[Feedback] Improve the Alchemy Stone Upgrading System

#Suggestions

Improve the Alchemy Stone Upgrading System

Feb 23, 2024, 11:23 (UTC)

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Last Edit : Feb 23, 2024, 14:13 (UTC)

# 1

Family Name: BashForFun

Region (NA/EU): EU

Suggestions/Comments:

The problem:

As more players reach the point in the gearing process where losing 3 AP from Vells is no longer a big issue, and increasing number of Players from all areas have expressed their frustration with the current alchemy stone upgrading system. Not only does it take an extrem amount of time to polish and click the stones (even after the recent update allowing us to skip the animation), but the system also is very punishing with downgrades and destruction chances being high and no protection option similar to cron stones being available.

The way the alchemy stone system works currently means that almost no alchemy stones of higher grades are ever sold and most people that sell alchemy stones obtain them from RNG boxes and sell them because they do not know what they are and how important it is to keep them.

Here a couple of stats from the EU Market:

On the EU server, only 27 Splendid Alchemy Stones of Destruction were sold. With an average of 0.022 being sold per day and almost1k preorders being placed on the item.

Similarly only 0,98 Resplendent Alchemy Stones of Destruction are sold per day with more than 600 preorders place.

The same is true for Protection Stones and Life Stones as well, where the numbers are only slightly better.

We can see that RNG boxes are a large facilitator of the past sales as these stones are mostly sold at times when Boxes like the Shakatu’s Splendid Box are on sale for silver or are gifted to the players for attendance rewards.

Possible ways to improve the system:

1. Introduction of an automatic polishing and upgrading system:

My first quality of life solution for this problem is to allow players to automatically polish and upgrade alchemy stones if they have all the mats in their inventory or storage. This would allow players to upgrade whenever they are currently not actively playing. This system could work similarly to the auto dice roll feature and the system should only upgrade automatically until it reaches the resplendent level.

2. Intoducing failstacks for Alchemy Stones and show upgrade chances:

As the sucess rate of alchemy stone upgrades is so low, it would be possible to improve the system by introducing failstacks. This works well on other items in the game, so why not add it to alchemy stones as well. While doing this, and indicator if the upgrade, downgrade and destruction chance on the growth window would be great as well.

3. Adding protection to all alchemy stone upgrades or removing downgrades from lower alchemy stone levels and allow force upgrades on lower levels:

Currently alchemy stones are the only upgrading system that do not include a protection system. It would therefore be good if a protection system could be added. For example we could simply add cron stones to protect from destruction at higher levels and some other resource like caphras to protect from downgrades at lower levels.

Alternatively, the downgrade chance on lower levels could just be removed completely, allowing players to reach sharp and resplendent alchemy stones faster, enabling more clicks towards splendid stones.

Lastly, force upgrades on lower levels for higher costs might also be a nice way of allowing players to reach resplendent faster by paying more. For example forcing stone upgrades up to the "sharp" level.

4. Increase Marketplace Price to make clicking alch stones profitable

If you increase the price that alch stones can be sold for maybe someone who has a lot of time and nothing else to do will click for profit. Leading to greater supply of sharps and resplendent that can be bought by others who want to go for splendid.

Final remarks:

The alchemy stone system is now more important then ever. More and more endgame players are focusing on obtaining a good alchemy stone to round out their pvp, pve and lifeskill setup. Therefore one or more improvements to the system need to be implemted to allow progression to continue in an acceptable manner.

I hope that the devs will take this and all the other posts on the topic as an inspiration for possible changes that could be introduced.

With best regards,

BashForFun

4 7

Lv 66

Nylea

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Last Edit : Feb 23, 2024, 15:29 (UTC)

# 2

1. Merge polish and growth into one thing then introduce continous growth until you have materials in inventory. Also change required alchemy stone exp to always be 100% only to simplify things.

2. True

3. I wouldn't add force upgrades if they would add continous polish/growth. Protection (similar to cron stones) from destroying/downgrading is definitely must have, it could be new recipe that utilises currently useless items like Crystallized Despairs, Scorching Sun Shards, Corrupted Breath and other items from another regions.

4. True

I would add one more point - rework Alchemy Stone of Life. It's almost useless for every life skill. Slightly better for gathering and maybe alchemy/cooking but cheap and very accessible khan's heart is also very good with additional mastery and Treant's Tear is top for leveling. Top life stones like splendid/shining should be better than combined khan's heart and treant's tear so people would go for them. Also for some life skills Alchemy Stones are completely useless - sailing/barter, trading, training, farming, fishing doesn't get anything from them.