideas to fix this. And so here are my ideas (Dhani helped!)

Remove Alchemy specializations. Alchemy goes from Inept to Transcendent. Liniment, Mending, Sanguine, Preservation, Choleric, Phlegmatic and Melancholic are all removed as Alchemy recipes. Antidote is either removed or changed to work like galvanism, offering a 1/5 poison resistance defense. Love is now cured by sipping Love again. Invisibility is either changed to work with the new clothing hiding system, or left alone. The recipe for Frost is changed to snowball 4 juniper 2 kombu 1 mistletoe 1 sargassum 1. Merbloom and Earwort go extinct and are removed as skills. MagicInk, PaleMalt, AmberMalt, WhiteTea, OolongTea, DarkMalt, GreenTea and BlackTea move from Brewmeister into Herbs. The liquids themselves will still be allowed to be brewed using Cooking, as is possible now. TeaCeremony is made a function of Herofete, the syntax is HEROFETE [BLACK|GREEN|OOLONG|WHITE]. Chilling is likewise moved into Cooking.

Alchemy
---
Inept: Salt, Sulfur
Novice: Health, Antidote
Apprentice: Bromide, Fire
Capable: Mana, Reagents
Adept: RestorativeIce, OrgPotions
Master: LuciditySlush, Frost, Absinthe
Gifted: Love, Musk, Galvanism
Expert: Jasmine, Miniatures, Invisibility
Virtuoso: Vanilla, MineralOil
Fabled: DragonsBlood, Sandalwood
Mythical: MagicInk, Vitae, Constructs
Transcendent: PhilosopherStone

Herbs
---
Inept: Farms, Valley
Novice: Wastes, Deserts
Apprentice: Hills, Mountains
Capable: Forest
Adept: Caves, Sea
Master: Faeleaf, LastHarvest
Gifted: PaleMalt, WhiteTea
Expert: AmberMalt, OolongTea
Virtuoso: DarkMalt, GreenTea
Fabled: SoothingSteam, BlackTea
Mythical: Sparkleberry, Constructs, Miniatures
Transcendent: Herblore

Tremula · December 2017

I like this for the most part, but why do you have absinthe with alchemy?

Moi · December 2017

It was that or put it in cooking?

E: Dhani informs me that that choice was made because it was in Brewmeister originally.

Stratas · December 2017

So Belch, PukeMaster, StandingDrunk, BeerBelly, and SteelGut will just be lost?

Also, Constructs should probably be at Mythical, since its at Mythical in every other tradeskill. Not sure why Sandalwood would be that high anyways. Herbs is missing Constructs and Miniatures, though presumably they'd be at the same levels (Mythical and Fabled respectively). Why are green and black tea being swapped? It'll still take just as long to learn all the teas, so why change them?

Moi · December 2017

Stratas said:

So Belch, PukeMaster, StandingDrunk, BeerBelly, and SteelGut will just be lost?

Correct!

Also, Constructs should probably be at Mythical, since its at Mythical in every other tradeskill.

Sure.

Not sure why Sandalwood would be that high anyways.

No particular reason.

Herbs is missing Constructs and Miniatures, though presumably they'd be at the same levels (Mythical and Fabled respectively).

Forgot these.

Why are green and black tea being swapped? It'll still take just as long to learn all the teas, so why change them?

Accident.

Maligorn · December 2017

Those Brewmeister perks are really nice. I wouldn't want to delete them. Particularly the blackout-resist one.

Dhani · December 2017

We had that talk about what should and shouldn't stay in these ideas. Truth be told, the perks of Brewmeister gave you more reasons for PK perks than actual trade perks. The idea hit us to just give them to Dwarf as racial perks, but they already do have something similar.

As for why we feel they should just be deleted, the Brewmeister offered more benefits than any other trade when it came to functions outside of performing for that trade. Case in point, most trades have their Trans skill be something that can be used in combat or add to survivability, whereas Brewmeister had three very potent and strong passives that weren't even their Trans skill.

