Topic

Devastated by disappointment in Botany

I have been focusing my whole skill acquisition and game play toward acquiring Botany.  It sounded really cool, and it has been a lot of work. requiring an emblem of Tii and lots of dependencies.

I am just devastated by it.  All the seasoned beans I can product are available from a vendor!  And not only that they are available for prices so much lower than I can reasonably compete with.  I can basically produce nothing that is worth while with this seriously advance skill.

I feel like I have wasted all those skills, all that time and my emblem that i donated a LOT to get for nothing.

Posted 15 months ago by Sonora Subscriber! | Permalink

Replies

  • Yep. Looks like seasoned beans shouldn't be available from vendors. The same happens with tools, once you have advanced Tinkering skills.

    On the other hand, it will take a mature economy to sustain a world where nothing that can be made by players is available from vendors. Although this is a goal, as stated by devs (sorry I can't find the exact quote).
    Posted 15 months ago by Ximenez Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Seasoned beans are pretty good as donations...I think. I'm pretty sure I used them quite a bit to donate in beta and then used the favour points to increase skill learning? 
    Posted 15 months ago by KrisModem Subscriber! | Permalink
  • You could always use the newly acquired skill and get into the tree wars by killing off old ones and replanting a different kind. Im sorta surpised you used so much time getting to Botany needing all the requirements to get the skill and never once noticed the beans in the shops. But live and learn , i would suggest looking into the actions you get from having learned Intermediate Mixing or maybe see how you like gardening or mining. Happy Hunting
    Posted 15 months ago by Karma Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Botany is mostly important for being able to use tree poison/antidote - the beans isn't such a big deal IMO.
    Posted 15 months ago by EgIantine Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I sympathize with you... someone killed a wood tree near me yesterday and I thought "maybe it's time I learnt to make seasoned beans"... then I looked at the loooong list of skills necessary to get to Botany and thought "nah... later". It does look like the journey doesn't really justify the end.

    If you want to learn more about the different skills and what's available from which vendors, I thoroughly recommend spending some time reading the Wiki: http://www.glitch-strategy.com/wiki/Main_Page - it documents pretty much everything.
    Posted 15 months ago by Snazzlefrazz Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Campaign to boycott NPC vendors
    feel free to make notes out of the posts and leave them at the feet of the vendors.  Long live the auction house!
    Posted 15 months ago by Artilect Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Karma, I think the OP expected there to be more possibilities for seasoned beans than what's at the vendors.  I agree that botany is underpowered.
    Posted 15 months ago by Fnibbit Subscriber! | Permalink
  • BOTANISTS KILL TREES.
    Posted 15 months ago by A Magical Unicorn Subscriber! | Permalink
  • @Artilect:I use the vendors if the things I want are gonna cost me an arm and a leg... not gonna lie, until the vendors are done away with, I'll continue to use 'em- it's more convenient, and the vendors don't seem to crank the prices up (unlike many auctions).
    Posted 15 months ago by Djabriil Subscriber! | Permalink
  • My understanding is that the long range plan is to remove from vendors anything that can be made by players... but they have needed to start this way so that there is a base of players with the right skills to keep the economy going in the mean time.
    Posted 15 months ago by Lord Bacon-o Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Unless they've changed it, seasoning beans is pretty much the best way to get xp in this game. It costed 15 energy to season a bean, and you got 60 xp from it. That's a really big chunk of xp when you season the Max-At-One-Time of 40.
    Posted 15 months ago by Biohazard Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Thanks for that info Biohazard.  Wow, so once I can season beans, I can churn out seasoned beans and sell then relatively cheaply or donate them and still make out great in the XP.   That should really help with the level up now that our giant contributions XP is limited.
    Posted 15 months ago by Kookaburra Subscriber! | Permalink
  • The hope was that there were things in Botany that where special or new.  Because the descriptions are vague enough i was indeed hoping that there where seasoned beans that where not the same ones as from the vendor. (especially with all the hurtles to get to the skill in the first place) I enjoy specilized crafting but it is feeling like the game is not rewarding that.

    I had no idea about the poison / antidote things. I love playing crafting/economic games. Also killing trees just sounds like a griefing thing.

    Sure it is great XP,  but XP to what goal?

    Intermediate Admixing is also frustrating me because I have built a complicated spreadsheet to determine the cost of all the things it produces (base on auction house costs for the raw materials and energy required) and it is nearly impossible to price things at anywhere close to a profit.

    Surprisingly I can sell Metal Ingots to a vendor for a profit,  But that feels like simply being a worthless sink on the metal supply.
    Posted 15 months ago by Sonora Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Tree poisoning is good for selecting the kinds of trees that are available in a region.  How do you think West Spice got that way?  If you want to do favors, I'm looking for a bubble tree grove, and would be willing to make it worthwhile - caterpillars or milk?

