That's not how I see it. An ingredient becomes more expensive simply because it's harder to obtain...That doesn't mean though that the Minotaur Horn is in any way more potent as an ingredient.
Hi All, thanks for your responses so far.
I will explain the logic of my original posting....
1. Re: why should a potion which includes Minotaur horn cost more than one that has Apple?
In the real world the chemical effects for an ingredient rarely play a part in the costing of it.
Shampoo that boasts "Pearl Essences" fetches a higher price than one that doesn't boast such a claim - is it any better for your hair? doubtfully...
A cup of Carrot and Apple juice would fetch one price, whereas a cup of Apple, Carrot and Wheatgrass juice fetches double. When the benefit of the added ingredient is unquantifiable.
Pasta made with mushrooms is sold for a particular price, in a fancier restaraunt it would be 'Truffle Lasagna" and cost three times as much - is it any better in quality, perhaps, but mainly it uses ingredients that are harder to come by and are much rarer...
2. Re: why should a potion which includes Minotaur horn have different effect/duration than one that has Apple?
Are we really going to say that every single item in the game that happens to hold a particular property has exactly the same amount of 'essence', quality, or ability to use all of the item in order to make a potion out of it? So rather than diversity you have uniformity - everything is just as good as each other.... This doesn't seem very realistic, and could do with a tweak in my opinion. Now I'm not just saying that because an ingredient is rarer, or more expensive it should be better or more powerful - maybe the opposite should be the case for some items, i'm just saying having everything be the same takes the fun out of searching for ingredients, because there's is no incentive to look for new ingredients if you have an existing recipe...
3. I'm definitely not a modder and am not going to go into the technical side of things, but at the moment the game is able to create potions with different weights according to which ingredients you used for it (i.e. a potion made with a pumpkin is much heavier than that made with some seeds)... could the same mechanics possibly be used for costing?