Skyrim talk:Alchemy Effects/Archive 1

This is an archive of past Skyrim talk:Alchemy Effects discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page, except for maintenance such as updating links.

Suggestion

Because of the new way Alchemy effects are learned, I think revising the layout of this page would be helpful. Right after the ingredients page was added but before this page was made, I needed something to help me fill in the gaps in the effects list and make multiple discovery potions efficiently. I thought of making a page like this, but it would have required referring back and forth between this table and the one on the ingredients page. I'd strongly recommend (and would be willing to produce if necessary) something similar to this:

 Cure Disease
        Charred Skeever Hide,   Restore Stamina,        Cure Disease,            Resist Poison,      Restore Health
        Hawk Feathers,          Cure Disease,            Fortify Light Armor,    Fortify One-handed, Fortify Sneak
        Mudcrab Chitin,         Restore Stamina,        Cure Disease,            Resist Poison,      Resist Fire
        Vampire Dust,           Invisibility,           Restore Magicka,        Regenerate Health,  Cure Disease
 Damage Health
        Crimson Nirnroot,       Damage Health,           Damage Stamina,         Invisibility,       Resist Magic
        Deathbell,              Damage Health,           Ravage Stamina,         Slow,               Weakness to Poison
        Ectoplasm,              Restore Magicka,        Fortify Destruction,    Fortify Magicka,    Damage Health
        Falmer Ear,             Damage Health,           Frenzy,                 Resist Poison,      Fortify Lockpicking
 ...

Possibly with the weight, value and RefID added in as columns at the end.

With this chart, I can see all the ingredients for a Cure Disease, see the effect they might be listed under if I haven't discovered that effect, select 2 ingredients (possibly selecting them for a serendipitous discovery of another effect), see what the undiscovered effects for those ingredients, select one, jump down to the new effect, and select a third ingredient. All with just this chart.

This kind of lookup wasn't really needed in the previous two Elder Scroll Games, but it is proving so useful for me for this one, that I thought I'd suggest a new format. — Unsigned comment by NFR (talk • contribs) on 17 November 2011

To me it seems unnecessarily confusing. Why not just use the first option in the Alchemy menu that lists all ingredients by name, instead of going through the individual effect menus? Your approach won't work if you've picked up new ingredients that you haven't tasted yet, whereas looking at the list of all ingredients will always work. --Nephele^Talk 16:42, 17 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm embarrassed to say I didn't see that option at all, and I've made enough potions to get to alchemy 73. From what I read and saw in game, I thought you HAD to taste everything once to get it on your menu (It didn't occur to me that people who identify with their characters might object to having to eat a human heart). Better I should have kept my mouth shut and appeared dumb, than to have opened it and removed all doubt.

I still prefer my all-in-one chart, possibly because I'm used to it and because you always appreciate what you put effort into. But I no longer feel any need to prosteletise and change the page; especially if no one else wants to change.

Seeing as I missed one thing that should have been bloody obvious, is there any way after selecting the first two ingredients to see what unused effects there are (so that you can get the best result from the third choice) without removing one of the first 2 items from the potion? — Unsigned comment by NFR (talk • contribs) on 17 November 2011

Wortcraft

Similar to how it worked in Oblivion, does eating Hawk Feathers cure diseases? --Fluff 18:36, 18 November 2011 (UTC)

Confirmed that Hawk Feathers will cure Sanguinare Vampiris. Pronkyou2 02:20, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Thanks. I still haven't caught a disease to test it out, though I should have thought about letting myself get whacked around by a vampire for a bit. --Fluff 04:24, 20 November 2011 (UTC)

Color choice and color blindness.

Could we perhaps choose a different color scheme for the positive and negative effects? A blue for positive and red for negative would be easier to read for those of us with varying degrees of color blindness, ~5% of males. --65.27.126.18 02:25, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

How to use Magnitude and special to calculate potion value?

Pronkyou2, could you share a little more info about the magnitude and special data you added to this page? I am so sorry, but I didn't really follow the brief description you gave of the terms. is Magnitude like a multiplier?

I put together the following potions spreadsheet:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtdL1GrYQUbldE5PUmlQT1JOYUVaUkk2TkFqMzBzSnc

And I would love to be able to put baseline values for all potions in there and then let the user enter their skill and enhancements to see what the actual value should be.

I'm not sure on the accuracy of the magnitude information. It doesn't match EFIT values in Skyrim.esm because for it to do that the magnitude and duration would vary depending on the ingredient (ie: Thistle Branch's magnitude for Resist Poison is 3, Troll Fat's is 4). There is a link to a TSV with the magnitudes/durations for each effect on each ingredient posted in the Ingredients discussion. As for a formula that uses the Skill/magnitude/etc to determine the overall magnitude/durations of the potion/poison, I dont think one has been figured out yet but I will be working on it over the weekend. Hexorcist

I looked over here: Skyrim_talk:Ingredients but didn't find the TSV you mentioned. Could you please provide a link? Oops, nevermind, found it over here: Skyrim_talk:Alchemy

