The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

[moonknightgog]

they want to encourage people to use potions all the time. Kinda like herbs were in W2.

That is a great purpose, but the autorefill is the wrong way to achieve it.
If they want to encourage people to use potions...then make potions really useful. Make combat so hard to encourage me to use the alchemy, make the dark truly dark to encourage me to use Cat, etc...

 

[Percival_Dickenbutts]

Coming up with this auto-refilling nonsense when they have already created a brilliant system for TW1 is like a car-manufacturer deciding "hmm, let's go with square wheels this time"

Couldn't they just use the same system as TW1 or at the very least TW2 and just make it so Geralt makes his potions in batches?
For example the same amount of ingredients you used for a single potion in TW1 would now give you 5 or even 10. You would always have an abundance of potions, even if you brewed potions rarely, but you would still have to put in some effort.

 

[moonknightgog]

Coming up with this auto-refilling nonsense when they have already created a brilliant system for TW1 is like a car-manufacturer deciding "hmm, let's go with square wheels this time"

Couldn't they just use the same system as TW1 or at the very least TW2 and just make it so Geralt makes his potions in batches?
For example the same amount of ingredients you used for a single potion in TW1 would now give you 5 or even 10. You would always have an abundance of potions, even if you brewed potions rarely, but you would still have to put in some effort.

But...there was that great concept about the "witcher metabolism", where you drink the potion in meditation and then you can lock the effects and activate them in combat.
That...that would be great.

 

[Lieste]

My 'working analogy' is akin to brewing tea when stopping during a walk... you use a tiny amount of tea from the bag you have (or a tiny amount of coffee from the bag), with water to create a new batch of drink.... You can find different blends of teas/coffees/tisanes that have different properties. Each "new variety" gets it's own 'flask' so that you can carry around a limited supply of all of the various brewed varieties, and can consume them as you want before refreshing them at the next camp (if required).

(Not a perfect analogy as pre-brewed teas can go cold and/or stale, but it seems an acceptable method, for something that 'keeps' in alcohol, and doesn't need to be warm when consumed).

 

[Harald_M]

Did the guy who wrote the hands on report for witchersite.pl get it all wrong then? He explicitly said that auto-refilling was gone for good.

This sucks, seriously.
Couldn't they just make it so that the potions would auto-refill only on lower difficulties like casual or easy?

No thanks, if it stays that way then I'll definitely attempt the potion-free approach for my first playthrough while waiting for mods then.

 

[frynse]

Welp, I guess it's pretty much unanimous.
Let's just hope the mod tools are user friendly enough to allow some change to this system.

 

[Harald_M]

How about this:
Make it optional, with the default out of the box setting for auto-refill set to "Enabled".

Those who prefer to have full control over their potion brewing business can set it to "Disabled".

Problem solved.

 

[frynse]

How about this:
Make it optional, with the default out of the box setting for auto-refill set to "Enabled".

Those who prefer to have full control over their potion brewing business can set it to "Disabled".

Problem solved.

I don't agree with this system, but those kind of options aren't really practical. The whole game has to be balanced accordingly, and besides, if you have to make multiple options available each time people disagree on something, they'll end up spending the rest of their dev time just trying to get it to not be a complete mess.

 

[OptoNick]

Oh, still infinite auto-refilling I've hoped that compromise with a few portions was accepted

 

[thislsmadness]

That is a great purpose, but the autorefill is the wrong way to achieve it.
If they want to encourage people to use potions...then make potions really useful. Make combat so hard to encourage me to use the alchemy, make the dark truly dark to encourage me to use Cat, etc...

Without seeing the "autorefilling" in action or having a few more details on how these alcohols are acquired, I can't agree or disagree. If it turns out the system causes grief by consuming precious alcohol that you needed for other purposes, then its absolutely bad design. If the alcohol is like herbs in Witcher 2 where the supply is so overly generous, then its not a big deal.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

How about this:
Make it optional, with the default out of the box setting for auto-refill set to "Enabled".

Those who prefer to have full control over their potion brewing business can set it to "Disabled".

Problem solved.

It would be and we suggested it WAY before when the topic first came up.
We also had other suggestions (some very good), but no one seemed to have listened...

