I've been playing a crafter since Spires, having been an Alchemist, Artificer, Smith, Farmer, cook all the good stuff. I've noticed now that a lot of changes are hitting crafting in Esshar without changelog notices. Potions being removed, things being changed up, and with all the issues of resources and other issues around crafting as a whole, I felt it'd be worth making a proper post listing a whole lot of suggested changes and notable issues from my perspective.
Let's Start with Alchemy
Alchemy as a whole has been undergoing a lot of 'unspoken' changes. Potions are being removed from the usable lists without any mention in changelog channels (But some of these not being deleted from players even when removed from play), or in worse cases being deleted from players without refund or notice. Even worse, most of the potions removed were actually usable while many others left in are just expensive roleplay tools. I understand some of these were meant to become 'hidden' recipes and are not completely deleted from play, but even then it should be announced so those who have them can be refunded properly or have the potions removed.
Even worse, Alchemy as a whole is primarily useless. There are a small number of exceptionally useful potions such as Energy X, Boosters in general, some exceptionally broken potions like Healing Potions, and then a whole lot of useless fluff. Of the potions -deleted- from the game most of them were actually usable, and overall far too much of alchemy goes unused in most cases.
So let's look at a list of potions that have been removed or have not been that have issues in usage in-game, at least by my perspective.
Torchlight(sometimes), Levitation Potions, Stat X boosters, Rage Potions, Energy X, Elixir of Healing, Rejuvenation Potions.
Why these potions specifically? Because they actually have clear benefits to being used. Levi potions are cheap as hell, speed up movement and boost stats. Boosters are perms. Rage potions are a power boost, you lose DR but it's a traded stat. Energy X is basically a requirement for crafters, and the Elixirs and Rejuv's are incredibly powerful for healing. One removes ALL temp injuries and the other gives you a healing aura for an hour.
Many potions have incredibly niche uses, such as Magibane being only used in assassinations, Invisibility for spying or bypassing scouts, or Mandrake's Speach for... being loud? Even then, the number of usable potions is artificially increased by the number of different stat booster types. Of 26 Potions available in-game, only 10-ish are commonly made/used, 4 of which are different types of the same stat booster.
3 of the 26 these potions are impossible to craft without events.
I see Alchemy as a potentially great crafting tree, but it feels gutted and pointless beyond those select potions. If you are making a specific character type, sure they can be great. Assassins could use Magibane to make a strong enemy an easy mark, or Charm to get themselves an inside agent... but only if they can make someone drink the potions they want to use and can get the rare ingredients. It lacks a great deal of 'basic utility' when in reality, Alchemy as a tree would be perfect for creating utility items. Escape Bombs, Tiller's Joy, and Stoneskin were all perfect examples of potions that could be AMAZING if used correctly and make great roleplay tools and actual utility. I understand a player can also apply to make their own unique potions, but it shouldn't be a requirement to make the base investment of RPP worth it. Some more specific examples are:
Alchemy as a whole has been undergoing a lot of 'unspoken' changes. Potions are being removed from the usable lists without any mention in changelog channels (But some of these not being deleted from players even when removed from play), or in worse cases being deleted from players without refund or notice. Even worse, most of the potions removed were actually usable while many others left in are just expensive roleplay tools. I understand some of these were meant to become 'hidden' recipes and are not completely deleted from play, but even then it should be announced so those who have them can be refunded properly or have the potions removed.
Even worse, Alchemy as a whole is primarily useless. There are a small number of exceptionally useful potions such as Energy X, Boosters in general, some exceptionally broken potions like Healing Potions, and then a whole lot of useless fluff. Of the potions -deleted- from the game most of them were actually usable, and overall far too much of alchemy goes unused in most cases.
So let's look at a list of potions that have been removed or have not been that have issues in usage in-game, at least by my perspective.
