True, lots of cups, but I've never personally had that much tea last for months.
Well with a Teaspoon or two you can brew up an entire pot and it won't be weak, but anything after that (Even brewing single cups with a few leaves) it most certainly loses its edge on the second, and after that it starts to really lose it and become weak.
I just don't think re-using herbs as a strategy is wise, considering Geralt's whole livelihood could depend on a potion or two, it's downright stupidity.
I feel like a wanker for arguing over a analogy, but I also feel like we're doing mental gymnastics here to try and come up with an "excuse" for how auto-refill could legitimately work within the world. However that's just what it is, mental gymnastics and the analogy is not very sound.
Look I'm sure I'll come to get over it, and who knows, immersion be damned perhaps this really is the best system for such a huge game like TW3, but as long as potions are auto-refilling and I lack that personal input and control, I don't think I'll be happy.
Then it makes even less sense within the context of the world considering that in the previous games he has to use entire herbs to brew one potion, with one single use... So somehow after decades of being a Witcher he's all of a sudden discovered a way to spread a single herb (Or monster part) in a way that it lasts potion upon potion upon potion? (Obviously he didn't make his own potions in the books, but you get my point)
It's all mental gymnastics for a design that at its core really doesn't make sense. Strictly talking from a Gameplay perspective, yes the system might be sound and work brilliantly, but there's really no analogy, excuse or work-around that makes the notion of what's actually happening with the system make sense.
It's all mental gymnastics for a design that at its core really doesn't make sense. Strictly talking from a Gameplay perspective, yes the system might be sound and work brilliantly, but there's really no analogy, excuse or work-around that makes the notion of what's actually happening with the system make sense.
If we're going to start tearing away at gameplay systems based on realism then there wont be any game left. I don't think CDPR is trying to explain this method using a teabag analogy or anything of that sort. It strictly falls down to what they think it a better play mechanic. Its one of the of things (very) many instances where you will need to suspend disbelief or "imagine the gaps".
Believe me, I'm not having a go at a gameplay system based on realism, I completely respect that concessions must be made for Gameplay.
However in both TW1 & TW2 you've got Alchemy systems that don't trade-in the lore/realism aspects and yet still have a solid system (Couple of minor problem aside, that could be easily fixed). You CAN have the best of both worlds, but this new system is completely trading in one for (possibly, we don't actually know if it'll improve anything) the other. Which is just trashing one aspect (Arguably just as important for some people) to make another better, I just don't think it's very good design, because good design would find a balanced solution (Much like how TW2 simplified TW1's alchemy but the system still satisfied both Gameplay & "Immersion" - aside from short potion lengths / potion timers ticking in cutscenes which would be surely easily fixed).
Good post.
It's like he says, it's about immersion, self-storytelling and preparation.
And it is REALLY only a few clicks more.
How to plant all these herbs in the world? Use an algorithm.
How to make it more "special"? Make stronger potions require ingredients that are very rare and can only be found in special places or by killing special monsters.
For all I care you can make the "uses" of those potions high enough so you do NOT have to go out every 3 - 4 hours to search for ingredients, maybe make it so that you have to use less ingredients if you still have "uses" of the potion left and that way you can also stretch the time until you have to collect again.
Imagine you need 4x X, 2xY and 2xZ to brew a potion, and a plant might give you between 1 and 5 of each herb. Once you made the potion, and if you do not use all of it's uses, you can meditate and "refill if for 1/2 or 1/3 of the ingredients. If you have 3 - 6 uses (hell I'm even okay with 10 uses in such a big game as TW3), then you do not have to go collect herbs for HOURS.
Of course special potions and oils which help against SPECIFIC foes, or stronger potions and oils will be harder to make since the ingredients are rare and so you have a combination of the "rare ingredients"-system, a "potion-uses" system, a "refill"-system that reduced ingredients if you use the potions clever and an actual system that has you collect ingredients and make potions. Hell, for all I care make the numbers of "uses" and the number of picked up herbs per plant ridiculously high and the number of ingredients needed in potions ridiculously low, but just give me any king of ingredient gathering and potion brewing system BEYOND the "use it one time then it auto-refills upon meditation and having alcohol" (or "making placebos" as I would call it).
