There is no potion drinking because he drinks them during meditation and he activates the effect using the witcher's ability to "control their metabolism".
There is no potion drinking because he drinks them during meditation and he activates the effect using the witcher's ability to "control their metabolism".
That's old news and is not in the game anymore for a while now. The change itself has been discussed in this thread in the past.
That's new to me. Then it really sucks there is no drinking animation. Same for the lack of oil use animation. What does CD Project Red have against animations?
Last edited:
Really? When did they confirm that change? Im curious since it does change my opinion on whether there should be a drinking animation or not.
I don't know if I must be worried about the drinking animation or lack of it. But if the game has those 100 hours of playing, maybe it could be really boring seen the same animation so many times. At least, fight animations are diverse and combinable, but the act of drinking for about 3 to 5 seconds would be invariable and repetitive in such a long game.
If it was done in a cutscene sure. However, if its integrated into the combat and you have to time its use as @vilgilance.492 described, its much more compelling.
Sure, but I cannot compare it. I've made a speculation because the all the duration of the game. I think that an animation of 1-2'' for TW1 was acceptable. Fot the supossed higher quality of TW3 it could be looking like a too mechanic motion...
But it's all speculations. Dammit, I'm too much agnostic for so many speculations . Let's see what M. 19th will bring us!Simple, balancing the combat.
To get responsive combat, you want the effects immediately when you request them, the animation will just interrupt that and make you vulnerable for a brief amount of time.
You might say that in this case, you'll have to decide when to drink and be more "tactical", but it all comes down to balance. Sometimes tradeoffs need to be made to have a well round and fun to use system and if the drinking animation gets in the way of that, I'm willing to let go.
Also the animation might be nice at first, it can get annoying when you see it for the 100th time.
Yeah, I think you're right.
A part of me out of reflex goes "I want the animations back", but if I'm honest with myself for a moment, during TW2 it didn't take me long to want an option to skip even those few-seconds animations of Geralt drinking, because I wanted to get back to the world.
Well I believe that's precisely the reason they didn't implement the animation. They probably believe that drinking the potion during combat would hurt the flow and get in the way of the 'action-y' feel.
I understand why they've done it, and that is most likely the reason for it. However I still disagree with it heavily. As I said (And you mentioned), there's a tactical element to finding the right time to down your potions, that moment of vulnerability and ensuring that when that moment comes you are in-fact not vulnerable, would be another element of the combat.
As for the animation getting boring, well I disagree on that too, the animations in W1 and even W2 never got annoying at all, and even if you were scared of that you could make a whole bunch of drinking animations that Geralt randomly picks, which could help keep things fresh.
At the end of the day I don't think either of those things will make me hate Alchemy use in the game, as I said the way Thunderbolt is used was utterly brilliant and aside from the lack of a drinking animation that's exactly the way I want using Alchemy to feel. However it is still disappointing, because much like the auto-refilling situation, it's weird to see core elements of the Alchemy system just get ripped out after 2 games of having them, and I don't think what it has enabled has really helped make the system any better. You could have Thunderbolt work the same way but still have a drink animation for example (Or non-auto refill), at this point I don't really see what all the Alchemy changes have "allowed" them to do that is actually special or interesting, and couldn't have been done in the previous games.
I personally wouldn't discard the alternative idea of having Geralt act the drinking animation when we see him in our inventory for example.
This obviously is thought better for a W3 where you always need to open the inventory to drink a potion (which can bring some subtle benefits imo), otherwise it'd be a waste of effort if you almost never use your inventory to drink potions optionally, but its a nice solution both to immersion, consistency, doesnt tire you because you can just quit the inventory very quickly after Geralt takes the potion, and in the inventory you are not being stopped by the animation from continue playing, its an intended "parallel reality" ackowledged by the player.
Aside form this idea, I'd think some kind of animation would be important one way or another for potions, and eating, and oil coating, personally I feel that in TW games you really miss an animation for these things, to stop them from being just "powers/skills", buffs, and remind you that they are objects and "real" things Geralt interacts with.
This obviously is thought better for a W3 where you always need to open the inventory to drink a potion (which can bring some subtle benefits imo), otherwise it'd be a waste of effort if you almost never use your inventory to drink potions optionally, but its a nice solution both to immersion, consistency, doesnt tire you because you can just quit the inventory very quickly after Geralt takes the potion, and in the inventory you are not being stopped by the animation from continue playing, its an intended "parallel reality" ackowledged by the player.
Aside form this idea, I'd think some kind of animation would be important one way or another for potions, and eating, and oil coating, personally I feel that in TW games you really miss an animation for these things, to stop them from being just "powers/skills", buffs, and remind you that they are objects and "real" things Geralt interacts with.
Okay so I've been kinda skimming over this thread, but is this essentially the deal with alchemy?
1. Refillable potions with multiple charges. Refill using the bases, no more ingredients necessary.
2. RIP drinking animation and no changes to Geralt's model after drinking
3. Potions are very, VERY short and are activated AFTER drinking as opposed to being activated immediately.
4. Potions have superior versions of them.
I'm liking the sound of this system minus the lack of drinking animation and the "activated potion" mumbo jumbo. Activating potions after drinking seems like the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of in an alchemy system. I know Witchers are superhuman and everything, but being able to turn on and off alchemical abilities after drinking a potion is silly. Also, that seems to take away the necessity of preparation. What's to stop me from just drinking a Swallow potion and then flipping my "Potion On" switch 3 hours later in a fight? I didn't see any of this in the PAX trailer so maybe it's just outdated information.
The lack of drinking animations really bugs me too. I loved The Witcher 2 and watching Geralt drink potions. Seriously, that was eye candy to me.
