What is the point of crystals?

[d0sboots]

I'm nearing the end now (made Rubedo and just need to go haring around the map to find the last couple to make the Philosopher's Stone) and I've yet to understand what crystals are for. They seem too expensive to buy as an ingredient, doing so would tank your profits. But I've got several crystal seeds that are stinking up my inventory because I've yet to get the area where I can grow them.

Would I have found them magically more useful if I had gone at a slower pace? (I'm day 25, and most of those days were just waiting for a merchant to sell me some necessary upgrade or recipe.)

[fractalgem]

Keep giving minotaur the potions he wants. eventually he'll offer the crystal grotto.

Crystals are extremely handy for taking shortcuts across bones (especially the wine map, but sometimes the bone ring on the water map when a customer demands an outer ring effect be done with water) but yes, they ARE a wee bit pricy until you get the crystal grotto.

[The Queen Salis]

they can help with some of the mixed potions, especially one needed for Moon Salt that really saves you a boatload of other ingredients by way of one rock ground to dust

[Wolferus]

i honestly buy nearly all crystals just to move faster around the map. And money is no problem at all in this game. I always have more then enough money for everything. But i also always haggle on highest difficulty with (near) no problem

[Mechaballe]

Some customer requests are not gonna be possible without crystals, what difficulty do you play on?

[Clead HeavenHell]

For those like me that never used them because they were so rare. Crystals allow you to TELEPORT from point A to B.

[d0sboots]

Originally posted by Clead HeavenHell:

For those like me that never used them because they were so rare. Crystals allow you to TELEPORT from point A to B.

Wait, you don't travel through the intervening space, but just jump there? Well, that answers my question I guess.

I never needed them to get to the outer ring on Water, because I've already got a recipe book full of waypoints and recipes for all the stuff out there just using the basic herbs and mushrooms.

Originally posted by Mechaballe:

Some customer requests are not gonna be possible without crystals, what difficulty do you play on?

Standard, this is my first game. But why would I feel obligated to fill every obnoxious request?

[fractalgem]

Originally posted by d0sboots:

Originally posted by Clead HeavenHell:

For those like me that never used them because they were so rare. Crystals allow you to TELEPORT from point A to B.

Wait, you don't travel through the intervening space, but just jump there? Well, that answers my question I guess.

I never needed them to get to the outer ring on Water, because I've already got a recipe book full of waypoints and recipes for all the stuff out there just using the basic herbs and mushrooms.

Originally posted by Mechaballe:

Some customer requests are not gonna be possible without crystals, what difficulty do you play on?

Standard, this is my first game. But why would I feel obligated to fill every obnoxious request?

Some of the most obnoxious requests are also some of the most profitable. sure if its a crazy healing potion they're asking for i'd shove the basic cheap healing potion in their face until they leave or just tell them to leave directly (healing potions have a VERY low base price), but if they're looking for multiple effect generic protection potion made with 1 ingredient on oil? or weak flight with multiple effects and no salt?
Oh they're getting absolutely price gouged for their requests. XD

[Doctor Teo]

Originally posted by d0sboots:

Originally posted by Clead HeavenHell:

For those like me that never used them because they were so rare. Crystals allow you to TELEPORT from point A to B.

Wait, you don't travel through the intervening space, but just jump there? Well, that answers my question I guess.

I never needed them to get to the outer ring on Water, because I've already got a recipe book full of waypoints and recipes for all the stuff out there just using the basic herbs and mushrooms.

Yep, that's basically it. One crystal jump can teleport over a wall which might require a half dozen ingredients to try to circumvent.

You are, however, correct in the assumption that they are so expensive that if you can skip using a crystal, you probably should, but there's a lot of cases where they just make sense. Necromancy on the water map requires carefully going through a narrow bone pile and then around a long spiral, but one gem can skip the entire spiral. Going north, the road to hit Inspiration is pretty long, but one gem can take you from around where invisibility is to inspiration. Stench and Curse would normally require a serious detour without gems.

