Alchemy as it stands is completly dependant on the other trades, completely. We're unable to purchase our ingredients from a com store, or simply find them on the ground, or harvest. I learnt alchemy to trans, and arts so I could manufacture vials hoping that I could provide a service to the game and make a little money. ha!

Lets start with vials. it takes 5 gems of the same type to make a vial. Gems are well over 200 gold each, then you must find a jeweller willing to cut them, at the moment they have a ban on cutting (well the serenwilde ones do not sure of others) gems are completely random so in order to get enough of any one type to make a vial you've got to buy bulk and hope. I myself went through something like 2-300 gems, a considerable investment of cash only to find out that it took 5 gems of each type to make a vial, something I did not know as there was no mention in the help file of quantity. This means it is costing me 5 gems plus the jewellers cutting fee, around 1500 all up to just make one vial. Not accounting for profit... probem here is that bob sells filled vials of the same quality as mine for 400 gold each. Doesn't seem right does it? I would suggest that Bobs vials be of lesser quality and that the vials we can make use only 1 or 2 gems per

Mercury, salt and sulfur all seem to be fine, it can be hard to come by mercury at times but all these are fairly minor ingredients and most alchemists I speak to are happy with the supply of these. The one by produce we create, sugar, doesn't seem to come often enough, perhaps it is just that we're not able to make enough potions at the moment and when production increases sugar will be more abundant?

Herbs. There has been much discussion on this on comune channel. The herbalists rely on no other trade, all they need to do is harvest, yet thay have so many other trades relying on them. Alchemy, poisons, cooking, tinctures plus their herbs are in demand as curatives. It hardly seems fair that they have no overheads, there is nothing they need from anyone in order to havest yet all the other trades are reliant on others in some way.

Many herbalists feel justified in charging high prices because their wares are in demand and thatis the price they can get, that is their decision but it hurts the alchemists. An example one of the most commonly asked for potions is a health refil
Ingredients: horehound 4, calamus 2, sargassum 2, juniper 1, yarrow 1
horehound is rare, i've not yet been able to find a herbalist willing to sell it in the quantities that I need, remember I need 4 per vial, and a standard request for refils would be for around 5 to 10 refils, thats 20 - 40 horehound. When I did find some it was 40 gold per. That is 160 per vial there, calamus, again 40 gold per, sargassum, I bought at 30 per, juniper was 50 per and the yarrow I was given so not sure of price there. Supposing I can actually get hold of the herbs to make a health refil it costs me 350+ to brew it. Bob sells for 400 and they get a free vial! Bob also sells 60 sip vials, anyone not trans is only doing 50 sips so even assuming they get the herbs they cannot compete.

Most of the potions contain over 10 herbs some up to 40 at an average cost of 30 - 40 gold per herb, AND assuming these herbs are available to us the cost of brewing makes our prices out of reach. I've had people tell me they'll make do without when they hear what a vial with potion will cost. As long as we're having to compete with the general population for herbs we're not going to get the herbs needed, in the quantities needed, at a fair price.

We've invested the lessons into our art, we spend the hours trying to track down supplies, when a potion is needed, we're the ones that drop what we are doing to travel to the Alembic, our trade is not portable, not something that can be done while we wander about. We deserve the opportunity to make money at our trade just as everyone else does. I am sure that the system wasn't designed so that any one faction could lord it over the others and get rich while the othes are merely scratching a living.

Ok now the solution.

Alchemists need to be -less- reliant on herbalists, note I said less. There are herbs that only alchemists use, and there are others that we use in smaller quantities. We should still purchase these from a herbalist, however, the herbs that are in such high demand that they're either not available at all or so expensive we just cannot stock them ought to be replaced with things we alchemists can find for ourselves. Why can't we tap a maple tree for sweet syrup, dig in a swamp for clay, hunt around a river bed for minerals, make use of the horns of beasts that have been slain.. these could be used to replace the in demand herbs, give us a little independance and take the pressure of the herbs.

Vials need to use less gems,

Bob needs to stop undercutting us, he needs to sell lesser quality vials, he needs to sell 50 sips, and reduce the range he carries

This is my wish list for Alchemy

Although you're right in a sense, I think Lusternia's Alchemy-Jewelery-Herbs thing is based on the fact they need each other to survive, basically. Although you do need base skills like Herbs, because that's realistic.

Quite a few of the herbs Herbalists can harvest are only really useful to Alchemists, so it's not like we have an alternative market. If we want to shift them, you're our only buyers.

