Spam-able instant health potions are a horrible game mechanic. All potions should have a duration, with a limit on how many you can have active. Ideally, drinking a potion would have an animation as well.

Potions improving in small increments per alchemy level clutters inventory and is just unnecessary. Have certain levels determine what effects, or more advanced ingredients, are "unlocked", while also improving lower level effect magnitudes/durations. Use intervals of 25, for consistency.

Remove skill increasing potions. Alchemy shouldn't make every other skill better, it just doesn't make sense to have a potion that gives you increased lockpicking skill or whatever. A skill is not something you gain from chemicals, it's something learned.


These relatively simple, and IMHO obvious changes, would make Skyrim's alchemy system far better.


Agree/disagree?

Maybe not in a day, but in a week? Absolutely. They removed the additional complexity of the old apparatuses (retort, calcinator, etc.), left in a recursive Fortify Restoration potion exploit (echoes of Morrowind's recursive Fortify Intelligence potion exploit), you can't set custom potion names anymore, and leveling up the skill forces you to find one or two super-valuable combinations and then just grind those, rather than making a variety of potions. And I agree — they shucked way too many Fortify X effects from the old Restoration magick school into Alchemy. Not to mention the +crafting potions... the game would probably be better balanced overall without them.

It's playable, but not handled nearly as well as I'd hoped it would be.

Eh, the spammable health potions has been available in the Elder Scrolls game for as long as I can remember. It's the only way for some classes to play without getting murderwrecked on Master.

But hey, sounds like a sweet alchemy system you've thought up. Ever thought of modding it?

Isn't Alchemy in the game basically just another type of magic? I don't see how it makes it so unreasonable to have a lockpicking potion when you can stand in a dragon's breath and chug Health potions. Of course, I see a lot of the potions as pointless anyway; lockpicking potions being one of those. I guess a reason for it is that it helps calm the nerves in your hands and fingers, which is why it improves your ability to pick locks. Just saying "Improves Lockpicking" is just easier than slapping an in-depth explaination as to what, how, and maybe why.

I agree and i haven't used alchemy in any of my characters for this reason. I loot more than enough potions to get by from dungeons anyway. And i have one rule - NEVER - drink potions in combat. Because pausing the game and spamming 10 potions of health is just ridiculous and annoying.

Oh, there'll be tons of mods, you can count on it. We're all just waiting for the Creation Set.

First and most important mod will be one that allows me to name my own bleedin' potions. Second, a few sliders (like enchantment sliders) to adjust duration/potency ratio and such like, to act like the old alchemy apparatus and add a bit of complexity back into the system. And finally, putting a lid on exploitable potions and the unnecessary +skill potions.

Just because they've been in most if not all TES series, doesn't mean they're worth keeping in it. And I don't think we need to balance alchemy for Master difficulty, where there is no balance to speak of anyway, as it obviously heavily favors archery, conjuration, illusion, or sneak attacks - basically any method of dealing with enemies that involves not getting hit.

As for modding it, I don't know, not an expert modder. I assume it'd be somewhat simple, but also on the tedious side going through and removing all fortify skill stuff. I'm guessing more experienced modders will do something with alchemy though.

Magic wants some sliders and diversity too :'(

Nope. Accept the game as it is.

Ohhh SDF has arrived...

While I do agree that lockpicking skills (or any other) are something you cannot gain through a potion and it is something learned through practice and time, I also think otherwise (confusing I know ). I think that when you down a potion of say destruction for example, its helping you focus your willpower to be more precise in making your flames or lighting more efficient or you are able to temporarily draw from a deeper source of the mystic realms (forgot where TES magic originates from). Or say a potion or Archery allows you to focus more and place your shot better to hit vital points (yes I know TES doesn't have hitboxes but this is just how I percieve the way potions work). My way of thinking here probably won't jive with some people but hey, that's what opinions are for I suppose. I do think you are right however on your points of the alchemy system.

This is one area where it made sense to have attributes. I've defended removal of attributes quite a bit, but I have to admit attribute boosting potions make more sense than skill based ones. However, I'd be happy with neither, especially considering they've always resulted in exploits/balance issues.

sure...if we're on this boat then you should add chemical tolerance as well...by lvl 30 potions will be worthless

I agree for the most part except that this one point goes against a few game design rules.

Generally you want to give the player small rewards as they play. Be it a chest with some gold in it, a small cache of items, or enchancing a skill. You want to spread these out, for each time the player receives one, they get a release of dopamine in the brain, and 'enjoy' play more. Having rewards unlock every 25 levels would horribly clutter this reward. Instead of receiving more, smaller rewards, (Though I do agree that improving EVERY level is stupid) they would go through a very long drought of reward only to receive a huge amount at 25 levels. This is counterintuitive to what the average player commonly enjoys. I would set it to more like every 5 levels. That way you aren't cluttered with stupidness that is 2 pts apart (like now), but there is no drought of 'unlock' or reward. Can you imagine the wait from 75 to 100? That would get so lame and it would take all the fun out of increasing alchemy.

I agree their system could be improved, but I gurentee they had a good reason for every single decision they made. I'm sure if the person in charge of designing alchemy sat down and explained it to you, you would understand.

This.

challengeaccepted.jpg

I could design a better magic system in a day.

Currently, any player reaching mastery in Destruction and Restoration will most probably already have custom equipment, enchanted to have zero cost of spells (and sets for other schools of magic, maybe, but these two are essential). That makes obsolete all the "half" perks, and all the master perks. Just how much poorer gamedesign there can be?..

