The Witcher 3 Alchemy System

[BlackWolf500.298]

Personally I'd prefer it if potions didn't infinitely and automatically refill, as I'm sure you know, but to be honest (in Witcher 2 at least) while I did use potions somewhat regularly, the ONLY potions I ever used were Rook, Swallow and Cat. (Aside from Mongoose in the Kayran boss fight).

What I think CDPR really need to do, rather than making everything refill forever, give players incentive to actually use the damn potions in the first place. I did use *potions*, but they were always the same ones. Have cool potions with more unique effects, have potions people will actually *WANT* to use. The issue with what CDPR is doing is that they're approaching the concept of potions as a chore.
Don't think "Oh, it's a chore, let's make it streamlined and easier", think "Oh, it's a game play element, let's make it AWESOME!"

The hoarding problem may still exist to some extent (though it will be alleviated), but people who hoard potions will *still* exist with the new system. Want to know why?
"Well, I could use this potion *now*, but there might be an unforeseen hard fight afterwards that I won't have time to meditate before... I should save it, just in case"
So, rather than people hoarding ingredients and potions while using them sparingly... People just never use potions.

Problem... Solved?

Yeah I found myself in a similar position, the problem was a lot of those potions had STRONG positive effects but often even stronger negative effects.
And since you did not absolutely need them in the end I just went with the potions that got me small positive effects.

@thisIsmadness => Yes, and I already stated that I LOVE the other changes they made from what we heard so far. I just can't accept that auto-refill thing.
At LEAST if it is not optional. I think there just could be a compromise between the 2 sides.

 

[Demut]

Wait for gamescom in a month and hope video gaming journalists won't ask the same silly questions again.

Shouldn’t we be a bit more proactive than that?

So there is hope they find other solutions.

Good to hear it’s not set in stone. We might yet get them to change it.

 

[schinderhannes.999]

There is a rational limitation on it though. We're not talking about a situation where you can keep gulping down Swallow to live forever. From what we've seen you can only have 2 of any type "equipped" at a given time, there are finite number of uses, and Toxicity plays a huge part in how quickly you can use them. Taken as a whole, the Alchemy system is not at all streamlined. They've actually expanded on the tactical and strategic elements of the system, its just one small part of it that has been streamlined and that is the time it takes to create a potion in the UI.

You say tough luck but thats how it is. Modern game balance frowns on the idea of punishing players with ambiguous requirements. Which is exactly why consumables are never required in any game and are almost always used purely for player advantage. I also don't think CDPR is ignoring the chunk of you that enjoys mixing together ingredients. I'm willing to bet that they are surprise by the reaction… whether they can do anything about it? Only they would know.

The number of potion uses most likely would be finite indeed, but not the potions themselves, with auto-refilling (or 'recycling') in place.
Just meditate and the used up potions are ready to be used again. Rinse and repeat.

There would basically be no situation ever, where you wouldn't have filled potions at your disposal. The chance for a failure state where (in the previous games) you would run out of potions because you didn't bring enough ingredients or prepared the appropriate amount of potions before descending into that dungeon would never arise.
And that's boring (not to mention lazy game design). Always winning, or in this case, always being able to refill potions out of thin air with the most minimalist of effort is boring. In my opinion, that is.

And yeah, that seems to be indeed how it is nowadays, unfortunately.
I guess we'll (hopefully) know more in about six weeks time.

Wait for gamescom in a month and hope video gaming journalists won't ask the same silly questions again.

Shouldn’t we be a bit more proactive than that?

I might have imagined that but I think I overheard that someone from the forum (or moderator staff?) intends to stop by CDPR's booth at this year's Gamescom. If this wasn't just some figment I'd expect a call for community questions to pop up sometime soon™. Wouldn't hold my breath for it though.

 

[hardom]

Lets go to the facts:
-Both TW1 and 2 potions weren't necessary (except letho 1st fight, maybe)
-Both games were really hard at early game and really easy late game
*This was because the equipment and talent improve were far higher than monster one
*Also practice with games mechanic were a thing
-Almost everybody that drinks potions is for swallow, almost everything has big side effects, specially for your defense, making you easier to kill, and I'm most sure this was the pain in the neck of tw2, losing damage weren't such important (also using spells makes your attacks weaker, and some people didn't notice it even)
-everybody that finished the witcher 1 had 320 drowners brains
*that's because there were tons of them
*AND almost all the potions that uses an ingredient that his brains contains has really bad collateral effect
-ingredients in previous games were expensive
-there's an ingredient of swallow and other key potions that were such used and at the same time so rare that obbligated some people to search, in tw2 you ended up finding 80 of that white flowers for each important flower found
-it's tedious searching for all this collecting

Then solutions

Solution 1, with auto refill
Auto refill:
Pros:

-No more boreness
-it save up money, since money gained is pretty restriced almost for quests, and the quests you can do for your level zone are limited

Cons:
-Is unrealistic
-You'll end up having 500 ingredients of each type
*unless they make them rare, but then for the first 30 minutes you don't have any potions because you can't reach the minimun required
*unless you already start with basic potions, but is dumb

Option 1

Some features that maybe are in the game that could solve everything:
Imagine there's ingredients named a,b,c,d,e
For potion X to initially brew you need:2a,3b,1c
Then you upgrade the potion to level 2 (slight more powerful and/or more potions avaiable):4a,6b,2c. That's the double
Then level 3: 8a,12b,4c. Again, the double, but the double of level 2
OR LEVEL 3: 6a,9b,3c. The triple of level one
---
Or
---
Option 2

Potion X: 2a,3b,1c
Then give more power to the potion: 1d,2e
OR just use the same ingredients for the base potion with random number:2a,1b,1c
So you use the basic ingredients but more expensive to create another refillable potion, and then the potions upgrade would be individually for each one or globally for all the identical potions


For this system

Pros
-alchemy could play a big role then, so if you upgrade a potion, with specific alchemy talent the improve would be bigger (also for potion 2 of ption improves option the numbers of improves could be infinite, but for balancing issues,MAYBE, each upgrade would be more expensive)
-harvest herbs and monster's organs would still be important
-If searching ingredients would be a boring thing for someone, they only need to do the basic potion and not more. They don't need to upgrade. They will have a harder time for not upgrading, but the unbalance for this kind of person wouldn't be that big

Cons
-unrealistic as hell



Solution 2, classic way
Bring the original potion brewing, gathers ingredients then brew

To solve some issues:
Make flowers/monsters that contain important ingredients for key potions more common
Make monsters drops more ingredient, so someone lazy could have all ingredients doing fun:killing monsters, but it would be good if the ingredients dropped would be considerably higher, so you always get enough ingredients by killing monsters you normally kill while doing quests
Side effects of potions less letal

Pros
-Realistic
-Balanced

Cons
-it would be harder to make alchemy tree more powerful, and then more balanced with the other 2 trees


Solution 3
As someone stated in this thread (can't rememb who)

Re-use the ingredient, but then weaker, but this reuses has limits
Then with alchemy talents you could make more reuses possible or each reuse weakens less your ingredients effects

Pros
-Good for lazy people
-Could make alchemy tree as powerful as the other 2
-Realistic

Cons
-some may not find this realistic at start
-after some reuse, the potion is so weakened that you make a new one, so a good thing is if you can implement an "discard potion" option, but need to take care, lazy people will change potion only after a long time, and they will have disavantage for using old potions, then they should put more ingredients in the world to the gather and change more frequently, but if someone doesn't,it ends up having to much ingredient.resuming:hard tk balance offer with consume

 

[thislsmadness]

The number of potion uses most likely would be finite indeed, but not the potions themselves, with auto-refilling (or 'recycling') in place.
Just meditate and the used up potions are ready to be used again. Rinse and repeat.

There would basically be no situation ever, where you wouldn't have filled potions at your disposal. The chance for a failure state where (in the previous games) you would run out of potions because you didn't bring enough ingredients or prepared the appropriate amount of potions before descending into that dungeon would never arise.
And that's boring (not to mention lazy game design). Always winning, or in this case, always being able to refill potions out of thin air with the most minimalist of effort is boring. In my opinion, that is.

