The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

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The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

  • Yes

    Votes: 250 24.3%
  • No

    Votes: 270 26.2%
  • I need to see it in action to be sure

    Votes: 294 28.6%
  • I prefer the system of TW1

    Votes: 363 35.3%
  • I prefer the system of TW2

    Votes: 104 10.1%

  • Total voters
    1,029
Damn, I love exploring the environments and collecting herbs, even mapping out were the good ones are to pick up more later. That is part of being a Witcher and the new system seems more like Far Cry or Assassins Creed in which you gather parts to upgrade. That combined with the whole recommended potions thing has me a bit miffed.

What recommended potions system? As I wrote in my summary of Polygamia's interview, you can unlock the mosnter information only by doing research/investigation. So it's not like the Monster Hunting screen will show you recommended potions automatically. If you don't manage to gather any clues along the way - by reading books for example, just like you did in TW2 when reading books about certain monster type - you won't get the hints about potions. That's the way I see it.

And you will still need to gather herbs, to prepare potions for the first time and to upgrade them further. It just seems it will have more meaning to it apart from just grinding.
 
Im actually quite confused right now... :p
Id had to see the system in action to properly have an opinion about it.
I guess I could be content if you had to brew the potions before (during meditation, with no enemies in sight) and then gulp down evrything you got during battle, more or less like you could in Withcer1...

And having 20 minutes duration potions wouldn hurt... in fact it makes sense in a world sooo huge where everything is so scattered.
 
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But potion management was one of the tactical dimensions of combat. Choosing which to carry, which to make and therefore which to invest time in harvesting ingredients for. This is pretty much done with ad in exchange of exactly what?
Damn, I love exploring the environments and collecting herbs, even mapping out were the good ones are to pick up more later.
I'm not sure guys. We either had very different experiences, or you're romanticizing it a bit. In all my playthroughs I never had a shortage of herbs, because I just collected everything I stumbled across. I was never in a situation of "I need X, now where to find it?". Be it from monster parts, mutagens or just plants, I always had all the ingredients for whatever need (unless it was quest-specific).

This describes my playthroughts more accurately:

In exchange of for example harvesting every ingredient you can find "just in case" you use it to create a potion or a bomb and actually never using half of them while they still add to the weight limit etc. I definitely love the general idea of ingrendients & potions in The Witcher games, but grinding - not so much.

I'm not sure how the system will work, but I can say that any attempt to minimize hoarding is very welcome. Again, maybe this is just me, but when playing RPGs I have this irrational and very unjustified need to loot everything. It's what makes me enter every house; just in case there's a cabinet there with something to pick. It's what makes me collect every herb, too. I know I don't need to, but it's that "just in case" thought nagging me in the back of my mind.

I'm of the belief that looting should be reduced to a minimum, with that minimum being significant. So you won't be able to pick up 38 generic Nilfgaardian swords from all the Black Ones you kill, but when you do finally find a sword to loot, it's a pretty awesome one. I think it applies to herbs as well - instead of looting them in the hundreds and finding one every 10 meters, they'll remain special. Theoretically.
 
@gregski, correction on the recommend potion system but on the potion thing I am not sold (yet). Gathering ingredients to have enough potions for an upcoming fight was crucial, especially on the harder difficulties. It sounds like once you have unlocked a potion now it basically functions like an estus flask in that it recharges at a bonfire/meditation spot. There is still tactic in when to use your potion but the tactic of keeping stock of substances to build up your array of potions seems weakened by a lot now. The only thing that could remedie that somewhat is meaningful upgrades making further collecting very worthwhile.

I can see the advantage in less grinding/harvesting but at the same time it seems like some of the depth and tactics has disappeared. I will reserve judgement until more details emerge but a bit miffed.
 
And you will still need to gather herbs, to prepare potions for the first time and to upgrade them further. It just seems it will have more meaning to it apart from just grinding.

but what's the point at that point? if you are gonna have unlimited amount of every single potion, you might as well start with them.
there might be one or two stronger potions that you won't be able to unlock straight away, but they can't be too strong either, because once you have one of them, you have a thousand. so they can't really balance potion rarity. then why even lock them away in the beginning? this potion-unlocking minigame sounds a bit wonky to me...
 