- Escape bombs: These potions were made using some elemental crystals and herbs, not hard to make but not incredibly cheap either. When used they granted the user a bonus(+15%) on their flee check, and were even explicitly allowed to be roleplayed as various types of tools. Poison gas, smoke, flashbangs, etc. However, without any notice, these potions were removed from craftable recipes despite being amazing tools and an actually useful recipe. Additionally, since it wasn't announced by any means, some alchemists still -have- these bomb items but are unable to craft more. I see no reason these should have been removed or made hidden.
- Stoneskin Potions: A potion that was a low tier craft which gave you immunity to Bleed for 1 hour. Very powerful yes, but its complete removal was unnecessary and along with the removal of Tiller's Joy (more on that later) made Alchemy at low tiers essentially useless save for levitation potions. Additionally, being unannounced again it was merely deleted without reason given. While it was a very strong potion, it could have simply been toned down to give resistance to bleed, or perhaps even a small amount of DR% while slowing the user. Anything other than just removing an actually mechanically usable potion.
- Swiftness Potion: While perhaps having been too strong for T5, these potions were very similar to escape bombs. For 1 hour you gained +10% on your flee/pursue rolls. Effectively a counter to an Escape Bomb if you had one, or a boost to fleeing. Perhaps remove it stacking with Escape Bombs and it would have been fine, except it was deleted without warning from usage by Alchemists.
- Tiller's Joy: While I do not understand the full story of Tiller's Joy and only ever managed to craft 1 myself before it was deleted, it seemed like an unnecessary removal yet again. A potion that could have actually been used to make money by selling to farmers was just completely removed out of the blue with no warning or refunds for those who had already invested in making them. I know I was not alerted to it being deleted, only to find I had spent (at the time) rare resources to make it and it was now gone.
- Lust Potions: Moving away from deleted potions and into ingame potions that need serious rework or thought, Lust Potions are essentially an RP aid with very little use in the majority of play. Sure, you can spike food with potions like Lust Potion, but when it can be OOCly denied by anyone who doesn't wish to be affected, it is almost pointless. I understand being forced to Roleplay love/affection when you don't want to is uncomfortable for many, but then why does this potion exist at all? Even the in-game description says the consumer decides the duration.
- Energy Potions: Requiring Rabbit's Foot, 2 Sugarcap and a Lightning Crystal to make, Energy Potions are objectively one of the least useful and worst potions to use. They require 3 resources found in different parts of the map and do the same thing but worse than the cheaper Levitation Potions. Energy Potions do not restore energy or anything like that but instead increase movement speed, which is removed when you take damage meaning it is a purely quality of life effect for players who don't want to use energy to run. Levitation potions cost 2 fireflies and 2 sugarcap (infinitely easier to collect and less time consuming) also last an hour, increase your speed, give you +5 Agi, and last through combat making them usable in RPBs and don't just stop working when a random NPC hits you with an undodgeable spell.
- Jester Juice: A uniquely useless potion, Jester Juice is again a purely RP based effect in which the drinker becomes 'pleasantly amused and giggly' for 1 hour. It is essentially an instant drunkness potion, and if it had a mechanical effect such as reducing power or the likes, it would be an interesting thing to maybe 'poison' someone with, but even then it would be an incredible niche use. You know what else can make someone amused and giggly? Regular alcohol, which anyone can craft if they get the ingredients. And even then at least Alcohol restores energy when used.
- Mana Amnesia Potion: With the introduction of requested refunds and /refund of limited uses, Mana Amnesia Potions are effectively (if not actually) pointless. From what I've seen players aren't limited by time since purchasing a spell to refund it currently, so their potential benefit of being usable at any time regardless of time spell is used is moot. Even then, this is less about the uselessness of this potion but to also point out without it Tier 3 alchemy only has 2 other potions. Speaking of...
- Genderswap Potion: Literally only useful for if you're using a disguise of the opposite gender. Doesn't let you have children while using it, so beyond assuming a new identity, this is a pointless potion that just about no one uses. With this, T3 alchemy only has 1 'usable' potion.
