GGG: Is the Orb of Alchemy vendor recipe working as intended?

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Sickness wrote:

Great. Then they can start selling alch orbs directly in the store!

Cant understand what you try to say.

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pneuma wrote:

I imagine you'd also not be against experience boost or rarity/quantity boosts for the same reason then. The entire point of this thread is that stash tabs and the matching names recipe are an alchemy orb drop rate boost.

All kinds of "boosters" are pay to win.

You imagine wrong, its a complete different story: the only boost offered by the increased stash is a boost to possibilities - you can easier switch between gear, easier equip more chars, yeah and you can force your chances to obtain more of some types of orbs - but it still is only a chance, and beside the virtual wealth it boosts nothing for real. Its not a fault of the game, or the system of orbs and recipes or of the stash extension, if there are people willing to buy things like orbs (or near-perfect crafts, or anything else virtual) with real money...

And its still a chance other players also could take with some additional accounts.

And, at the end - where it matters - its not about 'every Alchemy improves a white item'; its about the need to replace the good (rare) item you already wear with a better one... From this point I see the value of a single Alchemy as a limited one, able to be well balanced within the economy (huge demand vs. huge offers -> balanced value)

Couldnt explain even better yet - hope I could make some things understandable nevertheless...

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Mr_Cee wrote:

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pneuma wrote:

I imagine you'd also not be against experience boost or rarity/quantity boosts for the same reason then. The entire point of this thread is that stash tabs and the matching names recipe are an alchemy orb drop rate boost.

All kinds of "boosters" are pay to win.

You imagine wrong, its a complete different story: the only boost offered by the increased stash is a boost to possibilities - you can easier switch between gear, easier equip more chars, yeah and you can force your chances to obtain more of some types of orbs - but it still is only a chance, and beside the virtual wealth it boosts nothing for real. Its not a fault of the game, or the system of orbs and recipes or of the stash extension, if there are people willing to buy things like orbs (or near-perfect crafts, or anything else virtual) with real money...

And its still a chance other players also could take with some additional accounts.

And, at the end - where it matters - its not about 'every Alchemy improves a white item'; its about the need to replace the good (rare) item you already wear with a better one... From this point I see the value of a single Alchemy as a limited one, able to be well balanced within the economy (huge demand vs. huge offers -> balanced value)

Couldnt explain even better yet - hope I could make some things understandable nevertheless...

Your first point; states if its only chance its not pay to win, is this also the case with say the million other pay to win online games? Evony offers 1 spin of a roulette wheel to free players and unlimited to paying players. It only chance that the people who spend 1000$ will geta ridiculous advantage from the wheel, but its only chance, from your view, this is also not pay to win.

Your second point stats that its not pay to win because alchemy are worthless; Alchemy are not worth less at all, their uses:

1: make rares you dont have with them for chaos orb.

2: get 100 alchemy orbs(not hard with stash tabs), get 100 nice base items (not hard) use them all, big chance you will get very nice affixes.

3: its wont always be purely hardcore players, a new supply of players will always be in the game, and wanting alchemy orbs that you can trade for other items.

Point is non of your reasons make are logical to me when you look into the game more.

I'm 100% against P2W or Pay to Win.

I believe this is NOT pay to win, as ANYONE can get any many accounts as they wish to have, and sort rares all day.

Also FYI, once you start getting high enough level and farming with the right gear you likely wont be using this recipe as much as lower level people will as you will find rares and sell them to other players doing this faster than sorting them yourself.

Is it really that bad I think stacking Alchemy orb's isn't that good without Orb of Scouring ?

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Wisler444 wrote:

Evony offers 1 spin of a roulette wheel to free players and unlimited to paying players.

thats the first and very important difference - said a 1000 times: you have the ability to have also (theroretical) unlimited spins (stash) for free - and practically at least enough 'spins' to keep the difference minor enough.

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Your second point stats that its not pay to win because alchemy are worthless; Alchemy are not worth less at all

I dont say they are useless, neither worthless. I said their worth for the endgame is limited; by the fact that even 100 of them dont make sure to give you an improvement on even one piece of your gear.

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2: get 100 alchemy orbs(not hard with stash tabs)

not really much harder with some accounts (if you really want grinding for them, and really dont want to invest something into the game. Even less an issue when trading good stuff for alch's with others, or just swap matchings like already done via the trade forums.

