Combat should be.about COMBAT, not "Drinking potions mid-combat while a guy is SWINGING a friggin sword at my head.

Drinking potions when you're health i slow during combat just looks and feels stupid to me. Potions should at the minimum at least hav ea small animation and during this time leave you vunerable, if you get hit you drop the potion (but you can also cancel it if you need to move, etc).

Forgive me If I think it looks stupid when people hit the "potion" button during combat, balancing a game around the use of that isn't good balancing, makes little sense, and looks extremely stupid imo.

It works fine in the Witcher, because combat is GASP! about actual combat, about dodging, blocking, using your signs and abilities. IT's not balanced around the ability to heal yourself mid fight. IT works fine, and you know what? it is actually challenging, there's no band-aid of potion abuse.

IF you want healing during combat, take up the magic ability for that.

I think some of you here haven't even played it and are commenting about it. in TW2 potions aren't QUICK "band-aid" style heal potions. Instead potions last 5-10 minutes at a time and you can easily drink one when you go out in an area that you KNOW you'll fight fighting in, it's not hard to know when to drink one or not.

It's a terrible idea, I don't want the game to be more realistic what I want is more game play balance unlike in Oblivion where you could pop Invisible on command or equip 100% Reflect Damage Equipment and totally pown the opponent. Having this system ruins any type of balance you could have and it will force players to focus on Restoration and if that happens then why did we get rid of Major, Minor skills in the 1st place. The Witcher has a unique system but so does Skyrim and the Rest of The Elder Scrolls games. If people want to mod this into their games go for it, I would love to see what you could do with it but not in the vanilla version, not to mention that Skyrim will probably be getting a whole bunch of people who have never played Morrowind, or Oblivion and Beth needs to make sure that their transition into The Elder Scrolls universe isn't a rocky one. This system doesn't help their transition, now would it make the game harder and more fun that's a possibity but you might make the game too hard which would be a terrible idea.

you have the weirdest logic ive seen lately. :laugh: if you are low on health exactly whos fault is that. is it the bad guys fault because he hit you to many times. i just dont get your reasoning. at what point are any outcomes in the game whether good or bad a result of your decision and thus your responsiblity?

I sort of agree, I think potions should be like Smithing Tools and such, you shouldn't be able to drink them when actively fighting. Especially now that they fall into the "Stealth" Category, it makes more sense to use them as prefight buffs, or after fight restoral, I never liked the fact that Alchemy was always stronger than Restoration because of that.

All that said, changing the potions wouldn't make sense in Morrowind at least, because of how most of the combat is out of the player's hands, and in the hands of the die roll. Oblivion and Skyrim don't really have that issue though.

But, in a well-made game, it WAS your fault. YOU got to the point where your health fell low, YOU fought like a cow, YOU failed to properly utilize the tools at your disposal to succeed. Thus, the AI triumphs, and you pay the price. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6iT-lMgfAI Game over. Reload, try again, and do better next time.

You say you don't want to die an unfair death? Well, hello, Fallout and Oblivion are anything but fair...to the AI. You don't see the enemies in them carrying around the truckloads of healing potions, enchanted items, and cheap spells the PC is capable of.


Are you really the 'Terror of Death,' or do you just have a lot of it?

How the skills are balanced depends on a whole lot factors. Potions will always have the advantage over spells in that their effectiveness is not tied to any skill, they don't require Magicka to use, and they're often more flexible. Keep in mind, with the way the current system works out, depending on Restoration to keep yourself healthy comes with its own drawbacks, namely in the fact that to have a healing spell equipped means you have to deprive yourself of another weapon (which could in turn help keep you alive by killing faster), a shield (to prevent damage from being taken in the first place), or any spell (which could do near anything). And even if your worst case scenario were to happen, so what? Skyrim, more than its predecessors, encourages adapting a play style on the fly, explicitly because it gets rid of Majors and Minors. If you find yourself having to use it all the time, great, at least you wouldn't have gimped yourself when selecting/creating your class.

And making the transition to Elder Scrolls as smooth as possible for brand new players? Are you [censored] kidding me? Must the series perpetually keep itself simple, must its mechanics remain static, must there be no sense of experimentation, all so it can continue to attract new fans?

@360RPGplayer.............i just found the perfect game for you. http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/495903

The witcher 2 was a total failure in every single way, bad gameplay, lack of characters, lack of story, lack of immersion, etc etc. AND I BOUGHT IT!! I watched the trailers and was so into it and I actually paid for it...and what did I get? A terrible game

EXACTLY!
And in my opinion, this feature is not a well-made feature, making it feel overly punishing.

That is exactly my point.



The point where the game reaches bad game design.
If the first thing that happens in skyrim at level one is a dragon bursts through the wall and kills you, and you can't get by this dragon unless you defeat it, but you're level one and it's level 10,000.
Is it my fault I can't beat him? No, it's poor game design.