Personally, I never found anything immersive about either of the previous systems. I do agree that TW1 had a good system and I would like to see that return, but TW2's alchemy was flatout awful in everyway. So when I look at where they're coming from, I'm not really bothered by the new design. In fact, I see the TW3 design as a bit of a mixture between the complexity of the first and the over simplifications of the second. They're bringing back the TW1's ability to use potions mid combat and restoring toxicity as a mechanic that must be actively managed -- I really love that. In TW2 you collected ingredients through mindless click spam in the environment; In TW3 you acquire ingredients from completing quests and exploring specific areas of the world -- the latter is much more interesting to me.
Well I couldn't disagree more in regards to TW2's alchemy, and I disagree in general.
TW3's way of obtaining ingredients is absolutely no different. You're still just out in the environment picking herbs that you see. The only difference would be that some rare herbs might have specific locations and require you to go out and explore/find that location, but even then you can't say that kind of mechanic didn't exist in TW2 because essentially that's what Ostmurk was (And that's probably what the idea is coming from in the first place). If you want to call TW2's herb gathering "mindless click spam in the environment", I don't see how TW3 is any different at all, besides the aforementioned rare possibility.
All that's said however, I'm still interested to see how the system actually works in-depth and in greater detail. I'm going to learn to live with it, and I'm not going to stop my "immersion hurt" from getting in the way of still delving into and unlocking any potential the new alchemy system has. If it's better for gameplay, then great and perhaps in regards to gameplay interaction this might be the best alchemy system yet, but it doesn't change how at its core I dislike the auto-refill design.
I guess really what makes it that much more frustrating for me is because the system is so close to being perfect, all I want is just the ability to actually brew my own shit, when I want & how much I want because that's a big part of what "makes" the alchemy system for me, and I guess for that I'll be waiting patiently for mods (Or just give it a shot myself).
TW3's way of obtaining ingredients is absolutely no different. You're still just out in the environment picking herbs that you see. The only difference would be that some rare herbs might have specific locations and require you to go out and explore/find that location, but even then you can't say that kind of mechanic didn't exist in TW2 because essentially that's what Ostmurk was (And that's probably what the idea is coming from in the first place). If you want to call TW2's herb gathering "mindless click spam in the environment", I don't see how TW3 is any different at all, besides the aforementioned rare possibility.
All that's said however, I'm still interested to see how the system actually works in-depth and in greater detail. I'm going to learn to live with it, and I'm not going to stop my "immersion hurt" from getting in the way of still delving into and unlocking any potential the new alchemy system has. If it's better for gameplay, then great and perhaps in regards to gameplay interaction this might be the best alchemy system yet, but it doesn't change how at its core I dislike the auto-refill design.
I guess really what makes it that much more frustrating for me is because the system is so close to being perfect, all I want is just the ability to actually brew my own shit, when I want & how much I want because that's a big part of what "makes" the alchemy system for me, and I guess for that I'll be waiting patiently for mods (Or just give it a shot myself).
I don't understand what the auto-refill system is trying to achieve. What's the point? Who in their right mind played through TW1&2 and thought to themselves: "boy, the alchemy system sucks. I wish the potions would materialize in my inventory out of thin air!"
Seems to me like they are overhauling a system that didn't need much fixing, and at this point, I only see the downsides.
Seems to me like they are overhauling a system that didn't need much fixing, and at this point, I only see the downsides.
Thats fine, I'm certainly glad CDPR seems to agree, which is why they are overhauling it
The Ostmurk quest was about the only time Witcher 2's alchemy was ever compelling, so the fact they they are leaning more in that direction is absolutely a good thing. TW3 is different in that there is no expectation that you are looting 100s or 1000s of herbs and parts, the game does not have to support that degree of mindless gathering. Presumably, you get a recipe for a potion or its upgrade, you have list of required ingredients, and then you set out to specific areas of the world where those are found... maybe its in remote areas you havent discovered or surrounded by dangerous creatures... there's is much they can do with that compared with TW2 where they just overstuffed the zones with more than you would ever need.
