My advice to you is look carefully at each potion you can make and their effects.Then before you set out into the field to explore just pop a few.For instance in W1 I used swallow and wolf.An those where only for big fights and bosses.I think it will be the same here.I'm sure you'll get some kinda warning before big fights but just for random exploring just a few up. You shouldn't need potions to win every fight,at least not on normal.
Tommy said:
Tommy is correct. The Witcher's amulet is most likely the scouting ability you are looking for. I believe you already know the use of this amulet.I understand what the devs are trying to do here and it is fine with me. Traditional games will allow the player to use magic or drink potions to recover health, even the odds, prolong the battle or sometimes take the advantage which is very logical. I commend the devs here for being different, i compare this kind of game mechanics to an exam. We know the general subject but don't know the specific questions so we need to read/study a lot. Here comes the exam, and we found out now that we missed an important topic, what happens? of course we can't turn back time and this not necessarily mean game over. We would have to rely on our stocked knowledge and our guessing abilities which if we are able to get right or beat feels more rewarding.In game, we already know that we will encounter random fights (random fights are staple elements in RPG, this is not a shooter/action game which will bring out a menu whenever a combat will happen), we have a general idea of what might happen in every corner so you have to be ready (read books, investigate, look at your amulet, drink potions-potions are not expensive in the Wither 1 and there was no law that stops Geralt from drinking potions in or out of battle). Sometimes we are caught off guard, but that doesn't mean the end, now we can use Signs/Bombs etc just as Slimgrim posted. We just have to rely on our gaming abilities then which for me is pretty exciting.i think it is important to note that we are role playing a witcher here and witchers are very knowledgeable in combat. If the devs wanted this kind of game play for us to experience personally, i think we the players should be the one adjusting (except of bugs).That is my take on this stuff. Thanks!Tommy said:
I'm fine with drinking potion before battle, but why do I have to meditate to do that? I know, meditation is now available anytime, but does it make any sense? Why can't I just drink while walking (standing)? (and when I'm spotted by foes and the battle begins, the opportunity of drinking disappears pro tem)
I don't want to sound like a troll or anything, but I've just read this thread and I see alot of people saying that "I guess we'll be relying on reloads." WELL, why would they make your progress in the game based on dying then reload and THEN being able to kill monsters with your newly gained knowledge when the highest difficulty is, you die, you're dead, period. Now yes you have to complete the game on hard first and yes i suppose you would have a decent amount of memory to know whats coming up. But they have said that quests have multiple ways of completion, therefore different encounters and also spawn points aren't always going to be the same.In my experience from TW1 i always roamed about with Swallow and Tawny Owl on, just incase, and even on my 2nd play-through it was just habit.
The witcher amulet makes perfect sense to me on what to expect and this could probably hint what type of monsters/human that is lurking ahead. Otherwise some sort of scouting skill Geralt may have would be great. I will wait for further information and hope the developers have already consider the advantages and disadvantages of potion drinking before battle in all angles when they implement this feature.Cheers.
You can sneak and scout. Or use a potion to see enemies that are far. Taking a more cautious approach seems like the best solution. You can meditate anywhere, so you just have to be outside combat. In real life when you drink something it takes some time to process it. So it is rather unrealistic when you drink a potion and the effect is immediate.
I like the scouting idea. It would be cool if reading the environment gave us clues as to what lie ahead, ie: certain types of plants associated with the nests of certain monsters, tracks, animal carcasses, maybe one type of monster is prey to another, etc.
