I'm going to have a hard time feeling encouraged to 'experiment' (whatever that means) with a system I don't have full control over.
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Well, now we'll have the mutagens for the permanent boosts only set while meditating. I don't remember how they could be created, but if they require a lot of ingredients, including some really rare ones, that could balance things a bit.
We'll have the general use on the fly potions, that depending on the type could require more or less ingredients to create, and now that we can experiment with the ingredients, it could add more variety there. The use of rare ingredients would also be nice.
I really want to see it in game, because just hording ingredients is not exactly fun. In the W2 I ended up so many ingredients that I sold a lot of them and still had a ton of potions, but still I only had 5 or 6 that I really used.
After a while I stared experimenting with different combinations of potions, but it was just for the sake of trying out something else, I really hope the potions this time around provide more flexibility and have some real effect, even if in combination with some other potions, and not be limited to only a handful of really useful ones.
At this point I can safely say that I can live with the current system. There are still things that we don't know, and who knows, after trying it for our selves it could turn out to be really good.
Now I'm very interested in the skill system.
While I can not say that I can live with the current system (so disagreed there), it would at least make things better if we could experiment more again, that would be really great I agree. That way the effect that auto-refill had would also be not as harsh because there were lots of combinations of ingredients to try and find new potions to create which would really keep it interesting.
Should that not be the case though.....
Good gracious, what a bloody bummer. This unmade my day.
And it looked so promising and like a really good compromise with the best of both worlds.
It's a shame that once again, the community will have to iron out what the developer with some minimal? additional effort could have achieved just as well.
And it looked so promising and like a really good compromise with the best of both worlds.
It really is mind-boggling though why there isn't at least the option to switch off the auto-refilling routine and enable the player to do what the routine normally would be in charge of - re-brewing or refilling the potion, only this time by hand and using only a fraction of the required ingredients, like described by the anonymous developer. It was perfect. Too perfect? CD Projekt RED definitely works in mysterious ways.
It's a shame that once again, the community will have to iron out what the developer with some minimal? additional effort could have achieved just as well.
It seems odd to me they would just auto refill and not let you choose what you want. Maybe certain alcohols work with certain potions?
Like
Swallow has it's own alcohol type
Cat has it's own alcohol type
etc
I don't really mind auto refill, it just means less menu work to me. I want to be able to choose what refills though
Like
Swallow has it's own alcohol type
Cat has it's own alcohol type
etc
I don't really mind auto refill, it just means less menu work to me. I want to be able to choose what refills though
That's also possible. I definitely assume we will be able to choose what refills.
The way i see it might work is, for example;
- you have 10 alcohol in your inventory
- you can choose to equip 8 of those to Swallow and the other 2 to Cat
- when you re-fill a potion, 1 alcohol gets used (so if you re-fill one Swallow you are now left with 7)
In that way i could possibly see it working. Specific clarification would be nice though.
Alchemy systems for gaming are fundamentally flawed. I at least hope they give us unlimited storage, running out of space is an unnecessary hassle.
The Alchemy system should be quest related to avoid all this mess. Like the Kayran quest in witcher 2. Then you don't have these funny situations of gathering 100s of herbs u think you mite need. You also won't be drinking during a fight, which looks funny, and you won't get caught out because you were surprised.
Does he take potions before every battle in the books?
I would at least like a hint before a major fight when to take potions so we don't get caught out. Just a comment like I should prepare.
The Alchemy system should be quest related to avoid all this mess. Like the Kayran quest in witcher 2. Then you don't have these funny situations of gathering 100s of herbs u think you mite need. You also won't be drinking during a fight, which looks funny, and you won't get caught out because you were surprised.
Does he take potions before every battle in the books?
I would at least like a hint before a major fight when to take potions so we don't get caught out. Just a comment like I should prepare.
I thought a bit about this new system, and now that we know that no major changes will be made to the system since it's very close to release, at least they can tweak it based on feedback, so here's mine, provided I don't know all the details.
I would prefer if only the currently equipped potions refill. You select 3 or 4 for example, that you are going to use, then while you have the required ingredients/alcohol when meditating those potions will refill, only them.
And say you'll have a limited uses of each potions, like 3-6, based on potion level and alchemy mastery.
If different potions could also somehow react with each other, having either positive or negative effect, it would be even better.
