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
Infinite potions - is it good or bad ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CvA3reLuH8

Hey,
I watched that interview and I'm now afraid about potion system. Ok, some time ago there was info about releasing potion effects whenever you want and some people liked it, some not but finally majority of people agreed with the idea considering the scale and type of the world in W3.

Now, there is another idea revealed which is "infinite potions". Talk starts at 4:00 in the video. For me it is something which I'm worry about. Ok, you gather herbs, recipes and as always you make a potion. When you're run out of potions you just sit by the campfire or go to the tavern and potions are automaticaly in your equipment. Is it good ? There is also info about 3 leves of development for each potion, so if you want to upgrade one of your potion you must search for another ingredients and recipes to do it. It's great idea but first one seems to be weird in my opinion.

My suggestion:
If they will implement this system it would be great if they'll make it optional. It will be too casual if not.
 
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I think they should not implement such things. No other game has this features because that would make the game too easy. I think people will buy the game anyway so I don't see why they should ruin it to help lazy players. If they want to implement this stuff, it has to be optional by any chance. I would love to see more emphasis and with this decision they are doing in the opposite way. I think they should introduce some sort of a sequence running in background while we brew our potions and/or drink them. Same for oils. That would create a lot of atmosphere. Auto-refill for potions is something I would never use and I would not like a game that obliges me to have it.
 
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Personally I think alchemy and potion drinking in TW2 sucked. Compared to Witcher 1 the alchemy system of 2 was simplified to a point where it wasn't fun.
I hated how they scrapped the secondary elements in all the ingredients, which in Witcher 1 gave us the oppertunity to brew some very potent concoctions.
It was also easier to adept your strategy in the first witcher game, since you could drink a potion right before a battle. So far it seems like Wild Hunt is on the right track for me.
 
So you're saying on top of having to use a lot of herbs to upgrade the potions, you still want to gather herbs to create those potions?
Seems like you want a grind?
I don't like this talk where apparently realism has to supersede fun, in a video game.

There was no grind for ingredients, you could find most of the stuff you need almost anywhere, and let's not forget the monster parts as well.
There's not reason for that to change in TW3.

Having auto refill, build once and have it forever stuff is plain dumbing it down.

It removes a significant part of the previous games that I immensely enjoyed, creating potions and managing my resources for them.
In both games I was high on potions and always had lot's of ingredients and I never grinded them.

Having a mix between the systems and the first and the second games would be great.
 
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Well I can see the point in their thinking. I am that type of player who fills inventory with something, that could be useful later. This way, maybe, it could be solved. But I think, that even better option would be that the effectiveness of the potions would decrease with time so you would have to mix them again sometimes not only to upgrade them, but also to restore their power. And time the potions keep their power could depend on the quality of alcohol used. That's my humble opinion.

Or the amount of replenished potions could be reduced over time.
 
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Jupiter_on_Mars

Guest
CDProjekt have the best intentions and they're trying to push when they otherwise could have just have TW2' system carry through intact. That's commendable.

But , regarding the auto-refilling potions, the new system has no redeeming qualities. Like I've said before, it's a problematic solution to an imaginary problem. The solution to brew once and create potions you can use multiple times is a, far far superior one. CDProjekt, do not rob the player of the player's discretion. That's cardinal sin.
 
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Always having refillable potions would stop players from exploring in search of new ingredients, as well as reducing the difficulty of even the minor encounters de to their frequent use. But hoarding potions is a problem as well. Here's what I recommend:
Make it possible for players to brew new potions just like in the previous game
Allow people to refill the potion by meditating for a large period of time - like half a day for a single potion.
 
Well, maybe higher difficulties could turn off the autorefill system. Though I wonder if the game would remain balanced that way.
 
To be honest, I think that it's a bad idea. In my opinion lower level potions should require less ingredients, but automatically refilled potions are a bad idea.
 
For me it will not be a problem if you will have a choice to turn of that system in options or if it will be automaticaly disabled by higher difficulty of the game. I'm afraid of exploring the world. This is great when you run out of potion and you must go to the woods, caves or etc to gather new herbs, you must find herbalist, achelist to buy some rare ingedients and thats how it goes. Dont ruin that feeling CDPR, when you must be carefull when managing your supplies. Konrad Tomaszkiewicz said that they want to tell players "use those potions, dont store it for last moment etc.". I think it is players problem how he will do this. I dont know. I dont like the idea. Just make it optional CDPR.
 