I think encouraging people to use potions in every encounter is exactly what they want. In fact, I think that is what they aimed to accomplish in W2, which is why there was such an over abundance of ingredients everywhere. The "failure state" you talk about really didn't exist; if you needed swallow you probably had enough stuff to make 30 of them. My guess is that they looked at the metrics and saw that players were just hording the stuff and not using alchemy, so they decided to get rid of "farming" entirely.

 

[schinderhannes.999]

Yet, at least it still was possible (unlikely but possible) to get 'stuck', with the current approach the failure of (self-imposed) insufficiency would be completely eliminated.
Which sucks.


AusGamers Developer Interview with Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Game Director for The Witcher 3:

For people that are more casual we’ve got auto-levelling if they want, and it’s about being one of the three specialisations of character development -- sword specialisation, magic specialisation and alchemic specialisation. Of course, we approach the alchemy a different way too. I don’t know how you play, but when I’m playing, I’ve always got a bunch of elixirs and bombs and everything in my inventory, because there will always be a better time to use it, but I never use it.

So we had a really long think about what to do with this, because we put a lot of work into alchemy, and people don’t use it. Then once, I woke up with the idea -- which I shared with our team, and they liked it very much -- that what if the elixirs and bombs were infinite? But how do we] do it?

We chose this path, and we’ve done it this way that the elixirs and bombs are used in a fight, but when you go and rest at a fireplace, they are immediately refuelled. That’s why we don’t need to be worried that you don’t have the elixirs, or don’t have to bring another herbs and finally kill the monster. No, you can use it; you can play with it; it’s for you; and you’re of course gathering the herbs and other ingredients, but it’s for something else.

We’ve done the alchemy a little like the character development, where you can upgrade every potion -- every potion has three levels, and you’re gathering these herbs and other unique ingredients to upgrade them.

So how about carrying that over to the alchemy system and make auto-refilling an option 'for people that are more casual' or people in general, 'if they want'.

 

[hellcaretaker]

Yet, at least it still was possible (unlikely but possible) to get 'stuck', with the current approach the failure of (self-imposed) insufficiency would be completely eliminated.
Which sucks.


AusGamers Developer Interview with Konrad Tomaszkiewicz, Game Director for The Witcher 3:


So how about carrying that over to the alchemy system and make auto-refilling an option 'for people that are more casual' or people in general, 'if they want'.

I don't think, that it'll be possible.
The auto-refilling system makes sense, only under the condition, that you have rare ingredients, to be found for each potion/upgrade. If you have no "refilling", then it'd be possible to use one particular potion probably only several times over the course of the whole game, which would completely kill the alchemy.

 

[Demut]

That interview makes it sound like going for the alchemy skill tree is gonna be something for casuals, doesn’t it? What the heck?

 

[thislsmadness]

So how about carrying that over to the alchemy system and make auto-refilling an option 'for people that are more casual' or people in general, 'if they want'.

More options are never bad, though things like auto leveling and fast travel are easy to implement since they don't impact anything else. A change to auto potions potentially impacts a lot of major areas.

 

[Tocsin]

I don't think, that it'll be possible.
The auto-refilling system makes sense, only under the condition, that you have rare ingredients, to be found for each potion/upgrade. If you have no "refilling", then it'd be possible to use one particular potion probably only several times over the course of the whole game, which would completely kill the alchemy.

Indeed.

The system would be for 'casuals' (I so hate how that word is used) if the auto-refill came with the overabundance of ingredients there was in the previous games. And TW2 alchemy was nothing if not 'casual' with its overabundance of ingredients and, thus, almost infinite potions.

If the game is well-balanced, the alchemy system could be far more interesting, challenging and rewarding than it ever was in the second game, or even the first (for the rewarding part).

 

[Yasakani]

NO AUTO-REFILL
The fun part of RPGs is collecting those ammos. I don't want anything for free. Games should be about earning, either through monster slaying or finding that treasure that will give you money to buy ammos/bombs/potions. Auto-refill seems like a mechanic aimed toward action games on consoles. Definitely not an RPG thing, since RPG is mainly about looting.

 

[Yasakani]

If the game is well-balanced, the alchemy system could be far more interesting, challenging and rewarding than it ever was in the second game, or even the first (for the rewarding part).