This also ties to the recommended potions for some quests, no matter if they are directly shown or the player has to determine on him/her self which they are. You'll prepare for a fight with only the ones you need, and as long as you have the materials, only they will refill.
The new mutagen system is also better in my opinion, in the W2, you had to wait till you find a top level mutagen before you decide to use one, and they were not that engaging in their use and effect.
Now if you can select up to 3 mutagens of your choice, with more profound effects and their own set of pros and cons, and be able to change them when you like, that would be great.
What would be even better, if for every time you decide to use a mutagen, you'll have to create it, thus you'll need ingredients. It would make you think what to use and not be too wasteful.
Now for the ingredients themselves, the system is pretty much the same, you'll gather them from monsters and plants, but I'd like some of the rare ones, to be fun to hunt or locate.
The hunt/discovery for ingredients for me is more fun than just the chose of gathering large amounts of them. As I previously mentioned in the W2 I had way to many ingredients so that I had to sell tons of them and I wasn't even trying, so I don't think the lack of ingredients made players not use it, it was that only some of them were useful, like really useful, so the rest went to the background.
Now if they can make more potions be a viable option in a more situations, this will make people use them more, not just on higher difficulties.
I have my fingers crossed that things turn out well and hope for some more videos detailing the skill and alchemy systems.
---------- Updated at 08:06 AM ----------
I liked the preparation for combat in the W2, but it wasn't very flexible, especially on your first playthrough. You didn't know what to expect and it was basically trial and error. You die, you go back and just choose some different potions.
Now they are addressing this by allowing you to drink potions on the go, but what those potions should be is part of the preparation for the short term battles. The mutagens as well, though they are a bit more long term decisions.
I would prefer if only the currently equipped potions refill. You select 3 or 4 for example, that you are going to use, then while you have the required ingredients/alcohol when meditating those potions will refill, only them.
And say you'll have a limited uses of each potions, like 3-6, based on potion level and alchemy mastery.
If different potions could also somehow react with each other, having either positive or negative effect, it would be even better.
This also ties to the recommended potions for some quests, no matter if they are directly shown or the player has to determine on him/her self which they are. You'll prepare for a fight with only the ones you need, and as long as you have the materials, only they will refill.
The new mutagen system is also better in my opinion, in the W2, you had to wait till you find a top level mutagen before you decide to use one, and they were not that engaging in their use and effect.
Now if you can select up to 3 mutagens of your choice, with more profound effects and their own set of pros and cons, and be able to change them when you like, that would be great.
What would be even better, if for every time you decide to use a mutagen, you'll have to create it, thus you'll need ingredients. It would make you think what to use and not be too wasteful.
Now for the ingredients themselves, the system is pretty much the same, you'll gather them from monsters and plants, but I'd like some of the rare ones, to be fun to hunt or locate.
The hunt/discovery for ingredients for me is more fun than just the chose of gathering large amounts of them. As I previously mentioned in the W2 I had way to many ingredients so that I had to sell tons of them and I wasn't even trying, so I don't think the lack of ingredients made players not use it, it was that only some of them were useful, like really useful, so the rest went to the background.
Now if they can make more potions be a viable option in a more situations, this will make people use them more, not just on higher difficulties.
I have my fingers crossed that things turn out well and hope for some more videos detailing the skill and alchemy systems.
---------- Updated at 08:06 AM ----------
I liked the preparation for combat in the W2, but it wasn't very flexible, especially on your first playthrough. You didn't know what to expect and it was basically trial and error. You die, you go back and just choose some different potions.
Now they are addressing this by allowing you to drink potions on the go, but what those potions should be is part of the preparation for the short term battles. The mutagens as well, though they are a bit more long term decisions.
THIS.
Just add depth to it.
I do not mind having to collect less ingredients after making a potion the first time, or potions being automatically refilled if I did not use all of my uses of this potion, or for them to refill automatically if you have them in the "potions of choice" slot and all the ingredients are there.
I LOVED experimenting in TW1, and I would love to do that in TW3 again. I also agree that hoarding herbs is not fun, but hunting down ingredients for the potions you know you need or want to use, especially if there are different variations of those potions.
I also like the drinking-in-combat. I know it is a grey area of the lore, but I can accept it.
Love that we can use mutagens now and they have long-term effects (can we really use 3? that would be dope...)
