Forums » Crafting and Gathering

Potions and Consumables

    • 259 posts
    May 24, 2018 10:38 AM PDT

    While reading through the forums FAQ's, composed by oneADseven, thank you for such a great compodium by the way, I came across a blog entry from Aradune titled: Consumables & Combat -- tedious or tactical?  Dated (03/16/2014). That title caught my attention right away, thinking always of Crafting and Tradeskills. (^_^) In his blog post I came across a section that looked like a possible hint to future crafting.

    Quote:

    "Here's one way to look at it:  no one thinks the tank's equipment sucks because he needs to be healed mid-combat, right?  He could have top-notch tanking gear, but he's still going to need to be healed.  The same is with consumables.  They don't replace the need for gear or buffs or in-combat spells; rather, they're just another component you may want to bring to bear in a difficult encounter.  They just work differently.  Your gear is permanent -- you put it on, and it works.  Buffs can't really be cast during combat, and you will be limited to how many buffs and of what type, so it's a tactical decision you make before tackling an encounter -- which buffs should be put on which players, depending upon their role.  In-combat spells are very transient -- you cast a heal on your buddy and then, before you know it, it's time to cast something else, all depending upon what's happening.  Did the mob switch suddenly to another character?  Or did it cast an absorb damage shield on itself?  The caster needs to make sure he or she is paying attention, and that he casts the right spells at the right time on the right group mate.

    Potions are similar yet also very different.  They're consumables, so when you use one, it's gone.  How many potions you can consume over a period of time will be limited. "They will also likely be costly... the better they are, the more they're going to cost you, whether you buy them or whether they are part of a future crafting system, etc."  So you're not going to want to waste them, and you're also not going to want to drink them willy-nilly because you're limited to X potions consumed per battle, or per 10 minutes, or however it turns out we do it."

    Most video games have potions and consumables implemented in one way or another. You head to your local merchant to find food and drinks or head to another merchant to find potions and flasks etc. These are usually just a very basic version of these consumables that scale up as you level. Just strong enough to hold you over for a small amount of time, health or mana etc. But if you head to your local craftsman, they will have a much better version of these items both in potency and in length of time. In these crafting professions, potions and consumables are the cornerstone of their tradeskill. For example, the Alchemist is usually the crafter that creates these potions. A sort of spell in a bottle if you will that can help you, or hinder your opponents. The Provisioner is usually the crafter that creates the meals you need to survive. These do not need to be so overpowered that they unbalance gameplay, but I do believe they definitely need to be in the game.

    I have an example from my Necromancer in EverQuest. Once my skill was high enough, I made many, many of these. These were all I used. At the time these were pretty L33T, lol. Yes, the Kaladim Constitutional and the Misty Thicket Picnic. These are consumables that just need to be in your inventory to be able to use the effect, although they actually work as some really great food and drink when consumed.

    These are no where near overpowered, just a small increase to your stats, something we will definitely need in Pantheon. I see no reason why anyone would be upset about these types of player made items. What are your opinions? Would these be ok in Pantheon?

    • 26 posts
    May 24, 2018 11:26 AM PDT

    I enjoy having to find high quality food and drink, sure, especially when that's an actual profession that another player worked on.

    Something I'm kind of bored of seeing, though, are those potions that are really basically tiny buffs. The +5 strength potion? The +5 crit elixir? Yawn.

    What I hope to see is very situational but extremely useful consumables, such as invisibility to undeath. I did not have that spell, so I bought those potions like candy. Likewise, levitation potions, shrink potions, resist potions. I love these, and almost consider it a mini-game to stay stocked and ready with them.

    • 1785 posts
    May 24, 2018 7:57 PM PDT

    No one knows for sure except Ceythos, but with both an alchemist and a provisioner profession being envisioned, I think it's safe to say that we'll see:

    1) Crafted potions that do useful things, such as healing, invisibility, cure poison, levitation and so on.

    2) Crafted Poisons or explosives that do useful things against your enemies in combat (throw an acid flask at an enemy for a dot/debuff combo)

    3) Crafted food and drink that either a) has a longer duration than vendor stuff, b) adds stat bonuses while it's in effect, or c) both.

     

    I think the challenge to making these useful lies in cooldown timers and durations.  A healing potion is super useful, especailly when soloing, but if I can only use them once every 5 minutes, it may not feel worth it.  Allowing people to spam potions like that though wouldn't be good either, so there's a happy medium that needs to be reached.

    A secondary concern is potency.  At level 5, 100 hit points might be a huge deal.  At level 50, it might be a drop in the bucket.  Same goes for resist values or other things that might be temporarily buffed by potions or food.

     

    Either way though, I think we'll see these things in Pantheon :)  We'll just need to make sure we provide plenty of feedback during alpha/beta on the usefulness of the different things we can craft, so that we don't end up in a situation after launch where we have crafting recipes that are effectively worthless.

     

    • 259 posts
    June 18, 2018 7:16 AM PDT

    Nephele said:

    No one knows for sure except Ceythos, but with both an alchemist and a provisioner profession being envisioned, I think it's safe to say that we'll see:

    1) Crafted potions that do useful things, such as healing, invisibility, cure poison, levitation and so on.

    2) Crafted Poisons or explosives that do useful things against your enemies in combat (throw an acid flask at an enemy for a dot/debuff combo)

    3) Crafted food and drink that either a) has a longer duration than vendor stuff, b) adds stat bonuses while it's in effect, or c) both.

     

    I think the challenge to making these useful lies in cooldown timers and durations.  A healing potion is super useful, especailly when soloing, but if I can only use them once every 5 minutes, it may not feel worth it.  Allowing people to spam potions like that though wouldn't be good either, so there's a happy medium that needs to be reached.

    A secondary concern is potency.  At level 5, 100 hit points might be a huge deal.  At level 50, it might be a drop in the bucket.  Same goes for resist values or other things that might be temporarily buffed by potions or food.

     

    Either way though, I think we'll see these things in Pantheon :)  We'll just need to make sure we provide plenty of feedback during alpha/beta on the usefulness of the different things we can craft, so that we don't end up in a situation after launch where we have crafting recipes that are effectively worthless.

     

    Agreed that balance must be a main concern when setting up these types of consumables.

    I can't wait to see the direction Pantheon takes on these.