Thistle Branch and Troll Fat have the same magnitude, they are not special ingredients. AS STATED, the numbers in parentheses in the Ingredients column is the order in which it is displayed, it is not the magnitude, and does not effect magnitude in Skyrim as it did in Oblivion. Pronkyou2 22:37, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

And don't start with effect vs affect, magnitude is not an emotional state, it's data. *rolleyes*

No, they don't. Look in the INGR group of Skyrim.esm, pick an ingredient and look at the EFIT data. You'll find a float (magnitude), uint32 (area), uint32 (duration). If you don't feel like using a hex editor then look at the TSV I posted, it's a direct dump of that information. These values _do_ calculate into the strength of the potion. I believe I have this formula figured out, but I want to do more testing before saying it *is* the formula. Hexorcist

Magnitudes are based upon me making the effect at 100 alchemy no perks, as stated on the page. Read it thoroughly please. Specifically, magnitudes are such things as the percent increase for resist or the amount of time spent invisible. Specials are just ingredients that increase this modifier more than others of the same effect type, as stated. Pronkyou2 22:24, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

The magnitudes of the ingredients have a MUCH larger impact on the strength of the potion than your alchemy level. With no perks your potion strength only increases by a total sum of 10 from 1-100 alchemy. The range of (magnitude from ingredients) of 1-5 and covers a span of 18 in strength, it is available at 1 skill. What I'm saying here is your level of alchemy is irrelevant when compared to the magnitudes from ingredients used. As far as we can tell you used two ingredients with a magnitude of 1, thus giving your strengths the lowest possible value it could have without regard to alchemy level. There is an example of this here: Skyrim_talk:Alchemy in the comment that starts "Preliminary tests..." a few lines below my TSV. Also, I'm not sure why you consider Deathbell to be special, the magnitude for the Damage Health is 3 where most have 1 or 2, but what of River Betty (5) or Crimson Nirnroot (6) ? Hexorcist

[Edit] I believe River Betty and Dethbell can both be classified as "normal" amounts since their magnitude is less than 6 (ie: normal values). However, the magnitude for Damage Health on Jarrin Root is an astounding 200! In-game with 15 alchemy skill this produced a poison that damages 860 health, with a potion value of 402. In comparison, using River Betty with anything other than Crimson Nirnroot should give you a poison that does 20-25 damage depending on your alchemy skill, and would be considered "second best". I have added Jarrin Root to the said line on the main, but I'll refrain from remove the others.Hexorcist

As a side note, maybe we should refrain from calling either the ingreident magnitude or the magnitude of the potion the "magnitude". I have taken up calling the magnitude in the potions the "strength". I believe this will clear up any confusion. Hexorcist

I'm going to go ahead and post what I have for a formula in hopes that errors will be pointed out, and that someone can assist me with the value of created mixtures. From what I've tested, it works for magnitude only, but it's very possible (maybe even likely) that it's the same formula used for duration and potion values.

If the duration of the max(magnitude_from_ingredients) == 0 (and the duration isn't typically 0), then magnitude-- (there are only 2 times this will happen in-game, Thistle Branch/Beehive Husk and Nirnroot/Deathbell)

(floor(alch_level/5)*.1+4)*max(magnitudes_from_ingredients)

The issue that it has with the values of the potions is a) I'm unsure where to find a base value (per ingredient) to add to it, it is not the vendor value from what I can tell and b) the value skips certain alchemy levels with a definite pattern (25, 65, 105, 145, (previous_skip)+40, ...) but is not evident in this formula. Also, the 4 I'm not sure if that's a static value (it seems to be with strength of the effect in the potion) or a value found elsewhere in the .esm files, it's just a value that I found to work. Hexorcist

Okay, I've replaced the "value" column in my spreadsheet with a summation of all the effect magnitudes for each potion. Now I need to see if that gives equivalent order to the value of the potions. If so, that is all I'm looking for at this point. 71.255.126.78 00:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

It probably wont. Many effects have a standard magnitude and do not alter from that standard. Two examples are Invisibility (0) and Restore Health (5). From what I've seen, an Invisibility potion sells for quite a bit more than a health pot. Hexorcist

Hrm.. I could easily add an effect level magnitude to the mix. As a first draft, I'm just summing the max magnitude for each effect in a potion and displaying that value. As long as I get something that roughly ranks potions in the same order as they would value at, I'm happy. DEinspanjer 02:27, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

That's what I'm saying. I dont think they will. Take for example the Invisibility/Restore Health scenario. The magnitude is a multiplier in the above formula. Any number multiplied by 0 = 0. Any number other than 0 multiplied by 5 > 0. Even if you dont use it as a multiplier, 5 > 0 so your method for getting the values would be off based on it. I'm sure you can see the two issues here, 1) You wont find a crafted Invis pot with a value of 0 and 2) Health pots do not sell for more than Invis pots. I'm about 80% sure there are values in Skyrim.esm somewhere that are used with a formula similar to the one I posted above. I just haven't found these values, or if I have (I have a few ideas where they might be), I haven't realized how they're calculated into the final value of the potion. At this time all I can say about the formula to calculate value is that it increases every 10 levels starting at level 5 and skips levels 25, 65, 105, 145, ...,. I do believe the magnitude is taken into consideration because a health pot with a magnitude of 3 has a lesser value (septium-wise) than one with a magnitude of 5. That's all I know currently. Hexorcist

