[OFFICIAL]Alchemy 101 -- Information Thread | UPDATED 2/18 |

Are you going to be using alchemy to make stuff?

Yes	47.2%	[ 1222 ]
No	7.6%	[ 197 ]
I don't know yet	45.2%	[ 1172 ]
Total Votes:			[ 2591 ]

[Destrius]

"Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain, something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's first law of Equivalent Exchange."
-Alphonse Elric, Fullmetal Alchemist

Welcome to the Alchemy Information Thread. Here you will learn as much as the rest of us do about this new Alchemy that the Gaia admins have thrown upon us. This introduction is a bit lacking but I will be focusing on the explanations further down.

This thread is to give information about Alchemy, NOT to list the formulas.

For a list of formulas go here.
For a list of ingredients go here.
For a list of what ingredients it takes to make what go here.

A sig banner for those interested:

[url=http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/gaia-item-alchemy/official-alchemy-101-information-thread-updated-2-18/t.74123901/][img]http://i47.tinypic.com/1535y75.png[/img][/url]

Post 4 contains the newest discoveries!

GO HERE FOR A FREE ALCHEMIST STARTER KIT: HERE

Tip this post and give a if you found this thread helpful. emotion_yatta

[Destrius]

~ Basics ~

In order to do anything Alchemy related, you have to go to this page: Alchemy Page

Everyone starts off at level 1 and gaining experience requires you to create items. It takes 10 formulas of your current level to advance to the next or 40 formulas of 1 less than your current level. Anything below 1 less than your current level grants no experience.

The official Alchemy store is: Bifrost Shop

How to use Alchemy to make stuff:

+ ///ETC. + ALCHEMY LEVEL +

Basically the requirements to make anything require a formula, the ingredients, Gaia Gold, and a certain Alchemy level.

After you have all the requirements, go to the Alchemy Page mentioned above, click the READY tab, click the COMPLETE button, and you will begin to make the item.

Every formula has a CHANCE to succeed. You can see the chance by going to your inventory and clicking the formula.

If you succeed, you will see this for a split second:

If you fail, you will see this:

You will lose the gold spent but you keep the ingredients apparently.

Where to get FORMULAS:

Aside from the Bifrost Shop, the Cash Shop is selling the formulas for all the RIGs at 1GC for each formula. To see older RIG recipes than Valefor Academy, make sure to set the show from "Featured Items" to "All Items" and the recipes will appear.

The other place to get formulas is through our old giftboxes. It seems that the gold, brown, pink, and blue ones all give recipes. In addition to those, wooden and golden trunks give out formulas as well. The Fat Cat Alert! has also been shown to give formulas.

The location of the rarest and most sought out formulas lie in the ALCHEMIST'S CASE.

Tip: There is no formula tab when trading but they DO show up in the All Items tab.

As of now, Evolving Items, some old RIG rares, and some new items are known to have formulas.

-- -- --

Where to get INGREDIENTS:

Ingredients range from zOMG items, Gaia equippable items, and new special GAME items.

The zOMG items come from zOMG (I recommend playing it as it is fun and good way to make gold), the Gaia equippable items come from older RIGs and are generally found only via the marketplace (but some are just gold shop items), and the new GAME items come Daily Chance, the Philosopher's Cache, Enki's Catch,and Golden Giftboxes.

-- --

NOTE: The Philosopher's Cache contains almost 90% of the alchemy components out there.

TIP: Because Dumpster Dive now gives Daily Chance items, doing it may result in ingredients!!

Leveling:

I want to first say that I am currently a level 3 alchemist and what I have here is from other users and not from personal experience.

Leveling your alchemist level is important if you want to be able to craft the higher level formulas. Higher formulas are the more sought out items and will be very rewarding but costly at the same time because it seems that leveling will take quite a bit of gold.

Each subsequent level takes more experience. As of now it takes 10XP to get from 1 to 2 and 20XP to get from 2 to 3. It appears that each level requires 10x formulas crafted at your current level. Formulas at 1 level below your current level grants 4x LESS and therefore you need 40x of them to advance.

For example, if I'm level 3, I need to craft 10x level 3 formulas to get to level 4. If I were to craft only level 2 formulas at level 3, I'd need 40x of them. You can mix and match but experience points do not carry over levels!!

It has been brought to my attention that the higher levels you go, the less experience you get from lower leveled formulas. Someone mentioned that as a level 3 alchemist, they no longer gained experience from level 1 formulas so be vary of that. THIS HAS BEEN CONFIRMED!!