As for those people saying "if you have never seen it in action don't judge it". It's not that simple. This is a game system, it can be stated with facts and explained. So unless we do understand something completely wrong (and I do not think the system as described by Marcin is all that difficult to understand) we have a clear system in front of us that is 100% understandable without "seeing it in action". And as that it is a system I and some others do not approve of

 

[thislsmadness]

As for those people saying "if you have never seen it in action don't judge it". It's not that simple. This is a game system, it can be stated with facts and explained. So unless we do understand something completely wrong (and I do not think the system as described by Marcin is all that difficult to understand) we have a clear system in front of us that is 100% understandable without "seeing it in action". And as that it is a system I and some others do not approve of

I'm not the thought police, I'm not telling anyone that they can or can't judge it. I said that I can't agree or disagree since I'm not going to condemn a gameplay system without knowing actual details and seeing how it works within the context of the game world. Marcin gave us a general outline of how it works but there is still plenty of things that we dont know.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

I'm not the thought police, I'm not telling anyone that they can or can't judge it. I said that I can't agree or disagree since I'm not going to condemn a gameplay system without knowing actual details and seeing how it works within the context of the game world. Marcin gave us a general outline of how it works but there is still plenty of things that we dont know.

Well we know the details, what more is there to know than how it works? And that Marcin explained to us just now.

 

[thislsmadness]

Well we know the details, what more is there to know than how it works? And that Marcin explained to us just now.

So tell me how are the alcohols acquired? Are they in scarce supply or is it widely available? How does the supply diminish... do I lose "1" alcohol per use or does it only take as much as it needs to refill? Is there just a single base for all potions or are there a variety?

If I'm going determine whether the autorefill is counter productive to a reagent then these are important details I would like to know.

 

[schinderhannes.999]

How about this:
Make it optional, with the default out of the box setting for auto-refill set to "Enabled".

Those who prefer to have full control over their potion brewing business can set it to "Disabled".

Problem solved.

Depends.

If it were the case of allowing the player access to the potion creation menu only for that one time when you prepare the original potion with its X charges and then locking him out of the potion creation menu for the rest of the game because of 'reasons' then I guess something like a tickable option (similar to Diablo III's 'Elective Mode') could be an option indeed.

And to be honest, it wouldn't surprise me if CDPR actually deliberately put in some of these artificial restrictions for what they think is 'for the greater good'. If it's considered 'smart' or 'beneficial' to the player's gaming experience to put little leaf icons (representing herbs/ingredients) on the mini-map one has to wonder if this thought process of more convenience to this and more convenience to that didn't find its way into other mechanics and gameplay systems as well, without even considering that a fairly decent chunk of the audience absolutely despises things like that and would be forever grateful if it wouldn't be told to just 'deal with it'.

 

[Pajkes]

How about this:
Make it optional, with the default out of the box setting for auto-refill set to "Enabled".

Those who prefer to have full control over their potion brewing business can set it to "Disabled".

Problem solved.

Wow much genious so hard to come up with many groundbraking

Exactly mate.It could be solved so simply and yet they don't want.Honestly it seems like they don't care anymore or more like don't give a fuck.Not making stupid games and games from gamers for gamers seem now to be nothing more but BS statements used to get them in position Bethesda was prior to Oblivion's release.

Oblivion = Witcher 3

Skyrim = Cyberpunk 2077

Those are my predictions.They can for gazzilionth time on square have their cake and it eat by implemnting optional mode like hardcore in Fallout:New Vegas.If they happen to give fuck.But it seems they don't.

Don't get me wrong.I loved Oblivion and it seems I will love Witcher 3.....as action adventure games with light rpg elements.Let me not start with Skyrim.It's god damn awful rpg but really great walking simulator/action adventure game with few rpg mechanics.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

Wow much genious so hard to come up with many groundbraking

Exactly mate.It could be solved so simply and yet they don't want.Honestly it seems like they don't care anymore or more like don't give a fuck.Not making stupid games and games from gamers for gamers seem now to be nothing more but BS statements used to get them in position Bethesda was prior to Oblivion's release.

Oblivion = Witcher 3

Skyrim = Cyberpunk 2077

Those are my predictions.They can for gazzilionth time on square have their cake and it eat by implemnting optional mode like hardcore in Fallout:New Vegas.If they happen to give fuck.But it seems they don't.