Sure, I'm eager to see more details too. Everything I've said here is based purely on the potential I see in this design -- whether it lives up to any of that, I have no clue. It could be as bad or much worst than what was in TW2, thats not something that I'll be able to determined until Ive had a chance to play the game itself. I just never agreed that the "auto-refill" automatically makes this poor design or dumbed down.
Then you might want to read back some pages. There are a lot of good posts on how the system might work, what could be a good and what could be bad depending on various situations and game design decisions. Keep in mind that we still don't know the full details.
There are positives and negatives and it remains to be seen what the final result will be.
I have some doubts, but I'm also optimistic because it just might work, if they implement it right.
Thats just going to happen t the end of the game probably, you dont actually think the ingredients would be as dumb to pick up and as numerous as in previous witcher games do you?
In addition to this, each potion will probably have 3 or more versions with upgrades required in each stage, so I dont think you'll ever be able to collect all potions, at worst they'll have one upgrade, which is still enough to keep you occupied a lot.
And we should also mention that in TW1 and TW2 we already had a "problem" like this one you mention, there were so many ingredients laying around to gather with no effort that after the firsts chapters there was no need to gather anything for potions anymore, maybe even before finishing the first chapter.
In the TW1 at least this problem was bypassed by the awesome secondary ingredients that you could match up to get bonuses in a potion, but still, for the base potions you already had everything you need way before half of the game.
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Considering TW3 is 100 hours there would have to be lots of potions sorts (way more than in TW1 or TW2) and a hell of a lot upgrade levels for each of them to keep me occupied even 1/4 in the game, aside from the 1 or 2 potions that require you to kill a high level monster maybe.
I very much approve of alcohol making a return to the alchemy system but I can't say that I'm very fond of the way it's been abused and from what I can tell reduced to something like a mere catalyst for an automatic procedure doing all the work for you.
I agree that streamlining things is necessary sometimes, but I can't help but feel that in this case you're trying too hard to make changes to something which probably doesn't need any changes at all. There were some downsides and repercussions, if you can actually call them that, to the alchemy systems used in TW1 and TW2. However, considering some of the valid concerns about alchemy 3.0 and how it's been butchered to not allow for any of the so called failures its predecessors allegedly suffered from it looks like you're opening a couple of other cans of worms here.
If you're really limited to craft a potion with X amount of charges only once and then don't have to care about it being recharged for the rest of the game as long as you have some alcohol in your inventory while meditating, then that's probably the worst solution to imho non-existent problems you could have come up with.
Where and when is the experimentation I read about in some of the hands on reports supposed to happen with a system having this restriction in place? Or is "experimentation" just another fancier sounding way to describe the process of upgrading an existing potion? If that's the case, then that's quite a way to put it.
I'm all for not making a game too much of a real-life simulator where you meticulously have to take care of all sorts of things but this auto-refilling feature makes it just too easy. Where's the effort and reward in ceding control for the convenience of not having to mind and basically letting the game play the game for you?
If you're really bent on holding on to this solution with no way of getting around it somehow then I'd suggest to consider dropping this husk of an alchemy system altogether and just let Geralt acquire potions and other craftable consumables as loot or at vendors in the world.
Or maybe you could still yank it around and consider some of these I think really solid suggestions:
It depends, at first thought you would likely need twice the amount of potions in TW1 or more, but remember that "acquiring" each potion for the first time will probably take you double or triple the time that it took you in the previous games, where you walked 5 meters, and you could make a potion, and in this game you will have to go to who knows where, fight awful things which first naturally require you to be ready for them, find the places first of course, etc.
Its a pretty natural transition, in the first games chapters artificially limited what potions you could craft, in TW3 there are no chapters so places are limited instead by story events, and quests, and of course high level enemies and just exploring a lot, I dont know how they did it but to me it seems very easy to expect a similar level of density per hours of game time regarding potions.
At this point we just need a developer video explaining how the system works and how it fits in the overall picture.
How many upgrades can a potion have, how much ingredients do we need, how hard is to obtain those ingredients?
How many potions will be there, how useful will they be, and let us not forget about the mutagens.
