To all of our fellow Prisoners:
Recent updates have significantly expanded the herbalism craft in the form of a wide variety of new herbs, recipes, and potions.
We have now had time to properly observe the impact of these additions and this, along with overall feedback provided by player herbalists, has led us to the following conclusions: firstly, that herbalism was already poorly balanced against other crafts, which all required a significantly greater commitment in terms of time and materials invested; secondly, that the relative easiness of herbalism led to an over-saturation of the market and stockpiling of potions, hindering the desired interdependency and general functioning of the player economy and making soloing or adventuring without a caster far easier than intended; and thirdly, that these preexisting problems were further exacerbated by the introduction of many new types of herbs and potions made from them.
In order to correct these issues, we made the following change: instead of setting the DCs of individual potions manually by the developers for each potion, the DC is now calculated by a regular and mathematical formula to make it easier to maintain balance: 5 + (4 * base spell level) + (3 * effective caster level), with a minimum of 15. This results in the 15 to 70 DC spread seen after the recent changes, which brings the relative difficulty of "beginner" and "expert" potions directly in line with the other crafts on the server. An alternative would be to simply limiting the spawn rate of herbs in general, but to do so would only correct the third of the three issues mentioned above and therefore we decided to go for a more fundamental fix.
In general, although we may likely make adjustments to the system as a whole, we believe that simply bringing herbalism into consistency with the other crafts is still warranted and needed. We are of course aware of the fact that this, like all changes which increase the difficulty of play, will not be favored by all, and we do not take such decisions lightly. We are also sensitive to the fact that it varies significantly how much time people have available to play, and we want crafts to be approachable and rewarding for many different players. Yet we also have to balance this carefully against the need for crafts to reward those who prioritize investing their time in these crafts and whose roleplay revolves around them.
To specifically address some concerns that have arisen: firstly, yes, this will indeed mean that this craft will take longer to master, but it should be no longer than the rest of our crafts. That is one of the intended outcome of the changes. However, as the amount of crafting XP you receive is directly related to your own skill and the DC of the potion attempted, you will continue to gain crafting XP regularly and in proportion to the difficulty of the crafting you attempt. Secondly, while we acknowledge some inevitable awkwardness from characters having difficulty with potions that were previously trivial to make, high-level herbalists should still be able to create virtually all of the potions they were able to create previously, albeit with a greater chance of failure. With some continued investment into the craft, they will arrive again at the highest level.
Again, it should be stressed that this does not mean that the current state is final and we won't be making any further adjustments. While we cannot always satisfy everyone, changes are always made with the goal of creating a better, richer, and more rewarding world for everyone and will be constantly evaluated against that. What we want to assure everyone is that we are not insensible to your feelings, your ideas, your thoughts, and your opinions, whether we agree with you or not. Obviously, we rarely (if ever) get anything completely right the first time, so there are times where we must experiment and try new things; your feedback, especially after some time spent with the new version of the system, is both valuable and necessary in determining what adjustments we'll need to make down the road. We may even need to make some changes to the difficulty and required investment of all crafting, overall, and we'll know a lot better once we see how this works out. But we ask you to participate in this process with an open mind and not pass rash judgment, doing what you can to make the ongoing discussion both constructive and amiable.
Very sincerely,
The PotM Development Team