I have a feeling this will be a giant waste of time as people's mind is pretty much set up on W1 yay! W2 nay! but here goes...
First and foremost, what purpose did alcohol have in The Witcher 1? Well what alcohol really did in the game was just limiting your possibilities to make the best potions and provide some fairly annoying mini games (or in other words, getting people drunk for information was a good idea, but the implementation was extremely poor), however as you could then transform normal alcohol into White Gull effectively, you simply were defeating the purpose or this step, only to make extra steps forcing the player to waste additional ingredients and time to refine the potion base as well as looting to find more alcohol and bear fat etc. This was not a convenient or a good mechanic in a game as it held no purpose what so ever to increase the quality with valuable gameplay (just a tedious grind).
Now you may say it add realism and quite so, however realism is not always a good thing when we are talking about a video game (which should be self explanatory by now with the number of games that have been doing worse than it's predecessor due to it's implementation of realism). Also this extra step to gather even more products to make potions will make alchemy less enjoyable for many people that will result in less people using alchemy, which already is a bad sign as very few of the "normal" players actually use alchemy to begin with. There's a reason why people talk about Sign and Sword builds in Witcher 2 and not alchemy ones... We want to promote Alchemy, not add more steps that drives people to just ignore it all together.
More-so while it was a nice feature to have alcohol (and other base products) all over the world it became a nuisance as random alcohols you've found you still only had a couple of, which filled up your inventory causing you to run around with a lot of crap in your inventory. Seeing as I hope Witcher 3 also cut back on the excessive looting in peoples houses as it's bad game design, (Geralt is not a bandit or a thief that run around in people's houses stealing their belonging.) a lot of the random alcohols serves little purpose as it would be less frequent to obtain. In terms of immersion, we don't really need items (like Kaedwenian Stout) to add immersion, this is something that can be given through the world itself, characters etc. and not through thousands different types of alcohols that all serves the same purpose in the long run.
What made alchemy better in The Witcher was the implementation of the additional substances as well as the option to experiment with ingredients to find out new recipes. Though of these two only the additional substances was a nice implementation as the experimentation defeated the purpose of formulas as you could just simply google the formula online and then create everything in a matter of seconds. Now why additional substances was a good feature where the others were not is simply because this was a feature that wasn't mandatory. You could do it if you wanted to and if you ignored it, it still wouldn't deteriorate the possibility of potion crafting. This was good for both new players and those who want to experiment, adding complexity to the alchemy in Withcer 1. This is what we want, a complex system that you can explore by your own volition to promote those who have the time to experiment with small benefits and such while on the same time avoid turning the game into a grind fest that only promotes the patient player and not the new one.
Long story short W1 had a more complex system, however most of these mechanics in the system wasn't necessary good or provided with another purposes for the game. If they want to make alchemy better in W3 they should add complexity that also serves other purposes than simply just prolonging the result, causing people to grind and loot more shit everywhere. Gameplay should focus on implementation that are enjoyable for players and not only as a method to add more crap to fill players time.
mariobros777 said:
I felt Witcher 2's alchemy system was severely lacking and incomplete, compared to 1's. And i didn't really like the fact that some potions had negative side-effects, effectively forcing you to pick set combinations and limit your choices severely, especially since you could only drink 3-4 of those at best.
This is a contradiction, the negative effects added complexity to the game and added value to weaker potions as well (as you just don't chug down the strongest ones every time). You could also with the help of talent points eliminate many of the negative effects. In reality the negative effects would force you to be more situational in terms of which potion to use when and where, and this added strategy as well as promoted people to invest talent points in the Alchemy Tree.
mariobros777 said:
@Juuuhan, without being a miserable alcoholic, Geralt love drink with friends and awake the next day with no memories of what they done.
Realistic is not about putting events and a actions fitting in ours modus vivendi but try to keep the essence of Geralt's life and his environament. It's not a matter of making the game better or not, is just to find Spakowski's Geralt as closer as CDPR want. I mean, it's not a trouble don't see Geralt drunk and wobbly, but it isn't a hare-brained idea neither.
Again with people who doesn't read or understand my blood point? Seriously you guys...
Geralt's alcohol usage has nothing to do with this topic and absolutely nothing to do with my reply. I addressed alchemy, alcohol and the usage of alcohol in alchemy as that's what OP is discussing and not whether Witcher 3 should have a "let's get drunk" mini game.
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