But like you said, the problem was not that there wasn't enough material people didn't want to waste. Problem was there were only 2 or 3 REALLY useful potions and the rest was "meh", not useful or counter-productive. And potions were not NECESSARY (so lazy people don't use them), but you can't change that.
My point is, just compromise somehow, I don't want my potions to just all refill randomly. I am sure there is a system in that, but I definitely NEED and WANT a Alchemy System gameplay trailer so we know ALL the details and can then starts writing REAL and FOUNDED criticism and suggest small changes.
PS: I hope the effects of potions are visual on Geralts face/body. I also hope we finally have some negative toxicity effects (IMO this should be the only negative potion effects, the toxicity level)
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It's like CDPR is absolutely terrified to give the player complete control over how and when to prepare potions. Terrified that the player could fall back into hoarding potions (which can be easily solved, plenty of suggestions in this thread) and not using them (which also can be easily solved, plenty suggestions in this thread) and eventually abandon the alchemy system altogether.
Well, guess what: Ultimately it's about player choice.
If I want to hoard potions, let me do it. If I want to run around spending most of my time picking herbs, let me do it. If I want to have an active hand in the preparation of potions, let me have it.
Forcing a butchered system on everybody isn't exactly what I'd call 'caring about the players'.
The things CDPR seemingly is so afraid of wouldn't happen to the average player anyway, if there would be the, I don't know how often suggested option with the standard default factory setting set to the current auto-refill approach.
Well, guess what: Ultimately it's about player choice.
If I want to hoard potions, let me do it. If I want to run around spending most of my time picking herbs, let me do it. If I want to have an active hand in the preparation of potions, let me have it.
Forcing a butchered system on everybody isn't exactly what I'd call 'caring about the players'.
The things CDPR seemingly is so afraid of wouldn't happen to the average player anyway, if there would be the, I don't know how often suggested option with the standard default factory setting set to the current auto-refill approach.
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I can already experiment in The Witcher 1, with the use of Albedo, Rubedo and Nigredo.
And your point is? I don't get what you want to say with that.
Someone in the previews said that experimentation is back in W3, which is good news.
I hadn't read the posts below when I wrote that message, so I had believed that "experiment factor" was relative to "auto-refill" system. My mistake, sorry.
hardcoregamer.com/2015/01/26/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt-is-the-most-ambitious-rpg-yet/131171/
So restricting automatically refilling health (during meditation) to difficulties other than Hard and Nightmare is no big deal but when it comes to potions it suddenly is?
Granted, there's a little more to it than just refilling a bar with red colour but what it essentially comes down to in either case is, again choice.
I can choose to play on Hard or Nightmare to not have my health fully restored after meditating a bit but I'm denied the choice if I don't want to have my empty potions refilled out of thin air (more or less) when entering meditation because it's all the effing same on all effing difficulties. Brilliant.
Presumably it's the fact that stopping HP regeneration on a different difficulty requires absolutely very little effort on behalf of the developers. However to re-design the Alchemy system to stop potions from auto-refilling and allowing the player complete control (Especially just for higher difficulties) would require a lot more effort - I assume entirely new UI elements and functionality, not to mention herb balance etc.
Man I thought I'd prepared myself for this as a possibility, but I'm still severely disappointed.
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From the little I could gather I assume it actually would just be a question of granting the player continous access to the potion creation menu which we know is there, or else we wouldn't be able to create potions from recipes in the first place.
The only thing I assume would require putting a few more man hours into would be to rewrite code so that the potion creation menu recognizes that you want to re-create or re-brew the potion and lower the amount of required ingredients accordingly.
Obviously speculative for the most part, but reasonable enough to realize and put into the game, as far as I'm concerned.
The only thing I assume would require putting a few more man hours into would be to rewrite code so that the potion creation menu recognizes that you want to re-create or re-brew the potion and lower the amount of required ingredients accordingly.
Obviously speculative for the most part, but reasonable enough to realize and put into the game, as far as I'm concerned.
Personally I'm not going to make assumptions on how much effort might be required to change certain Gameplay systems (At least this late in development when it's feature locked). We know that initial potion creation is in, but the UI section for creating potions that first time might be extremely cut down since you'll frequent that menu very, very little. Perhaps it might not even be a menu anymore, but just a matter of meditating, selecting the recipe and going "Make" and as long as you have the ingredients you brew that first and last potion.
