Drink of Timeless Energy - Revamp/change please

[Lemamas]

OK you knew this was coming so here it is. Lets discuss.

I would like to see 1 or more of the following changes made which I think will bring htis drink into a more suitable difficulty/usability.

1. Drop 1 Chronal Absinthe (4 dusts? Really?)

2. Change the Fairy Drake Dust component to the Shimmering Fairy Drake Dust. (this item has a roughly double drop rate from the same mobs)

3. Add a substitution to allow for Elemental Spirit Dust from any of the elements, not just air. (In Relic the dust drops from any air mob which is nice but it is rare. I only got 4 from a run of 3 clears of all air elemental model mobs including a couple Suppy runners, overall I killed about 31 mobs and got only 4 dust. if you add in the other elementals ther are a lot more mobs and the drop rate would be similar but would widen this area of the ingredients.)

4. Increase the yield to 5 and make the item no-drop. (Or yield 2 and still tradable)


This drink took me over 6 hours to get 5 drinks after 2 fails. Is that intended? I am SoF raid geared ranger with a healer merc so I can kill the mobs faster than they respawn in all camps.

PS with the current setup I sold one of these, 1 for 35kp... The old nostrum were selling for 350p - 500p on my server.

ultimately it's up to you developers, but to be honest, this isn't fun

[Roanne]

This has been the trend arguably since PoR.

Presumably because of the ability to force feed and make a single stat food/drink last forever, effort:reward ratios are pushed down. e.g. if the stats are desirable the effort is prohibitive v. reasonably farmable recipes having mediocre at best stats. This design pattern encourages the response that because you can force feed, you aught to.

My perspective is no food/drink in the game has good enough stats to make it worth the effort of farming. I make an exception to obtain long duration food/drink so I don't have to restock as often but even 150hme from Bristlebane's Challenge (I think this is best stat food in the game) isn't worth the effort of force feeding to make one last or spending my game time farming for the subcombines.

The novelty is worth the effort for some people. If it makes you happy to make these recipes, its an optional aspect of the game. It isn't required, and arguably the stats make such a minor difference you can pretty much ignore them.

I still use Misty Thicket Picnics and Qeynos Afternoon Tea. Any chance of a reasonably farmable long duration food/drink that stacks to 100?

[Bonzz]

I agree....

The rarity and difficulty in obtaining ingredients is ridiculous. Outrageous.

With Bristlebanes Challenge and Bristlebanes Party Platter, I am a little more accepting of the "No Trade" status as one must make them on their own (as opposed to buying them). But I am still not happy in the difficulty (rarity) of obtaining the ingredients.

As for marketable (tradeable) items, the rarity of ingredients makes no sense whatsoever as they AREN"T marketable if the ingredients are so super rare. So, no advantage to us tradeskillers in an opportunity to make a little profit unless we spend ALL of our play time farming.

I know Ngreth once said something about the Platter being necessarily No Trade due to a quest relationship and that the Challenge sandwich was made No Trade because he was essentially over ruled.

Time to reconsider?

However, with both items, one can farm and sell the components. Well.. the Horse Meat and Nest Drake meat is still insanely too rare.

The drop rates on all these items needs to be at least twice what it is.

If they want to keep it so rare, then it is about time they introduced an AA's into the game that either makes you forever "mystically" substained with no need for food or drink.

Of course, your mount will still be hungry and thirsty, but still....

Or... an AA that allows you to eat the 2nd food/drink in your inventory, rather than the 1st.

Or maybe change things so it works like stacking issues. If one is better than the other, the better one takes precedence over the lesser one. This way, we can put the "junk food and drink" first in our bags and still retain the stat bonus from our stat food/drinks.

And fix the AC on food/drink plz, thx.

Lastly, concerns of "unbalancing" stats making ingredients necessarily rare or the item No Trade is simply ridiculous. Just today I was in Tosk and looted a weapon that had just under 1K HP on it, along with a load of other stats (unaugged). This was NOT a raid MOB, but a grouped MOB!

So saying a meager 150 HP or 75 HP is unbalancing is just plain silly.

[Aldier]

From what I recall in beta, the comments were that this drink is supposed to be similar to the BBC in that is it very hard to obtain, but since it was only half the stats that it would remain tradeable.

I personally still have huge supplies of KCs and MTPs that I am TRYING to eat while I play from working those skills/trophies up.

I think they should add another level to the Innate Metabolism aa similar to what they did for Innate Lung Capacity where eventually, you never eat food/drink like you never need air. While this would put a limit probably on food stats it solve the problem of force feeding.