Potions are NOT broken. The Alchemy system is fine, and by taking a Witcher-approach potions would be near-useless in combat, at least Health or Magicka potions. Furthermore, why should you be the one dictating what I do in my single player game. If you want realism in your game, that's fine, I'm sure a mod could help you out there. But don't tell me what I want in mine.

Actually, bad game design is exactly what you state there with the dragon, but the opposite in your previous example. Bad Game design means leaving exploits in the game, such as the 100potion sprint to kill virtually everything. New Vegas finds a good middle-ground with hardcoe enabled. Stimpacs can be used, but they don't instantly restore your HP, and the instant health gain doesn't stack indefinitely (As in Morrowind). It just adds to the duration.

Good Game design means making the game as challenging as possible, yet as easy as possible, without exploits on either end. Unfortunately, we will not have an AI that can learn for some time, and even longer before it's commercialized for use in a game, so the AI has to exploit or "cheat" on higher difficulties. I think this issue highlights the importance of "hardcoe" options in games, as opposed to tying it directly to difficulty.

Speaking directly to the Witcher 2's system, it is overly punishing. It has a few layers in it that don't seem necessary. Either having to Meditate to use potions or toxicity would have been sufficient alone. Both seem to needlessly burden the player. That may be the overall feel the game itself was going for, but in the context of Skyrim, it certainly wouldn't work.

Potions should have a powerful effect, but should be difficult to make and rare to find. It shouldn't be something as simple as previous games. No, they should have odd and profound effects on one's character. I think Daggerfall had alchemy right.

Aside from the fact you had to rely on the guilds' services to use the potion maker, I agree. It would certainly help if the ingredients were more mythical and rare in nature, too. It was kind of weird thinking about how in Oblivion, anybody could simply waltz out of a kitchen with a basketful of cheese and watermelons and be able to brew them into potions.

How does Beth stay in Business, by keeping their customers happy and getting new customers to buy the game. This feature does none of that and makes Potions useless in battle and possibly outside of battle. We'll need to resort to sleeping/Restoration in order to recover health and you can't sleep in the middle of a battle.


Couldn't have said it any better.

Wow, did you even play it? It has soem of the best atmosphere in an RPG, if your computer can handle the eye candy. Literally look slilke you're walking into a painting sometimes with the lighting an deverything.

Bad gameplay? How so? Because the combat is challenging and isn't sit back and roll the die style? Lack of characters and story? Ok you lost me here, because the Witcher has some of the more in depth characters of an rpg. The depth to your choices can DRASTICALLY alter the game, I mean some choices determine what an ENTIRE chapter of the game is like, after Act I you can end up in an entire different place and a good 8hours of content is different depending on your cohoices.

The Witcher doesn't go for the same old "Good/EVIL" system, it's world works much more natural, people are shades of grey, the things you do affect and alter things but the choices aren't simple nor good/evil only, like in many Bioware rpgs or such.

Only problem is your stuck as Geralt unlike Bioware or BGS, where you can create your own character from scratch or in Bioware's case a predetermined character that you can customize their face.

The features we have been discussing in this topic, such as the "drinking" animations, have been used in many other games (i.e. The Witcher, Demon's Souls, Odin Sphere, Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines to a point). They have worked quite well, coming across as neither cheap nor unfair. They've made their respective games legitimately more challenging, strategic, and tactical than TES has ever been. Really, call me presumptuous, but I'm doubtful you've ever played these games that have these mechanics. On what basis do you have to say that they are broken?


Bethesda only needs to make a solid game to stay in business. If it lives up to the spirit of its predecessors, the old fans will be happy, and new fans will naturally come into the fold by seeing how attractive it looks. Bringing in new customers is the absolutely worst excuse to keep a series stagnant. Honestly, if this is what the basis of your argument is going to be, then you might as well say that Bethesda should just release smaller TES games every year, with only minor tweaks in between them. That's a strategy that's worked for EA and Activision. :rolleyes:

Actually, I'm all for the drinking animation.
What I am appose to is not being able to use potions in battle.
I have played The Witcher, The Witcher 2, and demon souls. The feature works well in their respective games, do I want this in skyrim? No, I do not.
I feel it will be an annoying feature in skyrim if I can;t heal with a potion during battle.
Especially with the fact that no one seems to take restoration magicka into consideration, if I can;t use potions in battle, then I'll always get up restoration so I can heal in battle, take away the ability to use restoration spells in battle? Might as well take away all spells.

Like I said, I'm all for the animation. Especially something bioshock-esc when you recharge your eve with a syringe.
Also, on what basis do you have to say that my opinion on what feels fair or unfair is incorrect?

if its good enough system for the other games then why wouldnt it be good enough for skyrim? its not like skyrim is some mysterious game with completely new gameplay. its a first person swords and sorcerory action game........same as any number of other games out there. i also have an issue with magic spamming for healing as well but at least with magicka you have to watch your pool. there really is no such limitation with potions since you just taking them as long as you have them. in my game i turned down magicka regen as well so that i couldnt spam healing spells either but all im talking about now is potions.


skyrim is already adopting game mechanics from bioshock and dark messiah as it is. whats adding one more to the list?

well there is progress at least. at least your not opposed to having your character stop and actually have to drink the potion and be vulneralbe for a couple of seconds.

I like the idea of having to use potions tactically, coming from Monster Hunter 2 onward. For those who didn't play Monster Hunter 2 on, when you consumed anything, your character would stop then eat the item. Then decide after giving the animation for consuming it, he would flex his/her muscles. While a giant creature tried to KO you. And this applied not just to consumables, but also tools like traps and bait. Basically, anything you did had an animation. Doing anything during a battle with a big creature froze you in place, and made you susceptible to the high-damage of these creatures (like the first time fighting the Tigrex *shudder*).

I liked the original system of how they did potions in TES, but I never thought about it at all until I saw this thread and made me think about it. Would a system like the OP mentioned really offer that much more flavor to the game? In Oblivion, each battle was basically swing, swing, swing something died. When you harvested herbs, made potions, repair armor, etc., it was instantaneous. Drawing an arrow was quick, swinging a weapon was quick, the slowest attacks in Oblivion were magic ones and I'm finding calling it slow hard. The game felt quick. Battles felt quick, and in my opinion, were quick. Giving potions a CD would have done little to the game's combat, in my opinion.

If Skyrim changes making combat more slow-paced, then yes, giving a cool down on potions or an animation would be necessary to keep a constant on the game's slower paced feel. If it's going to stay the same way, it would feel annoying to drink potions, in my opinion.

This is one of the most ignorant things I've ever read. Are you insisting all games are the same?
In oblivion, The combat is generally about hitting your opponent until they die, and having more health than them. There are some variables, like blocking and ranged, etc. But you can't exactly roll circles around people and avoid damage like in the witcher. Damage is pretty much immanent in this kind of game.
Different games require different mechanics to blend well with other mechanics. In my opinion, being unable to use a potion during battle would be frustrating, for that matter, stopping and being unable to move during a potion animation would be annoying as well, unless it was incredibly fast. maybe not being able to attack for a bit and having your vision obscured would be alright as long as you could still move around, even if it's at a decreased speed.

There are obviously a ton of solutions to this, some are broken, some are overly simplified and some are overly frustrating. Just saying "Well it works in the witcher, so it will work in Skyrim!" shows a lack of knowledge of game design over all.

JUST MAKE THERE BE AN ANIMATION FOR DRINKING POTIONS SO YOU CANT JUST GET ALL YOUR HEALTH BACK IN THE MIDDLE OF DOING SOMETHING ELSE COME ON NOW

I want this to be TES not The Witcher.

Things like this honestly annoy me. It's like how in the past in FPS games you could have a large arsenal of weapons. Now for "realism" you can only hold two. In the past you had health bars. Now it's the tired "BLOODY SCREEN!! SO REAL!!!" health system in most FPS games.

This system reminds me of those things: In my opinion devolution in gaming design meant to make the games "more real." No thanks.

And THAT is itself something that needs to be changed.

So many people talking past tense - did you guys seriously already finish the game?!?

Anyway, yes, I agree with others. The Witcher's potion system is junk. I don't like how it was done at all, and as a consequence, have chosen to play without using them. Since I'm not playing on a game level that requires them, it isn't a bother.

The only bad thing about TW2's potion system is that you have to be meditating to drink them, which wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't arbitrarily prevent you from meditating in situations that should be pretty safe. Other than that it's a good way to prevent you from just piling the damn things on. Plus, they last a very long time, making them feel like, you know, potions. A magical medicine or drug that takes a while to run its course, and is dangerous to overuse. Frankly if we had something similar to that in Skyrim -- though obviously not quite so extreme -- then it'd be quite distinct from magic spells. Hell, Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul was able to make them feel distinct with just a simple adjustment to the formulas and the way the default potions worked. Instead of instant healing, it just did healing over time. This helped balance it and, more importantly, give it a better set of advantages and disadvantages vs. magic, at least for restorative potions.

And frankly I'm appalled at the poor tasted displayed in here. You think TW2 is bad? I suppose you're not big on writing or compelling characters, or, you know, roleplaying, figuring out what you think Geralt would do in a given situation. For the record though: Yeah, the combat really isn't that great. The controls are slow to respond and it just feels kinda clunky. Plus it's woefully shallow. The fights are pretty much 90% rolling around, and it's very simplistically formulaic. Letho was kicking my ass for a bit, but then I remembered that Yrden works on everything and everybody, and once I abused that -- just the basic Yrden, mind you, not an upgrade -- the fight was piss-easy.