Three problems I have with this feature:1) It seems that the toxicity is done so that you can use 3 potions at once. If 3 potions have zero negative effects, what is the incentive to use less than 3? In TW1 I've always played to the last hit point, doing every encounter with the lowest help from potions. I retreated when I had to. But going in a fight with full toxicity, that seems way too risky.2) With this type of system we will likely see either long duration of potions, or meditation overuse. This also means that potions will probably have lower intensity, lower effects. So I can forget about my favourite TW1 potion, Blizzard :/. Also we probably won't see the additional substances (small regeneration, lesser toxicity, higher damage).3) Simply not allowing drinking while in combat isn't a good choice. A good way to implement potions is to making potions used while meditating last longer/have lower toxicity/have stronger effect. In other words, the penalty for drinking in combat would be lower duration/higher toxicity/lower effect. Moreover, you can scale this system via game difficulty, allowing zero penalty drinking for the lowest and highest penalty/no combat drinking for the highest difficulty.TLDR: 1) Toxicity should vary (not the same for every potion, use of additional substances). 2) Potions will have to have longer effect (which means a loss of intensive and short potions) or there will be meditation overuse.3) Leave combat drinking in but penalise it (duration, effect strength, toxicity) and scale it via game difficulty.
Well, I had meditation overuse just now, because I set my timer to 10 hours instead of 10 minutes and wondered why it never beeped. Didn't hurt, though. 
Sorry, couldn't resist, that just fit perfectly. I wanted to say I like your ideas about potion use. But I guess that will be things to be modded later on (if possible), if the default system really turnes out to be flawed. Which remains to be seen.
Sorry, couldn't resist, that just fit perfectly. I wanted to say I like your ideas about potion use. But I guess that will be things to be modded later on (if possible), if the default system really turnes out to be flawed. Which remains to be seen.Butthere's a trick to avoid this (in TW1): drink long lasting potions before the battle than meditate fro an hour. In this case, toxicity lows to zero, but you still have the effects, and you are able to drink blizzard, swallow or anything short lasting (with no bad consequences on your health).tional substances (small regeneration, lesser toxicity, higher damage).Zax19 said:
True, but I expect this thing is "balanced" in a certain way in TW2.
I had no problem with toxicity in TW1. It was fun, no need to use such tricks (which I'd rather call bugs).About balance, various values of the same thing depending on the circumstances take time to tweak, so I accept DelightfulMcCoy's idea about detailed alchemy from modders.The issue I have with TW2 alchemy in general is that Mr. Gop mentioned that due to toxicity you'll be able to use 3 potions at once. Is that number definite? Can I mix a bit of albedo in and make it 4? Can I use cat with some rubedo when swallow would be unnecessary? This is partially what I'm referring to. I'd hate to see in combat decisions concerning potions disappear while using 3 potions "just in case", with little customisation of the potions.In this video at 1:35http://www.gametrailers.com/video/exclusive-combat-the-witcher/713171?type=flvThere are some icons, 9 of them, which might suggest 6 basic + 3 additional substances, but "Fulgur" was none of them in TW1. I hope we will see detailed alchemy as in TW1. Personally I like doing things exactly and I wouldn't like to end up using more potions than necessary (just in case), making the fights easier. Also it's very hard to fight at lower level of vitality when you are regenerating from the beginning (in TW1 I really liked the damage bonuses under X% of vitality).It's their decision to make, I just hope we won't be drinking/reloading unnecessarily, I hope there will be more to alchemy than just "drink your 3 potions and go".
Well there are some potions that are always useful. Like health regen, stamina regen an so on. I would always chug those before going into a new area. If overwhelmed I would run away. An then make the potions I needed to deal with what I had found.Yes in some boss fights you may have to reload an try different tactics. But that's almost always the case in any RPG worth a damn. If it really bothers you then just play on Normal an if its like the first Witcher it wont even be hard enough to require potions.
And that's what I don't like. If I'm toxicated all the time it will probably mean less risk, but in action games risky fights is what makes it entertaining for me. I'm afraid that a fight would be too hard without potions while too easy with potions. In TW1 I used to delay the use of swallow until the very last moment, always trying to run a dungeon without any potions and in fact making it more challenging for me, but always having the option to pop some Blizzard and have fun with the game.I like that the decision making is now split between meditation and the actual fight, I just hope alchemy will be detailed and allow for decision making other than "do I want to use 1, 2 or 3 potions", so that I can play a bit risky.EDIT: Short duration potions could actually work very well and very realistically - during meditation you'd drink and after a short period of time (1-3 minutes) the potion would start working, very much like in the books.GoranSRB said: