Difficulty of ALC potions

[cgbspender]

For what it's worth, these new 3-stars potions are macro-able, and have been so since day 1 they were released. But yeah, more yields would be great.

[Sollux]

1. X-pots still sell frequently. If there were truly a raid lull this wouldn't happen, because they wouldn't be needed.

They sell more frequently because of their price, which again has little to do with how easy they are to Craft and more to do with the yield and mat cost. If the yield for max pots was increased and their production cost decreased they'd be flying off the shelves regardless of difficulty. There will always be raiders of course, but at their current price I don't expect anyone but a hardcore raider to bother with max pots, and my point here (which I should have specified) was that there is a lull in hardcore raiding, which translates into a loss in potential buyers, making max pots even less appealing.

2. Yes, which means less marketboard activity, because nobody with a social life is going to craft these without an agreement beforehand due to the time sink involved in crafting, mainly due to the yield AND difficulty in the recipes. If you're having to use Maker's Mark on every craft, your free time for other activities (i.e. raiding) will go down significantly, especially if you're counted on to provide the potions for your raid.

I agree with everything here, however you do not need Maker's Mark to reliably HQ a 3-Star, and if you're geared enough to drop it it becomes trivial enough to macro, removing the "difficulty" as well as a significant portion of the time it takes to Craft each item. The values for the simulator are still incorrect for Ingenuity II, but below is a macro that can be completed with a minimum of 873 Craftsmanship and 446 CP:



It has 26 steps (Compared to the 40+ of a Maker's Mark rotation), guaranteed Progress, and if you can reach 464 CP you have a guaranteed Precise/Basic Touch. The downsides are that there are only 10 Hasty Touches and there's little room for Tricks of the Trade, however I prefer this rotation even when I manually Craft as I don't have to fish for a Tricks of the Trade to know I can Precise Touch a Good should it show up, and it's much faster/more mindless than Maker's Mark.

3/4. There's no reduced demand for pots. People still buy x-pots all the time

Again, this was a reference to the reduced demand for max pots due to the lull in the hardcore raiding scene as they're the only ones willing to pay the current market prices.

5. ALC should be renamed "Orchestrion Sheet Printer" at this point :\

Pretty much, yeah, but I can see a large number of players switching over once yields increase.

If they're going to limit these recipes to ALC specialists, they need to increase the yield to make them viable, yes, but they should've followed the pattern X-pots had, where they remained merely 2-star recipes in the face of 3-star crafts being introduced at the same time.

To be honest I wasn't around when x-pots were released, but I doubt every single Crafter could macro them out the gate. Max pots will be the new x-pots come 3.3 assuming they increase the yields and the new gear is relatively accessible.

[Mindy_Macready]

X-pots were being crafted 100% hq without the use of hasty back when they dropped, even with a Patrician's set, because we had 2-star, 100% macros by 2.3 (which is when 3-star level 50 crafts were introduced).

You had to use 2 sets of macros, and you needed max-melds on everything (or the ALC specific gear with some melding), but once you got there you were able to become a potion-factory basically. Before that, we had mega-pots, which were level 45ish crafts that were easily churned out. HW broke this pattern; couple that with the lack of poison pots, and ALC suddenly doesn't do a lot of crafting, besides housing items, camphor, and commissions if you've got the time to burn.

[Sollux]

You had to use 2 sets of macros, and you needed max-melds on everything (or the ALC specific gear with some melding), but once you got there you were able to become a potion-factory basically. Before that, we had mega-pots, which were level 45ish crafts that were easily churned out. HW broke this pattern; couple that with the lack of poison pots, and ALC suddenly doesn't do a lot of crafting, besides housing items, camphor, and commissions if you've got the time to burn.

I won't deny ALC doesn't have much to Craft, but my previous post has a rotation that can be made into a 2 button macro if you have decently melded gear (not even max melds). No, you won't go 0-100% every time, but other than that it's the same situation, the only difference is the yield amount. 3-Stars aren't difficult, they're just more time consuming and getting 1 potion per Craft hurts here more than anywhere else.

[Mindy_Macready]

It's not about "difficulty" in macro'ing, but difficulty in stats such that you can't 100% these with the proper gear investment.

[Cleanse]

Pretty sure everyone doing 3 star crafts needs strong melds or extra hq mats. Sell some camphor and scrolls and meld up. You're saying you need strong gear, but you also did back in ARR...

Every crafter looks at each other as if the grass is greener, but tbh, there's always a niche market to make gil in.

[Mindy_Macready]

Pretty sure everyone doing 3 star crafts needs strong melds or extra hq mats. Sell some camphor and scrolls and meld up. You're saying you need strong gear, but you also did back in ARR...

Every crafter looks at each other as if the grass is greener, but tbh, there's always a niche market to make gil in.

I'm saying that, after reaching a certain point in gearing for an ALC, potions should be churned out en masse. I'm not sure what the rest of your post is speaking to.

[Sollux]

I'm saying that, after reaching a certain point in gearing for an ALC, potions should be churned out en masse.

You CAN churn them out (the "en masse" part will come when yields are changed), they just won't be 15 second Crafts that 100% HQ every single time. Even with a pentamelded set and HQ Seafood Stew I can't guarantee 0-100% without getting every Hasty or a few Goods, but as far as the stat investment goes the rotation above is nowhere near max-meld levels of difficulty when using HQ Baked Onion Soup, and given the time I could likely build a relatively cheap set on Ariyala.

In HW Crafting has seen the biggest changes and seems to be the single thing that SE isn't willing to copy-paste their 2.0 routine onto and because of this we CANNOT keep using 2.0 as a basis of what to expect. ALC will become a potion factory again in 3.3 when they (hopefully) increase the yields, you'll have time before the next raid tier in 3.4 to improve your gear and reduce Craft time/increase quality rates, max pots will likely be unlocked from Specialist in 3.4, and I highly doubt they'll be releasing new 4-Star pots which means max pots will become the new x-pot.

[keyburz]

Id like to see a new crafting mode similar to quick synthesis but for stackable items. Lets call it batch synthesis. You make a batch of 10 items at a time, uses 10 times the materials. Still have to craft it by hand. Since quick synthesis for the lvl 50 starred items requires even higher stats to quick synth, batch synth should require an increased catalyst requirement. If 1 craft takes 1 water cluster, doing 10 at a time could take 15 or 20 water clusters. We seem to have an abundance of catalysts anyways (except for water clusters but oh well)

[Cleanse]

I'm saying that, after reaching a certain point in gearing for an ALC, potions should be churned out en masse. I'm not sure what the rest of your post is speaking to.

With minimal gear and 437 cp you can churn anything out. How many pots are in demand? Are you unable to keep up with the market?