Discussion The Cauldron - Discussion Thread

[iamthouth]

@The Fairy yes I am starting to think we found the lowest cost straight away, but I'd like to know for sure. I've tried hundreds of lines of combinations, there are cheaper options for fewer ingredients, but in testing the limits to 25 ingredients 7383 is the lowest I've found, using 4*same, 3*same, 3*same etc.

 

[OIM20]

I think the research is where this becomes useful.

Stats are better than an MM spell. (Yes, I've already started sinking my coins in for the FA. )

 

[Dominionofgod]

Its stupid to be forced to use ALL goblets each week
on just 1 recipie..... ( hint to Inno : thats only 1 chance
to entice players to spend diamonds )

It is designed to be used every week. You can choose to make a goblet(s) or not. There is no force ( this isn't Star Wars ) involved, and the limit makes it fair for all players no matter the chapter they are in.

twice in one life time.. no wonder the usa just froze over...
I gotta agree with brin on that one. At least in part.

While i do understand the whole, goblet amount and everything else reseting each week... i just used the cauldron for the first time, at the start of the FA, and i was surprised when i saw that i had to use all 5 goblets at once. I just naturally assumed i could make my weekly potion and then use those 5 goblets through out the week when i saw fit. Not use them all at one time. I cant say i like that at all. - Maybe that will be slightly negated in time as we level up recipies and get longer duration times.. but even with that im guessing it would still come up short of simply being able to use my 5 goblets at different times.

 

[Dominionofgod]

Does the leveling up recipes part reset each week? Seeing as you cant lvl up until after you make a potion, it wouldnt rly make sense to reset it, but you never know with inno these days.

And has anyone found out the cap for how much you can level a single thing up?

 

[Mykan]

Stats are better than an MM spell. (Yes, I've already started sinking my coins in for the FA. )

Just note that increase is on the base production before relic boost or MM spells.

Does the leveling up recipes part reset each week? Seeing as you cant lvl up until after you make a potion, it wouldnt rly make sense to reset it, but you never know with inno these days.

The levelling up part is the permanent part, personally it needs a user initiated reset like FS perks have. So you need to decide how and which things to level up for greater benefit.

For those upset about drinking the goblets all at once, just consider that the current mechanic increases the cost of each ingredient. With that mechanic if you had to do 5 separate recipes you would have far less chance for each recipe due to the high costs. Think of how much people don't like the wholesaler increasing costs and being forced to do it 5 times. By drinking all goblets at once you get to have the cheapest recipe with the best chance of success for all goblets.

 

[Glandeh]

Does the leveling up recipes part reset each week? Seeing as you cant lvl up until after you make a potion, it wouldnt rly make sense to reset it, but you never know with inno these days.

And has anyone found out the cap for how much you can level a single thing up?

It's supposed to be a hundred times (or maybe just 99 and the max level is 100).

 

[Glandeh]

Is there a mathematician in the house, or can this be read from game files?
What is the theoretical lowest cost of 25 ingredients in the brewing phase? For 8 non-diamond ingredients, is the possible combinations 25^25, 25^8, or 8^25? What is the formula for increases?

It seems to be roughly 1.54 for same resource, and roughly 1.1 for different resource. Perhaps someone can run this in a programming language?

The lowest Witch Point costs for 25 ingredients I've found is 7383, 7419, and 7432, the latter being the same as Ch20 all research completed Witch point allocation.

If the order does matter, it is 8 x 8 x 8 ....... x 8 (25 times) so 8^25 possible combinations.

 

[Yavimaya]

Does the leveling up recipes part reset each week? Seeing as you cant lvl up until after you make a potion, it wouldnt rly make sense to reset it, but you never know with inno these days.

And has anyone found out the cap for how much you can level a single thing up?

No they are permanent levels and I think the cap is 100.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

No they are permanent levels and I think the cap is 100.

From what I tested on Beta, I think the max is level 101.

 

[Myne]

*sigh* Drinking all the goblets at once is just overkill. IMHO We should be able to drink one a day for instance. That would allow us to study more and make an informed decision on what we are going to do. If we hit on something good, it would allow us to learn how the dumb thing works.
At present, I feel like I am bobbing for apples and someone is holding my head under the water saying GET MORE, or someone has hooked the tube to the keg and is holding you in place. This is not a dwarven drinking game!
Edit: The blind leading the blind has a new meaning now.

