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Alchemy

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What's your general opinion of alchemy in RPGs and your favourite implementation of it in a game?

I almost never use alchemy in RPGs. I pretty much hate it. It always feels like a drab. And ultimately, just pointless. Take Skyrim as the most recent example. I always end up with dozens of potions of all kinds in every dungeon romp, so I never even get an incentive to give alchemy a try. More importantly, it's back to Morrowind potion-abuse.

There is a total of exactly one game that I think got it right: The Witcher. And I spent a good deal of time preparing potions, making potions to reduce toxicity, making potions with low toxicity, etc. Potions made a huge deal in the game, upping your ability to just survive drastically and it was near impossible to potion-abuse.

But I think the most significant thing that ultimately influenced my decision to try alchemy was accessibility and interface. Enhanced Edition had quite simply the most streamlined (in a good way) interface geared towards potion-making, making it a matter of simplicity. Compare that to scrolling a shit inventory with shit clarity in Skyrim where despite the dumbed down simplicity of the process itself, it is buried behind a counter-intuitive interface. :puke:

So, what are your thoughts?
 

Kraszu

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Gothic system is simple but it works, you really value the few most important plants, it adds to exploring. That way even at low levels you can find things that will be important for you in the late game.

To make alchemy really interesting you would need to be trapped in the gameworld where it is hard to survive, there should be either no NPC or only some not advanced tribe that couldn't offer you much. Or you should travel very far from NPC settlement, and potions would ferment, and be useless after few days so you couldn't just stock a pile of them, ingredients would also would need to be fresh.
 

Fowyr

Arcane
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Daggerfall's ingredient selection was awesome.
Pity what alchemy in the Daggerfall was close to useless.
 

baronjohn

Cipher
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TES games have so much loot that alchemy and enchanting (and now smithing) is pretty much useless.

On the other hand, alchemy was mandatory if you were playing tech in Arcanum.
 

Eyeball

Arcane
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Don't think I ever used the alchemy skills in Arcanum, really - with a big enough gun, most things seemed to die before getting close enough to take chunks out of my HP bar. Crafted about 6000 bullets and voltaic cells, of course, but that's another tree.

I second Gothic having good alchemy. While just about all RPG shops have healing potions galore for you to buy, running all over the world looking for rare ingredients to give you permanent skill boosts was fun and really gave an incentive to use the skill.

For alchemy to be anything more than a curiosity in games, I think that they either need to give you the opportunity to craft permanent +stat potions from rare materials or make potions hard to obtain and necessary in some fights. I did not like the Witcher much, but I did like that chugging down the occasional magical Jaegerbomb was pretty much required in preparation for tough fights.
 
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Don't like consumables, in general. You either depend on them - which is the worst design ever; or you can succeed without them - which makes them dead weight. And I find no satisfaction in beating a serious challenge using consumables - it becomes their victory, not mine.
Same attitude for real life, as well.
 

Gregz

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I agree that Alchemy is usually more trouble than it's worth. I can't think of a single game in which I used it or spent skill points leveling it.

Skyrim is the closest I've seen to making Alchemy useful. It's been a good way to make money, and it's essential for min/maxing enchanting and blacksmithing. I've also discovered some genuinely powerful recipes like:

Invisibility 40 seconds
Health Regenerates 52% faster for 300 seconds
Cures All Diseases

That's a pretty handy 'emergency' potion that isn't sold by vendors, and can't be found in the game world.

I don't use Alchemy very often in Skyrim, but the fact that I use it at all makes it an improvement over most games.
 

Skittles

He ruins the fun.
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Apr 20, 2011
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I support the Gothic suggestion, but I want to add Darklands.

While not without its flaws, the alchemy system in Darklands worked for a couple of reasons. First, there was no 'magic,' just alchemy and prayer. So between then alchemy and prayer accounted for all buffs, all magical lock opening and offensive effects there are in the game. There was some overlap, but if I remember correctly, alchemy was the only way to achieve offensive effects (especially fireballs and enemy debuffs through armour destruction). That made it worth investing in.

