The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

[Senteria]

Wow 60 pages now?

CDPR says: we're proud of this potion system. Community says: Boo!
CDPR says: we're proud of this dismemberment system. Community says: Boo!

Stop making them feel bad.l

But in all seriousness, I'd have to see it before I can judge. I'm somewhere in the middle. I do like TW 1 system. TW 2 is just flawed. I've heard countless times that people disliked having to prepare for something they are not prepared for yet. You don't know what's going to happen and it is really frustrating to go in a battle and load again because you did not take a potion since you did not know there was a fight ahead of you. I still think some effort needs to be done to refill your potions. I don't really mind if it's automatically refilled as long as you either find more ingredients to make or have some other system to refill it. I dunno, a magical greenhouse box where you can put a herb in to multiply itself? This way you will still need to find the plants but you don't need to go endlessly picking up plants which can get tiresome after some time. Then you can have pots refill but growing them in your magic box or bag, could work. As a matter of fact this writer M.L. Forman that wrote the series 'Adventurer's Wanted' wrote about magical bags and the ability to store everything in them and even visiting your magic bag by going inside it. Like an inventory you can visit in. But I am going off topic (Adventurer's Wanted is a fun though cliché series. The books do get better though)

Basically it comes down to this:

- You don't want to be picking up herbs like no tomorrow and then having to take a while making them
- You do want to pick up herbs and make potions because of immersion in the world
- You feel that auto filling is a cheap way and that it kills the immersion. Especially if it does not take resources to refill it
- The devs want to encourage the use of potions


To me the only middle ground is to have your plants grow in number in some way that does not take too much effort but is a slow method of obtaining them. OR you can still do it the old way like in TW 1, but that requires more effort as you need to pick up herbs a lot

Anyway it's late here and I need to sleep. I have not read all the 60 pages so forgive me if something was revealed that I was not aware of.

 

[ferryman10]

Basically it comes down to this:
- You don't want to be picking up herbs like no tomorrow and then having to take a while making them
- You do want to pick up herbs and make potions because of immersion in the world
- You feel that auto filling is a cheap way and that it kills the immersion. Especially if it does not take resources to refill it
- The devs want to encourage the use of potions

I will be mostly quoting my previous post, but most of these problems could be easily resolved.

Extensive hoarding:

• Give penalties to effectiveness of potions for using more than 1 potion
  
  Let me go into more detail with this system. You could still use more potions, but it would rapidly (leveling alchemy would lower the penalties) decrease the effectiveness of all active potions.
  
  

  Example:
  1 potion -> Swallow (10 Vit regen/s - 100% effectiveness)
  2 potions -> Swallow (4 Vit regen/s - 40% effectiveness) + Cat (Vision is unsteady, slightly transitions between normal and elixir vision, same with sound - 40% effectiveness)
  3 potions -> Swallow (2 Vit regen/s - 20% effectiveness) + Cat (Vision is at times reverted to normal, leaving you in the dark) + Poison resistance 10% (originally 50%)
  ​

  
  This would make you really consider whether it is necessary to use multiple potions, decreasing your overall consumption. Also it would be nice to have bigger variety of potions, some of which could cancel special attack of a monster (ie. Sour blood - Vampires won't use biting attack on you).
  This system could also still use toxicity which would show the penalty applying to potions(ie. 80% toxicity = 80% reduced effectivity of all active potions).
  Skilling alchemy would lower said penalties enabling skilled witcher use 2 potions without penalties.
  
  ​
• Make potions last longer -> Potions effective against certain monsters will last enough to clear quest/area + You won't have to re-drink general potions that you use 90% of the time(ie. Vit regen) that often.
• Make basic herbs (based on the W1 - herbs with 1[primary] ingredient) available in small amounts at (confirmed) witcher hideouts.
  
  These herbs could replenish over time or they could be even harvested infinitely through some "farming" minigame. However herbs in wilderness would contain secondary ingredients which could reduce toxicity (penalties for using multiple potions) or provide other bonuses (maybe those special attack cancelers I mentioned).
  
  ​
• Disable auto-filling - you have hideouts, that are basically the same as auto-filling, but don't break the immersion as much. One should also be able to fast-travel there at all times.

All this is certainly possible, only problem I see is that we don't know whether the current implementation is based on discovering the potions in form of a quest (kill special monster, gather flower from special tree and persuade apothecary to give you recipe). If that is the case, they would need to use many resources to create props (herbs, trees) and develop a spawning system for them, not to mention tweak all recipes and thrash all those quests that people worked hard on.

 

[Percival_Dickenbutts]

The poll-results speak for themselves I would say.

 

[Demut]

They most certainly do and scarfless already outlined simple and sensible alternative solutions to any problem that CDPR might have meant to address with these shitty ill-advised changes to the potion system.

