[Snake]

Can we get a way to split bigger cores into smaller ones for the purpose of creating enchants with Alchemy? Like, you take a Massive Core, use a certain method to break it down, and it grants 10 Tiny Cores or more accurately, it divides per core level difference using 'Tiny' as the base number.

It's nigh impossible to drop tiny cores nowadays where everybody's levels are capped, and I almost see this part of Alchemy not being used due to this hassle. (I think it influences the dungeon level spawning, so we rarely have level 1-5 BDPs around, plus, cores cannot be traded.)

[Trexmaster]

I doubt it's tied to what level everyone is, but it's difficult to find the lower level dungeons given how small the range is for them. Tiny is only 1-4, then Small is 5-14, Medium 15-24, Large 25-34, Huge 35-44, Giant 45-54, then finally, Massive is 55-80+.

Massives are far easier to find given they span a range of over twice every other core drop (and Tiny is almost unheard of given how small their range is). This isn't much of an issue, until you either want to craft catalysts (for some reason) or narrow down the drop pools to lower rarity items. So something like this would help both problems.

[Chaos]

What about making the system work like this:

For recipes that require Spatial Cores, you can provide more potent versions than what the recipe demands. If you do, it costs 1 less core for each grade it has above the current requirement.

I.e. Say that a catalyst recipe requires 5 Medium Spatial Cores. Alternatively (as per this suggestin), you could provide:
>4 Large Spatial Cores
>3 Huge Spatial Cores
>2 Giant Spatial Cores
>1 Massive Spatial Core

[Snake]

Thing is, all catalyst recipes require Tiny Cores, and that makes my eyes sweat. It's a good suggestion, but there's an easier way around.

[Neus]

Increasing the level range of core sizes is also a possibility.

[Ranylyn]

Increasing the level range of core sizes is also a possibility.

Considering the quality of items inside the cores, and how BDPs get longer at higher levels, this sounds like the second to worst possible idea that isn't a 1:1 exchange of massive for tiny.

[Neus]

I don't think changing Tiny/Small/Large to be an even 10 levels or so would affect high level dungeons at all.

[Esther]

I assume the idea is that you don't want people to split a massive core into two giant cores to get 1.5x the item drops.

In that case, why not change the alchemy recipes for catalysts to require 20 "Spatial Core Fragments" instead of tiny cores? Then opening any core can give you 1 fragment per size category -- so tiny cores will have 1 fragment along with their item drops, small will have 2, medium 3, large 4, huge 5, giant 6 and massive 7.

If you want to get ~only~ core fragments and no item drops, a single 1-difficulty alchemy recipe can take 1 spatial core (of any size), and turn it into twice the number of fragments that its size category would have if you opened it -- so a tiny core would alchemically fracture into 2 fragments but not drop any items, small would yield 4, medium 6, large 8, huge 10, giant 12 and massive 14. Great successes on this recipe could produce +50% extra fragments, making a great success fracturing a massive core be equal to 1.05 enchantment catalysts.

[Snake]

I never suggested anything to be exploited like that, though. I 'know' what I typed.

All I want is to make possible to use 'weapon breakdown' to get tiny cores from bigger cores, only. And the amount of tiny cores you get is equal to Core LV. Tiny Cores don't get more than 1*-3* items, and often spawn around 2-4 items (plume aside).

I'm just pointing out at how 'impossible' it is to create catalysts that should be quite accessible for some Enchanters to craft. And grinding in those rare level 1-4 dungeons would be a damn hassle. Because a there will be people literally 'eating' those dungeons while hunting for their core, and the result will be nothing left but higher levels after those despawn.

The time wasted on a pathetic-level dungeon could be better used on a higher and more dangerous, for the (almost) same rewards.

[Ranylyn]

I don't think changing Tiny/Small/Large to be an even 10 levels or so would affect high level dungeons at all.

It means you need to go through higher dungeons for smaller cores. (Instead of being able to do a level 17 for a medium, for example, you'd need to do a 20+) This is why I mentioned "higher level BDPs getting longer." At 61+ it'd all be the same, that's true, but some people actually use cores to find gear, after all. (I know most of the old vets don't, but not everyone has either their resources to play around with, or friends with resources to help get build-critical items by like level 30 on newer characters, like a shotgun for an MG shotgun specialist.)