Well, for invisibility and paralysis, I suspect that they don't have magnitudes because those are boolean effects. The value of those effects in ingredients is likely based on the duration values of the ingredient effects. I haven't put that in yet, cause I'd be happy to get rankings for all the potions other than those first. 71.255.126.78

It's not hard to confirm or deny that magnitude alone will determine the value of the potion. At alchemy level of 16: Blue Dartwing/Cyrodilic Spadetail = M1 D30 Fear valued at 76, Grass Pod/River Betty = M4 D60 Fortify Alteration valued at 32. I think it's undeniable now, as I have been saying, that going based on magnitude alone you're not going to have accurate results. Everything in regards to the strength of the Fortify Alteration potion is stronger, yet it's worth less. There are many examples of that happening, such as when you mix Hagraven Claw with Wheat and get a Lingering Damage Magicka (M:1,D:10,V:45), or Bone Meal/Mudcrab Chitin (M:3,D:60,V:60). Also, those that have a 0 or 100 magnitude typically have a number 1-5 for the duration, which you use in the formula supplied above in place of the magnitude.Hexorcist

Sigh. Well, if you get any further clues, please let me know!

(←) Since data is everyone's friend, I made a page to collect potion data. Go to the page and add your potions/poisons. For now, let's keep it to single effects. Chris3145 20:40, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Each effect must have its own modifier. A 19 point Damage Magicka poison is worth 56, but a 19 point Damage Stamina poison is worth 45. Chris3145 20:51, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Yes, this is what I was mentioning earlier. And it's additive, meaning each additional effect will add that effect's value (based on alchemy level and magnitude) to the resulting potion value. However, I think instead of making a table of values, we find the values in the .esm files. They have to be there somewhere. My suspicion is in the ALCH group, because each effect seems to have it's own record based on magnitude, however sections of the INGR records or the MGEF records could also be a possibility. The more eyes we have looking for the values, the faster we can find them and the faster a full table can be populated. Hexorcist

I found another set of potions that was additive, however, I had a combined potion/poison that was not additive. Also, I'm playing on 360, so I can't go through any game files. Chris3145 22:13, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

Why not ask the guy that made this alchemical calculator? --Fluff 01:01, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

The name at the bottom (Newti) is the guy that wrote a post on reddit (I can't seem to find the page now) and says flat out that it's guesswork and far from being a complete list of all values. And that's all it is, a list of values for mixed potions of untold magnitude. A user of my program (Alchemy Assistant on the nexus site) has asked him to contact me so we could work out the issues with his system and get it into mine. I have attempted to contact him via Reddit, however, their registration script(s) seem to be broken. Even if he were to contact me though, I wouldn't use guesswork/"good enough"s in my application, and I wouldn't think such information would be very good for a "wiki". Another reason might be that he can't tell you how the magnitude of the ingredients play into the value of the potion. My assumption is based on him not mentioning it in his post, yet he did mention alchemy skill of 100 and having all perks (magnitude from ingredients is a much bigger player than alchemy level). He also tried to give a reasoning for Giant's Toe causing the value of a potion to skyrocket, it was pretty evident he didn't know of magnitude. I'm not saying it's a steaming pile of dung, it's good information to level your alchemy with, however, it does nothing for explaining the mechanics of the game and I can't use it in my project. Hexorcist

(←) What are even looking at here? I thought this was about finding a potion's value based on its effects and their magnitudes. Are you trying to figure out how strong a potion will be for a given alchemy level and ingredient combination? Chris3145 06:05, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

No. That information is known. The only thing left to figure out is the formula to determine the potion value (septium) given ingredient names (thus: magnitude, duration) and alchemy level. Fluff - my apologies for top-posting over your reply here but it was a bit long with the table there, didn't want it to get mixed in as a reply to your post. Hexorcist

I doubt knowing the strength of the potion will help. I think the goal is still the same: find the value of an arbitrary potion. However, it's not just about the effects and their magnitudes. For example, Nightshade + Crimson Nirnroot results in a rather potent, yet surprisingly worthless poison. However, Nightshade + River Betty results in a less potent poison that (when made with full perks and 100 Alchemy) is worth over 10 times as much. Even more boggling, River Betty + Crimson Nirnroot creates the same poison as Nightshade + River Betty. Adding Death Bell and Nirnroot to the party makes things more ridiculous. I'm just going to throw this table in to present this minor amount of data:

Ingredients	Damage Health	Value
Nightshade + Crimson Nirnroot	72	26
Nightshade + River Betty	60	271
River Betty + Crimson Nirnroot	60	271
Death Bell + Crimson Nirnroot	72	26
Death Bell + Nightshade	36	12
Death Bell + Nirnroot	24	98
Nightshade + Nirnroot	24	98
River Betty + Nirnroot	60	271
Nightshade + Troll Fat	24	7

