Is there a use for bottles and infernal alloy besides gold?

[River Victor]

Topic. I mean they're empty. I suppose I could put something in like water, but can I? Infernal allow seem like a piece of armor, but I don't know where the rest of the parts are or even if it's useful.

[Raz]

Infernal Alloy is given to Dammon for him to make armor. Empty bottles have no purpose.

[Mike Garrison]

Besides the two that you need for Karlach, it's all vendor trash.

[Sephiroth]

The game was SUPPOSED to have a very good crafting system. Its why you see ingots all over the place yet nothing to make.

Promises they never kept. Kinda like the Upper City we don't have.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Infernal Alloy is especially jarring since it keeps dropping past Act 2 (from the Steel Watchers), and if Dammon dies at any point in the game there's literally nowhere to use it at all (you'd think there will be a smith or something in Gortash's employ who could serve as an alternative...).

What irks me far more though are the soul coins. The "most valuable currency in the Hells" are literally just a 1d6 bonus to damage while Raging for Karlach and nothing else.

[Despiser]

Originally posted by Sephiroth:

The game was SUPPOSED to have a very good crafting system. Its why you see ingots all over the place yet nothing to make.

Promises they never kept. Kinda like the Upper City we don't have.

I store all the ingots in the traveller's chest. You never know when they might implement a use for them in some unforeseen update.

[tom tomorrow]

Originally posted by Sephiroth:

The game was SUPPOSED to have a very good crafting system. Its why you see ingots all over the place yet nothing to make.

Promises they never kept. Kinda like the Upper City we don't have.

Crafting and the Upper City were never promised. They were planned. And sometimes plans fall through.

[seeker1]

It's not true empty bottles have no use. There are filling stations in the game where you can fill those bottles with water, and now you have a bottle of water. What do you use that for? Anything you would use other bottles of water for.

The ingots probably were meant for a crafting system. BTW, there is a crafting MOD at Nexus called the JWL crafting framework where you CAN use them to craft stuff.

The Internal Alloy is for Dammon to make stuff. Once you've used two Infernal Iron for Karlach, there's no more Dammon can do for her. But any Infernal Alloy or Iron you find >2, Dammon can use to make Lesser Helldusk armor pieces. As the name suggests, they are inferior to (Full) Helldusk Armor pieces you find as loot.

Now lemme get to the Soul Coins. You can definitely see some hints they were meant to be used as some kinda tradeable currency ... maybe with Raph, Mizora, other fiends? Dunno. But then Larian made them tokens for the coin clot in Karlach's Internal Engine. BTW, I hate the implementation. To use a Soul Coin, Karlach must first enter rage (one action), then use a soul coin (another action), and then only after those two actions ... what is she getting for essentially eating the soul inside the coin? ... a bonus 1d4 (not 1d6) fire damage to her attacks that lasts as long as she's raging. Craptastic.

If you're sensing, yeah, I don't use them. But I let Karlach get bonus fire damage from a lot of other less craptastic ways, like taking the Rage of the Pit subclass. Or Strike of the Fire Giants. Etc. I also tend to use Weapon Oils to give her the flaming battle axe she should have always had.

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by mf tom:

Originally posted by Sephiroth:

The game was SUPPOSED to have a very good crafting system. Its why you see ingots all over the place yet nothing to make.

Promises they never kept. Kinda like the Upper City we don't have.

Crafting and the Upper City were never promised. They were planned. And sometimes plans fall through.

What *was* promised but not implemented in the end was rolling for abilities, in case you need a more concrete example of a Swincke Molyneux.

So Larian talking out of their ass is not exactly an undocumented occurence.

In any event, the crafting system which *is* present is both weirdly in-depth with component interchangeability and the amount of in-universe documentation and extremely shallow with how the recipes are just automatically learned the moments you extract the ingredients, so the few supposedly unique ones (like Thisobald's poison) you can find out about are actually common knowledge, and there's no need for experimentation or really thinking as to what you should save up on.

Meanwhile most weapons don't even have a non-unique +2 version despite the models and the entries being there. How about letting the players enchant the gear themselves or something? NWN2's crafting system still reigns supreme in that regard.

[seeker1]

Originally posted by Ereghor the Enigmatic:

In any event, the crafting system which *is* present is both weirdly in-depth with component interchangeability and the amount of in-universe documentation and extremely shallow with how the recipes are just automatically learned the moments you extract the ingredients,

Yeah. It's strange. At several points, you can find Alchemy Recipe Books for Potions and Poisons. The items are meaningless, as you automatically learn the recipes once you have the ingredients. But the presence of the recipe books suggest that Larian at one point was thinking about having you learn the recipes, then scuttled that.

I also agree it's not a good UI thing that you can't view the tooltip for the items you're making with alchemy to see what the resulting concoction does. Poor UI. Also, JMHO, but there are many grenades you can't make with alchemy, I mean, you can't even make smokepowder grenades (let alone the best ones), wussup with that? Fortunately - mods for that.

IMHO, if you want to make full and proper use of the game's alchemy system, make an Alchemist. (Three versions at Mod.io - get the third - you'll know it's the right version because it talks about the Philosopher's Stone.) Seriously. It upgrades what you can do with alchemy, and the results of alchemy.