Obviously we're a little lost in this regard, but I still don't think changing the system would necessarily be "simple" and certainly not for a couple of difficulty modes that the majority of players probably won't ever see. It's a system that needed to begin its revamp ~7 months ago when we first heard about it and complained it was ridiculous.
Developing a system that is a major and integral part of core gameplay (and directly connected to lore), requires a lot of resources and time. Resources and time means money. It's understandable why CDPR would want to make sure their big investment is being properly used by X% of players. CDPR came to the (most probably not baseless) conclusion that in previous games (at least in W2) the amount of players that used this system to its potential was far below X%.
Consider the following: company works on a big RPG with a considerable amount of resources allocated to weapons and combat. Game comes out, majority of players opt to play the game with the default weapon - a wooden stick. Surely, a relatively small group of players do change weapons and experience combat to its fullest -- but this situation is overall bad (perhaps due to bad design, bad implementation, not engaging, not fun etc...). This company will think hard on how to improve/change their next game so that players will actually play the game as meant to be played. Either that, or next game will come out with only 1 weapon, a wooden stick and that's it - considerable amount of money saved for the company, everyone wins.
Right now, as I see it, your "it's about player choice" argument is analogous to the small group of players that use many weapons and demand to keep the current system as is, disregarding the big problem which is that most of the players use a wooden stick throughout the whole game.
The new system does just about all of that.
- You can only equip 2 potions at a time and since you can only swap them out during meditation, only 2 are ever being refilled.
- You get 3 uses per potion, its been suggested that you'll be able to upgrade that somehow.
- I dont think potions will directly react to one another. However, potion and mutagens have a relationship through toxicity levels, so you have to be mindful of combinations you equip and how quickly you consume them.
- They've mentioned that there are special ingredients that are difficult to acquire and you wont find them lying on the side of the road.
The only thing missing is whether they've created a variety of useful potions, so far we've really only seen swallow used.
I still say that this is a very difficult topic. Wether it should be a game mechanic or an 'experience' mechanic. A game mechanic simply means, you drink it and you get a buff. An experience mechanic is mixed in your 'roleplay' as Geralt. Like in the books, you take potions when you know you need them, in prep for a monster battle.
My speculation:
What I'm guessing is that the devs went for the most logical middle ground, which I can 'half' stand behind. Give us a bit more room to experiment, not with simple crafting (that seems to be what people are begging for, I'll get to that later), but give us room to experiment with the potions/bombs themselves.
Hopefully, since monster play a major part once again, this will lead us to actually using potions for different situations. BUT!!!
Don't make it TW2 all over again. A bunch of potions, that I'll never use, especially since most of the negatives severly outbalance the pros. A potion that drains half of your life for the buff or being able to hit harder will most likely only be 'experimented with' once.
Also, make us actually want to restock on stuff. Not just restock for 'experimental' purposes. In other words make them an experience, not a buff to get through a part. Make them a 'potion' that will help you get through an enemy.
I'll be honest. I do want to have to go out my way to restock on the most helpfull potions. But more importantly, I want the potions to be there for a reason.
IMO, TW2 just threw potions at you, most of which you never use. If you throw the same potions at us and tell us to use them now since they're technically unlimited.... You missed the point CDPR
My speculation:
What I'm guessing is that the devs went for the most logical middle ground, which I can 'half' stand behind. Give us a bit more room to experiment, not with simple crafting (that seems to be what people are begging for, I'll get to that later), but give us room to experiment with the potions/bombs themselves.
Hopefully, since monster play a major part once again, this will lead us to actually using potions for different situations. BUT!!!
Don't make it TW2 all over again. A bunch of potions, that I'll never use, especially since most of the negatives severly outbalance the pros. A potion that drains half of your life for the buff or being able to hit harder will most likely only be 'experimented with' once.
Also, make us actually want to restock on stuff. Not just restock for 'experimental' purposes. In other words make them an experience, not a buff to get through a part. Make them a 'potion' that will help you get through an enemy.
I'll be honest. I do want to have to go out my way to restock on the most helpfull potions. But more importantly, I want the potions to be there for a reason.
IMO, TW2 just threw potions at you, most of which you never use. If you throw the same potions at us and tell us to use them now since they're technically unlimited.... You missed the point CDPR