Limited but cool loot would be a great help too. Im a fucking disgrace of a hoarder, I must confess. Many long distances walks totally cumbered, in search of a fucking merchant to drop loot on him. :p
 

Jupiter_on_Mars

Guest
The more reason to have a pretty Spartan inventory system, realistically weight and volume constricted. This on its own would dissuade hoarders. This system seems to create a bigger problem than what it aims to solve, if we can call that which it's addressing a real problem. But perhaps devs will care to chime in and elaborate.
 
@gregski, correction on the recommend potion system but on the potion thing I am not sold (yet). Gathering ingredients to have enough potions for an upcoming fight was crucial, especially on the harder difficulties. It sounds like once you have unlocked a potion now it basically functions like an estus flask in that it recharges at a bonfire/meditation spot. There is still tactic in when to use your potion but the tactic of keeping stock of substances to build up your array of potions seems weakened by a lot now. The only thing that could remedie that somewhat is meaningful upgrades making further collecting very worthwhile.

I can see the advantage in less grinding/harvesting but at the same time it seems like some of the depth and tactics has disappeared. I will reserve judgement until more details emerge but a bit miffed.

The tactical thing about potions is to have prepared the right kind of potion for the fight/monster you're about to encounter, not to have enough stock of them as you don't really use more than one potion of the same kind at a time. So the tactical part still stays.

but what's the point at that point? if you are gonna have unlimited amount of every single potion, you might as well start with them.
there might be one or two stronger potions that you won't be able to unlock straight away, but they can't be too strong either, because once you have one of them, you have a thousand. so they can't really balance potion rarity. then why even lock them away in the beginning? this potion-unlocking minigame sounds a bit wonky to me...

Umm, I don't get this argument. You will still need to put effort in finding ingredients if you want a certain potion, especially a more powerful one. But if you don't put that effort in - no, you don't get unlimited amount of this particular potion. You get 0.
 
I do see the advantage of that, Skyrim forced you to come back to cities hundreds of times to sell and unload your stuff. The change in ingredients lessens that which make for a more fluid experience and less boring moments. It does feel like a bit of the weight of potions disappears though when they work as an estus flask, upgrading them aside.
 
I do see the advantage of that, Skyrim forced you to come back to cities hundreds of times to sell and unload your stuff. The change in ingredients lessens that which make for a more fluid experience and less boring moments. It does feel like a bit of the weight of potions disappears though when they work as an estus flask, upgrading them aside.

Keep in mind how huge the world is going to be. Grinding for ingredients would become even more tiresome than in TW2. The more I think about it the more I see how the new system tries to balance gameplay in the new, open-world approach.
 
Keep in mind how huge the world is going to be. Grinding for ingredients would become even more tiresome than in TW2. The more I think about it the more I see how the new system tries to balance gameplay in the new, open-world approach.

Agreed there, it seems to fit the open world but the upgrading of potions needs to be extremely worthwhile for it to work. Ingredients should also require a bit more effort to find seeing their higher value.
 
Just found out about this infinite potion thing and I really hope I'm misunderstanding because I'm really not liking that aspect, not to mention now this thread in the opening post about drinking it then you can just "activate" it whenever later on? Not liking ANY of that at all. I made an account just to voice my concerns in hopes this gets changed, I'd really hate to see another great series get hurt and watered down to appeal to the more casual market. One of the best feelings in Witcher for me was preparing and using potions for those certain tough fights, it felt like you were locked and loaded and ready to go, but you also had to do a little extra to earn that advantage. Honestly these two mechanics aren't enough to make my cancel my pre-order (though I shouldn't admit that since it won't help my cause) but I do really hope to see this get changed to more how it originally was.
 
Umm, I don't get this argument. You will still need to put effort in finding ingredients if you want a certain potion, especially a more powerful one. But if you don't put that effort in - no, you don't get unlimited amount of this particular potion. You get 0.

