Yes the UI needs work.

I hate alchemy in pretty much every RPG I've ever played so I don't know if Skyrim's is good or bad. Filling my inventory with all kinds of junk that may or may not be useful later really doesn't appeal to me. Potions schmotions if I want them I'll buy them.

I use a Mod for the UI which makes dealing with lots of stuff a breeze, but if I had to do alchemy on the Pc with the UI that Bethesda has given us I`d probably have committed seppukku a long time ago.

Thanks Bethesda and Microshaft.

Alchemy UI is decent. Skyui does not even attempt change it.

The problem ones are mainly the main inventory which lacks sorting ability and value/weight column.

I probably should have elaborated more on why I don't like it-- aside from replenishing health, mana, or stamina, I have NEVER needed to use a potion or poison to defeat an enemy-- even on Master with no companions. For something I don't "need," it just doesn't feel worth the time and effort to get. I also hate spending all that time gathering the materials, crafting the potions, and then I end up being really stingy with them and never using them.

No idea what alternate universe you`re from.

http://skyrim.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=3863

I think you are the one in the alternate universe from the rest of us. In fact, I have not seen a decent alchemy menu replacer yet.

I think he means the actual crafting UI. SkyUI is simply an inventory UI replacement, but when you go to craft your potions the vanilla crafting UI is still there (which I find horrendous)

Well I don't do any alchemy because I'm the exact opposite of a hoarder. I make a point of emptying my inventory of everything but a weapon (max 2), whatever I'm wearing and a few lockpicks. I have realized I do this because I'm an obsessive role-player and it ruins the experience for me that you can carry around way more than you could in real life. I simply wander Skyrim, looking for adventure and exterminating evil, wherever it may be found

I've played Morrowind, Oblivion and Skyrim, and Skyrim's Alchemy is my favorite Alchemy of all three. I love the idea of needing to taste ingredients in order to know what they do, I love mixing ingredients in-game, at crafting stations, instead of doing it outside of the game in my menu, and I love actually seeing my character next to the crafting station actively mixing ingredients.

That does not mean anything. Trust me, I hate to scroll up and down over hundreds of ingredients even with a scroll wheel mouse. If the game would at least not reset my selection after an unknown potion has failed would this already help me with experimenting. I then would only unselect the last one and pick the next unknown combination. Right now am I forced to select all new. Not helpful at all.

And the mouse likes to have a different opinion on what I want than the keyboard. Or you click just a little too low under MISC and the entire menu closes. Sometimes do items in the list change places or the list moves up or down unpredictably and the selection changes. The user interface is a punishment.

I'm using SkyUI which doesnt rework the alchemy UI yet.
What are you using?

Well maybe I`m thinking of the long list where I can see all the stuff I have and sort them that way. I guess that the general Sky UI then I did not see this as separate, but I think I see what you guys mean now.

It's going to be tedious to some, a great sub-system to others. If you fall into either camp, deal with the fact that some people are going to disagree with you, and that their views are just as valid.

For me, I've always loved alchemy in the ES games. Liked it best, I think, in Morrowind, where the sheer difference in size, color, and shape of all the flora throughout the game made ingredients easy to spot, and where selling your potions was a much slower path to fortune that took you all over a much more diversified land. But I loved it, too, in Oblivion, especially in tandem with a great house mod (Tchos' Alchemy Tower) that made sorting incredibly easy, and I love it still in Skyrim, where it's harder to find, and still produces great results. I can easily see where others find it tedious, but that's the nice thing about decent developers: they don't necessarily make every feature something that everybody will like. I'm not big on sneaking, or smithing. Each to their own. Alchemy works for me.

Ingredient selection reset is generally not an issue because you do not want to make a fail potion again. You just have to remember that one last ingredient you were testing on. And the game does blank out those combinations you have failed before.

The mouse problem is bad. But it is actually a bigger problem outside of alchemy (this topic) as the problem persist across all menus and most horribly in NPC dialog.

I have no doubt a better UI can be made eventually, but potion creation menu is serviceable as far as I am concerned. There are more pressing concerns, enchanting menu for one.

@ OP, sometimes I felt Alchemy was tedious, but the excitement of discovering new ingredients and new ingredient effects, and the sense of accomplishment when I make a really powerful potion, tend to override that.

I feel it's a similar bag as enchanting and smithing. It can be fun but sometimes can be a drag, but the results are more than worth it. My alchemy's at 100 now, and I know all the ingredients' effects, and I have all the important alchemy perks, and I can make a single potion worth upwards of 3000 gold that has 4 powerful beneficial effects that last a long time....much, much, much more powerful than potions you can find in-game.

Plus, being an alchemist gives you a good reason to not fast-travel, since most of the good ingredients are randomly around in the wilderness.

That being said, I do think alchemy is more for players who are okay with taking their time and are patient and not easily frustrated, as it does take quite a bit of time to gather necessary ingredients and - especially in the early game - slaving over an alchemy table trying to discover good combinations.

Once you realize that the exp you get for potions is more or less equalivant to the gold value, it's not tedious at all. Slow, degen, and invisiblility, is typically where it's at.

I do have to admit that even though some of the new effects are really cool I don't use alchemy in Skyrim near as much as I did in Oblivion.

I do miss being able to make potions anywhere, by carrying the equipment with me. It took me a while to adjust to only being able to do it at alchemy tables at fixed spots in the world...

No, I don't find it tedious. And, for the record, don't find smithing tedious and didn't find spellcrafting tedious, or finding my way without compass markers or any of a dozen other things. Goodness, I hope they don't take out alchemy too.

the next scrolls will be a toolkit that allows us to create our own game.

You did not understand what I wrote. I want to unselect myself, but not all ingredients, only one so that after I combined a Bee with Vampire Dust I can try my luck with Bee and Wheat, as an example. Now it deselects both and I have to scroll all the way up to Bee and then down to Wheat. If I wanted to clear the selection can I always press F myself.

Another thing it fails at is to recognize when combinations will quite obviously fail. After you have uncovered all 4 effects on two different ingredients will it sometimes still highlight their combination as untested even when it is clear from reading the effects that it can only fail. Here would I like to see the user interface offer its help and automatically grey-out these combinations once all 4 effects of an ingredient have been uncovered.

Well, this is a thread about Alchemy ...

As long as there are plenty of tools that are easy for someone like me (think minimal computer skills) to use, I would very much like that.

Yep alchemy and smiting just cant be bothered with it seems too much effort for little results.

Enchanting as well just makes me want to fall asleep.