- Charm: Besides the fact it requires a spire shard and is effectively impossible to make without extreme money etc, this is a potion that completely strips control of a character from someone for several potential years, simply because it only MIGHT stop working after years of imbibing it. The reason this is on here is that A: It is effectively impossible to make and B: Essentially allows anyone who manages to get it to instantly kill any character should they get them to imbibe it. Be it spiked food, a lie, or even winning a -restrained- RPB with a successful capture could force another character to drink it. Then make them commit suicide or any other thing. Almost the epitome of why Lust Potions are so disliked.
- Lumberjack's Aid: A Tier 5 potion that doubles the speed of your wood gathering!.... For double the energy cost of gathering. Literally doubles the speed but with no other benefits, just removes the time aspect of wood gathering. And in-game wood is effectively completely useless beyond selling for coin to NPCs.
- Liquid Luck: The requirements to make this potion are ridiculous and it only gives you +1 to roll, on top of making you weaker in combat. It can be a life saver in something like a deadly 6 where it gives you a chance of survival, but even then it's INCREDIBLY costly for being INCREDIBLY situational.
- Torchlight Potions: A more expensive Torch that you need to invest RPP to make. They might be marginally brighter, but still, it's just... weird and kinda pointless.
Torchlight(sometimes), Levitation Potions, Stat X boosters, Rage Potions, Energy X, Elixir of Healing, Rejuvenation Potions.
Why these potions specifically? Because they actually have clear benefits to being used. Levi potions are cheap as hell, speed up movement and boost stats. Boosters are perms. Rage potions are a power boost, you lose DR but it's a traded stat. Energy X is basically a requirement for crafters, and the Elixirs and Rejuv's are incredibly powerful for healing. One removes ALL temp injuries and the other gives you a healing aura for an hour.
Many potions have incredibly niche uses, such as Magibane being only used in assassinations, Invisibility for spying or bypassing scouts, or Mandrake's Speach for... being loud? Even then, the number of usable potions is artificially increased by the number of different stat booster types. Of 26 Potions available in-game, only 10-ish are commonly made/used, 4 of which are different types of the same stat booster.
3 of the 26 these potions are impossible to craft without events.
I see Alchemy as a potentially great crafting tree, but it feels gutted and pointless beyond those select potions. If you are making a specific character type, sure they can be great. Assassins could use Magibane to make a strong enemy an easy mark, or Charm to get themselves an inside agent... but only if they can make someone drink the potions they want to use and can get the rare ingredients. It lacks a great deal of 'basic utility' when in reality, Alchemy as a tree would be perfect for creating utility items. Escape Bombs, Tiller's Joy, and Stoneskin were all perfect examples of potions that could be AMAZING if used correctly and make great roleplay tools and actual utility. I understand a player can also apply to make their own unique potions, but it shouldn't be a requirement to make the base investment of RPP worth it. Some more specific examples are:
- Applied Poisons: There are a good few potions that work best when used to spike an unwary player's food like Lust Potions, Charm, Magibane, etc. But even if I'm an assassin player, I have to be really damn clever to get a high priority target to eat Magibane or something like that. Artificery shows an instance of craft in combat with throwing knives. Similar 'poisons' which are placed on the hotbar could be made. Short-range projectiles which apply various debuffs or minor damage over time to targets, not unlike the poison magic school. Alternatively, a 1 use item which briefly buffs a weapon like 'hogweed, causes severe pain in wounds it gets into. Increase a weapons pow by +5 for an hour". This might sounds like what amounts to a new combat tree, but it would be an addition that people would use so long as it's somewhat worth it.
- Temp Buff Potions: There are only a few of these as of now. Levitation and Rage Potions are the only 2 that instantly come to mind as usable in combat, but what could effectively be 'steroids' for short term boosts for an individual stat. These could even have downsides that take place after their duration, like withdrawal effects. Also, resistance potions like Stoneskin was. Example: 'Elemental Resist Potion: Grants +5 pow to the element type this potion was made for' with a variety akin to the boosters for different elements. Or "Status Resist Potions" that give different types of resistances to statuses. Not so much immunity like stoneskin was, but resistance. Shorten bleed effects, reduce DoT from poisons, shorten the duration of slows, etc. Swiftness Potions and Escape Bombs also play into this and open up the doorway for interesting characters who use items more than magic, as well as counteract one another.