Meanwhile most weapons don't even have a non-unique +2 version despite the models and the entries being there. How about letting the players enchant the gear themselves or something? NWN2's crafting system still reigns supreme in that regard.

If you want a crafting system that makes you go through actual crafting, get the JWL Crafting Framework mod. You actually need to assemble materials. Sort of like you do with adamantine or sussur weapons.
If you're lazy like me, get Weapon Oils. Take any weapon, apply the oils, it's presto now a +2 weapon with bonus fire damage.

I definitely do agree some weapon categories are really lacking in vanilla, and one I'd say has a terrible selection are battle axes. Odd that Karlach is often shown wielding one in cut-scenes, but the available vanilla choices suck.

[Jeff Kaos]

Originally posted by Sephiroth:

The game was SUPPOSED to have a very good crafting system. Its why you see ingots all over the place yet nothing to make.

Promises they never kept. Kinda like the Upper City we don't have.

Considering how lame the crafting was in Divinity: Original Sin I'm glad they removed it. But, I also hate crafting in RPGs because it's almost always a pointless time sink.

[LordNibbler]

Originally posted by seeker1:

Yeah. It's strange. At several points, you can find Alchemy Recipe Books for Potions and Poisons. The items are meaningless, as you automatically learn the recipes once you have the ingredients. But the presence of the recipe books suggest that Larian at one point was thinking about having you learn the recipes, then scuttled that.

That's not quite correct - you WILL learn the recipes from books if you don't have it. Also in order to learn it from materials you need to "extract" them first, you don't get the recipe by just picking up a flower. So in order to make people who never used the "extract" function learn about alchemy they made a redundant option to learn (some) recipes. And even "extracting" can be done individually via the right click menu on an herb or just the "Extract all" button. I've seen people who never "knew" about the alchemy system before they got a popup "recipe XY learnt" because they never looked at the menus/options.

Originally posted by seeker1:

It's not true empty bottles have no use. There are filling stations in the game where you can fill those bottles with water, and now you have a bottle of water.

Really where exactly does that work? I did assume at the beginning that it would be possible since the OS games have that too but never found it and then just didn't bother anymore (since it wasn't necessary anyway). But please tell (or show) ^^

[seeker1]

I may have mis-spoken. It seems the water pumps at Waukeen's Rest and other locations will fill empty BUCKETS but not bottles.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/6045572169619356357/

Posted by user "EHVela" in 2023 (who is still here):
There are water pumps scattered where your character can fill them. (EDIT: I've done it several places, but the buckets have to be placed correctly.)
[snip][end]

[Ereghor the Enigmatic]

Originally posted by Jeff Kaos:

Originally posted by Sephiroth:

The game was SUPPOSED to have a very good crafting system. Its why you see ingots all over the place yet nothing to make.

Promises they never kept. Kinda like the Upper City we don't have.

Considering how lame the crafting was in Divinity: Original Sin I'm glad they removed it. But, I also hate crafting in RPGs because it's almost always a pointless time sink.

In 2, where it was somehow both expanded upon by adding up to 5 components per recipe and really cut down by introducing runes while having most items only have a single slot for them - maybe (except for mixed skillbooks, which were a neat idea), but in 1 the system is a lot of fun to use and experiment with, worth having a dedicated crafter in the party for.

A pumpkin helmet is actually a good early headgear option while getting nine inch nails installed on everyone's footwear as well as playing around with whatever could be enchanted with pixie dust had actual benefits. If anything, it would have been cool to have more recipes and combinations, as it was a part of how interactive they've aimed to make the world.

[LordNibbler]

Originally posted by seeker1:

I may have mis-spoken. It seems the water pumps at Waukeen's Rest and other locations will fill empty BUCKETS but not bottles.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/6045572169619356357/

Posted by user "EHVela" in 2023 (who is still here):
There are water pumps scattered where your character can fill them. (EDIT: I've done it several places, but the buckets have to be placed correctly.)
[snip][end]

In other words you never did any of that yourself but just repeated the claim from one person (well two in that thread), who never produced any proof to everyone who said "I couldn't get that to work" except "I did it". Because same thing here for me - tried that and it never got it to work; as well as the others in that thread. And so far I've not *seen* anyone actually succeed with that (but would certainly love to, bugged me pretty much at first that I couldn't do that in Waukeen's Rest to put the fires out). But right now that's just a lie until proven otherwise (which so far never happened).

Reminds me of this recent story: https://www.msnbc.com/top-stories/latest/aaron-rodgers-misinformation-football-nfl-elon-musk-rcna180376 ...

[Raz]

Originally posted by LordNibbler:

bugged me pretty much at first that I couldn't do that in Waukeen's Rest to put the fires out).

Wouldn't matter, the fires outside Waukeen's are programmed to be permanent pretty much. Inside, many of them go out on their own after a long rest but without said long rest they destroy the water spot and come back, just like the one outside in the archways.

Best bet is to grab the water barrels, place them in specific spots to make the water cover a large area. The fire will destroy it to make permanent steam. Steam gives you the wet condition. Now you're immune to the perm-fire floor.