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The Cauldron

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
I love it. I got over 90% chance to get one of my 5 preferred effects without spending diamonds and a slight chance of getting all five of them (better chance of getting 2 to 4 of them). Last week, I got two out of five and an additional one that I didn’t care about. I managed to upgrade all of my 5 chosen effects to over level 80 using roughly half of my resources.

I’ll post screen shots next week (hopefully I’ll remember).
 

Alcaro

Necromancer
I still try to figure out how Cauldron could be implemented in quests (of events of any sorts). If they ask to brew a potion, and you did it already, then you have to wait for next week. What I can "see" as a possible quest is to Buy Witch Points, like is now Buy KPs.
 

C-Nymph

Necromancer
I still try to figure out how Cauldron could be implemented in quests (of events of any sorts). If they ask to brew a potion, and you did it already, then you have to wait for next week. What I can "see" as a possible quest is to Buy Witch Points, like is now Buy KPs.
And that is exactly what I fear they mean they will be doing. It will just be another forced spending of valuable resources to gain something you don't necessarily need at that moment. Your choice to do something in the game when you want to do it is being taken away (again).
And no, choosing therefore to not participe in events is not a comparable/valuable alternative to actually having a choice.
 

Jake65

Sage
What I can "see" as a possible quest is to Buy Witch Points, like is now Buy KPs.
forced spending of valuable resources to gain something you don't necessarily need at that moment.
I agree with this concern.
I don't mind (too much) buying KP for a quest as I can use them for research, my wonders or other players wonders.
But WP are cauldron specific so this seems like "if you don't want to use resources on our new feature then we will make you"
I had decided to not spend resources on the cauldron (besides a 2000 fragment test) but I don't see that decision holding up for long :(
 

C-Nymph

Necromancer
It would not even be so bad if that valuable resource didn't increase in demand. But that is the thing, the resource demands for both buy KP and buy Witch Points increase exponantially.

It's like forcing someone to buy toilet paper rolls each day when they still have a cupboard full of toilet paper, and every day, those rolls become more expensive. It's not that you'll ever stop needing toilet paper, but if you still have enough, and you're not currently sitting on the toilet with diarrhea, you probably don't need to buy any right now. Yet you are forced to.
 

Sir Derf

Adept
I still try to figure out how Cauldron could be implemented in quests (of events of any sorts). If they ask to brew a potion, and you did it already, then you have to wait for next week. What I can "see" as a possible quest is to Buy Witch Points, like is now Buy KPs.
Do unused Witch Points carry over week-to-week? I was under the impression that unused WP disappear and are replaced with a fresh batch each week. If so, Buy WP quests can be worse than Brew Potion quests; you might not be forced to wait if you've already brewed a Potion, but you could spend resources for unusable WPs.
 

Herodite

Forum mod extraordinaire
Elvenar Team
@Sir Derf The Witch Points don't carry over to the next Brewing Phase, however, any that you haven't used to Brew your Potion will be available in the Studying Phase to improve all of your possible Effects. At this point you can then trade Resources for Witch Points to continue improving your Effects but make sure to use ALL of them by the end of the week because they don't carry over :)

Bear in mind as well these Effect Improvements can be done over time as the Effects never reset. So you don't have to plough all your resources into them to get the best possible enchantment immediately.

Kind Regards

Herodite.
 

Morning Town

Alchemist
And that is exactly what I fear they mean they will be doing. It will just be another forced spending of valuable resources to gain something you don't necessarily need at that moment. Your choice to do something in the game when you want to do it is being taken away (again).
And no, choosing therefore to not participe in events is not a comparable/valuable alternative to actually having a choice.

Exactly my concern! As I have not researched the tech, will I stay on the "classic" recurring quest line or will it change to the "cauldron driven quest" anyway.

Any "no believers / holdouts" in beta aware of the ramifications of this contumacious act of player comportment?