- Utility Potions: Bring back potions like Tiller's Joy and create potions that are actually beneficial from an OOC standpoint for usage. Change Lumberjack's Aid to an actual boost in gathering rather than doubling speed for doubled energy (By this I mean just double speed without increasing cos), and/or create potions that increase your mining speed for stone/ore as well. A potion which increases movement speed would be fine, but don't make it objectively worse than levitation potions. Let it last the full duration or make it last longer than Levitation Potions as a base duration.
Artificery
A Crafting school around creating weapons, armors, physical items, and enchantments. It doesn't share nearly as much issue of being 'empty' as Alchemy and generally, everything Artificers make and do have instant, noticeable statistic and mechanical effects in the game. Weapons and armors instantly change your stats, enchantments boost your equipment, you can upkeep your equipment, etcetera. Other items like the scrolls allow you to 'store' enchantments and sell or trade them off at a later date for non-artificers to apply to whatever they see fit. Awesome! So what needs tweaking with it?
BL Requirements: To use any equipable weapon or armor in Esshar (or any MMORPG really) you need to have a high enough level. Now that's all well and good for most of the items, however, when you reach T2 Artificery and Mythril Equipment, you find your requirements spike heavily. To use Mythril weapons you need BL 45, or RPL 150, 30 higher than your RPL to unlock that tier at 120. It wouldn't be that much of a bother, except at that point you unlock T1 Artificery and have even higher tier equipment to try for. The Mythril armor requires you to be RPL 180 to use it. Level locking equipment is well and good, but I feel you shouldn't need to be 60 RPL higher than your current point to use the equipment you've unlocked. Especially when above 150 RPL you only get +1 RPL per check. With the +4 up till that point, you get a rough minimum of 38 hours before you can use that equipment after gaining T2 Artificery.
Throwing Knives: I can't say I've seen anyone use these unless they had a random open slot on their hotbar they didn't care to fill at the time. These are non-homing projectiles with a relatively short CD so long as you use the lighter metals, and need to be refilled by crafting more. As such, they have limited uses per creation. While a really neat idea, it feels kind of pointless in comparison to spells mages can use constantly without needing to spend extra resources that will, most of the time, home in on an enemy if not carry a greater beneficial effect like beams stunning/doing huge damage. They kind of feel like a worse bubble you spend money on. These could be cool though, if combined with other potential changes like applied poisons, and show that interesting add-on items can be done.
Re-usability: Beyond crafting items for low-level users or someone not having the coin to pay you for something better, there's basically 0 reasons to revisit lower ranks of crafting. In Alchemy, as limited as it is, there are useful potions multiple tiers that you revisit, make and use regardless of your level. Even master alchemists or RPL 200 players use levitation potions at times simply because they're useful. When you unlock the next tier of glyph or armor or rune, you have almost 0 incentive to go back to a lower tier save for cheaper costs. The few exceptions to this are the unique items/enchantments that don't have more powerful variants like scrolls, Mythril replacement kits, Repair, and power/precision runes that use orch/mercury to perform. Artificery could benefit massively from some unique items being spread around or added in.
Potential Add-ins/'fixes'
One-Shot Utility Items: Or limited use items. Boosts and advantages don't have to be limited to Alchemy alone and can have other uses. Items that provide a one-use heal like a healing crystal or 'quick use scrolls' which grant a short-lived bonus to power with an element or resistance to an element. An item which lets you generate a much shorter-lived protection AoE glyph on use as a high tier item even. Or other throwables/limited use weapons like throwing knives with more interesting and varied effects. These could be added in at a variety of tiers to give lower-level skills a reason to be used.
