"Add this ingredient to the potion..."

[vindicar]

Honestly, as it is implemented now, it's a fairly pointless feature.
First, you might be punished for not having something you've literally never seen yet, and thus had zero chance of getting. Second, you will likely bypass the request by using "continue brewing from there" to make the potion, dump enough of the requested ingredient, and then finish the potion without the herb actually having any effect on it.

So maybe it'd be a good idea to redo this mechanic. One way would be that the ingredient must be added AND its path followed at least partially before at least one of the requested potion effects is obtained, thus largely disabling the use of 'brew from there' feature.
To counterbalance that, allow selling potions of the same effect but without the ingredient at severely reduced price.

[PinkDaddySasquatch]

I'm pretty sure ingredients and requests for potions with said ingredients are unlocked through chapters so if you got a request before a merchant could sell you some I think that was just purely by chance and you should see the ingredient soon. I get where you're coming from but you're essentially asking them to add a feature to stop yourself from doing something you see as an exploit... just stop doing it... and considering that if you do make the potion to their request you make MUCH more money so not fulfilling their request is essentially a severely reduced price, even if it's not below the default price.

[semtex]

Unless you negotiate the price with merchants and customers to the highest difficulty, the increased price of the elixir is almost never equal to the increased price of the consumed raw materials.
An increased price is economically sensible only if you have the necessary raw materials "from your own garden"

If it would be impossible to add the required ingredients at the end of the brew, the limitation is very easily circumvented by adding the ingredients at the beginning of the brew and pulling the bottle back to the starting position by adding water or oil...

In reality, such a customer would leave my shop so quickly that he wouldn't even be able to open the door. If he is so smart and knows what ingredients belong in the elixir, he can make it himself...

And - by the way - how does a customer actually find out what is mixed in the elixir?

[fractalgem]

You can just send the customer away. One of your skills massively mitigates the popularity penalty, letting you push for higher popularities (and thus higher prices) early.

Now...maybe some adjustments should be made to when the customer can request certain things added, because of how EASY it is to get a really high popularity compared to the rest of your progression, but it's not as big a deal as you seem to think.

[kingjames488]

the whole game is kinda like this tho... it tries to make things difficult by making them more tedious and it's just not really fun.

like I don't even want to play the game once I run out of pages in my recipe book... I need to have my potions in there to bulk brew them so I guess the game is over.

[PinkDaddySasquatch]

Originally posted by kingjames488:

the whole game is kinda like this tho... it tries to make things difficult by making them more tedious and it's just not really fun.

like I don't even want to play the game once I run out of pages in my recipe book... I need to have my potions in there to bulk brew them so I guess the game is over.

or you can just buy more tabs...

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by PinkDaddySasquatch:

Originally posted by kingjames488:

the whole game is kinda like this tho... it tries to make things difficult by making them more tedious and it's just not really fun.

like I don't even want to play the game once I run out of pages in my recipe book... I need to have my potions in there to bulk brew them so I guess the game is over.

or you can just buy more tabs...

I know you can buy more tabs, but there's only so much space in the book?

seems like it fills up... can you also buy another book?
I've not come across another book...

[vindicar]

Originally posted by kingjames488:

I know you can buy more tabs, but there's only so much space in the book?
seems like it fills up... can you also buy another book?
I've not come across another book...

How many recipes are you saving? There are not that many effects in the game.
Plus, just just to make sure you know - you can put tabs on all four sides of the book. There is plenty of space.
Plus you can delete old, unused recipes, once you've created something more optimized. Doing so will give you a blank page back.

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by vindicar:

Originally posted by kingjames488:

I know you can buy more tabs, but there's only so much space in the book?
seems like it fills up... can you also buy another book?
I've not come across another book...

How many recipes are you saving? There are not that many effects in the game.
Plus, just just to make sure you know - you can put tabs on all four sides of the book. There is plenty of space.
Plus you can delete old, unused recipes, once you've created something more optimized. Doing so will give you a blank page back.

You can easily wind up with 4 recipes per effect, 3 expensive ones to cover requests for a specific base plus a cheap general-use potion you give anyone without particularly specific requirements.

more if you aren't saving just before brewing.

plus 6 or so specialty base potions to cover oil/water/wine and harmful/helpful multiple effect requests.

it's probably not so bad if you're just ignoring the more complicated requests.

before you know it all 4 sides of the book are very cluttered with tabs...

[vindicar]

Originally posted by fractalgem:

You can easily wind up with 4 recipes per effect, 3 expensive ones to cover requests for a specific base plus a cheap general-use potion you give anyone without particularly specific requirements.

I haven't seen requests for a specific base yet. In fact, in my current playthrough I'm at day 50, and I only had 3 days when there were multiple requests for the same potion but with extra effects. So to me, it makes little sense to save those - specifically because you will need stupid amount of tabs for that. Far easier and quicker to just start brewing from the main effect and improvise the second one, or dump in requested ingredients as a bonus. I also review my recipes every now and then, trying to simplify them to 1-2 ingredients I produce in my garden. That typically keeps me safe from simple potion requests.

The only situation when this strategy doesn't work is when someone asks to not use a useful ingredient (like a healing potion without lifeleaf, which is my main recipe), or when someone asks for a non-trivial effect using only one ingredient. In former case, you can usually improvise a replacement (especially once you have all 8 directions covered). In latter case, I give it a try - and sometimes get useful recipes, like 5 goldthorns for a potion of stoneskin. And if I can't, I just kick the backseat brewer out.

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by vindicar:

Originally posted by kingjames488:

I know you can buy more tabs, but there's only so much space in the book?
seems like it fills up... can you also buy another book?
I've not come across another book...

How many recipes are you saving? There are not that many effects in the game.
Plus, just just to make sure you know - you can put tabs on all four sides of the book. There is plenty of space.
Plus you can delete old, unused recipes, once you've created something more optimized. Doing so will give you a blank page back.

ya, even with all 4 sides there's not enough room... don't even think all the effects in the game fit along with requirements for stones and dusts; let alone custom brews.

[Evilsod]

The more annoying ones are when they request stuff you can't even fulfil, even without relying on the RNG of the merchants carrying the stuff they asked for.

I've had people demand a potion must be crafted with a wine base. I've never even been offered it to buy, so I can't possibly do it.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by Evilsod:

The more annoying ones are when they request stuff you can't even fulfil, even without relying on the RNG of the merchants carrying the stuff they asked for.

I've had people demand a potion must be crafted with a wine base. I've never even been offered it to buy, so I can't possibly do it.

i believe that's what happens when you advance multiple chapters too fast and don't let the merchants a chance to visit

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

Originally posted by Evilsod:

The more annoying ones are when they request stuff you can't even fulfil, even without relying on the RNG of the merchants carrying the stuff they asked for.

I've had people demand a potion must be crafted with a wine base. I've never even been offered it to buy, so I can't possibly do it.

i believe that's what happens when you advance multiple chapters too fast and don't let the merchants a chance to visit

well when progression in your game is based around the RNG of one merchant showing up >.>

this game is just tedious.

[PinkDaddySasquatch]

Originally posted by kingjames488:

Originally posted by The Queen Salis:

i believe that's what happens when you advance multiple chapters too fast and don't let the merchants a chance to visit

well when progression in your game is based around the RNG of one merchant showing up >.>

this game is just tedious.

it's not based on RNG... its based off chapters completed...

[kingjames488]

Originally posted by PinkDaddySasquatch:

Originally posted by kingjames488:

well when progression in your game is based around the RNG of one merchant showing up >.>

this game is just tedious.

it's not based on RNG... its based off chapters completed...

which is based off RNG...