I also thought that the recipe and philosopher's stone systems were nice--you can buy new recipes and upgrades to the phil. stone to make more powerful potions, and once you're established you can usually trade your recipes for other good ones. Beats magically learning new spells on level up and upgrading your alchemist is something of a side quest in and of itself.

Darklands' solution to keeping it from getting spammy was making is so that each town only carried a few rare ingredients, so you had to tramp around the countryside looking for vendors for the right ingredient to make the potion you want. Ultimately, I felt this was a little tedious plus it didn't really prevent abuses--you could buy hundreds or thousands of the ingredient, and usually make a ridiculous profit selling potions back.

Anyway, the point is that alchemy can be a fun replacement for magic, too.

Oh, and I will commend one thing about Skyrim's alchemy. Making the ingredient effects unknown until you eat one or successfully create a potion with one is one of the more interesting approaches to alchemy I've seen. There's also a good combination of being able to make potions you don't have a recipe for and recipe use.
 
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And yet, unless the game randomises some or all of the four properties of ingredients, keeping them unknown is pointless.

Gregz said:
Invisibility 40 seconds
Cures All Diseases

That's a pretty handy 'emergency' potion that isn't sold by vendors, and can't be found in the game world.

I've found those two in the game world.

baronjohn said:
TES games have so much loot that alchemy and enchanting (and now smithing) is pretty much useless.

On the other hand, alchemy was mandatory if you were playing tech in Arcanum.

I played a techie gunsmith. I might have resorted to alchemy a total of a couple times in the entire game. My memory is hazy, though. I don't even remember what alchemy interface looked like or how it worked.
 

Skittles

He ruins the fun.
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Pointless because you're going to look up the properties online as soon as possible? If so, I don't buy it. It's like saying there's no point to having puzzles or exploration in your game.
 
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Puzzles and exploration = once you've done those, the second time will only take less time to play through them. Not seeing properties of ingredients immediately = you'll need to look up stuff every time since you can't possibly memorize all of 50+ ingredients all the time. It's a drag.
 

sea

inXile Entertainment
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The big problem with alchemy is that usually it's just boring and unnecessary. Most games are balanced around players not having alchemy, or any crafting skills for that matter, so usually you have enough potions and whatnot to get by without making them yourself. Alchemy, while convenient, just isn't useful enough when you could be putting skill points into your combat abilities instead and receive a bigger benefit.

As others mentioned, Gothic and Risen do a great job with alchemy. Potions are expensive and money is fairly tight, and good healing items with greater effects are hard to come by. When playing, you have to really think about conserving your potions, especially as they're less integral to winning and more just a "free pass" for mistakes made. Moreover, alchemy allows you to get permanent stat bonuses that you otherwise couldn't, meaning that you have an initial investment followed by delayed reward. It also gives greater incentive for exploration beyond the same old loot and XP.

Ideally I think all RPGs with crafting of some sort should make the player choose between one discipline, each with upsides and downsides. Smithing should allow for unique and powerful weapons and armour better than what you can normally find. Alchemy should allow for new potions with special effects. Mining should let the player find precious gemstones and metals, useful both for enhancing existing items and selling for cash. Cooking should improve endurance in the field and ensure long-term adventures are possible. All of these presume certain things (an endurance mechanic, money with real value, etc.) but if you're going to find a way to go about it, I think that is it. Limiting professions/disciplines is also important because so much value of these systems comes from taking one option over others; in a party-based RPG you'd have to have more disciplines than possible party size in order to keep things balanced and compelling.
 

Zomg

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Don't like consumables, in general. You either depend on them - which is the worst design ever

Wha?

Serious necessary consumables are the only way to make all the menufucking inventory and shit like that in RPGs worth anything. You must be thinking of a completely different concept of consumables to have said something that is so wrong by my definitions. I'm thinking of something like a situation in DC:SS where a decision about burning your only blink scroll is a big deal.
 

Stabwound

Arcane
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I generally dislike any kind of player-based item creation. Especially things like alchemy, where in RPGs that involves running around picking mushrooms and plants.

sea said:
As others mentioned, Gothic and Risen do a great job with alchemy. Potions are expensive and money is fairly tight, and good healing items with greater effects are hard to come by. When playing, you have to really think about conserving your potions, especially as they're less integral to winning and more just a "free pass" for mistakes made. Moreover, alchemy allows you to get permanent stat bonuses that you otherwise couldn't, meaning that you have an initial investment followed by delayed reward. It also gives greater incentive for exploration beyond the same old loot and XP.
I completely disagree with this. Especially in Gothic 1, there is a part where you have to kill a ton of humans at a mine and they all have potions on them. You end up with something like 100+ healing potions, far more than you'll ever need. I didn't find lack of potions to be of any concern in G2, either. I have not played Risen or G3.
 

laclongquan

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Wyrmlord said:
Alchemy would make sense if potions were in heavy demand.

Fixed! A useless potion make nosense at all. A mana potion, even if common like dirt, is still useful while you burn mana liek there's no tomorrow. Look at MM8 for correct application of alchemy.

Hell, a potion of water breath is useful while you havent got waterwalk spell and/or fly. Stone to Flesh potions are more useful than spell because of some freak chances make all your magicians got stoned at once.OR fatigue potions for long run in the dungeons.
 

Phelot

Arcane
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Stabwound said:
I completely disagree with this. Especially in Gothic 1, there is a part where you have to kill a ton of humans at a mine and they all have potions on them. You end up with something like 100+ healing potions, far more than you'll ever need. I didn't find lack of potions to be of any concern in G2, either. I have not played Risen or G3.

I think his point still stands. Games that don't give out potions or money for potions liberally will make alchemy more worthwhile.

And I guess that's the real question here: Do you think it would suck if you had to use alchemy in order to survive in a game?
 
Self-Ejected

Excidium

P. banal
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villain of the story said:
What's your general opinion of alchemy in RPGs and your favourite implementation of it in a game?
My general opinion is the same torwards all crafting skills: boring chore. My favourite implementation in a game is in World of Warcraft, because alchemy was actually a decent source of income, and you didn't have to waste time collecting herbs because you could just buy them from other players.
 
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It depends on the interface and implementation. I'd love such an necessity if it was as smooth as it was in The Witcher and made as much sense, eg. reagents, toxicity etc.
 

baronjohn

Cipher
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villain of the story said:
I played a techie gunsmith. I might have resorted to alchemy a total of a couple times in the entire game. My memory is hazy, though. I don't even remember what alchemy interface looked like or how it worked.
Maybe it's because I was playing without a party. I was making healing salves all the time. But how do you heal when you're tech? There's a healing vest but it sucks dicks.
 
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Oh yes, I played with a party. Somebody was healing me all the time. Virgil perhaps? Or some guy with a stache? Anyway, I bought most of my necessities from shops.
 

Metro

Arcane
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TES is horrible with both alchemy and enchanting. Too 'sandboxy' for a proper RPG where you can easily make yourself overpowered. Witcher was okay, nothing amazing. The toxicity was a nice trade off but you could still have the standard two or three buffs for difficult fights like swallow and uh... cyclone... or w/e that time one was. That combined with blade oils (which had no toxicity issues at all). Honestly they could have just 'baked in' the bonuses and adjusted baseline difficulty accordingly. Gothic series... meh... it's just about min maxing and totally unnecessary to win the game.

Bottom line, as someone else mentioned, rarity/scarcity is once again the key. And pretty much every RPG invariably fails in that department.

sea said:
As others mentioned, Gothic and Risen do a great job with alchemy. Potions are expensive and money is fairly tight, and good healing items with greater effects are hard to come by. When playing, you have to really think about conserving your potions, especially as they're less integral to winning and more just a "free pass" for mistakes made. Moreover, alchemy allows you to get permanent stat bonuses that you otherwise couldn't, meaning that you have an initial investment followed by delayed reward. It also gives greater incentive for exploration beyond the same old loot and XP.

I remember you remarked you only recently purchased Risen so maybe you haven't really gotten that far but, much like Gothic, money isn't really tight at all once you get to the latter half of the first chapter or into the second.
 

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