Traps: Essentially the same as the Defense Ward rituals, these could be placed down in areas and have specific effects when triggered. These could be used by guilds to defend areas that are off-limits or to set up literal traps for assassinating or robbing players for more antagonistic means. Traps could have effects like reduction in a stat or application of some debuff, or even something as simple as a 'Guard Ward' which alerts the enchanter of when someone passes through it akin to the /scout command.
A Crafting school around creating weapons, armors, physical items, and enchantments. It doesn't share nearly as much issue of being 'empty' as Alchemy and generally, everything Artificers make and do have instant, noticeable statistic and mechanical effects in the game. Weapons and armors instantly change your stats, enchantments boost your equipment, you can upkeep your equipment, etcetera. Other items like the scrolls allow you to 'store' enchantments and sell or trade them off at a later date for non-artificers to apply to whatever they see fit. Awesome! So what needs tweaking with it?
BL Requirements: To use any equipable weapon or armor in Esshar (or any MMORPG really) you need to have a high enough level. Now that's all well and good for most of the items, however, when you reach T2 Artificery and Mythril Equipment, you find your requirements spike heavily. To use Mythril weapons you need BL 45, or RPL 150, 30 higher than your RPL to unlock that tier at 120. It wouldn't be that much of a bother, except at that point you unlock T1 Artificery and have even higher tier equipment to try for. The Mythril armor requires you to be RPL 180 to use it. Level locking equipment is well and good, but I feel you shouldn't need to be 60 RPL higher than your current point to use the equipment you've unlocked. Especially when above 150 RPL you only get +1 RPL per check. With the +4 up till that point, you get a rough minimum of 38 hours before you can use that equipment after gaining T2 Artificery.
Throwing Knives: I can't say I've seen anyone use these unless they had a random open slot on their hotbar they didn't care to fill at the time. These are non-homing projectiles with a relatively short CD so long as you use the lighter metals, and need to be refilled by crafting more. As such, they have limited uses per creation. While a really neat idea, it feels kind of pointless in comparison to spells mages can use constantly without needing to spend extra resources that will, most of the time, home in on an enemy if not carry a greater beneficial effect like beams stunning/doing huge damage. They kind of feel like a worse bubble you spend money on. These could be cool though, if combined with other potential changes like applied poisons, and show that interesting add-on items can be done.
Re-usability: Beyond crafting items for low-level users or someone not having the coin to pay you for something better, there's basically 0 reasons to revisit lower ranks of crafting. In Alchemy, as limited as it is, there are useful potions multiple tiers that you revisit, make and use regardless of your level. Even master alchemists or RPL 200 players use levitation potions at times simply because they're useful. When you unlock the next tier of glyph or armor or rune, you have almost 0 incentive to go back to a lower tier save for cheaper costs. The few exceptions to this are the unique items/enchantments that don't have more powerful variants like scrolls, Mythril replacement kits, Repair, and power/precision runes that use orch/mercury to perform. Artificery could benefit massively from some unique items being spread around or added in.
Potential Add-ins/'fixes'
One-Shot Utility Items: Or limited use items. Boosts and advantages don't have to be limited to Alchemy alone and can have other uses. Items that provide a one-use heal like a healing crystal or 'quick use scrolls' which grant a short-lived bonus to power with an element or resistance to an element. An item which lets you generate a much shorter-lived protection AoE glyph on use as a high tier item even. Or other throwables/limited use weapons like throwing knives with more interesting and varied effects. These could be added in at a variety of tiers to give lower-level skills a reason to be used.
Traps: Essentially the same as the Defense Ward rituals, these could be placed down in areas and have specific effects when triggered. These could be used by guilds to defend areas that are off-limits or to set up literal traps for assassinating or robbing players for more antagonistic means. Traps could have effects like reduction in a stat or application of some debuff, or even something as simple as a 'Guard Ward' which alerts the enchanter of when someone passes through it akin to the /scout command.