Just to clarify without making the table huge, Troll Fat and Nightshade had identical effects throughout the table. So, what in the world is going on?! Two poisons with the same magnitude, but one is worth 14 times as much. A poison that's three times as strong as both of those other ones, yet worth three times less than the more expensive one. From this data, we can clearly see 1) that the value is not just about the effects (because then all these poisons would be worth the same), and 2) that the value is not just about the magnitude of the effects (because we've got two poisons with the same magnitude, yet different values). --Fluff 07:03, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

If you look, all of the mixtures match. Everything that has a value of 271 includes River Betty, and also has an effect strength of 60. The fact that it uses the ingredient with the higher magnitude has been known for a few days, and what you're describing with Nirnroot+Deathbell is noted above the formula. When two durations are atypically 0, the strength of the resulting potion is reduced by one magnitude (thus, value). This does somewhat confirm that the missing information that I need to be able to come up with a formula should be in the INGR records though. I might also remind that by "strength" I mean in the resulting potion, by "magnitude" I mean the EFIT values from the INGR records. Hexorcist

A little more data. I just finished going through every two-ingredient recipe that will create a Damage Health poison. It almost seems like the ingredients have a priority. If an ingredient has a higher priority, then the potion uses its effect instead of a lower effect.

Ingredient	Priority	Strength	Value
Jarrin Root	1	2400	1245
River Betty	2	60	271
Nirnroot	3	24	98
Crimson Nirnroot	4	72	26
Deathbell	5	36	12
Everything else	6	24	7

Note that the value is when creating a Damage Health poison by itself. The magnitude works even when creating poisons with additional effects. I'll note again that this is with 100 Alchemy and 5 ranks of Alchemist. I don't think I've got the Poisoner perk. --Fluff 07:45, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

It just occurred to me that this discussion might be a bit difficult to keep up with, with all of the information going all different directions. I'll start a forum topic so we can have some kind of organization of information (ie: more specific replies, information not scattered because the replies are ordered, etc). I'll post here with a link to it once I have filled out the known information.

The forum thread has been created and can be found here: http://forums.uesp.net/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=26806 Hexorcist

(←) I think I've worked out the equation for the gold value. Since the forum thread is basically dead, I'm just going to add my findings here.

The equation is:

Gold_value = MGEF_BaseCost * pow(magnitude, 1.1) * pow(duration/10, 1.1)

If either the magnitude or the duration is 0, the corresponding term is dropped from the equation (which is the equivalent of setting the magnitude to 1 instead of 0, or the duration to 10 instead of 0).

I've now tested a few dozen different custom-made potions, plus every single potion listed at Potions. Furthermore, this also happens to be very similar to the formula used for (enchanted weapons), so I'm pretty confident that it is the correct equation.

Some extra details:

• Any duration or magnitude shown in the game are the correct values to use in this equation. If one (or both) of the duration/magnitude are not shown in game, the game nevertheless has an internal value that is plugged into the equation. The internal value is typically 0 for non-displayed data, but this is not always true. Finding out the correct internal value requires using the game data (specifically the EFIT field for the appr
• Calculations are rounded down (floor()) at two distinct places. First, the magnitude/duration of the potion are rounded down. That rounded-down value is plugged into the calculation of the gold value, which is then also rounded down before being used.
• All decisions are based upon the gold value:
  • If two ingredients have different magnitudes/durations/etc for the same effect, the values for the ingredient with the highest gold value is always used. This explains all of the damage health combinations.
    • Although the game probably uses the final gold value, a shortcut is to use magnitude*duration, where 10 is used as the duration whenever duration is 0.
  • When choosing the potion name, the highest gold value effect is always chosen.
  • When deciding whether a multiple-effect combination is a potion or poison, the highest gold value is chosen. (One obscure detail that I haven't investigated yet is whether it's decided by the single effect with the highest value or whether it's based on [sum of beneficial effects] vs [sum of negative effects]).

And just to summarize for anyone who's having a hard time looking through everything else to find it, the previously-posted basic equation for the effect magnitude is:

Magnitude = EFIT_mag * (floor(alchemy_skill/5)*0.1 + 4)

Where EFIT_mag is the value that's currently posted in the damage column on the main article. (It's the magnitude taken from the "winning" ingredient's EFIT field in the game data). For potions where duration varies, EFIT_dur is used instead in the same equation. This is the magnitude without any perks; perks increase the magnitude as you'd expect from their descriptions.

So, if anyone finds any cases where these equations don't work, post it here. In the meantime, I'm likely to add this to the article. --Nephele^Talk 05:51, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

For the record, some additional tests and minor details that I've checked today are:

