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I recently won the new Alchemist class, and I'd like to note a few thoughts on them for Sideways.
Balance-wise, I think there is nothing to change. They are strong in some ways and weak in some ways, like many other well-balanced classes. I might have felt frustrated by the reduced inventory size (three fewer slots) if I had been playing with selling on, but probably not.
I liked that they had relatively poor Devices skill; it helped to differentiate them from Potionmasters.
There were some nice QoL elements in the alchemy interface, such as the ability to eXchange infusion slots, which I appreciated a lot.
However, the interface can still be a bit cumbersome sometimes; here are some things where I felt that there is room for improvement.
* When performing alchemical operations, I almost never wanted to process just a single item, but that was the default count. And meanwhile if you want to reproduce infusions a lot - and I did - you're going to be doing these operations many times. I always mashed number keys so it would then reduce that to the max count, but that sometimes had unexpected results, and was just yucky overall. So if these operations could default to the whole stack, I think that would be better.
* I think that potions of Booze should join Detonatics, Ruination, etc. in showing a prompt. Accidentally confusing and hallucinatifying yourself when you're trying to evaporate a potion of booze (which for me was the evaporation that I used by far the most, and precisely in the period when I wasn't yet confusion-resistant) is really unpleasant.
* It would be nice if it were possible to read the descriptions of potions even after they've become infusions, perhaps via the capital letter for the given infusion. Even nicer would be descriptions of the evaporation effects, so that you don't have to guess or use trial and error.
* On a similar note, it would be good if the alchemist-specific archery bonuses to Berserk and Heroism were in these potions' descriptions when viewed by an alchemist, or somehow otherwise exposed to an unspoiled player. I guess the speed bonuses, and the Enlightenment telepathy bonus, could also be stated, although they're kind of obvious.
* One truly deluxe QoL possibility would be a toggle for "always Create Infusion for this potion", so that potions thus marked would just immediately be added to the stack for the given infusion. (I don't think "always break down this potion" would be too useful.)
I may be forgetting something, but hopefully not, so that you can have one compact set of thoughts to mull over and possibly process.
Last but not least, thanks for the work you put into adding this interesting class to the game!
Balance-wise, I think there is nothing to change. They are strong in some ways and weak in some ways, like many other well-balanced classes. I might have felt frustrated by the reduced inventory size (three fewer slots) if I had been playing with selling on, but probably not.
I liked that they had relatively poor Devices skill; it helped to differentiate them from Potionmasters.
There were some nice QoL elements in the alchemy interface, such as the ability to eXchange infusion slots, which I appreciated a lot.
However, the interface can still be a bit cumbersome sometimes; here are some things where I felt that there is room for improvement.
* When performing alchemical operations, I almost never wanted to process just a single item, but that was the default count. And meanwhile if you want to reproduce infusions a lot - and I did - you're going to be doing these operations many times. I always mashed number keys so it would then reduce that to the max count, but that sometimes had unexpected results, and was just yucky overall. So if these operations could default to the whole stack, I think that would be better.
* I think that potions of Booze should join Detonatics, Ruination, etc. in showing a prompt. Accidentally confusing and hallucinatifying yourself when you're trying to evaporate a potion of booze (which for me was the evaporation that I used by far the most, and precisely in the period when I wasn't yet confusion-resistant) is really unpleasant.
* It would be nice if it were possible to read the descriptions of potions even after they've become infusions, perhaps via the capital letter for the given infusion. Even nicer would be descriptions of the evaporation effects, so that you don't have to guess or use trial and error.
* On a similar note, it would be good if the alchemist-specific archery bonuses to Berserk and Heroism were in these potions' descriptions when viewed by an alchemist, or somehow otherwise exposed to an unspoiled player. I guess the speed bonuses, and the Enlightenment telepathy bonus, could also be stated, although they're kind of obvious.
* One truly deluxe QoL possibility would be a toggle for "always Create Infusion for this potion", so that potions thus marked would just immediately be added to the stack for the given infusion. (I don't think "always break down this potion" would be too useful.)
I may be forgetting something, but hopefully not, so that you can have one compact set of thoughts to mull over and possibly process.
Last but not least, thanks for the work you put into adding this interesting class to the game!
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