» Sun May 18, 2014 2:04 pm I've been doing RPG's for around twenty years now, and some of my methods may seem archaic to some of you, but this is a tried and true idea that can be used by anybody - no matter how new or experienced at the game you are.
It also builds as you go along, so you can start up your own collection easily.
The basic idea is to focus on the effect you are after, NOT the ingredients themselves. Nothing on Tamriel is so migraine-inducingly bothersome as going down the menu list to find an ingredient that has the effect you want from it.
This ALSO allows you to target specific ingredients that you need for potions that are important to have some of. You may not have those ingredients in your inventory, but with a card set like this you can figure out what the easiest ones to get might be.
SO what you do is take a file card, title it with the effect you want, and then scan the ingredient list periodically to list on that card exactly what does what you need it to do.
As a further refinement (for later games) what I do is also list what level in alchemy I have to be to use that effect. We have a first effect, second, third, and fourth as we go up in that skill.
Here are two examples:
RESTORE HEALTH
Alocasia Fruit - 3
Aloe Vera - 2
Boar Meat - 1
Flame Stalk - 1
Fly Amanita - 3
Green Stain Cup Cap - 4
Ham - 2
Ladies Mantle - 1
Lavender Sprig - 3
Screaming Maw - 4
Venison - 1
RESTORE MAGICKA
Blister Pod - 1
Elytra Ichor - 1
Flax Seeds - 1
Fungus Stalk - 4
Steel Blue Entoloma - 1
Stinkhorn Cap - 2
Void Salts - 1
Water Hyacinth Nectar - 3
The numbers are of course which effect it is, so looking at Restore Magicka for example, I know that Water Hyacinth works - but not until I can see the third effect of all ingredients.
~ A set of index cards like that can be flipped through to find what you need to know about, and then you can pick out what you have to go looking for to collect - at anywhere from the very lowest levels at the start of the game, on up to the highest levels of the game later on.
Flax for one, can be found all around Skingrad. Green Stain Cups are all over the woods near Leyawiin, especially across the river...
It makes it so much easier to find stuff, and NOT FORGET what you could have realised you needed at critical parts of the game that might have helped you
All you need to do is keep them in alphabetical order, and there you go!
I hope this is a useful idea even for those of you who have been at the game for a long time. I know it will be a great help to new players.
Best of all - as you find new ingredients you can always add the effects you discover to the existing card(s) as you go along.
*Needless to say - file cards are cheap and easy to come by, and if you run out of space on one of them you can start another. It ain't like you have to write on the back side of a page in a book.
CHEERS!
~Wolfie
PS: If anyone wants to add more data to this thread, feel free to post your lists. I'll add some of my own over time.