If anything, these lost abilities can be turned into some kind of artifact, if not directly added to Dwarf Demi and Demi+, as they wouldn't fit the theme of Alchemy in general, nor Cooking which is taking over the actual brewing of teas and ales.

Sylphas · December 2017

"Alchemy and Herbs are weak now, let's gut Brewmeister" is a terrible idea. I wouldn't mind seeing Alchemy and Herbs helped out, but regardless of whether or not you see Brewmeister as too much PvP and not enough of a trade, all of your solutions amount to "we'll randomly toss skills elsewhere, who cares?" and that's not cool.

Dhani · December 2017

I'm not quite certain where or how anything is being randomly tossed. But I do suppose I can explain the thought process behind each if you'd like.

Brewmeister had nothing unique, as a trade, save making the malts and teas. Cooking could already actually brew the tea and ales with working effects. So Brewmeister was just a material supplier and PK passive skills.

Herbalism at its core had nothing truly going for it, you had to dump many lessons in order to just get some herbs that are common in recipes. This way the actual herb gathering is front loaded and the production of teas and malts makes sense. We have precedent with SoothingSteam after all.

All custom brews from Brewmeister were just merged with Lorecraft and turned into just one skill. It can be argued that the Brewmeister specialization is needed, but the racial for that specifically has been gone for a while. I think that covers everything, but if something is still randomly tossed to you, I'd be happy to explain why it makes sense thematically and any precedents.

Sylphas · December 2017

I understand it from a trade perspective, but regardless whether Brewmeister is just PK passives or not, I see no coherent idea from you how to deal with them. Things change, sure, but if someone got Brewmeister for PK and is offered the same skills again as an artifact or racial perk or something, you're basically asking them to pay twice. Refunded lessons won't pay for artifacts or race changes.

Dhani · December 2017

The proposal we have here is what we went with, just the deletion of them. I only brought up our other thoughts to show that we actually had them and tried to make them work else. As per the whole artifact thing...how many times have things been removed or lessened, then an artifact comes out for it?

Side note, the only other possibility I see is to put them in Discipline, but honestly, they just don't need to be in the game. Being drunk as is is already amazing regardless of the race you are currently. We also realize not everyone is going to be happy when changes come out or are proposed. If the sole argument against removing Brewmeister is "We wanna keep strong PK passives" then I personally find its okay to let them go.

As for gutting Brewmeister, Bards really don't need two Trade skill specializations that only they can take. It was awesome when it was introduced and it gave some people the motivation to play Dwarf...which nobody really played. I'm not against specializations or trade skills for archetypes, but usually people take a trade skill for what they want to create and work with, and not PK. I can be totally wrong and some people absolutely do look at the Trans abilities only for trades.

Stratas · December 2017

Malts and teas are basically randomly thrown into herbs without much regard to the focus of Herbs. SoothingSteam is a precedent for making blends of herbs, sure. But the Teas are all using power and an alembic to cure rawtea and nothing else, in the manner of alchemy. The malts don't even have an herbal component. This really comes off more as "Brewmeister is unfair so it should be gotten rid of".

Also bards have two trades that only they can take because they're the gap bridgers. They allow cities to have access to basic alchemy, and forests to have access to basic enchantments. Your proposal, as such, removes the gap one way - cities will now have access to ALL alchemy, forests don't have Spellcraft. If it's patently unfair that some archetypes have access to certain skills, then the solution is probably to give every class access to every trade, not dismantle one skill and give its parts to Alchemy first and then whoever else afterwards.

Dhani · December 2017

The mindset of Brewmeister being unfair or too strong was never something that we worked off of. Because of all the dead skills in Lorecraft, it would be simply more difficult to make 7 new recipes skills to replace them. Instead, some things that made Brewmeister alchemy at all, was given to Alchemy.

While I can understand the feeling that it feels like Herbs is getting the teas and such for no reason, that argument rests upon making rawtea into types of tea and grains becoming malts using power and amalgamation. That is easy to handle, hence why I brought up SoothingSteam as it could be assembled just like it.