 

[Percival_Dickenbutts]

Not a particular fan of the idea that consuming more potions lessens their effect though, but lets not get caught up in discussing suggested features. Point is that there was nothing wrong with the system in TW1. You always had enough items to make the basic versions of potions without having to obsessively gather every single bit of loot. And for the ones like me who liked to go the extra mile, you could collect the more rare herbs that had the additional effects that allowed you to make more powerful potions.

 

[ferryman10]

Not a particular fan of the idea that consuming more potions lessens their effect though, but lets not get caught up in discussing suggested features. Point is that there was nothing wrong with the system in TW1.

I agree that TW1 system was the best one and considering that this time it will be open world, you could always revisit certain location to get the ingredients you need.
To combat the "difficulty" of gathering they could always make herbs give multiple petals/ingredients with the same effect on time spent on alchemy.
My suggestion had more to do with the fact, that you usually use the same potions all over again, so "limiting" you to only one would really make you consider ups and downs and hence make using potions more tactical. It might be just my subjective feeling, but I hated the fact that most potions were useless and you usually didn't have to strategize which one to take.

 

[hardom]

Not a particular fan of the idea that consuming more potions lessens their effect though, but lets not get caught up in discussing suggested features. Point is that there was nothing wrong with the system in TW1. You always had enough items to make the basic versions of potions without having to obsessively gather every single bit of loot. And for the ones like me who liked to go the extra mile, you could collect the more rare herbs that had the additional effects that allowed you to make more powerful potions.

Yeah in 1 was perfect, alcohol as base for potions (also that stronger alcohol -> stronger base, so you could put more ingredients) and side effects for secondary substance in the ingredient
Also you rarely didn't had ingredient, and finding herbs was so easy, that while you do swallow just need to collect that white plant and was so easy
Also with a GIANT world finding ingredients is easier *cough*drowner's brain tw1*cough*

 

[Shelledfade]

yeah I also preferred TW1 system. I seriously hope they consider changing this current system with auto-refilling potions (ew, what happened there?). I mean they make an entire open world to explore and instead of taking trips just to go looking for alchemy ingredients in the world, your potions just auto-refill. I can't think of a lamer potion system than that. Can't even believe its an actual part of this game to be honest.

It was damn near perfect in TW1, tw2 was dumbed down slightly, and they dumbed it down even more for tw3. Don't understand why its going in this direction. I blame console peasants.

 

[Pedrolago]

So I've been reading all the recent posts on this thread and realized many people have a problem with searching for and picking up ingredients and consider it a chore, something that is boring or even frustrating and obviously many REDs agree, so my post is mainly directed at those people, to try to show them that they might be mistaken. So first we have to consider that CDPR is creating one of the biggest and fleshed out worlds in gaming, I agree that searching for plants in previous games hasn't been much fun, but in a world as alive and full of things to do as we are being promised in TW3 it would be a great excuse to go exploring the world, imagine this situation:
You need certain ingredients for a potion so you go to a certain area you know you will find them, after you've arrived you notice a little cave you hadn't seen before so you go down there, inside you find one of the witcher hideouts and schematics for a new outfit, and further in the cave you see a dead body with a book, in the book there's info that leads to a new sidequest, so you leave the cave and on your way back to the fast travel sign post you notice a little settlement you hadn't seen before so you go there and discover something new and so on.

What I mean with all this is that finding ingredients is a damn good exploration encouragement, and if they add the auto fill mechanic they may be throwing away this great way to stimulate exploration.
In TW1 we could brew the same potions with different ingredients and depending on the ingredients we used we would get a stronger or a weaker version of that potion, if they made the low and medium level ingredients availeble in stores and the high and very high level ingredients available in controlled abundance in the wild , we would have very good balance in the system, so to everyone who believes it would be a chore just remember that it can be full of surprises.

 

[Tocsin]

So I've been reading all the recent posts on this thread and realized many people have a problem with searching for and picking up ingredients and consider it a chore, something that is boring or even frustrating and obviously many REDs agree, so my post is mainly directed at those people, to try to show them that they might be mistaken. So first we have to consider that CDPR is creating one of the biggest and fleshed out worlds in gaming, I agree that searching for plants in previous games hasn't been much fun, but in a world as alive and full of things to do as we are being promised in TW3 it would be a great excuse to go exploring the world, imagine this situation:
You need certain ingredients for a potion so you go to a certain area you know you will find them, after you've arrived you notice a little cave you hadn't seen before so you go down there, inside you find one of the witcher hideouts and schematics for a new outfit, and further in the cave you see a dead body with a book, in the book there's info that leads to a new sidequest, so you leave the cave and on your way back to the fast travel sign post you notice a little settlement you hadn't seen before so you go there and discover something new and so on.