The alternative, would be to re-write the food/drink consumption system and make them work better to add all of the stats and eliminate force feeding. If this were to happen, then I would hope that this drink and others would become much easier to obtain and that stats on food/drink would go up to levels that make a noticeable difference.

I saw a halloween vendor in game today giving away free 40 mana food too, it was no trade but it was free. There was also 30 hp/mana stuff I think as well.

As to the ingredients of this, I was actually able to find some Fairy Drake Dust, I have not been able to find the Air Elemental Spirit Dust or the Dervish Dust personally in my attempts to farm the components for this drink. Also, I feel that the Chronal Resonance Dust is SO common if you actually hunt in the new zones instead of exp grinding in the SoF zones that using 4 is not unreasonable.

[Ngreth Thergn]

OK you knew this was coming so here it is. Lets discuss.

I would like to see 1 or more of the following changes made which I think will bring htis drink into a more suitable difficulty/usability.

1. Drop 1 Chronal Absinthe (4 dusts? Really?)

no. But, I think that overall, I am going to increase the drop rate of this dust.

2. Change the Fairy Drake Dust component to the Shimmering Fairy Drake Dust. (this item has a roughly double drop rate from the same mobs)

I could be convinced to do this. I will think on it this week.

3. Add a substitution to allow for Elemental Spirit Dust from any of the elements, not just air. (In Relic the dust drops from any air mob which is nice but it is rare. I only got 4 from a run of 3 clears of all air elemental model mobs including a couple Suppy runners, overall I killed about 31 mobs and got only 4 dust. if you add in the other elementals ther are a lot more mobs and the drop rate would be similar but would widen this area of the ingredients.)

I think I will be changing this to something else or removing it altogether. I will search for something more common if I change it. I definitely think that this is way too rare.

4. Increase the yield to 5 and make the item no-drop. (Or yield 2 and still tradable)

no

[Aldier]

3. Add a substitution to allow for Elemental Spirit Dust from any of the elements, not just air. (In Relic the dust drops from any air mob which is nice but it is rare. I only got 4 from a run of 3 clears of all air elemental model mobs including a couple Suppy runners, overall I killed about 31 mobs and got only 4 dust. if you add in the other elementals ther are a lot more mobs and the drop rate would be similar but would widen this area of the ingredients.)

I think I will be changing this to something else or removing it altogether. I will search for something more common if I change it. I definitely think that this is way too rare.

Why not Pixie Dust? http://www.eqtraders.com/items/show_...r=035000000000
It is already used in tradeskills, so it wouldn't be that unheard of.

[Lemamas]

That sounds good Ngreth. I obviously don't think a change to everything will be needed. With a change to the Fairy Drake dust that will reduce the need for grey-con farming which is ultimately a less rewarding prospect compared to the Air Elementals in Relic. While that step is tedious it's not that painful compared tot he grey-cons in Sunderock.

An increase to the dust drop rate wounds in order too as that is very uncommon currnetly from the farming I ahve done in the Oceangreen theme. Maybe it drops more in discord or the higher tier themes but I have not gone into them much other than some named farming.

Overall it sounds like you ahve a plan to help this combine out and something to help out most other TS areas which is encouraging

[Kahmon]

/pushes the EASY button.

75 HP/Mana/End many not seem overwheling, but it is 3 times the HP and mana of any drink previously available. It shouldn't be overly easy to obtain. If you think it's not worth the effort, then stick with something you do feel is worth the effort.

[Ngreth Thergn]

Well, it still has some components that make it a PITA, and 4 chronal resonance dust is in competition with everything else that uses this dust, so I don't feel I am making it too easy by reducing some of it

[Lemamas]

/pushes the EASY button.

75 HP/Mana/End many not seem overwheling, but it is 3 times the HP and mana of any drink previously available. It shouldn't be overly easy to obtain. If you think it's not worth the effort, then stick with something you do feel is worth the effort.

6+ hours for 5 expendable items that provide very minimal stat increase is actually pretty lame. And to expand, I thought I had stated it clear in the first post that I won't make these any more already. I also didn't say it should be easy, it just shouldn't be "unfun".

[Andarriel]

.

So the final combine only yields 1? i got most of the stuff minus the dust in relic as it seems to be pretty rare. Also agree on changing the fairy drake dust to shimmering.