In any case, Cronus still sells all herbs at 10gp* per, since it's only the open beta, and unlike the credit market, I don't want prices to spiral out of control on the second week. Since all I have to do is pick it, it's not like I have a right to inflate the prices much more than that anyway.

* Everyone, in any city, as long as you're not an enemy of my guild or city.

note I said that we should still rely on the herbalists for certain herbs. I do not wish for complete autonomy, just a lightening up of the dependance we have on herbalists.

How about if herbalists could only harvest after drinking a vial of an expensive potion? There are no overheads for them they are not reliant on any other trade yet they dictate the price of what we produce. Maybe they'd be willing to sell us cheaper herbs in return for what they need in order to harvest. At the moment they can simply charge what they please, if we won't buy at thier price they have all the other trades and general population that will buy anyway.

I think the idea of forcing something over herbalists is stupid and not just because I am one If you wanted to run out in a field and pick some herbs you wouldn't need a potion or anything like that but if you want to make a potion or cook some food, you DO need recipes. We have enough overhead dealing with overharvesters as it is so that is plenty of stress to deal with. Granted the inflation of herbs isn't a good thing but when demand is high and supply is low, that's the kind of thing that happens. If you want cheaper herbs, my advice is to find some way to stop overharvesting. We ur'Guard in particular work hard to plant herbs and make sure to try and keep them at their minimum at the least.

which brings me back to the initial proposal to reduce the need for those herbs by allowing alchemists to find some ingredients themselves. I think we are the only trade that is completely dependant on other players for the things we need.

You're also the most important tradeskill. I think dependency for guaranteed massive profits is a fair tradeoff. You just have to make some arrangements with herbalists. Simple, no?

Perhaps you missed my intital statement, As alchemists we're not making massive profits, some of the potions Bob sells he sells at below what we can make them for. We're lucky to even make any mmoney on it. How can we make arrangements with herbalists when they have the enntire realm as a possible market for their herbs. If we won't pay 60 gold per herb, simple they sell it elsewhere. We lack the purchasing power. Posted below is the complete herb list for the potions we can brew. Take a look at the number of herbs required for just one vial full of some of them. Many of those potions I am still unable to make unless the customer can supply some ofthe herbs as I cannot buy them at no matter what the price.

If it is the game architects wish for potions to be part of the equation in combat and hunting, then I have posted a solution that will help them to become more available. Currently potions are not so available due to the herbs simply not being there or right out of our price range

Salt: Ingredients: salt 1

Sulfur: Ingredients: sulfur 1

Liniment: Ingredients: arnica 4 chervil 2 yarrow 2 horehound 1 flax 2

Fire: Ingredients: myrtle 2 kafe 2 horehound 3 coltsfoot 1 sage 2

Frost: Ingredients: merbloom 4 juniper 2 kombu 1 mistletoe 1 sargassum 1

Health: Ingredients: horehound 4 calamus 2 sargassum 2 juniper 1 yarrow 1

Sanguine: Ingredients: chervil 5 yarrow 5

Bromide: Ingredients: rosehips 3 marjoram 3 weed 3 calamus 2 reishi 2

Quicksilver: Ingredients: kafe 4 pennyroyal 4 sage 4 mercury 1

Mana: Ingredients: marjoram 6 flax 4 reishi 1 kafe 1

Choleric: Ingredients: pennyroyal 5 sage 5

Antidote: Ingredients: reishi 6 wormwood 6 myrtle 2

Mending: Ingredients: arnica 5 coltsfoot 5 juniper 5 rosehips 3

Phlegmatic: Ingredients: horehound 5 kombu 5

Love: Ingredients: rosehips 5 weed 5 marjoram 3 coltsfoot 3 faeleaf 1

Melancholic: Ingredients: myrtle 5 galingale 5

Regeneration: Ingredients: arnica 5 flax 5 mistletoe 3 sparkleberry 2 chervil 2 kombu

Allheale: Ingredients: reishi 7 kombu 6 sargassum 5 arnica 3 yarrow 2 pennyroyal 2
sparkleberry 2 merbloom 2

Vitae: Power: Ingredients: sparkleberry 10 faeleaf 10 mistletoe 10 calamus 5 merbloom
5 galingale 3

As an herbalist, I would make a deal with an alchemist because it would give me a regular buyer for my herbs and thus reduce the amount of time I spend hawking on the market channel. So far, I haven't seen anyone selling things at 60 gold per herb, though sparkleberry is very expensive, for obvious reasons.