The good system:
1. Spell types are learnable from tomes/teachers/quests
2. Perks improve the power of spells. No spell levels, no "apprentice"/"expert" spells.
3. Spell targets for spell types that support them: self (cloaks), ground (runes), spray (close combat, most powerful) or distant (projectiles). Can be changed runtime while charging (holding its button) the spell with pressing some selector (mouse wheel on PC, for example).
4. To cast a more powerfull version if needed, hold it (like "power attack" of warriors). No "uncastable" spells because of mana requirement - cast as powerful as you can with current mana amount. The more player holds "attack", the more mana spell charging takes.
5. Enchantments make magic a bit stronger, not zero cost.
6. Sneak multiplier like for bows, when having Illusion's silent casting.

A system with dynamical spell power vs mana (by ability to "charge" spells, holding attack), dynamical spell targets and ability to cast different spells from both hands doesn't really require any spellmaking for an effective magical gameplay.


I could design a better smithing system in a day.

Currently, there's no point in exploring 150 linear dungeons with trash in final chest, because neither there are really rare ingredients (for alchemy/enchanting/smithing), nor there is anything better than overpowered player's equipment.
Also, currently base damage of a sword is 8 at start and 100 at end (with perks and "honing"), which is insane. To balance this madness, enemies at higher levels have more HP than mammoths. This is seriously poor gamedesign.

A good system:
1. Learn how to work with materials ONLY from teachers-smiths or tomes/ancient knowledge.
2. Progress smithing only with working with top-edge materials by amount of item's value.
3. Honing is for keeping bladed weapons in shape, not for improving. Blades should lose sharpness with cuts, the faster the greater the material of targets is. Cutting ebony armor with a steel sword should make it dull in a minute. All maces and hammers have spikes/edges, so i guess there's sense in same mechanics for them, too, but in lower degree.
4. Simple weapon crafting constructor screen: design (shape) + material. That would help modders a lot and remove the list of smithing options (that'll become very long in modded game), and can help player to choose from different designs with the same material. Orcish and Daedric bladed weaponry looks impractical and freaky, giving player a choice is a right thing. Also, the whole point of crafting isn't about making an overpowered stuff, it's about personalizing and customizing your equipment. There's no point in making a sword like every next NPC has, even if player can only work with same material and even if it won't be more powerful.
5. Really rare smithing materials and knowledge in dungeons/quests.
6. Using gems and precious metals for decoration of weapons and armor? That was the whole point of wepons for rich/famous ppl, they didn't really use it but it was the symbol of status and wealth. That could help a smith to really earn money with his craft.
7. Smithy option for houses?



I could design a better enchanting system in a day.

Currently, a mage can... eh, totally destroy an ebony warhammer while trying to find out its enchantment? Orly? Why can't he do that in battle, could be realy useful. And if armor and weapons aren't smithed with enchantments - they are enchanted later - why does unenchanting destroy them?
Also, enchanting is disconnected from schools of magic: a protagonist who never casted a fireball can enchant stuff with supreme fire enchantments. That's silly.

So, a good enchanting system:
1. Knowing a spell type makes possible to use it for enchantments
2. With a perk (or skill level vs enchantment level), any item can be unenchanted (without breaking it). Leaning an enchantment adds a spell type (common base of spell types for spelling and enchanting).
3. With a perk (or skill level higher than enchantment level), player can add effects to enchanted item.
4. No limit of number of enchantment effects; instead, limit of total complexity which is defined by enchantment skill, and complexity of each effect is defined by 3 variables: base power of spell type, desired effect level and knowledge of that school of magic.


That's it. I didn't touch anything totally new, and all that isn't about any additional modelling, animating and serious coding, while most of ideas are plainly obvious. In my personal opinion, Skyrim is full of poor gamedesign ideas which often contradict themselves and the rest of the game.

p.s. another whine statement, please: all QA staff should take arrows in knees. "Patch for exploits"? Oh please, all that alchemy/enchanting stuff is obvious and
should have been tested in the first place, and can be tested with console by anyone in 5 minutes.

Have a http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQeZngUS5-_e3LnTGDWSR6O6UbvXxZowYIemDH5WXTZTrUOZK2I stick. It's warm from my body heat, meow.

New Vegas had a good potion/stim idea. It worked as a short Heal over Time which could not stack.

Then again the game overall was more difficult.

I will look forward to downloading your mod and trying out your better alchemy system tomorrow then.

Disagree. Unlocking perks is the main reward, not the smaller level increases. The improvements between a potion made @ 25 vs. 35 alchemy aren't all that significant. I think 25, 50, 75, 100 is pretty reasonable along with perk unlocks at other levels. However, smaller intervals would be fine too and I'd have no objection to intervals of 5 or 10, it wouldn't be a major difference.

They might've had a reason for every decision, but I'm quite sure I'd think several of their reasons were not good based on the state of the current system.

While I see your points, I prefer Skyrim's system to the one suggested by the OP.

I'd look backwards towards oblivion for a few things, I think +health regeneration* potions should be more like "heals xHP every second for ySeconds", for example "heals 5HP every second for 10 Seconds" and then just cap the amount of active potion effects to 4 and then have a "5th" instant potion effect where all instant potions block instant potion usage for 30 seconds.

* I think the +regeneration potions are worthless since almost all +regeneration goes to junk the moment it detects you're in a battle.

So i'll be downloading your mod +1 day of CK release?

Ah, I meant more as every 5 levels all your potions get better, or you can make new ones. Smaller things like that. I agree perks should be less often. Though there are so many again that would be cluttered... At level 50 suddenly you get access to 5 perks? Lame.