Andarriel

[Kahmon]

I spent about 90 mins in relic and got 4 air elemental dusts, 4 dervish dusts, and 3 Powders of Ro.

For Air Elementals, start right at zone in. Just to the right, a supply runner spawns every few minutes and can be any type of elemental. There are also two Air Elemental guards a little west that can be camped between spawns. You can even clear the courtyard if you want, but I found that the least effective.

Dervishes were less frequent, but seemed to have a better drop rate. I only got 2 in Relic, but got 2 more in Arcstone in 5 mins since there is an entire region of them.

Fairy Drakes Dusts droped 2 per clearing for me, so not too bad to get 4 in 30 mins.

The toughest part of the drink for me was the CRDs, but with most people spending time in the new zones, there are plenty floating around.

I really just didn't see any of this is being difficult with minimal effort. It was a 50 HP upgrade from 1 night of running around. I wish I could get 50 more HPs every night.

Cheers to Ngreth for adding a nice new drink to the game. My feeling is that anyone saying it's too difficult, hasn't actually put any effort into it yet.

[Kazdrina]

air elemental spirit dust

I have to agree that the work involved in making this drink is just too tedious to make it worthwhile. Time spent with myself and two friends farming in multiple zones for 2 weeks (every day for a couple hours)resulted in exactly 15 air elemental spirit dusts from relic, 40 dervish spirit dusts in archstone, 25 fairy drake dusts from sunderock. The most frustrating item by far was the air elemental spirit dust and the number of available mobs that drop it. The end result of hours and hours of farming was 14 drinks which was hardly enough to give each friend a few. Simply adding it to more air elementals in other zones would help alot. My bank is currently holding stacks of the other items ready to make this drink if only I could get the spirit dust. I think limiting the drops is a good idea as far as not flooding the market with a nice stat drink but making it impossible to even make drinks for yourself of a few friends makes me sad.

[Bonzz]

Personally...

We actually got a drink that was a real upgrade. But..........I am extremely disappointed.

I haven't been this underwhelemed and disappointed since Bristlebanes Challenge.

It seems some of the posters forget that food/drink is eaten automatically.

Even if you try to be dilligent about force feeding, a stack isn't going to last all that long before you need to acquire more.

Another thing that seems to be missed, is that the CRD may not be all that rare, but it is extremely difficult to farm in any quantity.

And if you try to buy it in Bazaar, it's price is beyond reason... because they are also in demand for so many other combines, as well.

So absolutely, 4 CRD per 1 Drink is very much on the outrageous side.

To put it in a somewhat different perspective, imagine... before SoD, that the Oriass Nostrum required four (4) Porous Loam..... (an extreme comparison, I admit, but....)

Sure, Oriaas Nostrum was "supposed" to be an upgrade, but they refuse to fix the AC. Therefore, it is not better than any other 25 HP drink, from my point of view.

It is easier to farm and make, however, than say Juice of Quellious.

At least with the Juice and Nostrum, you can farm the stuff in enough quantity and in relatively short time to make a profit.

Even more so, worrying about force feeding is not as much of an annoyance or concern.

With this drink, unless you have an accomplsihed AoE caster type and maybe with a pet, farming for this drink is a PITA and takes way way way too long (try doing it as a Paladin.... and I am no slacker Pally...).

But this drink is along the lines of Bristlebane's Challenge.

One can only wonder what flawed logic was behind it, as it is so complicated and calls for the several "rare" ingredients, it isn't worth the time or effort.

[Kahmon]

It seems some of the posters forget that food/drink is eaten automatically.

Even if you try to be dilligent about force feeding, a stack isn't going to last all that long before you need to acquire more.

Another thing that seems to be missed, is that the CRD may not be all that rare, but it is extremely difficult to farm in any quantity.

I used to occasionally eat a Bristlebanes Paty Platter, but didn't sweat it too much because materials to make more were readily available. However, when I made a Bristlebane's challenge, I made sure to spend a whopping 3 AAs on Innate Metabolism in order to lower my food consumption. With that, I only have to remember to force feed about once an hour in order to keep from having to make another challenge. As a result, 1 Challenge has survived for over 2 years without being eaten. To me, for and drink is not a consumable, just something with an upkeep (force feeding).

CRDs I got about 3-5 a night playing in new zones doing Bayle's crest tasks. Not overwhelming, but hardly rare as I'm not focusing on farming them. With Ngreth planning to increase the drop rate on them due to being used in virtually every SoD recipe, they will be more plentful for farmers, and prices will drop for those who prefer to just buy.