The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

[moonknightgog]

I think it is there to allow players to use more potions/bombs and not just stockpile them and wait for the perfect opportunity to use them.
As they explained some people were reluctant to use them, because they though they might need it later on, thus always waiting for the right moment and in the end not using them.

I understand where they are coming from, but is this the right way to go about it? Well, less then a month left to find out.

Yeah, but I don't think this is the right way to solve that problem. It should be the enemy encounter itself to prevent to stocking of potions and bomb.
If mobs are strong enough, I have to use potions anyway to win. Like in TW1.
If not, if I can win a fight without using potions, then I will not use them, even if there is no danger in consume them.

 

[val.mitev]

Yeah, but I don't think this is the right way to solve that problem. It should be the enemy encounter itself to prevent to stocking of potions and bomb.
If mobs are strong enough, I have to use potions anyway to win. Like in TW1.
If not, if I can win a fight without using potions, then I will not use them, even if there is no danger in consume them.

You are correct, but the various pros and cons for auto refill vs no refill were debated to death many times and I can see it working in various ways and after all it depends on how this system fits with the other systems. Is the final result larger than the sum of it parts?

Personally, I've given up on trying to figure this out for now, I'm just waiting for the game to see for myself if they made the right call.

 

[Vigilance.492]

Personally, I've given up on trying to figure this out for now, I'm just waiting for the game to see for myself if they made the right call.

Preeetty much. It was probably back in like January, when we had confirmation from all the hands-on folk that auto-refill still very much existed, that I reached this consensus. Stopped trying to dissect and understand, and just play out the waiting game, see how it works in full effect, with the context of everything to put it in perspective.

I still don't like it in theory, but who knows.

 

[azrael.1289]

Yeah, but I don't think this is the right way to solve that problem. It should be the enemy encounter itself to prevent to stocking of potions and bomb.
If mobs are strong enough, I have to use potions anyway to win. Like in TW1.
If not, if I can win a fight without using potions, then I will not use them, even if there is no danger in consume them.

But when all is said and done, what really is the difference? Whether or not you have the needed herbs in your inventory. That's it.
In a open world game like this and what we saw of the abundant availability of herbs in the videos shown, all it would take to have herbs in your inventory is to spend time to do the tedious job of farming them. Now, the person who takes time to pick up herbs is gonna find it rewarding as they get to have better potions and those who find it tedious still get to use the base potion without the hassle.
So, I think this solution is pretty good.

 

[Scryar]

The lack of a drinking animation is disturbing

 

[moonknightgog]

But when all is said and done, what really is the difference? Whether or not you have the needed herbs in your inventory. That's it.
In a open world game like this and what we saw of the abundant availability of herbs in the videos shown, all it would take to have herbs in your inventory is to spend time to do the tedious job of farming them. Now, the person who takes time to pick up herbs is gonna find it rewarding as they get to have better potions and those who find it tedious still get to use the base potion without the hassle.
So, I think this solution is pretty good.

Because you have herbs which show up basically everywhere. It's simply a waste of resources. What's the point in collecting herbs if, when I've unlocked all potions and their enhancements, I cannot use them anymore?
And...picking up herbs...there never was this problem in The Witcher. Looting in The Witcher 2 was very generous, so you didn't have the necessity to farm ingredients.
But...maybe that is needed now...because ingredients are now more rare, so I can't imagine how tedious it will be to find the only herb left to create your potion.

---------- Updated at 05:02 PM ----------

The lack of a drinking animation is disturbing

Yes, it is.

 

[azrael.1289]

Because you have herbs which show up basically everywhere. It's simply a waste of resources. What's the point in collecting herbs if, when I've unlocked all potions and their enhancements, I cannot use them anymore?

But, we don't know the economy of cost vs availability here. Maybe it'll take 50 herbs to upgrade the potion once and 100 the second time. So, it won't exactly be a case were you have a ton of herbs with nothing to do. I expect it to be expensive in terms of herbs needed to create the potions the first time and much more expensive to upgrade them.

 

[moonknightgog]

But, we don't know the economy of cost vs availability here. Maybe it'll take 50 herbs to upgrade the potion once and 100 the second time. So, it won't exactly be a case were you have a ton of herbs with nothing to do. I expect it to be expensive in terms of herbs needed to create the potions the first time and much more expensive to upgrade them.

So...this is actually what I mean for "Farming".
If you need a ton of herbs, you have to farm even more than the "collecting few herbs every time for make your potions".
There would be no difference, just you have to collect once what you would collect in a full playthrough. And this would be even worse.

 

[azrael.1289]

So...this is actually what I mean for "Farming".
If you need a ton of herbs, you have to farm even more than the "collecting few herbs every time for make your potions".
There would be no difference, just you have to collect once what you would collect in a full playthrough. And this would be even worse.

The difference would be the base potion would be relatively easy to make and once you make it, you can use it as many times as you like without having to farm. For people who do like to farm, potion upgrade is the reward.
This way everyone atleast gets to use potions throughout the game and people who take time to collect lots of herbs gets to use better potions.
I mean it's all about balancing the cost of potions to the cost of upgrade which I trust CDPR to do.