• The various strength-enhancing factors are all multiplied together: (1+C)*(1+D)*(1+E)*(1+F), not (1+C+D+E+F). Looking back through the forum posts, I realized that probably was the conclusion there, too, but it was hard to be sure. In my tests, I also double-checked how Fortify Alchemy factors into the equation.
• Potion vs poison is determined based on the single strongest effect, not the sum of positive vs negative effects. For example, creating a potion of Frost Mirriam + Silverside Perch + Abecean Longfin always creates a poison, even though the value of Damage Stamina Regen (159) is less than that of Resist Frost (86) + Fortify Sneak (118)
• Potion vs poison is determined before all the alchemy perks are taken into account. For example, Hawk Beak + River Betty + Salt Pile with Slow (value 247) and Fortify Carry Weight (208) always creates a poison, even if you have Benefactor but not Poisoner perks (in which case Fortify Carry Weight is 25% stronger relative to Slow, i.e. 260 vs 247).
• When making these poison/potion mixtures with all perks and obsessing over the numbers, it also became apparent that Benefactor is not applied to positive effects in a poison. So the magnitude of the Fortify Sneak effect in the earlier example goes down when you add Silverside Perch into the mix and turn the combo into a poison.
• Whether an effect's magnitude or duration is the one that varies is determined by flags in the MGEF record, specifically the "Power Affects Magnitude" and "Power Affects Duration" flags.
• In case anyone cares, there are actually a lot more non-standard-strength ingredients than those listed on the page. However, the unlisted cases are all cases where just one ingredient for an effect is weaker than standard. Since weak effects are only noticeable if two weak ingredients are combined, these individual oddballs have no effect on the game.

That's pretty much everything I could come up with to test, so hopefully this saga is complete. --Nephele^Talk 03:27, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Fortify Enchanting potions

At 100 Enchanting skill, it seems like "fortify enchanting" potions have no effect on the strength of enchantments that I make. Can anyone confirm or refute this please? Razlo — Unsigned comment by 75.50.119.62 (talk) at 03:30 on 25 November 2011

This is false. I used Fortify Enchanting potions to get my Fortify Alchemy and Fortify Smithing effects up to +29%. --Fluff 05:50, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I can confirm false. I use Fortify Enchanting and Fortify Smithing potions. The latter has allowed extremely high weapon values when combined with Fortify Smithing enchantments provided by the first. Upwards of 500 damage per hit is possible with the right combat gear. — Unsigned comment by Pronkyou2 (talk • contribs) at 22:53 on 26 November 2011

Pointless potion effects?

What is the point in poisons like 'poison of weakness to poisons' or even worse a poison with the side effect resist poison. Before some tries to tell me poisons can only have negative effects, it can have positive so long as when in creation you choose the ingredients with a positive effect (as well as the negative one you want) from a poison option, not a potion option 90.221.128.215 21:23, 26 November 2011 (UTC)KNJB98

Creatures that are immune to poisons will not have any reason to fear even a weakness to poison effect, but creatures that don't will be made even weaker to poison, thereby increasing the effect of all poisons used thereafter. And if you're worried about side effects, simply snatch the purity perk. The appropriate planning of ingredients can also assist with making purer poisons. Everything has a use, no matter how banal it may seem at first. Pronkyou2 23:00, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

In addition, a poison with a resist poison effect on it is worth more than just the base poison. Selling such poisons for funds to make more poisons isn't a bad idea. --Fluff 23:02, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Just today I confirmed (PC, 1.3, having no Alchemy perks) that, when mixing two ingredients that share both a positive and a negative effect, you in fact can not control whether you create a potion or a poison simply by means of selecting one or the other effect category at the left. 98.228.90.26 04:51, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Formatting

I think the table would look better if we got rid of the numbers in parentheses (at least on normal ingredients), gave an explanation of what they are on the special ingredients, and moved the special ingredients so they are near the rest of the ingredients. Any thoughts? Chris3145 07:01, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

The 'Special Ingredients' column should be gotten rid of anyway. Every modified effect is listed in the section above the table. The magnitude and value columns are also incorrect. The magnitude column should be replaced with EFIT data. The value column...we could leave it as it is for now since it does provide a relative value approximation, but there's no way to translate that 'value number' into the actual value of a potion you create. --Fluff 14:34, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

We could list the special ingredients with the rest, but maybe put an asterisk or dagger next to them so people who passed over the section above would know there's something different. Chris3145 14:59, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Take a look at this example page. Feel free to edit it; one thing I'm not sure about is the total width of the table. It just seems too wide. --Fluff 17:16, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

It does look a bit wide, but the table doesn't share the space with anything else, so I don't know how much smaller it could be. Maybe the special ingredients could have a column right next to regular ingredients, and the table could go from 100% width to 80%? I'm not sure. Chris3145 23:23, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

I fixed the width problem and updated the main page with what I had. My sandbox page contains something else I was trying out: putting the footnotes to the right of the table. I'm not real crazy about it. --Fluff 01:51, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

For the most part, I like the new table, but the footnotes make it hard to spot data that would be useful either making potions for cash or odd magnitudes. In many cases the actual numbers are gone for good. I'd like to suggest replacing the block of footnotes with a new table with columns "Effect", "Ingredient A", "Ingredient B", Optional "Description" and/or "Notes", "Magnitude", "Cost". Perhaps with the default magnitude and cost in the same column as the unexpected magnitude and cost, but in parentheses and/or a smaller font, and/or italics. Thanks for making the current table sortable. It wasn't last time I looked, when I wanted to try to make the most expensive potions. NFR 15:38, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

{outdent} I may be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure the footnotes can go above the table as well. This would push the 'interesting' data closer to the top without having to scroll through the whole table. Do you think that would be better? Part of the problem with creating a table as you suggest is the Damage Health effect. It has by far the most exceptions and won't fit nicely in a tabular form. --Fluff 16:46, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

