What even is Alchemy? Or Rituals?

[Terrigood]

Can someone give me a hint or two about... what these things even are? I honestly don't have a single clue what I'm doing on those tabs. Especially why I should care. Why would I need potions in a game that's already about making resources? Like... I appear to just be in my house for the entire game?

[1up]

Alchemy allows you to generate resources from other ones at a higher rate (transmute) and is really powerful at that. At least mine generates times and times better than any passive generator you can find in the skilltrees themselves.
Also, lets you get some alchemy-specific resources through refinement + something Ink to create scrolls, eventually specifically for a scholar tie-in. Even if you don't need potions or certain spells, leveling them makes everything else related more powerful.

Each active or passive skill has stats tied to it, (like, potionmaking, arcane, alchemy) by leveling it you get respective traits or skills more powerful. So, by leveling that potion, you also get your alchemy stronger (transmute, refine, passives and potionbrewing skills level faster) and any related spell schools on top of that.
Plus, potions with heavy investment into potion-making have some rather unique effects Iike a potion that lets you gain artifact and ability experience faster and can stack with itself , same goes for late-game spells.

[Songbird]

Did you not even try these things? They kind of explain themselves when you start using them.

Alchemy is split into multiple sub-branches. One converts resources into others, usually so efficiently that it's basically just tons of free income. One deals with growing plants, and other turns products like plants or wood into useful resources. Another lets you set up ramping permanent character buffs, like passively gaining mana regen or crafting power over time (though the more you stack these, the longer it takes for them to keep increasing).

Rituals are a little combat minigame with a timer that restricts how often you're allowed to play, and they're where all the offensive and defensive spells are used. Different types of enemies will attempt to attack you, and you have to have a spell loadout that can defeat them quickly enough. Clearing certain rituals gives you permanent unique buffs, while others are just for resources you can't get otherwise. There are many different resources here that you can't get from anything else, though some of them can be automated once you have acquired enough of them the original way.

Because of the way the game scales exponentially, you're not hard required to do everything in these modes, but you're going to have to scale existing things many, many times higher to the point it's not practical instead of just adding in a new unique multiplier that instantly makes you ten times more effective at everything. The game really encourages persuing everything to some degree. I agree that most of the potions do kinda suck, but there are ones for huge multipliers on crafting that are pretty useful, and the mental resource gain ones can be useful when you're doing rituals.

[Cryten]

I suspect he wanted to make a choice between rituals and alchemy in the 2nd aspect of the world. But it isnt really a choice as alchemy is the main method of getting the resources to unlock the rituals aspect. (I think as I have not unlocked rituals, but when I was deciding I saw resources I had never encountered before).

[Terrigood]

I get the transmutation of resources part, but why is it always tied to a potion? The "Active Alchemy" screen always has three things - Brewing, Transmutation, and Herbalism - and the Herbalism + Alchemy part makes sense (each potion is made from an herb), but I can't see how the potions have anything to do with the transmuted resource.

Or are they just linked together in the UI for no good reason? I honestly have no clue.

[Songbird]

I'm confused by that question. Transmutation and Herbalism have almost nothing to do with Brewing. Transmutation turns resources into other resources at a constant rate (which puts out far, far more than you put into it as you scale it up with upgrades). Herbalism grows unique plants that are just another type of resource, used for both alchemy and other upgrades. Brewing turns ingredients into potions that have to be manually consumed to have a temporary effect. The first potion you get (mana regen) uses only water IIRC, which is not even tied to alchemy (although you will probably automate the production of water through alchemy as soon as it is available, because making it via spells absolutely sucks).

[Draquila]

Originally posted by Terrigood:

I get the transmutation of resources part, but why is it always tied to a potion? The "Active Alchemy" screen always has three things - Brewing, Transmutation, and Herbalism - and the Herbalism + Alchemy part makes sense (each potion is made from an herb), but I can't see how the potions have anything to do with the transmuted resource.

Or are they just linked together in the UI for no good reason? I honestly have no clue.

It's not always tied to a potion. Transmutations convert resources to directly to other resources.

[Terrigood]

Originally posted by Songbird:

I'm confused by that question. Transmutation and Herbalism have almost nothing to do with Brewing. Transmutation turns resources into other resources at a constant rate (which puts out far, far more than you put into it as you scale it up with upgrades). Herbalism grows unique plants that are just another type of resource, used for both alchemy and other upgrades. Brewing turns ingredients into potions that have to be manually consumed to have a temporary effect. The first potion you get (mana regen) uses only water IIRC, which is not even tied to alchemy (although you will probably automate the production of water through alchemy as soon as it is available, because making it via spells absolutely sucks).

This perfectly concise explanation was literally all anyone had to say. Thank you.