 

[Geralt_of_bsas]

just read the thread all over again, it has way more discussion, ideas and arguments that you could ever need, either for one side, for the other, and for more alternatives.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

Preeetty much. It was probably back in like January, when we had confirmation from all the hands-on folk that auto-refill still very much existed, that I reached this consensus. Stopped trying to dissect and understand, and just play out the waiting game, see how it works in full effect, with the context of everything to put it in perspective.

I still don't like it in theory, but who knows.

In case we do not like it in praxis as well I'M volunteering on helping with a mod. I can't take the lead obviously, not that experienced with mods or the Witcher Red Kid for that matter but if someone does a mod and needs help once the game is out - only in case the system is really as bad in praxis as it sounds in theory to me - I'm in.

---------- Updated at 01:39 AM ----------

But, we don't know the economy of cost vs availability here. Maybe it'll take 50 herbs to upgrade the potion once and 100 the second time. So, it won't exactly be a case were you have a ton of herbs with nothing to do. I expect it to be expensive in terms of herbs needed to create the potions the first time and much more expensive to upgrade them.

So...this is actually what I mean for "Farming".
If you need a ton of herbs, you have to farm even more than the "collecting few herbs every time for make your potions".
There would be no difference, just you have to collect once what you would collect in a full playthrough. And this would be even worse.

To be honest, would I have to collect so many herbs for one potion or upgrade I would just ignore alchemy altogether.

Also, noticed anything in the previews and first impressions so far? Almost no one has left as much as a word about alchemy. Not a good sign I say, it seems to be rather insignificant and very passive for everyone, otherwise people would at least have said a few sentences about it. But most didn't, and those who did explained it in one sentence and moved on without any indication of admiration for the system.

 

[azrael.1289]

To be honest, would I have to collect so many herbs for one potion or upgrade I would just ignore alchemy altogether.

Also, noticed anything in the previews and first impressions so far? Almost no one has left as much as a word about alchemy. Not a good sign I say, it seems to be rather insignificant and very passive for everyone, otherwise people would at least have said a few sentences about it. But most didn't, and those who did explained it in one sentence and moved on without any indication of admiration for the system.

How is this a bad system for people who don't want to collect herbs?

It's funny because there are people complaining that they would have no use for herbs they collect and people complaining they would be forced to collect too many herbs while ideally CDPR would have balanced it so that you would end up collecting about the same number of herbs if you were to spend it on making each potion throughout the game or to upgrade potions.

The only difference now would be for people who don't spend time to collect herbs throughout the game, they still get to use the base potion. So, this will encourage more people to use alchemy not less. Not to mention, there would be no need to stockpile herbs and potions without using them, and saving them for tougher situations that never came instead of using them to get out of the tough spots they were in.

And previews don't mention about so many systems in the game like crafting, leveling system, main story etc. mainly because they would have rushed though the game in the limited amount of time allotted to them.

 

[moonknightgog]

In case we do not like it in praxis as well I'M volunteering on helping with a mod. I can't take the lead obviously, not that experienced with mods or the Witcher Red Kid for that matter but if someone does a mod and needs help once the game is out - only in case the system is really as bad in praxis as it sounds in theory to me - I'm in.

---------- Updated at 01:39 AM ----------



To be honest, would I have to collect so many herbs for one potion or upgrade I would just ignore alchemy altogether.

Also, noticed anything in the previews and first impressions so far? Almost no one has left as much as a word about alchemy. Not a good sign I say, it seems to be rather insignificant and very passive for everyone, otherwise people would at least have said a few sentences about it. But most didn't, and those who did explained it in one sentence and moved on without any indication of admiration for the system.

Yes.
Not a single word in regards of alchemy system from previews.
And yes, it's not good. It seems that it is insignificant, as you said. And when someone is indifferent to a gameplay element, it's not a good sign.
But am I wrong or you can drink only two potions?

 

[thislsmadness]

You are concerned about alchemy because people who are playing on easy/normal aren't gushing over its use during the tutorial stages of the game? :huh:

 

[moonknightgog]

You are concerned about alchemy because people who are playing on easy/normal aren't gushing over its use during the tutorial stages of the game? :huh:

Not..only this.
It's a set of things.

 

[guilhermecn]

Yes.
Not a single word in regards of alchemy system from previews.
And yes, it's not good. It seems that it is insignificant, as you said. And when someone is indifferent to a gameplay element, it's not a good sign.
But am I wrong or you can drink only two potions?

maybe we will hear good (or bad) stuff after 27 april from the youtubers

 

[moonknightgog]

maybe we will hear good (or bad) stuff after 27 april from the youtubers

I hope so.
Even devs...they have talked about...pratically everything in detail except for Alchemy system.
And...this is strange even because...The Witcher is probably the only game where alchemy is somehow important.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

And previews don't mention about so many systems in the game like crafting, leveling system, main story etc. mainly because they would have rushed though the game in the limited amount of time allotted to them.