If they stay as notes, they should be above the current table. If the special mixtures get tabulated, they could go at either the top or bottom of the page. If you make the table, I think you could just do Effect, Ingredient 1, Ingredient 2, Magnitude, Duration. Then do something with colors to indicate if it is better or worse than the default. Chris3145 17:01, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

And cost gets a column too. Chris3145 17:02, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Okay, take a look at the example page again. I didn't include a duration column because duration stays constant for all effects except for one. I also retained the same color formatting as the standard effect table; consistency seemed like a good idea. If I could have added links similar to the footnotes from before, I would have. As that table makes clear, most of the modified effects are simple. It's just Damage Health that makes things look like crap. --Fluff 16:44, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I agree a duration column is unnecessary. I was wondering if we could take an idea from the Oblivion Spells page, where values that are different from the norm are in red or green, and in parenthesis after it is the normal value and a footnote to a single footnote at the bottom of the table explaining what the format means; this would make the second line unnecessary: Spells "Spells that are a bad deal, i.e. more expensive than a custom spell, are in red; spells that are a good deal are in green. The magicka cost if you were to create a custom spell at the Spellmaking Altar is shown in parentheses." I suggest this even though I'm red-green colorblind and can't identify what color the numbers are. Having the proper number after it in parenthesis allows me to compare them quickly and deduce if it was red or green. If I had my way, we'd associate good and bad with more easily spotted colors, like grey and orange, but I know this is not to be. NFR 17:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I'd also recommend adding regular footnotes to all instances of "Berrit's Ashes" and "Jarrin's Root" saying that there's just one of them in the game to warn new people not to get their hopes up if they came here to plan to massproduce something NFR 17:34, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Can you explain further what you mean about your comparison to Oblivion's Spells page? I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to say. From what I understood, it sounds like we might be able to use something like that to remove the notes from the second row of each modified effect (except for Restore Health). Also, we should either add the footnotes you describe or get rid of the Salt Pile footnotes. Personally, I'm in favor of getting rid of the Salt Pile footnotes because it doesn't add anything to this particular page, but either way. --Fluff 17:41, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Spells like "Night Mother's Caress" on the Spells page has a mana cost of 33, much better than the 38 any equivalent spell would have; so, instead of just printing the mana cost in normal black font, it's listed as 33 (38*) to make it obvious it is a better spell (by making it green) and listing what a comparative spell would have cost within parentheses so you can quickly determine how much better it is. If it were a disadvantageous number, it would have been listed in red. The number in parentheses is needed to show how much better/worse something is to the normal, and for people who are red-green colorblind. in the example above, clicking on the 38 would take you immediately to the note explaining what the color and the parenthesized number meant. So, "River Betty" might be listed as magnitude: 30 (12*) and cost: 126 (3*) showing it makes a poison 250% stronger, and 4200% as expensive NFR 20:29, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I think I've modified the example page with your suggestion. To be honest, I'm not crazy about using color like this for a couple of reasons: colorblindness and the incapability of easy copy-paste into an outside document. However, I do think it looks nicer than it did with all those notes between rows. --Fluff 14:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Being red-green colorblind myself, and prone to cut and paste things like this, I fully agree with you about the disadvantages of color. But I really like the way it looks now. The odd longer duration for Giant's Toe is now immediately obvious, and the second ingredient list can be quickly scanned without it getting confused with the notes. It's up to you, but I really like it this way. NFR 17:18, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

Less than optimal effects

I submitted some footnotes on certain combinations for Restore Magicka which also contain the Ravage Magicka side-effect (sans Purity perk). The net result being a potion which doesn't restore any magicka at all. It was removed on the basis of "potion recipes not the intent of the page" but all of the other footnotes ("less than optimal results") seem to be doing the very same thing. Or the difference is ambiguous enough only to matter to the editor (Fluff). Could we get some clarification, please? Should the footnotes perhaps be removed in favor of a page or matrix dedicated to tracking potion efficacy?

You'll notice that all the other 'less than optimal' notes are because they create effects that are sub-optimal, not potions. The difference is simple. Consider Imp Stool + Blisterwort. By all indications, this should create a normal Restore Health potion. However, the Restore Health effect on the potion is weaker than the Restore Health effect on any other ingredient combination. It has nothing to do with a Damage Health effect present (there isn't one). Imp Stool + Blisterwort simply makes poor Restore Health effects. This is the purpose of a majority of the footnotes: to document which combinations of ingredients create effects with an abnormal magnitude or value - information that is normally hidden from the user. --Fluff 14:22, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Parentheses removed

I personally found the parentheses next to each ingredient helpful. For example, say I'm looking for any ingredients that can be mixed with a briar heart to reveal its 3rd effect. The way the page was before, I could simply search for "Briar Heart (3" and get the list of ingredients I needed. Now, I would have to search for "Briar Heart" and see if each effect was already revealed. It isn't too big of a difference, but I don't see how those values were irrelevant or detracted from the value of the page. Perhaps a column could be added in the entire table for effect position, if parentheses are not desirable? StTheo 17:55, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

It is an extra click to find this information. To do the same thing now with Briar Hearts, you'd go to the Ingredients page and click on the third effect for Briar Heart. Personally, I prefer the table without the parentheses because this is for alchemy effects, not ingredient information. --Fluff 20:44, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Personally, I prefer the table with the parentheses because this is for alchemy effects, and the portion of the ingredient information being deleted had a direct relation between the ingredient and the effect.StTheo 05:03, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

I disagree as well with Fluff. The number in parentheses were not at all out of place, as they indicated what effect was unlocked for which slot of that ingredient. I found them very useful and would like to suggest reverting to the previous page.