Yup, it's only a matter of tweaking numbers to balance out the right alchemy system. They should make it rare in harder levels and more readily available for easier levels. Or the ingredient requirements are different for each difficulty level. Ingredients should be rare in harder levels with potions/bombs being very effective but are used seldomly. Afterall, Geralt is a swordman and shouldn't be using bombs for every single battle.

 

[BlackWolf500.298]

I think encouraging people to use potions in every encounter is exactly what they want. In fact, I think that is what they aimed to accomplish in W2, which is why there was such an over abundance of ingredients everywhere. The "failure state" you talk about really didn't exist; if you needed swallow you probably had enough stuff to make 30 of them. My guess is that they looked at the metrics and saw that players were just hording the stuff and not using alchemy, so they decided to get rid of "farming" entirely.

But you yourself just revealed a weakness in that plan. It didn't work in TW2, it will not work in TW3. Instead of getting rid of farming they should rather do all the other stuff, like making monsters harder, making potion uses more intuitive and necessary and making "farming" less of a "chore" but also less "in your face".
All those things AROUND the alchemy system do in the end determine how USEFUL and NECESSARY it actually is.
Those people who used potions were those who cared about roleplaying.
Everyone else was either too lazy or bored, did not have enough "challenge" with potions or thought there would be harder monsters later on and hoarded because of that (because monsters were too easy) or did not care at all for potions (which TW3 will also not change).

For people that are more casual we’ve got auto-levelling if they want, and it’s about being one of the three specialisations of character development -- sword specialisation, magic specialisation and alchemic specialisation. Of course, we approach the alchemy a different way too. I don’t know how you play, but when I’m playing, I’ve always got a bunch of elixirs and bombs and everything in my inventory, because there will always be a better time to use it, but I never use it.

So we had a really long think about what to do with this, because we put a lot of work into alchemy, and people don’t use it. Then once, I woke up with the idea -- which I shared with our team, and they liked it very much -- that what if the elixirs and bombs were infinite? But how do we] do it?

We chose this path, and we’ve done it this way that the elixirs and bombs are used in a fight, but when you go and rest at a fireplace, they are immediately refuelled. That’s why we don’t need to be worried that you don’t have the elixirs, or don’t have to bring another herbs and finally kill the monster. No, you can use it; you can play with it; it’s for you; and you’re of course gathering the herbs and other ingredients, but it’s for something else.

We’ve done the alchemy a little like the character development, where you can upgrade every potion -- every potion has three levels, and you’re gathering these herbs and other unique ingredients to upgrade them.

Yeah I call that casualization and downgrading. Infinite potions.
1 word: NOPE.

So how about carrying that over to the alchemy system and make auto-refilling an option 'for people that are more casual' or people in general, 'if they want'.

This.

Laziness and casual features should always be optional. I do not want to "not have to worry about potions". i WANT to have to worry about potions, think about ingredients. I'm an intelligent human being, my brain wants something to do.
Automation is about the worst thing that can happen in a game.

It doesn't matter how sophisticated that "upgrade system" is (and believe me I like the idea of an upgrade system), in the end it means I will not have to collect ingredients after the first time and I will basically make potions out of thin air.
If that's the case I might just ignore the potion system since it does not provide me with any immersion or role-playing feeling and also doesn't have any practical use (since I can survive without potions I am 100% sure of that).

An OPTION to auto-refill is 100% okay for me. But to include this no matter if you want or not - no thanks.
I understand the difficulty of including both and can see why this is not a good option, but casualization over the core experience and the role-playing aspect, over a system with tradition in the trilogy just because casuals do not want to collect ingredients or don't use all the elements is something that actually is one of the reasons why I personally start to dislike a developer and the reason why I always respected CDPR. They did never jump on the mainstream train.

Hell, I'm even okay with compromises. But this is definitely a decision made mainly for the "wider audience".

 

[jonesy1138]

The fact that Konrad keeps bringing up this auto-refill system in interviews for no reason makes the situation worse, and has me really worried that they might actually stick with it in spite of the negative feedback.