The Oil and Wine maps make some of these recipes much easier without gems or salts, but since you can't open up those maps without completing them the hard way on the water map a few times, gems can replace having to use lots of ingredients.

You'll be happy to have them when you're doing highly complex potions with tons of effects. I mean, they reduced how many of those there were in the 2.0 patch, but there's still a couple that are going to be very awkward to make without gem teleports.

[Mechaballe]

Originally posted by d0sboots:

Originally posted by Clead HeavenHell:

For those like me that never used them because they were so rare. Crystals allow you to TELEPORT from point A to B.

Wait, you don't travel through the intervening space, but just jump there? Well, that answers my question I guess.

I never needed them to get to the outer ring on Water, because I've already got a recipe book full of waypoints and recipes for all the stuff out there just using the basic herbs and mushrooms.

Originally posted by Mechaballe:

Some customer requests are not gonna be possible without crystals, what difficulty do you play on?

Standard, this is my first game. But why would I feel obligated to fill every obnoxious request?

It depends on what your aim is. You can certainly ignore requests you dont feel like matching. If you were to try to aim for so ething lime kax reputation, or comp,eting the alchemists path in as few days as possible then you will not want to leave money on the table. (also obnoxious requests pay better as each additional requirement acts as a multiplier on the price)

Personally I view each request as a fun challenge that builds my knowledge on each ingredient and possible efficient potion path. If you decide to try out the harder difficulties there will be a noticable increase in "obnoxious" customers and you are gonna need to at least consider their demands if you want to earn any money. ;)

[https://imgur.com/a/MdHmk6F]

mostly for the wine map.

you can easily reject a couple requests and still progress your rating, more if you get the skill... I'm not wasting half my cash on crystals I can't grow so I can make some dingus a 1 ingredient acid to open a chest they could just as easily throw off a cliff or something... like why can I not just give you a levitation potion? be creative! >.>

[vindicar]

Crystals do have a serious downside - if you are making a level III potion, and the crystal is your last ingredient, you will need incredible eyesight to determine the precise moment when you should stop grinding the crystal. With regular ingredients you can slowly inch along the path in combination with adding base, until you are right where you want to be. With crystals it's all or nothing.

[The Queen Salis]

Originally posted by vindicar:

Crystals do have a serious downside - if you are making a level III potion, and the crystal is your last ingredient, you will need incredible eyesight to determine the precise moment when you should stop grinding the crystal. With regular ingredients you can slowly inch along the path in combination with adding base, until you are right where you want to be. With crystals it's all or nothing.

That's what dozen extra pages are for I guess

[Mechaballe]

Originally posted by vindicar:

Crystals do have a serious downside - if you are making a level III potion, and the crystal is your last ingredient, you will need incredible eyesight to determine the precise moment when you should stop grinding the crystal. With regular ingredients you can slowly inch along the path in combination with adding base, until you are right where you want to be. With crystals it's all or nothing.

Doesnt always haveto be your last ingredient tho. ;)
But having a few blank pages to work with helps a lot. Save some versions of the unfinished potion untill you have hammered out he effect you want.

[Xazz]

Once you get the crystal cave using crystals is trivial also. They're expensive in early/mid game but once you build up a stock they're way too useful to just leave in my storage. It makes brewing all the Philosopher items way easier because you can very quickly transverse the maps. You start using them like normal ingredients and not special one offs as well. Could I use 3 herbs to get around some bones yes or one crystal to just jump over some instead.

[https://imgur.com/a/MdHmk6F]

Originally posted by Xazz:

Once you get the crystal cave using crystals is trivial also. They're expensive in early/mid game but once you build up a stock they're way too useful to just leave in my storage. It makes brewing all the Philosopher items way easier because you can very quickly transverse the maps. You start using them like normal ingredients and not special one offs as well. Could I use 3 herbs to get around some bones yes or one crystal to just jump over some instead.

but why even do any of that? it's just convoluted tedium... no one in the shop cares about any of that.

what is the point of this game again?