The auto refill of your currently selected potions as long as you have the base is not a problem for me.
In W2 I had tons of ingredients, so much that I was selling it left and right to fund my armor crafting. So whether I manually brewed 10 or 20 potions when meditating or they just auto refill when meditating, it's not much of a difference.
Pressing a button to brew a potion doesn't make you a pro RPG player, it's just a manual task. What will be interesting is experimenting with combining the ingredients to create various potions, as well as finding those rare ingredients.
It would be interesting if the rare ingredient you find will be enough for creating only one special potion, but you have the recipes for 3 rare potions that use it, thus making you decide which one to create and not just be able create all of them. Maybe one of the recipes could be an upgrade to a potion you use and another for one that you want, making you decide which would be more beneficial in the current situations.
To me that will add depth to the system, not just having to constantly press the gather button while going for a straw through the country side.
After all the game is about choices and trade offs, making you decisions count or suffering the consequences. Deciding whether I should create 5 or 10 potions from the vast pool of ingredients that I have, does not contribute to that.
How many upgrades can a potion have, how much ingredients do we need, how hard is to obtain those ingredients?
How many potions will be there, how useful will they be, and let us not forget about the mutagens.
The auto refill of your currently selected potions as long as you have the base is not a problem for me.
In W2 I had tons of ingredients, so much that I was selling it left and right to fund my armor crafting. So whether I manually brewed 10 or 20 potions when meditating or they just auto refill when meditating, it's not much of a difference.
Pressing a button to brew a potion doesn't make you a pro RPG player, it's just a manual task. What will be interesting is experimenting with combining the ingredients to create various potions, as well as finding those rare ingredients.
It would be interesting if the rare ingredient you find will be enough for creating only one special potion, but you have the recipes for 3 rare potions that use it, thus making you decide which one to create and not just be able create all of them. Maybe one of the recipes could be an upgrade to a potion you use and another for one that you want, making you decide which would be more beneficial in the current situations.
To me that will add depth to the system, not just having to constantly press the gather button while going for a straw through the country side.
After all the game is about choices and trade offs, making you decisions count or suffering the consequences. Deciding whether I should create 5 or 10 potions from the vast pool of ingredients that I have, does not contribute to that.
IMO there is nothing natural in that transition, it all culminates in the fact that I need double or triple the time to even gather everything to make a potion (which would annoy the hell out of me, since walking around not being able to brew ANY potion is way more annoying IMO then walking around the same amount of time being able to brew some "low-level" potions and being able to brew the high-level potions as "final reward" since the ingredients are harder to find, put since you pick up enough to make other potions along the way the journey and time are not that hard and don't feel that wasted IMO.
I mean come on. It's like trying to find collectibles. If potion ingredients are really that rare I do not know if I even bother finding all of them, since I will probably be fine with a few of them. If there would be more powerful potions which are harder to find the ingredients for ALONGSIDE of potions of which the ingredients are easier to find in a system where there is NO auto-refill but just a REDUCTION OF INGREDIENT NUMBERS if you do not use all of the "potion uses" (would even add some strategy in the usage of potions) then I would have both components I need, short-time occupation (low-level potions) and long-time motivation (powerful potions). The way it is now I will probably just collect 2 or 3 sets of ingredients for potions and then be done with it. I don't want to search 3 hours to get 1 potion together, sorry.
It is a COMPLETELY wrong distribution of time resources, considering you will be occupied for HOURS just for this simple task of getting a potion toghether just to be left without having to do ANYTHING in that regard once you found the potion. Instead of spreading those 2 - 3 hours of finding ingredients we will need no matter the system across 10 hours of gameplay where we find herbs alongside making quests and other stuff, you do concentrate those 2 - 3 hours on one place an tell the player "okay, your search for 2 - 3 hours to get a potion, THEN you go make your quest". That way the search for ingredients becomes way more apparent to the player and the player realizes WAY MORE that he is wasting his times getting potions ingredients.And you do that instead of occupying the mind of the player by feeding him the ingredients gathering bit-by-bit stretched through (and/or over) a lot of gameplay hours. I think this (latter) approach would make way more sense and distract the player more from the fact that what he is doing is a totally tedious task. Because no matter which system, he IS doing a tedious task by searching for potion ingredients, the difference is in the system you HAVE this tedious task is concentrated on a very dense area within the players playing time while in the system(s) a lot of us would prefer you would have to do the tedious task more often, but it would be spread out a lot more across the playing time.