I guess I'm mixed about this new system. Hopefully it plays good in the game.
1. Refillable potions with multiple charges. Refill using the bases, no more ingredients necessary.
2. RIP drinking animation and no changes to Geralt's model after drinking
3. Potions are very, VERY short and are activated AFTER drinking as opposed to being activated immediately.
4. Potions have superior versions of them.
I'm liking the sound of this system minus the lack of drinking animation and the "activated potion" mumbo jumbo. Activating potions after drinking seems like the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of in an alchemy system. I know Witchers are superhuman and everything, but being able to turn on and off alchemical abilities after drinking a potion is silly. Also, that seems to take away the necessity of preparation. What's to stop me from just drinking a Swallow potion and then flipping my "Potion On" switch 3 hours later in a fight? I didn't see any of this in the PAX trailer so maybe it's just outdated information.
The lack of drinking animations really bugs me too. I loved The Witcher 2 and watching Geralt drink potions. Seriously, that was eye candy to me.
I guess I'm mixed about this new system. Hopefully it plays good in the game.
If there's a different drinking animation for the various stances/movements, it would be nice, just Geralt having a quick gulp without interrupting the flow too much.
If I remember correctly, in W1, Geralt just stopped and stood like an idiot drinking the potions for several seconds, which in an intense fight was deadly and diminished the usefulness to some degree. That was very annoying, it didn't add too much to the tactical aspect, it hampered it a bit.
Implementing such varied drinking animations might just be too much extra work for what it's worth and trying to make it blend in with the rest of the combat flow might be tricky.
I don't know what the reasoning is of if even this is the final decision, they might still be working on it, but I'd rather have such animations done right without being annoying/braking the flow (standing like an idiot drinking while getting hammered by the enemies), or not present at all.
Also the auto refill is starting to make a bit more sense now, if the effects of the potions will be this short.
Having 30-60 second duration (increased through the alchemy tree), would mean that you'd need a lot of potions, and if the required amounts of ingredients is similar to W2, then you'll need lots of ingredients as well, which would turn the game into a constant ingredient farming, and I don't want that.
Having the potions give you huge boosts for short periods, I think it's the right way.
My thoughts precisely. I've stated above my love for the way the new Thunderbolt works for instance, but at this point it doesn't feel like Geralt is actually using a potion but more like he's just "activating a skill", much like how 'Cooldown Abilities' work in MMO's for instance.
Whereas in the previous games, consuming a potion actually felt like you were taking a potion and not just popping some 'Cooldown'. The act of consumption really does a lot for how the system feels, much like (IMO) having to manually refill my potions and decide exactly how much I want to carry also affects the feeling of the system in many ways.
Also we can see Geralt can now put Bread in his pockets, and presumably Alcohol can be put there too and ingested at will (If earlier interviews are to be believed) . So there better be an animation for that kind of stuff, or else that'd be pretty ridiculous to have no animations for the consumption of anything. (Even if it also would be pretty silly to have an animation for alcohol/food consumption but not bother with a potion animation, considering you could almost share a alcohol/potion animation).
Well I'm not holding my breath, but that would certainly be better than nothing. In all the Gameplay Demos we've seen Geralt has never once drunk anything, not during combat and not before/during/after meditation, so we've got no evidence that points to Geralt having a potion drinking animation at any stage of the alchemy process.
Of course then we'd be back to the 'Witcher Metabolism' stuff, which some people would think is just as stupid (As they did when it was at one stage a proper feature - even myself did initially). So I dunno.
It still promotes preparation because you are only allowed to use two potions at a given time. Presumably, you won't be able to swap them in combat, in the 35min video it looked like Geralt had to meditate to "equip" a new potion.
Nothing but thats not the point, the point is that you drank Swallow, and because of that you have toxicity limitations from before the fight, which already makes you have to sort of "stick" with that potion once the battle starts or not use potions at all, or just 1 other or 2 (if you drank them before of course)
However I think the potion activation thing has been discarded and now you just drink them when you want, but with no animation, like you saw in the Wyvern fight. There was though a preparation layer left to potions, or to some type of them, but I can't remember exactly what was it.
@Vigilance.492
At this stage I'm pretty sure there wont be animations for any of those consumables or potions, because it was said that you can eat during actual combat to regain health or something similar, and having an animation for eating thats quick enough and happening during a fight would look beyond ridiculous. Drinking a potion is indeed fast but eating...
I also wonder, will the use of mutagens also increase toxicity. In the videos so far, the toxicity bar was empty and it spiked when a potion was used, but if you have mutagens, they could fill it, like half of it for example, which could also limit the types of potions that can be equipped.
But when you have a potion like Swallow, the ability to turn it on and off seems OP as hell. Superior Swallow healed Geralt super fast in the PAX demo. He was pretty much invincible the whole time it was active. Now imagine being able to turn that off when you're not taking damage and then on when you are. That whole minute of invincibility has just been extended longer than it should have. And if Geralt doesn't use the whole dose by the end of the battle, he can just save it for another fight with his inner off button.
They haven't said how Toxicity works with the on-off potion system. And from what we saw in the PAX video, you don't get a whole lot of Toxicity from both Swallow and Thunderbolt.
I believe the potion activation thing has been discarded too, but this still leaves my issue with the shorter potion times. Superior Swallow looked like it was essentially an invincibility potion that lasted for a minute. Superior Thunderbolt let Geralt deal absolutely massive damage in a few swings to the Wyvern. A longer potion time with lesser effects would balance that out more. Of course, we haven't seen the effects of lesser potions and we don't really know if the Superior effects will change over the next 2 months, but that's just my 2 cents.