 

[Dominionofgod]

For those upset about drinking the goblets all at once, just consider that the current mechanic increases the cost of each ingredient. With that mechanic if you had to do 5 separate recipes you would have far less chance for each recipe due to the high costs. Think of how much people don't like the wholesaler increasing costs and being forced to do it 5 times. By drinking all goblets at once you get to have the cheapest recipe with the best chance of success for all goblets.

To be clear about what i assumed the process would be:
I did NOT think it would be 5 entirely different potion recipes for each of my 5 goblets.
I thought we would make that single potion mix. That potion mix would stay the same for that week (or until reset). THEN, we could use the 5 goblets when we saw fit that week (or until reset). Each time would still be the same potion you made. You just get to chose when to drink that potion.
This having to use all 5 at once was a surprise and not something i liked.

Im trying not to be to overly critical of this yet since we are still learning the system. I remember seeing that over in FF11 when Abyssea first came out. It was a new special zone that you needed special stones to get into. But you only got 1 stone a day and it only lasted for 30 min. And ppl freaked out this. The backlash was pretty heavy by the ppl. - What they didnt know at the time, was there was a system added into combat where you could earn more time. (A lot more if you new what you were doing.) And special key items that reduced the time to charge a stone (thus getting multiple a day.) - It jsut took a little while for ppl to learn the system and realize all this. Once ppl learned the system, you could see ppl staying in there for days at a time because they built up so much extra time (you can only keep 120 min if u leave the zone).

So iv seen that before. And im trying not to be overly critical right now as we learn the system. Could be things we just havnt realized yet. - But for the moment, this having to use all goblets at once is the one thing i really dont like about it.

--

My only other critic is about the spell fragments use for increasing critical chance and duration and such. Im sure it might be different for each of us, but i personally certainly dont have such a mass of extra frags to use in the cauldron. I try to do the full spire every week. I only really craft military buildings and supply instants in the MA. (UU, ELR, MMM, pet food, supply instants.) And even with just that i dont have an over abundance supply of frags. Im not coming up short day to day, but i certainly dont have extras by the thousands to use in the cauldron. - So for me, that part will not be used.

 

[Myne]

My only other critic is about the spell fragments use for increasing critical chance and duration and such. Im sure it might be different for each of us, but i personally certainly dont have such a mass of extra frags to use in the cauldron. I try to do the full spire every week. I only really craft military buildings and supply instants in the MA. (UU, ELR, MMM, pet food, supply instants.) And even with just that i dont have an over abundance supply of frags. Im not coming up short day to day, but i certainly dont have extras by the thousands to use in the cauldron. - So for me, that part will not be used.

What they said!

 

[Dominionofgod]

one other question. The resources used for improving effects; i donated some coins to get witch points and i noticed the amount of coins needed to buy the next batch of points went up. Kinda like buying kp. - Does this amount reset each week, or does that stay where it is and always go up?
Im at 200k a buy after starting the cauldron for the first time today. I could see it quickly rising to a point that is more then my max coin holding if it doesnt reset. Then again, the cost reseting doesnt sound like something inno might do... so im wondering..

 

[Mykan]

one other question. The resources used for improving effects; i donated some coins to get witch points and i noticed the amount of coins needed to buy the next batch of points went up. Kinda like buying kp. - Does this amount reset each week, or does that stay where it is and always go up?
Im at 200k a buy after starting the cauldron for the first time today. I could see it quickly rising to a point that is more then my max coin holding if it doesnt reset. Then again, the cost reseting doesnt sound like something inno might do... so im wondering..

Like buying KP it is permanent.

 

[bkbajb]

I found this feature in my Beta city to be mediocre to useless. The Caukdron is primarily for cities in the final few chapters, at the most. My Beta city is in chapter 18 and after attempting to make it work, I now mostly ignore it. My Live city at the end of chapter 20 will get some more use from this, maybe, but early chapter cities will get almost no benefit from this.

I found the same thing and have ignored too. I will not be opening this up in my live city

 

[Dominionofgod]

Like buying KP it is permanent.

well thats disheartening...
I already Despise the buy kp quests because of that same increase issue. Last thing i need is a second feature that uses the same machinics.

