Alchemist quest changes

[Aquillion]

My main problem with the quest is that I strongly dislike the metagame aspect of knowing how it works (with regards to one random potion getting completed each time you turn one in.) There's no real hint to the player about exactly how this works, so it's easy to screw yourself over -- especially if the player says something like "well, they said to move quickly, so I'll avoid resting, just rapidly kill a bunch of adventurers, and get a bunch of potions before anyone else can turn in ingredients! It'll be a cinch!"

The fact that a potion is completed every time you complete one of yours (and only then) is bizarre and counterintuitive. Also, the ease of screwing yourself out of a final reward is silly -- back when the quest was originally suggested, the guy who suggested it described it as this big choice (go for more potions at the risk of losing your final reward), but this is only true if you have precise metagame knowledge of how the quest works, which absolutely shouldn't be required. Without that knowledge, there's no reason for a player not to say "well, I have these ingredients for this other alchemist who hasn't completed anything yet, might as well turn this in before I turn in the last potion for the lifebinding emerald." Without meta-game knowledge, there's no logical reason to anticipate that turning in one set of ingredients will instantly close off another potion (and possibly the entire final quest reward.)

I'm not sure what to do about it. But it needs to be arranged in a way that behaves a bit more intuitively, without requiring spoilers to calculate the best way to turn in potions... and I'd prefer to eliminate the luck aspect totally.

Also: If you turn in two potions to an alchemist, there is absolutely no reason to anticipate that they won't give you the final quest reward if someone else turns in the final potion -- after all, you helped them more than anyone else. That should be clearly telegraphed to the player, if it's going to remain the case.

[Grey]

I agree completely about the meta-gaming, which is why I suggested removing it and only allowing the player to choose one alchemist to help.

[Avianpilot]

What if the taint of Telepathy and Infusion of Wild Growth were replaced with just giving you the talent, perhaps weaker/with other drawbacks? This would make them much more useful, as they would no longer tie up a rare inscription slot.

That would be perfect. I really like both inscriptions, but I never use them because I don't have the spare slots. Making them into talents would make care about trying to get them as a final reward, rather than just something I leave in the fortress.

[marvalis]

I stopped doing these alchemist quest, mostly because I hate all the junk they cause to be dropped.
Keep your dungeon clean, that is where I stand.

I kinda like the boss idea. Pretty straight-forward and a good reason to do those bosses you might otherwise skip. In fact, I like the whole idea of boss-focused development: No grinding normal monsters for exp or loot, just run trough the dungeons and fight the bosses for most exp/loot. Yeh I like it.

Adventure parties are interesting too ... so yeh ...
Perhaps just change the quest description to make it clear how it works?

[Aquillion]

I stopped doing these alchemist quest, mostly because I hate all the junk they cause to be dropped.
Keep your dungeon clean, that is where I stand.

That was fixed. The items don't drop if you already have them now, I think.

Adventure parties are interesting too ... so yeh ...
Perhaps just change the quest description to make it clear how it works?

The problem is that the way it works now is totally illogical.

And adventurer parties aren't the problem; they're easy to figure out, if dangerous. The problems (at least for me) are:

1. Other potions are completed at random if, and only if, you turn in another potion, at a rate of exactly one other potion per set of ingredients you turn in. This is counterintuitive and bizarre, and I'm not sure how we could explain it to the player without making it look goofy. I also don't really think it adds much to the game to do it like this.

2. You get the reward if, and only if, you turn in the last potion to an alchemist, regardless of how many other ones you turned in with them. This is counterintuitive at times, though this one could be justified and explained.

But more importantly, the combination of these two rules mean that you can only get up to at most 5 potions, and if you try to turn in more than three without 'completing' an alchemist you risk having someone else take the final reward, so you need to plan things out from the beginning to get the ones you want. This is totally opaque to anyone who hasn't read the spoilers -- there's no indication to the player about any of these magic numbers or the strategy involved, even though it can cost you fairly significant things.

It's very reasonable for a player to see the quest and say "oh, I'm going to go as fast as I can to grab as many of these potions as possible!", with no indication that that's not how it works.

[Parcae]

I thought I'd chime in to say that that's exactly what I did. I ran into a couple of alchemists and thought their dialogue was hilarious, and I noticed that stuff only seemed to drop for their recipes after I'd picked up the quest, so I went to all the towns picking up alchemist quests. Have I messed up something important?

[marvalis]

No, these quests are optional, so you did not mess things up.

So, just limit the player to helping only one alchemist, and then let him choose a reward (3 potions out of a list of 5 potions, or whatever)? Just make sure the player knows what he will get, and let him compare between the different alchemist. Give a little warning before accepting the quest:

"Warning: Accepting this quest will prevent you from taking any other alchemist quests."

Probably not the best solution, I don't know, just trowing some idea's out there while I'm here.

[Aquillion]

I thought I'd chime in to say that that's exactly what I did. I ran into a couple of alchemists and thought their dialogue was hilarious, and I noticed that stuff only seemed to drop for their recipes after I'd picked up the quest, so I went to all the towns picking up alchemist quests. Have I messed up something important?

You haven't missed anything simply by accepting them.

However, each time you actually turn in a potion to one of them, another Alchemist will randomly cross a potion off their list as completed. (Which may or may not be the one you agreed to get them -- if it is, you'd need to go back and pick a different one if you want to help that alchemist any more.) So you can't actually do all of those and can't actually get every potion on every list.

Additionally, you need to be the one who does the final potion for an alchemist to get their final reward; and you can get one and only one final reward (that much should be obvious when you think about it.)