Alchemy System is a mess...

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At first I did not like the new system but it grows on you. The worst part about it now is the clutter in the inventory screen. Usable Items is just WAY too damn big and needs to have sub-categories. Books/Papers should get its own tab. Food should get its own tab and then Alchemy should get a tab with a way to filter by bombs/decoctions/potions/oils.

What irks me the most is, the whole loot system feels so out of place... in TW1 and TW2 you only found stuff you really needed. I liked that, because it gave the impression that Geralt wasn't just another pack-rat RPG hero that picks up everything just to sell it. In TW3, because of the dodgy alchemy/crafting system, it no longer feels that way, since you don't really need most of the stuff you find.

The alchemy system has lost it's appeal, so to speak... that's starts with the way consumables are handled/used and ends with the missing animations. I mean, watch the "Night to Remember" trailer or the TW1 intro, and you know what I mean. That's what alchemy should be like, and it's a big part of the games' flair.
 
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Alchemy is fine. You need herbs and ingredients to upgrade your potions and bombs.

The only thing that would be nice is drinking animation. like in Witcher 1.
 
You probably have more alchemy ingredients than you know what to do with
True, but they're mostly really common items that don't make very useful potions. I'm glad I only have to find the really rare stuff once.
I didn't even find Arachas Venom in my entire first playthrough.
 
True, but they're mostly really common items that don't make very useful potions. I'm glad I only have to find the really rare stuff once.
I didn't even find Arachas Venom in my entire first playthrough.

There aren't any potions that used "rare" ingridients in the other games, because the other games had a system of chemical elements and each element had many different reagents that included it. You would only need the "rare" stuff for what The Witcher 1 had, which is mutagen decoctions, those gave you ability points in that game.
 
So... now we have a auto-brewing-making-potions-oils-bombs during meditations ? Is what happens ? What about manage ingridients to what I want to make ?

Realy fucking deceiving. I took a time to get used to meditate in Witcher 2 to drink portions, but now we have a robot in inventory. How I hate this....
 
Being able to drink potions in a fight is probably necessary in an open world game. There should be an option whether or not potions regenerate during meditation, though. I'm completely fine with it, but I understand why others aren't.
 
Being able to drink potions in a fight is probably necessary in an open world game. There should be an option whether or not potions regenerate during meditation, though. I'm completely fine with it, but I understand why others aren't.

Oh, I don't really have a problem with drinking potions at any time, just the way it is done kinda feels cheap... if I have to retreat for a moment because the drinking animation would make me helpless would be much more in line with how potions should work.
 
You should be thankful that alchemy is simpler and streamlined now, not because some of us prefer it to be simpler but because it goes very well with the game design. Complex alchemy makes sense in a more linear game like TW2 or you can put a show off complex alchemy component in a game like Dragon Age Inquisition where the significance of alchemy is almost non existent but in a game like TW3 where alchemy is a must do part, a simpler system works better.

Why you say ? lets assume you're level 10 and you encounter a level 15 monster which is proving quite difficult thus you used several swallow potions to replenish your health, bombs, oils etc and finally managed to defeat it but after that what will you do ? you'll go a herb hunt to fill your supply again, not to mention rare stuff will be even more difficult to craft. In a massive open world like this such encounters are pretty common and finding specific ingredients is very difficult so while it sounds cool for like few days of game play, it will become a frustrating mess and you'll feel more like a herbalist rather than a monster slayer. Eventually you either end up buying ingredients from merchants or feel discouraged to use alchemy at all.

I think devs made a great decision in making it simpler for a massive game like this as it encourages to use alchemy rather than making it a chore.
 
potion where fine the way they where in witcher one and two

now it is juste pointless dumbing down of one of the most fun parte of the witcher serie
 
Well, I dunno about you, but many players are picking up everything they come by anyways in a game like that... I never really had to hunt for common ingredients in close to 100 hours of gameplay, and I usually carry around enough stuff to make most of the base potions 10 times over... but maybe that's just me. ;)

...at least I used to loot everything, before I realized there is really no point in doing so.
 
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I think many people who would not like a tw1 like alchemy system returning to the w3 forget that if it would be in place, the potions would last much longer.
In tw1 the potions lasted 10-15min on average if I remember correctly.

In my opinion the alchemy system was the one main thing seperating the gameplay from another similar games and make the witcher unique. It was a minigame and resource management in it self - people who didnt bother let the system choose the ingridients in your inventory and make them automatically , people who wanted more out of it could combine the potion quality by choosing different alchohols and matching secondary attributes like rubedo,nigredo to get additonal buffs to the existing effect of a potion.But they didnt force that upon you, if you didnt like it. Now they are forcing this simple system on all of us.Now its like health regen potions like in any other game.