You DO get an achievement and some achievement points for each Alchemy level you gain.

[Destrius]

~ FAQ ~

Q: OMG THE ECONOMY IS NOW SCREWEDDDD!!!
A: No, it is not. This WILL increase the cost of a lot of items but most of those were cheap items no one wanted anyway. The more expensive items WILL fall in price as there is now a consistent way to make them whereas previously you had to either play an old RIG or hope they re-released the item.

Q: How do I trade my formulas? I can't find a formula tab!
A: They are located under your All Items tab.

Q: Why should I participate when leveling up is going to cost me so much money?!
A: Because there are exclusive items only made through Alchemy and those who have high enough Alchemy level will have select access to them.

Q: What should I use to level my Alchemy? What is the best and cheapest way?
A: I don't really have the means, experience, or time to write up a whole guide on it but there are a few threads floating around about this. Basically the cheapest to go from level 1 to level 3 would be through making Orb Aggregates. Afterwards, it really depends on what you can find available on the marketplace at that time. sweatdrop

Q: How do I see an item's formula and what it requires?
A: Lei_Trigar did an excellent job of collecting information on each formula here.

Q:What about the limited supply of RIG items required to make certain formulas? Aren't we going to run out?
A: Most likely no. If you look, it seems even THOSE RIG items required as ingredients have a formula that makes them. Until we can see all the formulas, we can't be sure but most likely the case is that raw ingredients can build into each and every RIG item available. Also, the release of Ivan's Surplus allows for a way to return those older items back into the system.

~ Why should I care? ~

Why? Because the introduction of alchemy is pretty revolutionary. Older items are being reintroduced into Gaia, new sleek items are coming out, and recolors of old favorites are being dropped.

Here's the admin's post of some of the new items, gaze in wonder:

Re-release of old items!

[Destrius]

~ Newest Discoveries!! ~

~New source of Alchemy formulas and components --

Prince Enki will drop these: during Booty Grab games. Go play Booty Grab!

Apparently tank owners can also get the box randomly from the little merman.

Mirai and Barret

Keep a close eye on Prince Enki during games of Booty Grab, because he's got an interesting power: there's a chance he'll drop a box of exclusive alchemy components and formulas. And, if you're an Enki owner who keeps a happy and well-maintained tank, our aquatic prince might just give you this special box once in a while, too!

~Confirmed that both Stardust[] and Shark's Blood[] come from the rare Golden Magical Giftbox[] making these rather "rare" and "expensive" ingredients. Prepare to pay a premium on them even in the future.


~None of the NEW ingredient items come from zOMG. Only those ingredients that existed prior to the release of alchemy such as , , and many more! Generally it will say "Not sold in stores; only available in zOMG!" as the store price if it comes from zOMG!.


~The EIs made via Alchemy will be their own special generation EI's but will have the exact same looks and poses as a normal one.

pepper-tea

Sassy Spider

I KNOOOOW!! I want to see what the alchemy version of the enchanted book looks like xD
I.WANTS.SO.BAD!! xD

It looks like a normal Enchanted Book, unfortunately. It was our way of not having to make yet another gen, or destroying the value of the existing gens. I don't want someone to go through the trouble of making it and then be disappointed...that is no fun at all! I'm sorry to let everyone down D:

pepper-tea

No need to worry about that!

You may notice when you mouse over the thumbnail of the item being created on the formula screen, that it will say name-of-ei: Alchemized This is a brand-new alchemy only gen of the EI.

There are no other differences between the alchemized version and any other gen. classified_reve

~Things are still being released. This quote is fairly self-explanatory and should settle some doubts about Alchemy.

Panagrammic

Yeah, most of us are home, but we also check in the site remotely all odd hours.

I don't want to get too much into the details, but my main advice at this point is to not stress over this too much. We're taking things slowly because anything dealing with inventory is something we want to be extra-careful about, and we want to make sure that the servers aren't going to bog down under the load.

It's a little confusing right now, but it's going to be a lot clearer in a few days: components will start showing up, people will start understanding things, and the market will dampen down from the crazy fluctuations. In the end alchemy will be great, because it'll a) encourage people to explore the site more, b) give additional uses for items that you've had lying around collecting dust (starter polo recipe, anyone?), c) add a neat gameplay element for those that want the items, and d) even make it possible for someone to make a "living" on Gaia by becoming a high-level crafter.

Item alchemy makes sense, but you've just seen the tip of the iceberg at this point. Bear along with us for a bit.