1. If you have rare handcrafted ingredients and a set potion upgrade system there is not a lot of experimenting except maybe applying different "additional ingredients" for potion upgrades having different effects. Beyond that we will brew following a recipe anyway
2. Yea it is a manual task and takes no skill, but it adds to the immersion, the role-playing and the preparation aspect of the game, an aspect I absolutely LOVED about the Witcher despite the mediocre alchemy system of TW2.
Which would actively make 2 of those potions completely redundant.
Oh god, if you are so lazy, for all I care we do not have to click on those straws, for all I care you can just "auto-gather" those ingredients if you are really too lazy or find it too annoying to click to loot (although I ask myself then why do you play RPGs where this happens basically all the time?), or have the herbs be buy-able at vendors/herbalists (the low level herbs).
But why should I make 10 if I only need 5? Why should I re-create (or refill) a potion if I do never need it because I do not like it's effects? Why should I carry it around in the first place? Why should I have an equally difficult fight when not preparing (because all potions auto-refill anyway if I have enough alcohol in my inventory) then if I do actively prepare (in a system where there is no auto-refill, I have to make the potions I think I will need and not make those I think I will not need, hell if it is the system I talked about on the last page where you have to use less ingredients if you do NOT use all "uses" of a potion then it even adds a strategic element "Do I take all of those uses in the fight or can I save one so I do not have to gather ingredients so soon?").
And YES, it changes how I perceive and experience the game.
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Hmm maybe we are imagining the system differently.
In my opinion, what CDPR are going to do, is give you the more basic and weak potions easily, some at the start of the game/tutorial, some by putting ingredients relatively easy to find in most places. So far it plays like TW1 and TW2, but then the better ones or upgrades are found while you do quests and go check for Points of Interest in the landscape.
I'm not sure I get why would you feel spending double or triple the time to find ingredients annoying, if you will actually just be playing the game during that time, you are not just running aimlessly. I'd prefer to explore interesting locations, experience the wilderness, its animals, the monsters, and do quests, rather than have to specifically interrupt every other possible gameplay activity, just for walking a lot and clicking.
I don't think that ultra extreme example you gave, "not being able to brew ANY potion" will be utilized in the game by any means, there's no logical reason to think it would for all I know. When I was talking about the natural transition I referred mainly to the method CDPR uses to limit which recipes and ingredients you can find.
I also don't think it will be like finding collectibles at all, collectibles in open world games have the common characteristic of:
1) They dont aid you in any way, or barely. So finding them or not is entirely trivial concerning gameplay.
2) Because of the reason above, they are usually put in the most annoying and hidden places of the maps, because the only possible "value" they have is that of being an obsessive player that wants to "collect" content, no matter if its fun doing it or not, and that makes those players go to all places of the game, and spend time.
These things dont apply to ingredients and recipes, potions are a key integral part of the witcher gameplay, so you can expect everything to appear in places where the player will supposedly go at some point for some reason (quest, POI, monster hunting, etc), thats the complete opposite of collectibles, where the places the player goes through are intentionally avoided so they can be hidden more effectively.
In my opinion we're going to get something like "there would be more powerful potions which are harder to find the ingredients for ALONGSIDE of potions of which the ingredients are easier to find", and here's where I think the upgrade thing kind of helps fill your short/mid/long term objectives, all potions will have a minimal of two ingredients sets, possibly two recipes as well, there's plenty of stuff to cover our needs if they organize it properly, and I haven't seen a sign showing they wont do so. You probably wont specifically search for each potion for 3 hours, the idea is that along the way there is the actual core gameplay of the witcher games, not just running around. In TW1 and TW2 we were pretty much picking up herbs for 3 hours just so that we could have enough of them, because potions didnt refill for example, and there was certainly no fun challenge in doing that, all of them were laying there in the ground.