What I mean with all this is that finding ingredients is a damn good exploration encouragement, and if they add the auto fill mechanic they may be throwing away this great way to stimulate exploration.
In TW1 we could brew the same potions with different ingredients and depending on the ingredients we used we would get a stronger or a weaker version of that potion, if they made the low and medium level ingredients availeble in stores and the high and very high level ingredients available in controlled abundance in the wild , we would have very good balance in the system, so to everyone who believes it would be a chore just remember that it can be full of surprises.

Except that your example could easily be applied at the auto-refilling system :
Instead of going out to try and gather your n-th flower that will allow you to create your m-th potion, you go out to find an extra-rare (or even unique) ingredient that will allow you to upgrade your potion. You can have a challenging combat there cause the ingredient is only found on a particular monster, or there are lots of monsters cause the ingredient is found in their nest.

So, in the same way as yours, auto-refilling potions can be a damn good exploration encouragement.
But, as in everything when we are talking of gameplay, it is a question of balancing the ideas that can make one interesting and/or challenging.

 

[Pedrolago]

Except that your example could easily be applied at the auto-refilling system :
Instead of going out to try and gather your n-th flower that will allow you to create your m-th potion, you go out to find an extra-rare (or even unique) ingredient that will allow you to upgrade your potion. You can have a challenging combat there cause the ingredient is only found on a particular monster, or there are lots of monsters cause the ingredient is found in their nest.

So, in the same way as yours, auto-refilling potions can be a damn good exploration encouragement.
But, as in everything when we are talking of gameplay, it is a question of balancing the ideas that can make one interesting and/or challenging.

Yes but with the auto filling system you would only have to do it once per upgrade, so it would not encourage revisitation of certain remote areas.

Something that would be really cool as well(and also would make it more convenient) is something like the area indicator on the pokedex, let me explain:

On your journal you have a list of substances (Vitriol, Hydragenum, Rebis, Aether, Quberith and Vermillon) and if you clicked on a substance it would show you all ingredients you discovered that have that substance and its quality, plus it would show the areas of the map where it could be found, so you would either discover ingredient locations by exploring or by purchasing books

 

[nakachoko]

@Synvael & @Yellowcardus
Wait how does this auto-refilling system work exactly?

 

[mico11]

Guys, they're not stupid.

they're not gonna make it so you can win every fight by spamming bombs then rest every second. remember TW2 you couldn't rest anywhere, and they will balance this with strong monster encounters

 

[Sephira]

@Synvael & @Yellowcardus
Wait how does this auto-refilling system work exactly?

You have to go in meditation at a fireplace, and the potions you are you using/you used and the bombs will refill automatically after your rest.

 

[Percival_Dickenbutts]

Doesn't change the fact that giving you an infinite supply of what is supposed to be single-use items goes against everything RPGs stand for.
This is supposed to be the ULTIMATE RPG!! Don't ruin it by ridiculous and unnecessary casualization!

 

[joshmosh]

You have to go in meditation at a fireplace, and the potions you are you using/you used and the bombs will refill automatically after your rest.

I still don't see how that makes sense, and won't mess with the immersion. Will they introduce the inventory fairy who visits Geralt whenever he naps to restock his consumables?

 

[nakachoko]

You have to go in meditation at a fireplace, and the potions you are you using/you used and the bombs will refill automatically after your rest.

So crafting without the need for gunpowder or any other resources? I see why some people wouldn't like that. As long as it's for bombs only and not for potions I'm fine.

What about traps? Will we get some in the game? I really like traps...

 

[Sephira]

I still don't see how that makes sense, and won't mess with the immersion. Will they introduce the inventory fairy who visits Geralt whenever he naps to restock his consumables?

lol

Spoiler

Anyway, I hope they change it a little bit, TW1 system was good, so the TW2 one.

So crafting without the need for gunpowder or any other resources? I see why some people wouldn't like that. As long as it's for bombs only and not for potions I'm fine.

What about traps? Will we get some in the game? I really like traps...

Yeah, even if bombs are refilled it could be good, but I don't like this system with used potion stocks.

Don't know anything about traps, sorry.

 

[ReptilePZ]

So crafting without the need for gunpowder or any other resources? I see why some people wouldn't like that. As long as it's for bombs only and not for potions I'm fine.

What about traps? Will we get some in the game? I really like traps...

It's for all consumables (potions included,) from what I understand. I am actually surprised to see that people realised bombs would be affected too just now.

 

[Foxtrot1994]

lol

Spoiler

Anyway, I hope they change it a little bit, TW1 system was good

Mmm I preferred TW2 system, being forced to drink potion only during meditation.and not in the midst of combat. That adds tactics.