Per the argument of Alchemy being available to all, I really don't see it as a bad thing, and as I previously stated, I don't mind trade skills being locked to archetypes. The entire reason we posted here it on the forums is to gather ideas and opinions before submitting it for a real review. If you don't like Brewmeister and Lorecraft being merged, help us with ideas for 7 new recipes for Lorecraft so we can keep this economy divide. There is no sass, we want other's ideas and suggestions, if you've got something for Lorecraft or Herbs to help it out, other than what we've suggested, we would love to hear it.

Moi · December 2017

Sylphas said:

"Alchemy and Herbs are weak now, let's gut Brewmeister" is a terrible idea. I wouldn't mind seeing Alchemy and Herbs helped out, but regardless of whether or not you see Brewmeister as too much PvP and not enough of a trade, all of your solutions amount to "we'll randomly toss skills elsewhere, who cares?" and that's not cool.

I don't think that that's a fair assessment of the idea. We're moving from 30+ curatives (including vitals, fire/frost, quicksilver, sparkleberry, etc) to less than 10. And we have maybe twice that in herbs/alchemy products that aren't cures but still have non-niche appeal. Base Alchemy used to make 9 of those and it still makes 8. Lorecraft used to make 13, now it makes 9 (counting perfumes). Herbs used to have 18 herbs that everyone needed, now it produces 4. Brewmeister was largely unchanged, retaining its 7 malts/teas. It's not "Brewmeister OP, must nerf". It's "We have about 30 useful skills left between these three skillsets, so let's divide them as evenly as possible between Herbs and Alchemy".

I'm happy to consider the idea of retaining the PK effects (Particularly StandingDrunk and BeerBelly) in some way. Possibly as an effect for PaleMalt (which currently does nothing but be a middle ground between beer and whiskey) or a brand new Malt effect. But retaining Lorecrat, Brewmeister and Herbs as three different skills is basically asking that someone come up with two dozen new effects which are useful enough to matter, don't contribute to defense bloat and don't introduce new, Overhaul-incompatible cures. That's a non-starter.

Moi · December 2017

Stratas said:

Malts and teas are basically randomly thrown into herbs without much regard to the focus of Herbs. SoothingSteam is a precedent for making blends of herbs, sure. But the Teas are all using power and an alembic to cure rawtea and nothing else, in the manner of alchemy. The malts don't even have an herbal component.

The unspoken assumption, which probably should have been spoken, was that the malts and teas would be made to work like SoothingSteam and be something herbalists make without an alembic. Yes, it's a bit weird that herbalists can also work with grain and sugar to make malts. But I don't think that's an insurmountable bit of thematic dissonance.

Dhani · January 2018

Speaking of sugar, @Moi , we forgot to list it as something in Alchemy. That is a killer thing and it personally seems silly that it requires the correct recipe and a small chance to obtain sugar...which then also ruins the recipe you were making. We would like to introduce a way to reliably obtain sugar and an idea I'd like to put forth:

PhilosopherStone - In addition to the very small sip bonus it gains, allow the conversion of a commodity (salt/wheat/whatever) into sugar.

It can have a power cost if one is necessary, but it would finally grant a more reliable way of obtaining a highly sought after, and required, commodity for cooking and other things.

Alternatively - Grants a x% chance to gain sugar additionally with a correct recipe amalgamated. The amount of sugar created would be relative to the amount of sips produced thus also giving a somewhat reliable means of obtaining this commodity. This would negate the chance to sugar normally and only offer the additional chance.

Cyndarin · January 2018

To be fair, the general consensus among envoys/admin was to move trades away from PK so they aren't a minimum requirement to participate (such as tailoring and splendour robes). When trades have PK perks, one is always the best, and then that trade becomes by far the most popular. You've really seen this with how trans skills have changed over the years, and how we've chipped away at their impact.

