[dev1242] Revamped recipes don't seem to follow the design plan

[YukiKoneko]

Based on the original post about revamping food and medicine, it was stated:

Medicine recipes will be changed as follows:

• Synthesis of low-level items will produce a large number of finished items. As the level increases, the number of items will decrease.
  
• The synthesis level will be adjusted to better match ingredient acquisition levels and the character level at which effects are optimal. Synthesis levels for ailment recovery items will be adjusted to match the levels of monsters that have the abilitiy to inflict those ailments.
  
• Intermediate materials will be removed, and only basic ingredient items will be needed to synthesize finished products.
  
• New items and recipes will be added.
  New strengthening items and related recipes will be added that boost physical attributes and attack strength for short periods of time. As with recovery items, these new items will grant percentage boosts with fixed caps.

Based on this, the original level ordering, and the order in which the new recipes for potions were announced (which matches that of the current order), does it mean poisoning potions should be the easiest to synth (since they have the highest yield). If that were true, the recipe violates the the part about synthesis items being obtainable at a similar level. Grass Vipers currently are found in Grade 3 spearfishing nodes right? Something doesn't add up here.

I've mentioned this in a few other threads but again... why is it that the reforms to ALC and CUL seem to be randomly generated, compared to the clear progression of required materials and recipe pattern used for every other classes reforms. Take for example, the new recipes for accessories. The new recipes for Copper, Brass, Silver, Mythril, Electrum Rings each require more shards than the tier before (which makes complete sense). The original ALC recipes for potions followed that exact same principal, but the revised recipes completely break this pattern.

Another inconsistency are the recipes for toxic potions compared to their respective healing drops (i.e. Poisoning Potion vs. Blood Drop). For the potions, 3 raw materials are used regardless of the yield (which I detailed in another post the huge increase in required raw material). The drops require 1, 3, or 4 raw material, and vary randomly from 1 to 4 shards needed, and randomly yield 2 to 4 drops. This would seem to violate the natural progression in the original design plan where yield rates decrease as level increases.

Finally, I would like to bring up the issue with Fine Sand as a means for converting crystals into shards. As players hit level 50, we tend to obtain more crystals than shards, and for ALC in particular, only have one tier of fish to shard recipes, and 4 tiers of fish to crystal recipes (the first of which consumes 10 lightning shards!). Since 1.19, converting fish into 12 shards is now the only economical synthesis method for creating shards and using Fine Sand is not only time consuming, but ends up using most of the shards it yields (6 fire to produce the 6 sea/river sand, 2 wind and lightning to convert those 6 into a single fine sand). In the end, you really only get 6 shards by crystal used after factoring in the cost. All of this could have been avoided by leaving Fine Sand available for purchase from the ALC guild shop. Now I realize those recipes were marked as dated, but the devs have yet to explain how it changes. Instead, we get posts saying we'll be able to trade our outdated guild marks for clusters we can't use anymore, nor can we convert into crystals, of which we can barely convert into much more useful shards. I will also note that Fine Sand is not listed among the massive list of discontinued items. In fact, its only non-dated use is to make the [item=8031718]Vintage Haubergeon[/item].

Sorry if this sounded more like a rant, but I like so many other ALCs have patiently awaited the implementation of [dev1242] since patch 1.19, and I feel little has been addressed by the devs, and their implementation itself only serves to make the class worse off.

[Raldo]

The quote you are referencing is accurate for medicines (for the most part at least, I didn't look at all of them), however it is not applicable for poisons, which is what you seem to be spouting off about. The update is fine.

I don't think anyone will disagree with you about the lack of crystal/cluster breaking recipes.

[YukiKoneko]

Looks like they did reorder the gathering locations to coincide with the recipes. All it would have taken was a message from one of our forum reps to put those fears to rest... but no.