We also shouldn't forget about the ingredients taken out of killed monsters, which now with monster hunting and many more species will likely play a bigger role in potion making.
"It is a COMPLETELY wrong distribution of time resources, considering you will be occupied for HOURS just for this simple task of getting a potion toghether" I seriously doubt this is how its going to be, it wouldn't make sense, its a worst-case scenario. They are probably going to use ingredients more like rewards for the more alluring gameplay aspects of the game, like i said, exploring, POIs, hunting animals and monsters, solving quests, reaching secret hideouts and caves with clues or things like that. You will do that because of their inherent value, and then while doing them you find new valuable ingredients or recipes. Its not like you forget about the whole game and say "alright lets stop "playing" to go gather herbs for a while", that makes no sense, its as if they would be trying to ruin the game on purpose, more importantly it doesnt give them any benefit, I doubt its like that.
I think we generally agree on what we want or think its a good idea, but I'm not seeing just why you think all of those horrible implementations are the more probable result. I understand your points on why they suck, but my point is it doesn't seem to be that's the way the game is going to be, its unreasonable when we analyze its disadvantages and advantages.
What I said in my first post, that its natural how they limit potion making, means that many of the problems you mentioned are sort of out of place, to say it one way, because that thing of "i have to spend 3 hours getting ingredients doing nothing before i can actually play", is precisely the opposite of what i said, thats lack of limitations, where the player can control when he wants to get the ingredients at will, and so it just becomes a tedious task to be completed. In TW3 its almost sure to me you wont even be able to do this, what POIs you see and explore, what quests, what monsters you can take on, those things are what will decide what potions you make more or less, not your will to be bored walking for 3 hours.
Sure if you fancy exploring a LOT you will probably find some extra things, but exploration is always indirectly controlled by the devs, you dont just run aimlessly, you see something interesting, or hear sounds, or find tracks with Witcher Senses and thats what catches your attention, and then what do you know, there were useful ingredients for you, and no quest directed you there for example. You wont need to actively go to "random" places you have absolutely no attraction for in order to find stuff you need for your potions, that design makes no sense, in TW1/2 its a bit like that but because the maps are so small that there are ingredients everywhere, so its like whatever, you'll find them surely. In this open world witcher game that simply doesnt work.
We need more info to discuss this well however, like you always say if I'm not mistaken, we need some kind of video or dev diary explaining things in detail, most of our posts are speculation sadly :/
That is SO not what they said.
Their exact words were that we will only have to search for ingredients once and then the potions will auto-refill with while meditating as long as we have alcohol in our inventory. And to make it more "interesting" potion ingredients will be harder to find and encourage exploration.
They did not separate between low level and high level potions, they did NEVER say "but the low level potion ingredients are easy to find, they are right around the corner. It would also make no sense whatsoever in the system they have since if you only need and ingredient 1 time to brew a potion it would be a waste of time to have herbs around every corner. Which in turn means certain ingredients will be found in certain handcrafted location and only there, which means you have to travel a lot and need a lot of time to gather all the ingredients for one potion.
WOULD the ingredients be around everywhere then there would be NO REASON whatsoever to even have an auto-refill and there would be no reason NOT to use any of our ideas for an alchemy system, considering they planted herbs all around the areas anyway.
Yeah but here is the difference.
If potion ingredients are everywhere around you and easy to find then you do quests, hunt monsters, explore and gather the stuff alongside that. If ingredients are RARE to find and you only need them once (maybe even being available only in one region or location or in a few across the big map) then you will HAVE to run around and search for those ingredients if you WANT the potion. And if you are not willing to do that you will probably ignore the alchemy system altogether because you say "you know what, if I happen to stumble upon it, fine, but if not I just do it without potions".
IMO that discourages using potions and alchemy rather than encouraging it.
But CDPR stated the goal is to make the ingredients "hard to find". Sorry, but an ingredient I spend hours searching for just to have to search another 2 or 3 ingredients to get 1 potion that might or might not help me in the end because maybe I do not like or do not need it's effect is almost useless to me.
