Alchemy is One Year Old: Now What?

Is alchemy a success or failure?

Success	8.3%	[ 26 ]
Failure	44.3%	[ 139 ]
>BOOM!< Failed asttempt, try again to succeed.	34.1%	[ 107 ]
Vegita Jr., NOOOOOOOO!!!	13.4%	[ 42 ]
Total Votes:			[ 314 ]

[Ridley Starsmore]

So, what as been described by many names on the site, both good and bad, hit the one year mark around this time. And as such, there have been several changes along the way. First with the ability to pick components from caches, and then with the release of many of the 'rare' formulas to the Bifrost, Alchemy is somewhat easier that it was in the beginning.

Yet it has continued to be a topic of much discussion, both in the GCD and in the Alchemy forum, as well as consistently brought up at many Ask the Admin threads. And usually met with the same response:

"Thank you for your suggestions, we'll forward it on to the right staff."

-takes a shot-

As such, very few changes have been made to alchemy that were actual user suggestions for solutions to many of alchemy's woes. Those users that are active participants in the alchemy system understand that it's supposed to be a gold sink, we get that. But so many have suggested ways of it being so that would be far more effective and more appealing to use:

- Direct selling of caches and cases in the Bifrost.
- Limiting fails, or gold only consumed on a success.
- Eliminating fails all together
- Reworking the crafting formulas to be made from gold shop purchasable components, in addition to the formulas already in effect.
- Finding a way to reintroduce items that are now extinct from crafting.
- Alchemy contracts that work like trades, and can only be used in alchemy crafting. (To prevent scamming like a recent one with a faked 51 fail crafting on a wing formula.
- Multiple component grants from caches.
- Formula selection on Cases.

And many more that I'm not able to recall right this minute. At first glance, it looks as if this experiment is a failure.

Yet many of it's die hard users love it for the level of difficulty it possesses. And while they acknowledge a need for change, know that too much might make it worse.

So, I ask you today, Gaia, would you see Alchemy as a success or Failure? State your reasons in the thread, and stuff you'd like to see happen with Alchemy in the future!

[PedaI]

My main problem with Alchemy (besides backwings being stuffed into it) is how difficult it is. I want it to be challenging, but not so extremely impossible. I made it to level 3, and got stuck. I've thought all along that it would be beneficial to;
1) Turn the frequency of components in the DC way up.
2) Shove the components into zOMG! as mob drops.

Definitely failure, since they don't seem to have taken hardly any suggestions on it.
Also, isn't Alchemy the thing the artists created?

[Voat]

New set of backwings from a different type of quest system plz

lol

[le iggy]

a year old and I still haven't touched it.

[ClandestineDuck]

I was excited about Alchemy at first because I thought it would kind of be like the Fishing exchange, in that you gather up a s**t-ton of items that you probably weren't going to use for anything else. Even if it took months to collect your ingredients, it would have been far better if most of the components were widely accessible, as opposed to the generally rare and expensive components required in reality. Not only do you need a ton of gold to start off, but sometimes the value of the items is higher separate than alchemized--in which case, why bother?

[Lithium Blossom]

Has it really been a year? Wow, time flies I guess. I tried alchemy in the beginning and when I saw that circus junk food had jumped to 150k, I was like no thank you. I understand it is supposed to be difficult and that it's meant to be a gold sink, but when the price of ingredients rise so much that you don't want to dish out the gold to craft something lower level, something is wrong. I have a lot of respect for the users who do have the gold and the guts to craft the formulas when there is a chance of fail, especially for the back wings and what I've read surrounding them. It would be nice to see some of the extinct ingredients make a comeback so that they can be used for their intended purpose. And it'd be appreciated, I'm sure, if ingredients/formulas/components were dropped in the DC, but it wouldn't have to be a high drop rate I guess, but not something that is too low either. But I guess all we can do is wait and see how it progresses further.

[The Hell Tutor]

ClandestineDuck

I was excited about Alchemy at first because I thought it would kind of be like the Fishing exchange, in that you gather up a s**t-ton of items that you probably weren't going to use for anything else. Even if it took months to collect your ingredients, it would have been far better if most of the components were widely accessible, as opposed to the generally rare and expensive components required in reality. Not only do you need a ton of gold to start off, but sometimes the value of the items is higher separate than alchemized--in which case, why bother?

Yeah, that's what I imagined what alchemy was suppose to be.
I am verrrry pissed.
I'm okay with it eating away at my gold but sacrificing items that are hard to get more of lead to the extinction of some and mostly that already were expensive items making them now impossible to get.

[Voat]

ClandestineDuck

I was excited about Alchemy at first because I thought it would kind of be like the Fishing exchange, in that you gather up a s**t-ton of items that you probably weren't going to use for anything else. Even if it took months to collect your ingredients, it would have been far better if most of the components were widely accessible, as opposed to the generally rare and expensive components required in reality. Not only do you need a ton of gold to start off, but sometimes the value of the items is higher separate than alchemized--in which case, why bother?