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In my opinion, this is not a minor thing so that you can make a Toggle on/off option. It's a major mechanic and it should be balanced with the rest of the game. A big part of Geralt's adventure is finding proper ingredients for making potions, just like slaying monsters. As I have already said, I think that automatically refilled potions is a really bad idea.
 
Yeah, if people are saving potions and end up not using them its their choice and they should suffer consequences because of that. Now we are all going to suffer, especially people who loved to hunt for ingredients. I would think that now that we have much bigger world that searching for herbs would be much more fun, especially if there were those unique ones that are growing only on a peak of some mounatin.

Also in my opinion, potions really should be something not to be used often but only for the most challenging encounters. This new system seems to be pandering to casuals who are not gonna use them anyway since on easier difficulties they will be able to just hack&slash through combat most of the time.

I think that many people (including me) did not use many potions in W2 because it was bothersome to have to medidate to just drink them. W1 had great potion system and I enjoyed it throughout the whole game. This whole thing kinda killed the hype for me.
 
Google translator:

This I will describe how these would see it:
1) Base and dominant, of course, should come back.
2) The division into ordinary and mutagenic potions is to me a great idea RED (pity that kicked others).
3) restoration potions should fly out (ie as written may be in the tree alchemy talent to take out, but optional).
4) mutagenic potions (to be stronger, but more toxic) should not last forever (as it want to do RED), but still a very long time (several minutes, even something like an hour).
5) Basic Potions drunk in the fight (yes RED wanted to solve this, and it's praises), obviously weaker than mutagens, and shorter duration of action.
6) Enhance Potions (another idea redów) course should be.

In other words, RED have a great idea (like the unfortunate cat from W2, showing how to "see" Geralt), but again worse performance (maybe not so much the execution in this case, what the assumptions as is the work). It would be enough just to change things in the whole two things (self-renewal and duration of action of mutagens).

In my opinion is the best system, , combining Red idea, and TW1 system. :)
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CvA3reLuH8

Hey,
I watched that interview and I'm now afraid about potion system. Ok, some time ago there was info about releasing potion effects whenever you want and some people liked it, some not but finally majority of people agreed with the idea considering the scale and type of the world in W3.

Now, there is another idea revealed which is "infinite potions". Talk starts at 4:00 in the video. For me it is something which I'm worry about. Ok, you gather herbs, recipes and as always you make a potion. When you're run out of potions you just sit by the campfire or go to the tavern and potions are automaticaly in your equipment. Is it good ? There is also info about 3 leves of development for each potion, so if you want to upgrade one of your potion you must search for another ingredients and recipes to do it. It's great idea but first one seems to be weird in my opinion.

My suggestion:
If they will implement this system it would be great if they'll make it optional. It will be too casual if not.
I don't necessarily hate this system, and several times in the past I commended the Estus System in Dark Souls as a brilliant design choice, since giving to the player a limited but rechargeable resource has two advantages, of encouraging him/her to use whatever is needed while at the same time preventing excessive farming of consumable and unlimited healing.

On the other hand, what I hope is that if CDPR is actually going for this road, they can at least be smart enough to make the reagents for each "original, unique, refillable potion" far more rare and interesting to gather.
 
Gosh, I hope that Konrad Tomaszkiewicz and other RED guys aren't disappointed too much because of our reaction :)
 
Anything that takes away the reason to explore this huge world of theirs is basically shooting yourself in the foot. With this gone, why would I bother explore woodlands or generally wild, uninhabited regions (I understand the possible draws even in this case, but it's also obvious, you'll no longer have that little motivating factor). IMO, collecting ingredients is also great for directing player's exploration. It may help focusing the story and quests. Most non-openworlders get a much more coherent, predicted and planned-for stories because they can do exactly that - they can focus their storytelling and know ahead of time what player is going to be doing at certain moments, where s/he will be etc. I see this element as taking away that source of motivation for the player, and consequently that little bit of "faking" a linear, non-open-world style storytelling that makes it possible to encounter such structured gems as we've seen in the E3 presentations (i.e., mini-stories that intersect the main quest, or hunt, or what have you).

tl;dr: Infinite, self-refilling pots and no regular ingredients - a bad idea.
 
This potion system raises another question - once you get all the ingredients, where is the challenge? In upgrades?
 
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