Fair enough, I give you that one. That is probably correct.

All I wanted to say is, they wanted to make alchemy more interesting and easy to use, and I do doubt they succeed, at least with the system the way it has been described to me so far.

On the other hand, you are right, people only had a limited time to play the game, they probably focused on story and direct combat, which is of course swordsmanship, signs, dialogue, quest-design, etc.

It's funny because there are people complaining that they would have no use for herbs they collect and people complaining they would be forced to collect too many herbs while ideally CDPR would have balanced it so that you would end up collecting about the same number of herbs if you were to spend it on making each potion throughout the game or to upgrade potions.

Yeah I'M both.

On the one hand I can't stand not being able to collect herbs and actually have to use them on potions because potions refilling without ingredients is bulls**t IMO, especially if you have herbs lying around everywhere, it's also immersion breaking and kicks me out of my roleplay experience.

On the other hand, if they would - AND I SAID IF, because I doubt they did it that way, although on the other hand it is the only sane explanation for so many herbs being around on the map in the gamplay videos - if they would make me collect 50 - 100s of herbs just to get the next upgrade I would be pretty annoyed and would probably not bother to try it.

Yes, ideally it's balanced. Still, the fact remains that a lot of herbs are ALL around the place but your potions auto-refill. Meaning we either have 500 different recipes for potions and bombs which all use some common herbs as part of their formula or we have to collect a LOT of the same herb for 1 potion or potion upgrade or we have a bunch of useless herbs everywhere on the map, because with auto-refill you only have to collect them ONCE. The last possibility is that you have to ALWAYS collect herbs in order to produce the more ADVANCED version of the potion, meaning whenever you want "superior swallow" or another "advanced" potion you need to actually collect the ingredients. Which I would find absolutely cool and surprising, but that is about the only way they can save this system for me personally.

I hope so.
Even devs...they have talked about...pratically everything in detail except for Alchemy system.
And...this is strange even because...The Witcher is probably the only game where alchemy is somehow important.

This.
I can't say I loved the alchemy of TW2, but I certainly loved the alchemy in TW1 and it was a pretty easy-to-learn but complex-to-master system that did keep my interest throughout the game and that was actually pretty important in the overall game if you wanted a slight advantage against certain enemies or against a gameplay weakness of yours. It also had variety, which can clearly be seen in the way different players often used different potion and different secondary-base combinations throughout their game.

 

[moonknightgog]

The last possibility is that you have to ALWAYS collect herbs in order to produce the more ADVANCED version of the potion, meaning whenever you want "superior swallow" or another "advanced" potion you need to actually collect the ingredients. Which I would find absolutely cool and surprising, but that is about the only way they can save this system for me personally.

But still...the enhancements are not unlimited.
When you have created all the superior potions, you have a lot of herbs around which are pratically useless.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

But still...the enhancements are not unlimited.
When you have created all the superior potions, you have a lot of herbs around which are pratically useless.

No what I mean is that they actually require you to have all the ingredients EACH TIME you want to refill your SUPERIOR potions, instead of only needing it the first time. That would be a way to make the system more complex, giving beginners BASE potions so they never need to farm for any potions after the first time and can easily use them, always having them ready, and to say "hey for you who are more into alchemy, here are 2 or 3 different upgrades for each potion, you need a formula for an upgrade obviously, or you can experiment. Now for each upgrade a new (more rare) ingredient is needed, but you need to collect this ingredients (and all others) EVERY time that you want to make such an advanced potion, it doesn't refill". That would be a good idea I think, and a way to make it still required to collect ingredients, IF you want the best potions.

Look, the base problem here is:

1. I don't like auto-refilling potions, it basically makes them a "buff" skill (like in an MMO) that you can use any time and have a number of uses until you need to "recharge".

2. I don't like not having to collect at least SOME ingredients, even if it's just 1/6 of what you originally had to collect. It's not the quantity of collected herbs, it's the actual procedure of collecting them and brewing the potions that makes for a kind of strangely satisfying roleplay experience for me

3. To have SO MANY herbs around is just a waste of development and memory resources if you can't use them. And if you only have to collect once and then don't need ingredients anymore you basically don't need them. Sure, upgrades, but even those are done after some time.

The point is, I can simply not imagine why in the WORLD CDPR would create SO MANY herbs all around the place if you only had to use them ONCE for each potion. So either they plan on letting you collect hundreds of herbs of one type for each potion or upgrade, or they are wasting resources.
OR - and that is the clever thought-process (again, maybe I'm thinking top complicated but.... - they have a system where the BASE potions always refill, but for any UPGRADED/SUPERIOR version of the potions you'll need to collect all ingredients. That would also make sense in terms of the the immersion/lore-explanation of "stretching the potion". You can't make a superior potion by stretching it with alcohol, you might be able to make a base one though and keep it's effect for some time. That makes sense in a way, at least on the surface, if you don't go deeper and overlook the effects time would have on the potion stretching process. Which is okay by me. It would also have the advantage of satisfying both beginners and alchemy-lovers.