Okay, but in this case they are TOO EASY to find, and if they are too easy to find AND have AUTO-REFILL at the same time I will probably have collected all potions in no time and will not ever use alchemy again later in the game, unless there are a RIDICULOUS amount of different potions and upgrade levels.
I wouldn't even mind the "easy" / "low level" / "basic" potions auto-refilling if the "upgraded" potions would need ingredients EVERY time, but the way they described it MULTIPLE times is that you have auto-refill for ALL potions.
Here are the facts stated:
- You have to collect ingredients for the first time of brewing a potion
- Potions will require more material than in previous games
- Ingredients are hard to find
- Potions will auto-refill during meditation after you brew them one time if you have the base alcohol in your inventory
- There is no option to NOT auto-refill the potions during meditation and just gather the ingredients
How does that sound to you? I tell you how it sounds to me:
- It will take long to gather the ingredients for one potion. You probably have to travel a lot and go to certain locations, maybe ask people out (something like mini-quests)
- Once I got the potion I have it forever basically. That does eliminate any interactive or tactical aspect from potions
- After I collected all potions and their upgrades I will never have to do anything, I will just have to meditate and the potions will all be available in my inventory for myself to choose from
The way I see it we will either get VERY LITTLE out of killed monsters, sometimes even nothing (if the monster is available in bigger numbers in the world) or we will sell a lot of those monster parts for coin, because if I only need a certain amount of material for brewing a potion and afterwards don't need it anymore that means that once I brewed the one or two potions the monster parts are needed for looting them becomes basically useless.
Yeah but for that they would need a balance between "potions with easy to find ingredients that have to be refilled" and "powerful potions with very hard to find ingredients or unique ingredients that will be auto-refilled then".
But I don't see the fun in that. Do it once and you have it forever? I mean come on, the powerful potions are supposed to be a special reward BECAUSE they are rare, if I can make (auto-refill) as many powerful potions as I can with low level potions I will of course 90% of the time take the powerful potions. In other RPGs it at least makes sense. More powerful potions? Hard to gather ingredients, but if you brew them you get a few more uses than for the "low level" ones, but use them wisely. Easy to gather ingredients, but if you brew them you get a few less "uses" and you have to refill them more often, but you can acquire them so fast and easy that it won't even bother you (often you even have too many ingredients for them).
I mean it makes no sense. Just auto-refill all? NO reward for me. It's like learning a spell in an MMO or acquiring a skill, that way you might as well unlock specific potions in the alchemy Witcher skill tree, that is ridiculous IMO, not only in terms of the actual system, but also a huge bummer for immersion, considering TW1 and TW2 handled this COMPLETELY different.
But what else can we do if we do NOT get more information? We asked for an update multiple times, all the developers always had to say is a short general summary of the system without going into any detail, and the unwillingness of the developers to go into detail as well as the fact that most statements sounded the exact same way, pointing in the very direction I and other people here think the system will be makes my theory the best bet. Because even if I speculate a little bit here and there (though I am trying to remain close to the facts and make my conclusions based on that) the things you are saying about how you think the system will be and that it does not all have to be the way we said it is an even BIGGER speculation than what I and some others concluded from the facts.
But then the game becomes less dynamic. Why do I have to use potions C to beat monster X? Why was potion B only introduced to me later on and the ingredients are only available in another region when what I actually wanted to to is fight monster X with potion B instead of C because I think potions B benefited my current state of skills better than potions C, even if potion C might objectively be better for monster X and/or fit better into the region.
And why does potion G always refill though I will never use it? Why can't I decide what ingredients to gather or buy and what potions to brew instead of it refilling FOR ME all the time?
Why do I never do any potion brewing or ingredient gathering 70 hours in the game because I have gathered all the potions and possible upgrades?
Or to ask other questions.
On the one hand: Why do I need to go out searching a ton of time to get the potion I want?
On the other hand: Why are all the ingredients just along my way/path and I do not have to do much to get the potions other than following my questline and afterwards it does not even need me to REFILL the potions by gathering ingredients again, no it does that for me too (making the alchemy system almost non-existent)
Sorry but people asked for this months on end, it came up over and over again and all we get from the devs regarding this system is a very short summary and silence upon the request of video material or details.
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