 

[Pedrolago]

Many fans throughout the forums (loyal fans that have been supporting CDPR for many years I might add) ask again and again for potions to have a visual effect on geralt (black veins, dilated pupils, severe paleness etc). Response from CDPR: … … … …. …………

A small fraction of fans(many of them newcomers to the series) mention they end up hoarding potions, and it kinda bugs them. Response from CDPR: Ok don't worry guys we'll overhaul the entire potion system so that the 10% of fans who actually hoard potions are forced to use them, and you 90% who really never had this problem and loved the alchemy the way it was can just go f... deal with it.

 

[Kassandrian]

I guess the hoarding issue is not a real issue, but more of a quality of life management decision.
If the system works out well, it encourages potion use a lot, and if implemented well it opens up some nice tactical features. Potions will be way more important now, and if they are difficult to aqquire/upgrad and worth it, this will be an important part of gearing your char, more so than in TW2/TW1.

the visual effect is an absolute must, this time. IMO ... or like, in the opinion of the whole forum. It should not be this difficult to implement, I guess?

 

[thislsmadness]

But you yourself just revealed a weakness in that plan. It didn't work in TW2, it will not work in TW3. Instead of getting rid of farming they should rather do all the other stuff, like making monsters harder, making potion uses more intuitive and necessary and making "farming" less of a "chore" but also less "in your face".
All those things AROUND the alchemy system do in the end determine how USEFUL and NECESSARY it actually is.
Those people who used potions were those who cared about roleplaying.
Everyone else was either too lazy or bored, did not have enough "challenge" with potions or thought there would be harder monsters later on and hoarded because of that (because monsters were too easy) or did not care at all for potions (which TW3 will also not change).

I'm not sure how you are predicting that it won't work in W3. Speaking as someone that was "too lazy or bored" to use them in the last game, I disagree. The changes have piqued my interest. Particularly since Korad confirms that having auto potions means they will balance every encounter for potion use:

That’s why we don’t need to be worried that you don’t have the elixirs, or don’t have to bring another herbs and finally kill the monster.

If you say that you want to maintain the old system for roleplay reasons... thats fine. However, lets not pretend like there was anything skillful or intelligent about crafting potions in W2. You didn't have to worry about ingredients and the UI held your hand throughout the entire crafting process, your brain did nothing. It was strictly a time sink.

It does matter how sophisticated the new potion upgrades are, that plus the numerous other additions to expand on the tactical use of Alchemy are proof that this isn't about dumbing down the game.

 

[thislsmadness]

Many fans throughout the forums (loyal fans that have been supporting CDPR for many years I might add) ask again and again for potions to have a visual effect on geralt (black veins, dilated pupils, severe paleness etc). Response from CDPR: … … … …. …………

A small fraction of fans(many of them newcomers to the series) mention they end up hoarding potions, and it kinda bugs them. Response from CDPR: Ok don't worry guys we'll overhaul the entire potion system so that the 10% of fans who actually hoard potions are forced to use them, and you 90% who really never had this problem and loved the alchemy the way it was can just go deal with it.

Lets not start making up statistics and applying unproven characterizations to people. What we do know is that game development isn't a democracy, fan feedback is important but ultimately changes are (and should) be dictated by the developer's vision. The alchemy changes aren't the result of people begging for changes, its a change CDPR made because they wanted to make it better.

 

[Pedrolago]

The alchemy changes aren't the result of people begging for changes, its a change CDPR made because they wanted to make it better.

Konrad said so himself, the decision was made because some fans complained about hoarding potions, but if you look at the poll and at the main point the majority of users are making, we see that those who complained about hoarding are a minority.
In fact, I can't remember one single person who thought potion hoarding was a problem,( at least here in the official forums)

 

[Elegast7]

Konrad said so himself, the decision was made because some fans complained about hoarding potions, but if you look at the poll and at the main point the majority of users are making, we see that those who complained about hoarding are a minority.
In fact, I can't remember one single person who thought potion hoarding was a problem,( at least here in the official forums)

However, you do need to take into account that the people on the this forum are big fans who most likely are with The Witcher since the beginning. If you would do a public poll, I think the numbers would differ. You said it yourself, on this forum noone complained, but I, nor you cannot know how some other people think about it, and how many.