94pp for Helitrope to buy 9 gold to sell hmmm is it just me?

[Ravenstorm]

i know alchemy is one of the expensive skills to raise and make. just notice yesterday when i went to buy some helitrope for gate potions, was curious what the sell back is on the herb. its 9 gold. i dont understand. it cost 94pp (unbuffed 84pp buffed) to buy it.
whats up with these price on venders
ravenstorm
stormraven (FV Server)

[Falmorn]

:x

For a long while, alchemy has been, well, not broken, but definitely off-kilter. I wouldn't say that it's as expensive to raise alchemy as it is to raise smithing, but it *definitely* could use some improvement as far as the prices go. Over on the shaman boards, in between bouts of this and that, occasionally people will make statements about "fixing" alchemy; they mean altering the cost of the store-bought ingredients to make the skill a bit more friendly to your average shaman.

But it hasn't happened yet, and in all likelihood it won't for a good long while. I mean, they already removed the negatives from the stat potions, created an alchemy GM trophy and provided an alchemy vendor in Gukta who has a number of the rare ingredients you only previously found in Shar Vahl. Alchemy may have gone back to the bottom of the dev's "to do" list.

Fal, inching closer to GM brewer status (225)
Still a master potter and baker
And given up on alchemy, at least for a few months

[Lothay]

Alchemy is expensive.

It is for a reason. If it were cheap, then everyone would always have access to the best potions. And you could reduce or eliminate your need to group with a shaman.

If the cost is high, many people won't do the skill. It's an item for game balance, and a frustrating one at that.

~Lothay

[Albrin]

Uh.. yea theres turgurs in a bottle :roll:

Anyway, its expensive because they don't want you "buying" your way through an encounter. Otherwise, you could load up on wort (healing) potions/ds potions/whatever else can be made and go to town. This is why they have been extremely careful with what type of potions are available and their cost.

As far as the buyback goes, i'd be more inclined to ask for a good progressive skill up path where players actually want your potions (hi invis potions?). I'm at 191 alchemy and can think of two potions that allows a shaman to continue skilling up while, at worst, breaking even.. blood of wolf (trivials around 30ish) and illusion potions (160+). I missed out on the illusion path so the younger shamans are lucky but if you havent noticed, theres a pretty huge gap between those trivials.

Edit: The above would explain why the potions themselves are expensive but not exactly why skilling up is. However, both are connected.

Since most the components are storebought, they had to set a minimum cost for a potion. Because of the reason stated above, they set that cost rather high for most of them. Since potions are expendable and shouldn't suffer as much from mudflation as smithing or tailoring, they figure the player economy will keep market going and thus.. a much smaller buyback than jewelcraft. The problem is there isn't much of a market when the players feel the prices are too high and the potions are too limited in use.