Brewmeister is a holdover oddball. Probably never addressed like the other trades because its core attraction (insane dmp) was eliminated with the resistance/buff overhaul. Not the worst thing in the world to scrap barfing and belching and normalize the trades.

Enya · January 2018

Yeah, I'm personally all for making trades more economically viable and less omnipresent due to combat perks.

Moi · January 2018

coughcoughwhyaretherenotattooistscough

Maeko · January 2018

Moi said:

coughcoughwhyaretherenotattooistscough

Because it takes long enough to do a full set of tattoos that if you're not my best friend I'm not killing an hour inking you.

Enya · January 2018

It's also not viable as a trade - even more so than most other trades. You're never ever going to make back what you invest in it.

I paid 0 gold (as I remember it) or close to that for my full set of tattoos and have no need to spend a single sovereign more, ever because of how tattoos work. You only end up needing more tattoos if you make bad choices or need to swap around, and with the benefits as nerfed as they now are it may not be worth it unless you're really maxing yourself out on a particular buff.

Dhani · January 2018

Tattoos wouldn't be so awful as a trade if you could just tattoo yourself! I mean, as an Acrobat with Dodging and Master Tattoos for 18% you can technically get higher mitigation than the forged armor 20%, but on that same note, Psymet can boost that as well and wear the forged armor, so seems moot.

Kagato · January 2018

More than once temporary tattoos have been suggested - they exist in other IRE games and would be a steady source of income for tattooists if implemented. It would require an overhaul of how tattoos work though for it to go ahead.

Enya · January 2018

Probably topic for a tattoos thread

Sylphas · January 2018

To be clear, I heartily back making Alchemy and Herbs decent, and I'm all for putting the teas and such either there or maybe Cooking. It's always annoyed me that Brewmeister could make brews but not design them, so I'd also be fine making it a Cooking specialization of some kind or just rolling it in there entirely. Furthermore, I'm not particularly concerned with PvP and I wouldn't be bothered by taking PvP out of trades entirely.

What bothers me is that gutting Brewmeister is being discussed as kind of an afterthought. As an Alchemy specialization, Brewmeister is as much part of the discussion of Alchemy as Lorecraft is. If you think those skills should be gone, say so, commit to it. If you think they're better of as artifacts, pitch that as part of the idea. Don't just ignore it, though.

Finally, as @Stratas said, if you're going to do away with Brewmeister, you should offer your ideas on Tinkering and how you would like to see Cosmic and Elemental Enchanting made available to the communes. To me, this just seems like plucking at low hanging fruit, with the actual work of making hard decisions and justifying them left as an exercise for the reader.

Eritheyl · January 2018

I think brewmeister is being discussed as an afterthought because, for like 99.3% of the playerbase, it is just an afterthought. Shoving it all into cooking might be the best way to go, the current setup is just dumb anyways imo.

Enya · January 2018

Leaving a batch of skills out of a rework proposal is saying that you think those skills should be gone. Removing those skills (as well as the extraneous abilities all throughout these trees) is the basic premise of the entire proposal.

That said, absolutely those abilities should be nixed. The one brewmeister non-crafting ability that should be included somewhere is chilling.

Enya · January 2018

Sylphas said:

Finally, as @Stratas said, if you're going to do away with Brewmeister, you should offer your ideas on Tinkering and how you would like to see Cosmic and Elemental Enchanting made available to the communes. To me, this just seems like plucking at low hanging fruit, with the actual work of making hard decisions and justifying them left as an exercise for the reader.

This is just flat out wrong. You don't need to offer a full rework on an entirely different set of skillsets to make suggestions. Unnecessary. If it were required the entire envoy system just wouldn't work. As a communer, who cares. The days of orgs putting game wide embargoes on trade has been dead for practically a RL decade by now. Tinkering has been pretty long overdue for some... tinkering, but you don't need to do every project at the same time.