Maybe it will be the "mandatory, rather than optional - no" variant - open FS list, no you need to research cauldron... go to spire, no you need to research cauldron ........... ad infinitum :eek:

I guess as Alcaro says we need to wait and see, the critical element being any form of option/declinability :rolleyes:
 
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Jake65

Sage
What I can "see" as a possible quest is to Buy Witch Points
I feel for players who might already have spent a lot of resources and are at the point of 'no more, it's too expensive'.
Any buy WP quests are going to hurt.
 

Far Reach

Conjurer
As a guide, (with 20 diplomas) I've bought Witch Points just over 3500 times spread equally over 15 different resources. For each of these resources, buying my next chunk of WPs will cost about 10k. Additionally, (and unlike buying KP) the costs reduce somewhat with each additional Chapter completed (and diploma earned).

Players in earlier chapters will be able to buy fewer Witch Points, but unless a player goes really deep, I wouldn't expect quests to buy WP to be a problem.

I don't really understand all of the agonising about the Cauldron. The rewards are fairly weak (although from a fighting perspective they would look a lot better if Inno rebalanced the overpowered option of multiple expiring buildings). On the other hand there isn't too much that a player can do seriously wrong. I can't see a downside to researching the Cauldron tech (other than the lack of an optional tech to research as an event quest), and the worst that can come from brewing a potion is the loss of the resources spent and brewing opportunity for that week. The main longer term risk is overbuying WP (which as @Jake65 comments will affect future Buy WP quests) or investing them poorly (since their availability is limited, and this could lead to a player being unable to get as much value from their favourite spells).

For each spell, buying early levels (to rank it up) is very cheap in terms of WP. Later levels get progressively more expensive though. I suggest that it is worth buying a few levels in everything, but investing much more in favoured spells. Exactly what that balance is will vary according to player choice.
 
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Jake65

Sage
I suggest that it is worth buying a few levels in everything, but investing much more in favoured spells.
I agree, this approach makes the most sense.
What is nice is that you don't have to buy the level in one go.
Use your leftover WP in one week, add some more the next week and so on.
 

OldHag

Necromancer
I agree, this approach makes the most sense.
What is nice is that you don't have to buy the level in one go.
Use your leftover WP in one week, add some more the next week and so on.
Week 1 - my first experiment I made an 18 ingredient potion, I got 3 active spells but didn't have many witch points left to spend, but spent what I had.
Week 2 - my second experiment I made a 6 or 8 (poor memory) ingredient potion and got 4 active spells. I had plenty of witch points left to spend on 'improving effects' - spent all my free witch points and improved 3 effects.
I like the cauldron, I think it's a nice addition and I'm quite happy to develop this overtime, without spending all of my resources.
Patience grasshoppers.
 

OldHag

Necromancer
What I've noticed is that since my chapter quests returned after declining a cauldron quest is that the cauldron quests are now the secondary quests that run alongside each chapter.
My current cauldron quest is to spend 1k witch points, I'll get more then that for free each week and will be spending them anyway, but that quest is worth 2.5k spell fragments, I'll take that. :)
 

Silly Bubbles

Necromancer
I don't really understand all of the agonising about the Cauldron.

I think they also want it easier. Personally, I like puzzles so even if the prizes are not ground breaking I'm happy as long as there's enjoyment in playing with it. This game has easy and hard parts so it accommodates to everyone. I don't agree with taking enjoyment from one group just because the other group doesn't like it, they can just play it at minimum and focus on the things that they enjoy. There's a lot to this game and I too don't like some features that others love so I just do those as little as I can, just to get what I want out of it. Nothing in this game is compulsory to do so I don't expect them pushing the Cauldron too hard on us, just a little like everything else so we give it at least a little try.
 
I agree with @OldHag. I make the same. First week I tried and had 4 successful spells, but less amount wp to improve effect. The next week I used almost all free wp for improving the effect. It is not worth to use wp for the potions with so short effects. And I will be never use my resourses to buy wp except of course if we have this quest. I hope that Inno will not include this in the events or not to be more than "buy 8,10,12,16 WP" similar to KP.
 
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