The effect slot on an ingredient has nothing to do with the effect; it does not modify the effect in any way. That's 100% ingredient data, as you can clearly see since every single ingredient needed the parentheses - there wasn't even a column on the table for the effect slot because the rows were laid out for effects, not ingredients. Lo and behold, the Ingredients page actually has the data you desire!

I agreed with Chris that removing the effect slot data made the table cleaner. A user has to read less to understand what the table is trying to communicate. This is a good thing. So, please propose another good thing. State a use case regarding the effect slot data that cannot be currently handled by the Ingredients page. The only time I've ever used that data on this page was discovering that you can cure diseases by simply eating Hawk Feathers. That same information can be discovered by visiting either the Ingredients page or the Cure Disease page. --Fluff 07:22, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

When trying to "discover" all the effects for an ingredient, it reduces the amount of searches required. On the ingredients page, one first must search the ingredient, then search the effect to find the a matching ingredient. Prior to the removal, searching the ingredient was sufficient to complete the task. --Fett0001 16:51, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Note that for such a query, you're asking two questions: 1) "What effects does this ingredient have?" and 2) "What other ingredients have this effect?" Is it any real surprise that you might have to visit two pages to answer two questions? I already responded to this use case with my opinion of it: you either click through to another page or search the Ingredients page. Is that the only use case for this data? --Fluff 17:05, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Also, would you mind taking a look at this table? I believe it is laid out to do exactly what you want. I also think it might be useful for the table to have a page of its own. --Fluff 17:43, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

If multiple users are saying that they found the information useful, I think a way should be found to add the information back onto the page. We all have different ways that we look for information, and the wiki should try to accommodate all of those different ways whenever possible. I think just those numbers alone have merit -- without cross-linking into other ingredients that have the effect -- because it tells you whether by tasting the ingredient you'll learn the effect (with or without the perk).

If the original reason for deleting the numbers was because they were confusing, how about using (1st), (2nd), (3rd), (4th)? Or is there some other way to modify what was originally displayed that will satisfy everyone's concerns? --Nephele^Talk 21:20, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

That use case can also be handled by the Ingredients page. "Hey, what effect will I learn if I eat this? Oh, it's the first effect on the list." In fact, it's far easier to find that information on either the main Ingredients page or the ingredient's page than it is on the Alchemy Effects page since the Alchemy Effects table is setup to display information about effects.

Take a look at my example page and leave feedback. In my opinion, the table looks much more cluttered since we're trying to get the table to do two things at the same time. Personally, I don't mind using multiple pages from the wiki; I don't expect any one page on the wiki to have information from outside its scope. However, a consensus is how it should be. --Fluff 22:01, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Actually, Fluff's discovering page is great! I take back what I said :D StTheo 13:38, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

An addition I'd like to add to that page (or possibly to the Useful Potions page, since that page is already so long) is a minimum ingredient and mixing list to help users reveal all the effects on buyable ingredients using as few ingredients and mixes as possible. I haven't done it yet because I haven't modified my potion-crunching program for that sort of output yet.

So, assuming that the Discovering Alchemy Effects page gets created, how does this example page look? If you want to see it with the effect slot per ingredient, just view the last revision. --Fluff 14:00, 14 December 2011 (UTC)

What does the magnitude value mean?

On the page it says that magnitude is the value at 100 skill with 0 perks. Can someone please explain how 1 magnitude of enchanting potion becomes 32 with 100% from perks and 116% from gear? I mean, really, how? In other words, how do i decypher those cryptic magnitude values to learn the exact value of the potion that would be made at said skill level? 194.190.40.89 08:26, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Oddity

Someone on my forum posted two formulas for a Damage Health poison. The first was Deathbell + Nirnroot, and the second was Deathbell + Imp Stool. According to the information they posted, one of the combinations (I can't remember which off-hand) produced a stronger Damage Health effect than the other. To me, this wasn't correct, as both have Deathbell as an ingredient; the information I've seen says that both should therefore have the same magnitude. However, rather than immediately denounce them, I decided to test things out for myself first. Imagine my surprise when one of the recipes they posted actually was stronger than the other! It's worth checking out, I think. Swk3000 13:09, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

That might be good to add if true, just make sure your alchemy skill level is the same and you don't use any enchantments. RIM 14:18, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

Nirnroot's Damage Health has a higher priority than Deathbell, so the Deathbell+Nirnroot poison is controlled by Nirnroot's properties, whereas the other one is controlled by Deathbell's properties. Therefore, they should be different. See Damage Health and Skyrim:Alchemy Effects#Potion Strengths for details. --Nephele^Talk 15:22, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

None of the information I've seen indicates that Nirnroot has a higher Magnitude. Crimson Nirnroot, yes, but not Nirnroot. In fact, I just checked the Nirnroot page. It says that potions made with Nirnroot have the same magnitude as standard poisons, but a higher value. With the Deathbell + Nirnroot combination, I saw a magnitude increase that the site doesn't explain. Swk3000 19:05, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I didn't say higher magnitude -- I said higher priority, as discussed in more detail on both of the previously-provided links.

