First of all, welcome back! I’ve missed seeing your incremental dev updates, and am glad everything’s going well now.

I can’t say I’m too fond of this change though. At some fundamental level, alchemy used to be a crafting system. 1.1 took away from that somewhat (and made the third ingredient slot almost never used), but it was largely fine because it made recycling items more effective, particularly with the overall changes to how energy worked.

It already seemed a bit odd however to have items that weren’t really ‘crafted’, but it makes sense for wands and missiles, and is at least tolerable for scrolls and potions. My gut reaction for this new proposal is that it just creates too many 1-item recipes, and in doing so alchemy seems much less like a crafting system. The assymmetry of the item types in the interface (some potions would show one option, others two or three, with a haphazard mix or exotics, elixers and spells) also seems quite inelegant.

There is also the fact that a visible catalyst option makes since in-world. What is energy? It’s not very clear. However, why does putting a scroll in an alchemy pot create one thing vs another? One particularly noteworthy case is turning normal and exotic levitation into spells. How does that work? Using a scroll byproduct to make those spells seems far more concrete than simply using ‘energy’. It is also somewhat irksome to have both a potion and a spell as outcomes for a single input, which are two different item classes.

I also think having at least some sort of item tradeoff is valuable. Scrolls are generally more useful than stones, and three stones vs. a scroll and a stone are not the same from a balance perspective. Sacrificing a scroll for a spell or a potion for an elixir is not prohibitive, but it requires a bit more thought by the player.

I like it. While the catalysts were interesting I keep having to lookup how to make them, there are just pretty forgettable. Glad to see the ember ashes from the wandmaker quest remain.

As the one system is already coded, rather than remove it, why not simply make it a players choice?

A simple checkbox option in settings for simple or advanced alchemy mode.

Appeases everyone.

The one sad thing for me about removing catalysts would be the loss of the interesting decisions forced on the player when they really want a recipe that requires a specific catalyst, but don’t have any low-value items of the type required to make that catalyst.

Instead of dumping catalysts entirely, have you considered including multiple alchemy resources that stick with the player like energy? I’m thinking that energy is be unchanged, but the sacrifice of a potion or scroll is needed to get the 2nd/3rd resource.

Another thought is that I think “empty vials” and “blank scrolls” would be more intuitive than catalysts as alchemy resources, and if you created those with an alchemy pot menu action similar to ‘energize,’ it would be easier for new players to navigate and understand. I wish this worked with the first idea, but I don’t know how you could justify empty vials not taking up space in the player’s inventory.

I recall there being blank scrolls in an old pixel dungeon version, but I think you inscribed them with the stylus, and you couldn’t do anything else with a blank scroll or a stylus, so separating the two seemed kinda pointless.

It would be really gory if there were bloody splatters animated for explosions or from falling into the pit.

I think a Make-X feature to make many arcane/alchemical catalysts at once would ease the pain of making many complex potions or spells in one alchemy session such as before Yog fight.