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get 100 nice base items (not hard)

Could be much more difficult as to obtain some nice amount of orbs, since this is (nearly) only based on luck (for the fact you have abilities that increases droprate and -chance ingame, but even this "only" increases the chances, must not mean you will always find what you're looking for)

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a new supply of players will always be in the game, and wanting alchemy orbs that you can trade for other items.

new players/beginners may look much more for apropriate level gear (with already useful stats) than to trade for random crafting Alch's - and they also may have only less of value to trade for. Main sink/demand for Alch's seem to become high level rolls in combination with Scourings.

My point is: the main importance of the stash tabs is the increased comfort, and thats a thing I dont want to miss. Everything else, that may be bad affected by them, have to be lookeed at from their own viewing point, and maybe changed at their end if detected/decided to be a problem. The stash isnt the problem, it just can serve him. And if the amount of orbs, that are by this 'abuse' of the recipe(s) (in the end) really affect the economy, is (now) pure speculation.

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Wisler444 wrote:

2: get 100 alchemy orbs(not hard with stash tabs)

With ~20 stash tabs takes a few months (not "hard" eh?)

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Wisler444 wrote:

get 100 nice base items (not hard) use them all, big chance you will get very nice affixes.

Where do you get them? Dont tell me we are talking about <lvl 50 gear buying from the vendor, because you won't use that for long. So where do you get nice lvl 60+ base items (hint: not from the vendor)

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Wisler444 wrote:

Point is non of your reasons make are logical to me when you look into the game more.

Seems you are lacking some "end-game" experience.
Just to be clear: under level 60 you will mainly looking for the right links in your base item before you alch it (makes not much sense to burn your fusings in low levels). Above level 60 you will most of the time do the same, but when you really start crafting your gear, it will surly be a base type that you won't find many times easily. And if you don't have many base items to burn you need scourings as much as alchs.

And one more thing, i already mentioned this in a post before: if you store all your crap rares for the matching recipe, you won't sell them. So you have not many alteration orbs to roll your maps (in which you get the base items). You would have to spend your alchs for buying alterations (which would then go to the ones who doesn't use the recipe)
Sound like an equilibrium and not "pay2win", doesn't it?


Edit: Not meant as an offense. really. I just have the feeling, that the base of this discussion (and there mainly at the "this is pay2win" sayer side) is lacking some (map) end-game experience or based on wrong impressions.

Edit 2: spelling.

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Wisler444 wrote:

2: get 100 alchemy orbs(not hard with stash tabs), get 100 nice base items (not hard) use them all, big chance you will get very nice affixes.

I have issue with this point, because at high level getting any number of white items is VERY HARD. Spend countless hours trying to get a high level map (say, 66), run it, get 2 level 67 items and 5 level 66 items (not even useful for my class). Then because of the nature of the map system, you have to spend countless hours trying to get a level 66 map again.

/edit

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Taublatt wrote:

Seems you are lacking some "end-game" experience.

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Taublatt wrote:

..if you store all your crap rares for the matching recipe, you dont sell them. So you have not many altering orbs to roll your maps (in which you get the base items). You would have to spend your alchs for buying alterations (which would then go to the ones who doesn't use the recipe)
Sound like an equilibrium and not "pay2win", doesn't it?

I know because of the limited usefulness of the alchemy orbs, I've mostly stopped even matching them. Selling for alterations is much more convenient when running maps.

I sold half my stash of rares(roughly 200) and was happy to finally have some alterations. I bought 20 jewelers and from them, a few fusings that I rarely ever get. At the moment I'm not missing alchemy orbs at all. I just use the few I do match or find to go towards making chaos orbs.

There really is a decent trade-off that some people aren't even considering.

Oh and within those 200 rares was 44 alchemy shards, so I got 2 orbs in addition

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lukeiy wrote:

Pay2win is a slippery slope

This part I agree with, but I still think that charging for convenience is acceptable and not the same thing as selling power.

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lukeiy wrote:

and I think those of you defending the recipe might be worried that you are going to lose your advantage over non paying players.

I'm defending the recipe, and I only have 6 stash tabs. If you don't want to buy tabs, run mules in OB. If you don't want to run mules, wait for the people whose time is worth less to them than yours is to you to pump out a steady supply of Alchs and cause its value to drop. (This is inevitable, IMO, because the rate at which Scourings enter the economy should be markedly lower than the rate at which Alchs do, unless Scouring gets its own recipe, in which case look for Chaos to devalue.)

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Astor137 wrote:

Is it really that bad I think stacking Alchemy orb's isn't that good without Orb of Scouring ?

Yep. As supply outpaces demand, the value of Alch orbs will continue to fall and the value of Scourings should rise.