I started my second death march playthrough now, am level 5 and have 50 dwarven spirits left WITHOUT looting houses where people live....and I use potions almost every fight because I went for a alchemy build..so basically I have to do nothing anymore ;/

And the main reason why it annoys me....it just don`t make any sense.
Like someone said here , Geralt goes homeopathy in replenisihing all the potions,oils and bombs(duh??) with one bottle of alchollolol and "brewing" them without a fire.
Meditating at least an hour during quests when your potions run out in areas teaming with monsters or chased by witch hunters.
Or devs simply deciding " oh here it would make no sense to meditate (or the game design failed ),so lets change it here that people have just to click on the icon for the auto refill"

Well I think the best option would be to have a choice in the options menu since people are divided on this topic.
 
lets assume you're level 10 and you encounter a level 15 monster which is proving quite difficult thus you used several swallow potions to replenish your health, bombs, oils etc and finally managed to defeat it but after that what will you do ? you'll go a herb hunt to fill your supply again, not to mention rare stuff will be even more difficult to craft. In a massive open world like this such encounters are pretty common and finding specific ingredients is very difficult so while it sounds cool for like few days of game play, it will become a frustrating mess and you'll feel more like a herbalist rather than a monster slayer. Eventually you either end up buying ingredients from merchants or feel discouraged to use alchemy at all.

What you describe is EXACTLY what a lot of us want.

If we fight a monster five levels above us, in death march difficulty, and spam potions and bombs to get rid of it, so good job : It worked ! But now go replenish the stock you just used to avoid physical contact.

They could have done an auto-dodge system as well.

Each time a monster attacks you : hop, auto-dodge !
Let's imagine you fight a monster 5 levels above you, would you be ready to dodge every second to avoid its attacks ? Come on, we should be thankful for auto-dodge !

Do you see the irony ?

I understand people may like the alchemy system as it is.
It's normal.
Farming ingredients is not their priority.

But in my case, playing in death march, I consider potions, oilds and bombs as a valuable advantage in fights, and I should have worked to deserve this advantage.
Here, I just have to... meditate.

This is just a question of difficulty.

Death march should force the player to farm ingredients for alchemy.
Or at least, there should be an option to choose between real alchemy and auto-refill.
 
I miss seeing Geralt get into Meditate Mode, chug a potion down, and then get up. Dunno why they took that out... was really, really cool...
 
I miss seeing Geralt get into Meditate Mode, chug a potion down, and then get up. Dunno why they took that out... was really, really cool...

What's worse is that meditating has the same animation of him sitting down as before, but it covers it up with that ugly UI, instead of giving us a stylish overlay and view of him sitting. You can see this with the few environmental elements that trigger meditate, it's a damn crying shame.

You know something, TW3 legitimately feels like a cashgrab tie-in Witcher MMO, less like a Witcher game. Shame for the amazing writing and characters.
 
What's worse is that meditating has the same animation of him sitting down as before, but it covers it up with that ugly UI, instead of giving us a stylish overlay and view of him sitting. You can see this with the few environmental elements that trigger meditate, it's a damn crying shame.

You know something, TW3 legitimately feels like a cashgrab tie-in Witcher MMO, less like a Witcher game. Shame for the amazing writing and characters.

Ok, now that's a bit harsh... it's still a great game, it just feels too "casual" in places.

On the meditation animation: I don't get why they took that out at all... I mean, with this great lighting/weather effects, the time laps would look spectacular!
 
There's a neat way to somewhat emulate the alchemy system you know and love from TW1 or TW2.

You just throw away the potion once it reaches 0 out of 3 uses and voila, you're able to brew a new one using ingredients like the first time. Works the same with bombs and oils, although oils you need to get rid of right after using them on your swords since they are inifinite and don't have X out of X uses for some strange reason.

I've been confused by this and thought it was a bug. I couldn't make any more bombs since it said I had some already but I was actually showing 0/3. I had to discard the item in order to make new ones. Are you saying there is another way that's less intuitive? Because that just seems like a bug to me.
 
Ok, now that's a bit harsh... it's still a great game, it just feels too "casual" in places.

On the meditation animation: I don't get why they took that out at all... I mean, with this great lighting/weather effects, the time laps would look spectacular!

I don't know man, outside of the story and graphics, and the combat engine (encounter design is a mess), the game is pretty poor.
I was expecting a 10/10 experience, mind you, TW1 is a 10/10 for me, this is more like a 7/10.

- No longer get that feel of being a witcher
- Removal of great stylistic elements for no reason
- Most of the armors are sinfully ugly
- Alchemy system all but removed
- Mutagens and trophies are boring as hell

It's a great looking game, with amazing writing and music, but it's really lost that charm and soul it had before.
 
@warbaby2 seeing the time go by right before your eyes, Geralt looking like a baws . Yeah... they actually had this in the early builds, and decided to scrap it.

Why is it always the really awesome shit gets canned? Never understood this.

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The Witcher, while a great game, is far from a 10/10, chrissr.

Seems we have different opinions, quite a shocker, eh? ^_^
 
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