 

[Tawneywild]

My experience was to brew, and if successful then I had to brew again until all the goblets were gone which overwrote the other successful ones ... you can't "x" out of the brew again button even if you x out of the game and come back because I tried that. Coming back, then I had to choose which potion of the same ingredients and different results I wanted to use. One was good for 2 hours and one for 4 but different levels of effects --- at the time I wasn't aware that "goblet" didn't actually mean a virtual goblet that appeared in your inventory so you don't get to choose "when" you use it - that it simply starts at that moment you press brew 5 times - which is irritating as others have said.

Also, the 'red" warning (I assume expiration?) on the Cauldron tab is also annoying -- or it could be that I'm just annoyed in general by the whole thing.

Will use it for free but unless some magical "recipe" appears at some point, I won't be using resources for it, especially diamonds simply because of the difference in same ingredients, different timelines, different effects, and no choice on when to activate the potion.

 

[Yavimaya]

From what I tested on Beta, I think the max is level 101.

Ty!

 

[iamthouth]

I finally brewed and went into the studying phase.
Used these four ingredients, just 1 of each, with 40% chance. No diamonds or spell fragments.
Got 4 potions as shown below from 5 goblets.



I chose to upgrade the Generals Mayhem, improving the Barracks units. I had expected we would be left with some Witch Points that couldn't be used, but it lets you add partial upgrades to use all Witch Points. I only used earned Witch Points, I didn't buy any additional ones.


At lvl 22, duration 4h gives me long enough for 2 rounds in Tournament (next week), as I have Timewarp at lvl 32.

The studying phase Witch point costs increase by 10% for each level for a single potion. For 20 potions, and 100 levels, it would take 1 year to get all 20 to lvl 32, or a year to get a single potion to lvl 63 (cost rises rapidly the further you progress), if only using allocated Witch Points.

 

[OIM20]

This is not a dwarven drinking game!

That would have been a much more entertaining minigame than the merge-a-thon we had that time.

btw, am also finding the research aspect a great place to dump the hundreds of thousands of excess T3 I have from filling trades. It won't last - I'll get to lvl 100 on the ones I'm focusing on increasing first pretty quickly - but it's better than letting it sit in inventory, imo.

_________________________________________________​

@Astram, @Villanesque - whichever of you provides feedback to Inno from these threads, just some thoughts/impressions thus far.

Spoiler: Feedback for Inno

Feedback for Inno:

As for having to drink all the potions at once: I think if this had been explained up front (if it was in the video, I missed it) a bit better that there might not be so much backlash against it. Still, I understand why; it just would have been nice to know so I didn't waste this week in Harandar entirely. But since I did end up wasting it there, I was prepared to save it for Sinya and Elcy, and focused on T1 to help with bracelet badges in the FA.

And choosing the effects/duration I want to keep when I do drink multiple times isn't that much of a hardship. I suppose it could be frustrating if you're a bit of a 'button masher' (I think that's the phrase?) and you click without really reading what it's asking you. Especially if there was a possibility of different effects with the potion. But since I knew what I wanted the potion to do, I just focused on the ingredients that gave me the highest chance of the effect I wanted to dump into the cauldron.

I don't see spending diamonds on this. I don't know when that would be an enticing option, as the potions would have to do a lot more than they do now for most of us to feel the cost to be justified. A lot of players don't want to spend 25 diamonds on another go at trading with the spirits in the Spire, so spending the same amount for a single ingredient... It would need to be a sure thing for players to feel that was an acceptable expenditure, such as better than 95% chance of success, or automatic 50% chance of the critical thing (that we add sf to it for, and I didn't play with that aspect this week - need those for crafting during an FA).

All of that said, I very much see the potential for many of the spells. Building up the supply surplus spell to max boost, using ingredients that give the best possible chance of obtaining the effect, and combining a stash of time instants (15 minutes for the ws and 5, 8, 14, 20 hour ones for the barracks / training grounds / merc camp) with feeding a brown bear could help someone rebuild a decimated army in minutes instead of days.

For now, though, I'll withhold a vote on the scale of "Superb! Keep doing things like this!" to "That's it! I'm quitting Elvenar!" until I have more experience with it.

Thanks for all you do! *sets out fresh fruits, freshly baked pastries, and freshly baked cookies* Sorry, my Harandar FS has been eating the brownies as quick as I can make 'em!