As pointed out pretty exhaustively at the start of the thread, the impetus for this proposal is that the number of things each of the base skillsets can make has been dramatically reduced and the skillsets are in dire need of condensing, as a result. You can either repopulate the skillsets ("You should offer your ideas" on brand new replacements yadda yadda, also exhausted ITT) or consolidate them, as suggested. Too little material for three skillsets. Enchanting hasn't had anything deleted!

Further, the "coherent idea" with dealing with these skills is that all of the effects that have dependencies remain. There are patterns out there that require blacktea, ambermalt, and so on. These are clearly trade commodities. This rationale has been explained a few times, and placed in the context of a larger movement towards removing strong PK from trade skills. Those abilities [should, and in this proposal do] go away. The chilling effect has a useful crafting niche as the counterpoint to clothing padding. If not into alchemy, it should go into artisan or something. Tattooing, you tattoo the bottles cold.

Anyways, if bards will suffer for taking PK abilities away from them, they can submit reports when envoy reports are open to have those abilities restored, but that really stretches belief. The abilities are pretty darn good, but bards as a whole have basically never suffered in a major way for PvP options and utility. Many of the passive effects are replicated elsewhere in the game, via artifact, class skill (Minstrels, o' course), and plain elbow grease.

Moi · January 2018

I knew I was forgetting something. Chilling should absolutely go into Cooking under the proposal in the OP.

As far as redoing Enchantments go: That doesn't really have the same impetus as redoing Herbs/Alchemy, since (as Enya points out) the Enchantment skills still work just fine post-Overhaul. No skills in Enchantments got deleted. So while, yes, it would be nice if there was a bit more parity between Spellcraft and Lorecraft, I don't really see that as a necessary part of this proposal.

Saran · January 2018

Seems that there really isn't any discussion about whether or not Alchemy would be available to cities?

Like if you're deleting Brewmeister and reverting Alchemy back to it's original state (with the Lorecrafter abilities making up for the the lost recipes) does that also mean Alchemy reverts to forests only?

It's been a part of trades since the beginning, if you're comparing Spellcraft and Lorecraft then is that being upheld by this? Even if it's not worked out now, making all of what remains of Alchemy available to cities seems like a decision that the division should end and so Enchantment should be looked at. (Even if not in this thread, it would be unfair to leave the disparity behind)

Looking at the skill layout suggested. It seems like all that is "needed" is two more abilities in Alchemy?

Brewmeister is mostly dismantled to fill up Herbs, but in theory something could be done with herbs to fill up those slots instead.
Like cultivation type stuff (could just be me, but super wouldn't care if herbs could make fertiliser for the nature growth and do some other version of nature guard) and some more herbal blends that have some minimal effects.

Add in the mentioned ability for sugarfication and something else to Alchemy to replace Absinthe and MagicInk and all good?

Dhani · January 2018

Alchemy would still be available to the cities via the bard archetype, just as any Enchantment is for communes the same way. To my understanding, Tinkering can do the important things you need a Spellcrafter for as is, except the Cosmic and Elemental specific enchantments. I can be wrong, but as we've all discussed, another topic for another thread.

As for replacing absinthe or magic ink, we can't really just get rid of those because Dreamweavers and Bookbinders use them respectively. When we were looking at merging Brewmeister and Lorecrafter, we kept in mind what is required and doesn't already have a place elsewhere. We gave the malts and teas to Herbs simply because they already harvest the tea, and the malts because might as well keep them together instead of throwing it also at Cooking. The brewing of beers and teas was already being done by Cooking, so we didn't see the need to give it to the new Alchemy.

We had a few slips of what we meant to put into the proposal, but overlooked (Chilling, some skill ranks, etc), and those have been mostly fixed. The goal is to keep Alchemy a trade worth taking, and front loading Herbs with the actual harvesting of them. The buff to Cooking wasn't out of necessity or because we love it more than any other trade, just made the most sense thematically. The PhilosopherStone suggestions I put forth, I think we'd rather have the alternative taken for the proposal, as is still keeps with the element of RNG, but it won't be as punishing.

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