Magnitude is only one of the factors that influences priority, and Nirnroot is a prime example demonstrating that priority is not the same as magnitude. As shown both on the Alchemy Effects page and on Damage Health page, the priority order for Damage Health is:

• Jarrin Root
• River Betty
• Nirnroot
• Crimson Nirnroot
• Deathbell
• Any other ingredient

That order has been determined based on in-game testing (see earlier discussions on this talk page), which is ultimately what matters.

As far as why that's the priority order, the most self-consistent explanation so far is that it's based on the gold value of the resulting potion -- which appears to be how all alchemy-related decisions are settled in the game mechanics. Both the duration and and the magnitude are relevant when determining the gold value (see Skyrim:Alchemy Effects#Strength Equations). And as I stated on Damage Health, "The Base Duration for Nirnroot and River Betty as specified in the game data is 0 seconds. However, gold values can be understood more easily by pretending the duration is 10 seconds." Which is why Nirnroot's 0 duration ends up creating a more valuable potion than Deathbell's 1 duration. --Nephele^Talk 19:47, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

So I pulled up the game and made a potion with Deathbell, Imp Stool, and Nirnroot to make sure I could see the Damage Health effect. I then deselected the Nirnroot, looked at the Magnitude and Value for that, then deselected the Imp Stool and selected the Nirnroot. Turns out I was getting things backwards. The Deathbell + Nirnroot gives a lower Magnitude, but a higher Value, while the Deathbell + Imp Stool gives a higher Value, but a lower Magnitude. I was thinking that the Deathbell + Nirnroot gave the higher Magnitude. So everything is behaving as it's supposed to; I was simply unaware that Nirnroot had a different priority at all. And once I noticed that it did on the site, I was mixing up which combination had the higher Magnitude from my own tests. So everything checks out like it's supposed to; I was just getting wires crossed. Sorry for the confusion. Swk3000 13:47, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Creation Kit Cost

I wanted to bring up and address a question that I anticipate is inevitably going to be raised by someone looking at Creation Kit data: "Should we document the 'Cost' column that the Creation Kit shows on each Ingredient page (in the CK table listing the ingredient's effects)?"

My first impression is that no, we shouldn't. As far as I can tell, it's a number calculated by the Creation Kit (not a number that is inherently part of the game data) that is not directly used in-game. Although the actual game may calculate a similar number (and that number may be what the game uses instead of final gold value in making decisions), the in-game number is calculated independently of the Creation Kit number. Furthermore, I'm sure the in-game number is different from the Creation Kit number -- the Creation Kit artificially rounds the displayed cost, but the in-game number must preserve some of the digits after the decimal point.

The easiest way to prove that the Creation Kit number is not used in-game is to look at the infamous Damage Health ingredients. The CK "Cost" for both Nightshade and Deathbell is listed as 0, implying that these ingredients have the same priority and that potions using them have the same gold value (and potentially even implies that the gold value is 0 for these ingredients). However, these ingredients are clearly treated differently in-game, with Deathbell having a higher priority and creating more expensive potions.

In other words, even if the game has some concept of an ingredient effect "cost", it's not the same as the value shown in the Creation Kit. --Nephele^Talk 20:27, 8 February 2012 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure that the cost field you are referring to is the auto-calculated magicka cost, for if it had been a spell the player was casting. I see no reason to document it. Woden87 15:35, 17 February 2012 (UTC)

Floor

What does the value "floor" mean in the many equations on the page?

     Floor (in computer science cases at least) means to round down. So floor will give the largest whole number 
     that is less than the result of the equation it is called on, e.g. floor(3.9) = 3.0.
     MaskedCritic 22:05, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Additional Effects of Non-standard Ingredients

So with all those different ingredients that have additional effects, such as Nirnroot's effect of raising the price of damage health poisons by 12.6 times, has anybody actually found where this data is stored using the Creation Kit? --MaskedCritic 22:11, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it comes from the ingredient EFIT data. See above discussion How to use Magnitude and special to calculate potion value?. Or read the section of the article on Skyrim:Alchemy#Strength EquationsSkyrim:Alchemy Effects#Strength Equations. --Nephele^Talk 22:49, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Firstly, that second link you gave leads to a section that doesn't exist. Second, while the information you pointed out is useful, I was specifically wondering if anyone has found that information using the official Bethesda Creation Kit, and if so, where is it? --MaskedCritic 02:36, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Sample Equation

Could someone post a sample equation to clarify the equations on this page. 99.129.0.116 02:17, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Never mind I figured it out. PEMDAS 99.129.0.116 03:04, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

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