Alchemy is literally a waste of gold.

Literally, a waste of gold. The people who engage in it do so knowing that they are going to lose a couple of million gold, unless they are able to make a plan for profit, which takes a lot of time and patience.

Its expensive...unless you use alchemy to vend items off of the people dumping gold into it. xd I have like 13-15 Holy Shits hoarded up that I bought for 40-60k each, and now the average MP price is like 100-150k+ each. If you vend, alchemy is a great way to predict demand + supply to profit off of certain item types. Otherwise, it's just a waste of gold.

[Meeki]

My alchemy never got beyond level 3 because it is hard and it is expensive. I have nothing but crazy respect for the level 10's out there. Despite it being hard, I saw it as a success. I know I would not have my Aurora today if not for the person that had crafted it to sell.

Granted, they could do some things to make it easier but I wouldn't want them to change it so much that it would be unfair towards all the people that had worked extremely hard at it.

[WideEyed]

Well, based on the negativity that shrouds Alchemy like the smell of rotting fish left in one's car trunk for a hot summer weekend, and my own minimal exposure to it, I'd have to say, "Failure".

If Alchemy was a success, everybody would be playing it and experiencing a high enough level of success to be enjoying it, rather than the current situation where it seems that the cost of playing is so prohibitive that only the richest of Gaians can make any headway, and even they complain about the expense.

As I recall, Alchemy was supposed to be accessible to everyone, and be a cool way to get some neat Items for doing what we do regardless.
What it appears to be is something that either forces you do undertake activities you wouldn't normally engage in, in order to gather the free components, or spend a butt load (and we're talking full blown ghetto-booty, attach the moving van back up "beep beep" sound to, butt load) of money, both gold and GC, in order to complete.
Or even make any reasonable level of progress in.

As someone has already said, I kind of expected Alchemy to be something that I'd eventually succeed at, just by coming to Gaia and doing what I do already.
Yeah, it would take forever, but eventually, you'd get it done, kinda like Dead Man's Shadow in zOMG! where, if you want to play long enough, you'll eventually get there.

Alchemy on the other hand, looks like something I would never be able to complete, simply because I'm unwilling to spend the required combination of huge amounts of money and time in order to get a few Items I can really live without.

My suggestion would be to make the Components more readily available, either via DC or gold shops, and make success conceivable for anyone, if they were willing to put the time into it.

[Slick Southpaw]

I've always loved the idea of Alchemy and while it's still in its infancy, I still think it has a lot of potential for change and expansion and revising. Of course, this depends on whether or not artists and devs take into consideration what the users have been saying. I've seen some really fantastic petitions on using more zOMG stuff and alterations to formulas to have the requirements make more sense.

There's a heck of a lot of coolness factor, from making EI's to creating recolors of items. I just think there needs to be more proactive devs n' artists in regards to what the users are saying.

[Ridley Starsmore]

Existential Existence

ClandestineDuck

I was excited about Alchemy at first because I thought it would kind of be like the Fishing exchange, in that you gather up a s**t-ton of items that you probably weren't going to use for anything else. Even if it took months to collect your ingredients, it would have been far better if most of the components were widely accessible, as opposed to the generally rare and expensive components required in reality. Not only do you need a ton of gold to start off, but sometimes the value of the items is higher separate than alchemized--in which case, why bother?

Alchemy is literally a waste of gold.

Literally, a waste of gold. The people who engage in it do so knowing that they are going to lose a couple of million gold, unless they are able to make a plan for profit, which takes a lot of time and patience.

Its expensive...unless you use alchemy to vend items off of the people dumping gold into it. xd I have like 13-15 Holy Shits hoarded up that I bought for 40-60k each, and now the average MP price is like 100-150k+ each. If you vend, alchemy is a great way to predict demand + supply to profit off of certain item types. Otherwise, it's just a waste of gold.

...Can i have like 6 of those? emotion_kirakira

Stupid Money Grubbing Nartian Rock. Rocking me out of all my money.

[WideEyed]

Meeki

Granted, they could do some things to make it easier but I wouldn't want them to change it so much that it would be unfair towards all the people that had worked extremely hard at it.

Agrees with this entirely.

While I don't see Alchemy as a success, for reason's I've already stated, I think it would be pretty unfair to those who have found a way to make it work for them, to suddenly make it substantially easier for the rest of us, and devalue the Items they have already crafted at considerable expense.

IMO, that's yet another reason why it's a failure.
It's generally inaccessible to the average Gaian, yet it's too late to make it so, because too many people have spent too much money to succeed at it in it's existing format.

[BiaA]

Now our point has been proven, it still sucky.

But I agree that it is way to late for changes now.

[_Mya_Kohler_]

I've never touched it, but I have a few formulas. I'd love to make the Snow Apple one ((because I LOVE that RIG so much! heart )), but I'm not sure if I'd have the money to buy the items that it requests. Plus, I don't want to end up failing a million times over again. And, I'm worried that I might get addicted to it and spend a lot of money on doing it when I have items to quest!