    Admixing: I think the best return is making sparkle powder.  The street value is close to double the street value of the chunks that go into it, plus you get tons of saleable but otherwise useless compounds as a side effect.  (I'm frankly surprised there aren't more powders to make, or other things to do with compounds.)
    Posted 15 months ago by Yarrow Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Yeah, Sonora - I get where you're coming from. But it depends on what you're playing the game for. Some higher level skills aren't going to give you rewards that chime with your own aims -- but even though they don't give you the ability to craft new items, but they do give you skills that are important to the game in important ways.

    I'd love to have Botany right now to help distribute a few more wood trees and spice trees around the game... and yes, you do have to kill the existing trees to plant new ones. It's sad but necessary.
    Posted 15 months ago by wurzel Subscriber! | Permalink
  • I feel your pain.  My first time through, I was incredibly excited with the idea of being able to break down any item into its component elements.

    Finding out I could only do it to rocks was a real bummer.
    Posted 15 months ago by Biff Beefbat Subscriber! | Permalink
  • yeah the game is like that.  the skill tree is promising on paper but a lot of things are just a little meh.  the vendors selling finished products are the worst part.  however, take heart:  there is usually a hidden use for items that you can't see yet -- a way they fit into the ecosystem, or a an achievement you haven't yet unlocked, which can make them less useless than they seem.  But making finished goods for mad profit? not really, not in this game.  Especially once the economy really gets rollin (unless there are simply massive amounts of new players...)
    Posted 15 months ago by FlirtyvonSexenhaven Subscriber! | Permalink
  • There is actually a tendency to see the opposite. :) (In response to not selling finished projects.)

    If you're trying to make money once the game REALLY gets underway and projects are happening constantly, the best thing to do is get your gardening way up there, harvest a ridiculous number of basic materials and sell them for, generally, around 5-10 times what they are worth. 

    People can throw mining statistics at you all day, but harvesting is more fun, and even more profitable during street projects. :) 
    Posted 15 months ago by Liza Throttlebottom Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Liza shows a fundamental issue with the system from where I see it.  Raw materials end up being more valuable than refined goods.

    Looking at Sparkle powder from Yarrow's comment.

    Let me break some things down for example from my spreadsheet I have built up.

    So from mining threads I have read I understand common value for rocks is
    Berly: 4,  Sparkly: 6,  Dullite:3

    I am luck to get it for that.  Right now:
    Berly is 4.7, Sparkly: 6.4, Dullite: 3

    But I am going to ignore that and work with the 4,6,3 values.
    Lets consider my energy free. (Energy is not free, I will get to that)

    this means that if i crush the ideal mix to get the elements:
    Red costs me 0.2
    Green costs me 0.375
    Blue costs me 1
    Shiny cost me 1

    Looking at sparkle power  it takes: 30 Abbasidose+ 30 Spriggase
    Abbasidose = 4  red   2  green   6 blue  = x30 = 120 red, 60 green 180 blue
    Spriggase  =  11 red   7 green   5 blue = x30 = 330 red, 210 green 150 blue

    total = 450 red, 270 green, 330 blue
    that is 521.25 cost to make it.

    Average auction hovers as less that 500.
    Then lets count energy.  (If i am going to be churning crushing and beaker mixing i need food)
    I can get meat from the auction for about .93 per energy average (9.3 per meat, 10 energy per meat)  It takes 3 energy per crush and 15 energy to make the powder.

    That ends up making the powder cost me 922 to make.
    If i use current auction prices + energy it totals that sparkle powers costs me 995.
    If i sell it for 500 I am loosing almost 500 an item not counting commission and listing fee.

    Now I know people are going to read this and say, But you get XP, or But the game is not about making money.  But I enjoy crafting and making crafting worth while. If i have to do all the mining myself then that is time I am not enjoying the game. If I only craft for special people at a known loss then I think that is a loss for the economy.  If i do not find these skills I worked very hard to get to to be rewarding then I end up looking for a new diversion and stop playing.
    Posted 15 months ago by Sonora Subscriber! | Permalink
  • What a fascinating topic. I've never played this type of game before, and it's really giving me an insight into how much people get from it! I'm hooked
    Posted 15 months ago by Sweetbread Subscriber! | Permalink
  • Sonora, if you make beans and sell them to vendors, it's not bad money. For me, it was a good alternative to Mining.

    edit

    you *can* sell them at auction for more than selling to vendor, but you may as well go through vendor for convenience.
    Posted 15 months ago by Mr. Dawgg Subscriber! | Permalink