I just feel that this system is a bit too artificial. once you find every ingredient for a potion, you have that potion forever, right? why do I need to find it once, but not anymore? I understand that games need systems like this, but it still feels weird.
let's say this refill-system works great. then why do I need to find the herbs in the first place? if they wanna protect me from having to spend time refilling them, why do I have to take time finding the first piece of every single one? I'm probably gonna have most of them in about 30 minutes, so what's the point? just give me all of them at the beginning.
you could say that there are some rarer herbs that make stronger potions, so it wouldn't be a good idea to start with those. but those can't be too strong either, because once you find them, you have an infinite source for them for the rest of the game. so if they were too strong, that would lead to a balance issue.
I'm not sure how the recipes will work. will you still have to find/buy them? because if yes, then there is your potion unlocking mechanic. I just want consistency. having to find only the first piece of every ingredient feels forced to me.
 
So that's why there weren't any herbs in the gameplay videos? Do they exist at all?

Also , there is no possible lore explanation for automatically refiling potions @ fireplaces
 
So.... automatic refilling Potions ... when we meditate on fire? Nah i dislike that idea...
why can t we have just the old system? Like it was in TW1? We get the incredients... we brew the potions and they
hold the effect for an amount of time... fine with me....

So that's why there weren't any herbs in the gameplay videos? Do they exist at all?

Yeah havent seen any in the gameplay demos to :( ... But ok maybe we brew a bigger amount of a potion and refill just little
bottles at the fire at all? Dunno.... hope CDPR ll show us in time so we can give a feedback about it.
 
Just made an account because of the news about infinite potion recharges.

Fix it. This is inexcusable, and if people on't want to use potions because it is too much of a "grind", then they can gladly miss out on using them. Some of us not only loved searching for various plants and ingredients, but also LOVED the Alchemy builds in The Witcher 2. I like the idea of being able to "activate" the effects at will once you drink the potion, but there is no excuse to remove such a key gameplay feature just to appeal to ADHD spazzes who are unable to read/understand three sentences on how to create a potion.

Even Skyrim got this down right, and Skyrim is about as casual as role playing games go. PLEASE fix this, CDPR.
 
I just feel that this system is a bit too artificial. once you find every ingredient for a potion, you have that potion forever, right? why do I need to find it once, but not anymore? I understand that games need systems like this, but it still feels weird.
let's say this refill-system works great. then why do I need to find the herbs in the first place? if they wanna protect me from having to spend time refilling them, why do I have to take time finding the first piece of every single one? I'm probably gonna have most of them in about 30 minutes, so what's the point? just give me all of them at the beginning.
you could say that there are some rarer herbs that make stronger potions, so it wouldn't be a good idea to start with those. but those can't be too strong either, because once you find them, you have an infinite source for them for the rest of the game. so if they were too strong, that would lead to a balance issue.
I'm not sure how the recipes will work. will you still have to find/buy them? because if yes, then there is your potion unlocking mechanic. I just want consistency. having to find only the first piece of every ingredient feels forced to me.

From what has been said - you still need recipes. Also, given the open nature of the world and how vast it is, I don't expect it to be possible to find ingredients for a potion in 30 minutes. Maybe for some basic ones - but those were unlocked from the beginning in TW2 IIRC.
 
The tactical thing about potions is to have prepared the right kind of potion for the fight/monster you're about to encounter, not to have enough stock of them as you don't really use more than one potion of the same kind at a time. So the tactical part still stays.

There was no point in keeping potions prepared in The Witcher 2, you had to meditate to drink them anyway. All you needed to have was a few dozens of ingredients, which were more than plentiful and hardly weighed anything at all.

The same would go for "mutagen" potions or what they're calling them in The Witcher 3, and "support" ones are going to have limited uses anyway, so limit the number you can keep with you and problem solved. Make it so that every herb can make you five potions and you'll see how that hoarding necessity will go right away.

I'm sorry, call me extreme but I really hate this idea. I can't help but think they're unnecessarily dumbing down the game with all these easy-of-access, streamlining features - I already expressed myself on "recommended potions" and Witcher Senses - and I don't like it one bit.
 
I think there's no need to reject the idea right away. It sounds silly at first but I can also see the reason behind it. Maybe someone from the devs could clarify the system a bit more, then we could give more useful feedback.
 
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