Don't get me wrong.I loved Oblivion and it seems I will love Witcher 3.....as action adventure games with light rpg elements.Let me not start with Skyrim.It's god damn awful rpg but really great walking simulator/action adventure game with few rpg mechanics.

I don't see it that harsh.
I would never assume they don't care anymore.

But seriously, I have seen similar trends in the past from other companies. It seems that very often a company gets so lost in their desire to fulfill their artisitc vision of a game that they sometimes forget about some things or are too stubborn to change deadborn ideas. Others are so focused on gaining a "wider audience" that they loose the soul of the series/franchise.

I do not think CDPR is either. I think the main problem I see is that despite all the amazing effort that went into all the other things were we already had proof it will be amazing (story, better combat, characters, open world, graphics, side content, interaction, enemies, etc) one of my most loved systems (alchemy at that) will fall a little short.

Not the end of the world, but it is sad for me personally because I had so much fun creating potions and gathering ingredients. HELL, I don't mind if all HERBS can be bought from herbalists, but how is it hard to let the monster loot (nekker heart, necrophage blood, etc) be ingredients for potions? There is basically limitless supply in an open world, even if CDPR would set no plants/herbs to collect into the open world whatsoever there would still be monster loot which you would be picking up along the way naturally, especially with monsters repawning. And we all know that looting monsters is in the game (saw it in the 35 min. demo). Unless they took that out as well (which is a point where we have to start asking outselves how much they took out in the end?), which is obviously not the case as far as we know.

 

[val.mitev]

Here's a snippet from GameInformer about the alchemy:

Regarding the alchemy system, you start with a recipe, find the ingredients, then create a potion. This potion will have four to five uses. But here's the cool thing: once you create the potion, you can obtain more by merely mediating and drinking some alcohol to replenish it. This eliminates you constantly having to track down ingredients, although expect the ingredients not to be as easy to find in the first place. CD Projekt RED has this new system because too many people were afraid to waste the potions they crafted in past games. This encourages players not to be scared about wasting them and to experiment more with the alchemy system.

I'm still not sure how to feel about this, it doesn't sound too bad. I'll just wait and see, no need to get all worked up.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

Regarding the alchemy system, you start with a recipe, find the ingredients, then create a potion. This potion will have four to five uses. But here's the cool thing: once you create the potion, you can obtain more by merely mediating and drinking some alcohol to replenish it. This eliminates you constantly having to track down ingredients, although expect the ingredients not to be as easy to find in the first place. CD Projekt RED has this new system because too many people were afraid to waste the potions they crafted in past games. This encourages players not to be scared about wasting them and to experiment more with the alchemy system.

This is ridiculous.
First, nobody was "scared" to use potions up, you could make as good as every potion anytime you wanted and a lot of them. There were only a bunch of potions that were REALLY useful anyway.

The REAL problem was that potions only lasted 10 minutes and you would only be able to consume them during meditation, that was the reason why not many used them. Also, you actually didn't necessarily need potions, that is also a reason why some didn't use them (you can't avoid that considering you should not punish a player for not taking a specific potion which means the game must be beatable without potions whatsoever, which in turn means the people who do want it difficulty won't take potions, nothing to do about that).

That was the main problem, not that people "were scared to use the potions up". Nonsense.

 

[val.mitev]

Well, now we'll have the mutagens for the permanent boosts only set while meditating. I don't remember how they could be created, but if they require a lot of ingredients, including some really rare ones, that could balance things a bit.

We'll have the general use on the fly potions, that depending on the type could require more or less ingredients to create, and now that we can experiment with the ingredients, it could add more variety there. The use of rare ingredients would also be nice.

I really want to see it in game, because just hording ingredients is not exactly fun. In the W2 I ended up so many ingredients that I sold a lot of them and still had a ton of potions, but still I only had 5 or 6 that I really used.
After a while I stared experimenting with different combinations of potions, but it was just for the sake of trying out something else, I really hope the potions this time around provide more flexibility and have some real effect, even if in combination with some other potions, and not be limited to only a handful of really useful ones.

At this point I can safely say that I can live with the current system. There are still things that we don't know, and who knows, after trying it for our selves it could turn out to be really good.
Now I'm very interested in the skill system.