I agree that Bob's prices should be raised eventually or that he should just stop selling them completely, but right now we just don't have so many people who are transcendent in their trade skills to make that kind of adjustment.

As neither an alchemist nor an herbalist I think He's right. Every tradeskill requires the person who uses that tradeskill to spend gold save an herbalist. You may not need a special potion to pick, but you do need proper equipement to pick herbs, maybe a good leaf cutter and the like. If picking herbs was more expensive less people would be overharvesting.

I don't think the sollution is to make Alchemists more independant, I think the sollution is to make Herbalists less indepedinant. Perhaps a cutter from Forgers, a special set of gloves from tailors, an acid that the only way to prune certain plants from alchemists.

As was said before, Each tradeskill depends on another tradeskill... save herbalists. If this keeps up I wouldn't be suprrised if you have an overabundance of herbalists, the trans herbalists special ability itself seems worth it. I think poisions are similar also, but they require vials no?

I did consider that as an option, but I think for our purposes if any costs were imposed on the herbalists they would simply increase prices and justify it by saying well it costs us.

I think half the prblem with the trade is that people are stuck in the mindset of other IRE games and transfer their pricelists over from there. Not realising that the potions acyually require different things in different amounts. What might work for a concostionists in aetolia doesn't work here. There the concoctionist both harvests and makes elixers, they're not buying the herbs from a middle man. Their elixers also use less herbs than our concotions so really it doesn't just transfer over. We're competeing for herbs like flax, horehound, sparkleberry and calamus which are getting to be very unobtainble in quantity at a fair price.

Why shouldn't we be able to get together as a group, see there is a shortage and research into alternatives to the herbs, remember price is just one issue the other is actual availability. The shortage is not due to any lack of skilled alchemists willing to work, we're not able to get herbs... and when some are on sale we can't buy them because we're not making money.

We want to work, we want to use the skills we spent lessons on. It's not just about making money, but being able to use the skills we trained

I started another Alchemy topic last week.. so scroll down in ideas a bit to read my one if you wanna know what I think.

availability really isn't a problem, I see people selling Thousands of herbs at a time. The problem is that its too cheap for them to collect those thousands, and now that they have the thousands they have no reason not to wait to sell it high.

If they had to go through the effort of say.. buying a pruning tool every 3 months, or buying a pruning tool that needed a specific alchemy potion to clean every 3 months or whatever, it would reduce the ammount of harvesting that goes on I think.
Either that, or give herbs to everyone like everyone has art. *cackle*

they sell thousands of some herbs. But when a potion requires 6 different herbs and one variety is unavailable then we cannot make it, no matter how many of the other herbs we may have.

Availability of some varieties is a real problem, being completely controlled by another trade is a problem too, they dictate when we can make potions by availability and they dictate how much our potions cost you by the prices they place on the herbs. I'm not saying they do it maliciously to cause us problems, I am just saying that we are completely reliant on them and that perhaps it would help the situation if we can make some substitutions.

I'm not quite sure what the difference between being reliant on another player, and being reliant on a store which changes prices is.

Herbalists are just as dependant on alchemists, smiths and the rest as everyone else. Want to go hunting? Potions, armour. Ego battling? Clothes, armour. As well as food and so on generally. The only difference is that they don't rely on anyone else for their herbs,

The gem cutting thing is fine. Just get used to buying pre-cut gems and stop buying the raw commodities so that jewelers don't have to pay insane prices for the comms. Then the prices for cut gems will be a lot lower, and you won't have wasted time buying a lot of comms that you don't need, instead you can get exactly what you want.

I can't quite imagine how we'd be able to compete with bob on vial prices unless gems were available to us for around 50 gold each. Somehow I just don't see that happening. It's more cost effective for us to buy from bob tip the potion out and refil it with whats needed than create vials. Arts is not of much use to me with the current situation and I'm sure that the game designers didn't intend for certain skills to be made completely useless or simply mpractical due to the costs involved. As it stands a vial needs 5 gems. Now I see maybe 3 solutions. Increase the costs of bobs vials to reflect the price of gems, flood teh market with gems and set the price absurdly low so that we can buy cut gems for around 50 gold, or reduce teh number of gems needed to create a vial so we can create them at a more realistic cost. This forum is for posting ideas and solutions, and that is what I have done.

I can buy hundreds of vials at 25-50 per on market.. I donno about you. Just buy empties off players..

That's not competing with Bob, that's just using Bob's vials that other people already bought.

But you're saying that prices on vials are high.. My counterpoint was that they're really not.