Auto Potion Pickup

[Kirii]

Well, seems like stack size may determine some peoples vote. Let's get a clarification on it. And maybe strength and type?

(Did a quick search but couldn't find it.)

[cel]

Originally Posted by yerkyerk

They're not using gold either
Nor are they using certain modifiers on their weapons, like "-% damage received from undead, "%damage to demons".

How do we know that? We get to observe their culture and habits for a whopping 10 seconds before we chop their heads off (considering for example maenads, satyrs and centaurs in TQ, we can definetly conclude that they live in societies whereh hunting and trading was involved), we also don't know anything about the disputes between different types of monsters, as we usually just kill them all regardless (just because the monsters aren't hostile towards each other in-game doesn't make them love each other, it's just made that way for simplicity's sake, because the ratio of immersion gain versus amount of time required to implement all the relations is something around 1/infinity, same goes for the "spider carrying around gold coins" -type of oddities).

Other than that:

I have to say that the health management in DIII is one of the better features I am looking forward to. It will be nice for once not to worry about collecting and managing essentially "extra-HP-in-a-jar" in an RPG.

I have to agree that the well named "extra-HP-in-a-jar" concept is getting a little old (comparable to having only skills that deal direct damage instead of having complicated effects, as the relation between a goal and how to get to it is retardedly simple in both cases, too simple to be considered a fun aspect). Most good mmo's have figured this out quite a long time ago (potions being used only in emergencies, usually pricing quite high as well), making players concentrate on evading damage through the use of good tactics instead of just trying to figure out more complicated ways of justifying the "rush-in-and-kill-everything-as-fast-as-you-can-while-using-method-X-to-replenish-hp-hoping-they-will-die-before-you-die" tactics that TQ favoured.

On the voting: I vote for option (4): A change in health generation mechanics would be welcome. I'm not saying we should go around copying other games (I wouldn't want a system like in D3 for example), but it should be more complex (in terms of number of solutions) than just pressing a certain button whenever a certain red line was too short. Something that comes to mind with 5 seconds of thinking would be to increase potion cooldowns and making players regenerations speeds a lot higher when "out of combat", promoting a more tactical approach in monster encounters - altough this would propably also require some changes in monster behaviour as well, as the "everyone just keeps heading straight for you" tactics that 90% of monsters use don't exactly open up too many possibilities for tactical combat (and it gets old quite fast as well).

Originally Posted by Kirii

Well, seems like stack size may determine some peoples vote. Let's get a clarification on it. And maybe strength and type?

(Did a quick search but couldn't find it.)

Originally Posted by medierra

You'll also be pleased to know that you can stack 99 potions.

[Kirii]

Thanks for the link! So, 99 potions is very nice but I think a rework of regeneration speed and potion cool down is a very good idea.

In TQ I found myself many times slamming potions in between battles just to get my health back to 100% instead of waiting for it to regenerate. Then drinking another right as the mobs start attacking. And also in order to survive I would just slam countless potions instead of using any real tactics.

How about a system where you have a certain regen speed and potions only act as boosts to the HP regen speed with no initial magical restoration of X% of HP. This I think would eliminate the stand-here-and-hack-away battle system of bosses and force you to use stun/distract/kite abilities more effectively.

[cel]

Originally Posted by Kirii

How about a system where you have a certain regen speed and potions only act as boosts to the HP regen speed with no initial magical restoration of X% of HP. This I think would eliminate the stand-here-and-hack-away battle system of bosses and force you to use stun/distract/kite abilities more effectively.

I can only agree. This would also make it possible for players who felt that they needed to get more hp out of those potions to invest into the +hp regen mods that were normally utterly useless for any but pure regen builds.

[yerkyerk]

Originally Posted by cel

How do we know that? We get to observe their culture and habits for a whopping 10 seconds before we chop their heads off (considering for example maenads, satyrs and centaurs in TQ, we can definetly conclude that they live in societies whereh hunting and trading was involved), we also don't know anything about the disputes between different types of monsters, as we usually just kill them all regardless (just because the monsters aren't hostile towards each other in-game doesn't make them love each other, it's just made that way for simplicity's sake, because the ratio of immersion gain versus amount of time required to implement all the relations is something around 1/infinity, same goes for the "spider carrying around gold coins" -type of oddities).

Comon, now you're just arguing for the sake of arguing. If you put that much effort and textwalls into explaining senseless random modifiers, you can also do the same for potions.


Also, remember, this thread is for discussing auto-pickups. Though it is ofcourse related to how useful potions will be and their workings, this topic isn't actually about the mechanics of potions, that can be discussed elsewhere, namely here.
Medierra already stated in that topic that there's not going to be a huge difference from the health potion system used in TQ.

[Kirii]

Read through that post now. I see that potion usage is pretty much set in stone so I would have to say:

I agree with auto potion pickup!

If not, then how about a hotkey area pick-up ala S2.

[medierra]

Originally Posted by cel

Here's a question: If monsters were carrying potions, why aren't they using them? If they can't, why are they carrying them around in the first place - they're not carrying pine cones around for fun either.

Monsters do not drink the potions because they have no programming that would enable them to do so. We haven't given them this functionality because it would be counter productive to our goal of supplying potions to the player. The monsters carry the potions and not pine cones because designers configure the loot tables on monsters to drop potions but have not done so for pine cones since no such item exists in the game.

[cel]

Originally Posted by medierra

We haven't given them this functionality because it would be counter productive to our goal of supplying potions to the player.

Can we by this assume that potions won't be as readily available through unlimited supply in shops as in TQ?

[medierra]

Originally Posted by Renevent

I thought it was actually 99?

I believe I did actually say 99 at some point - maybe on the titanquest.net boards. Right now they are set to 50 but perhaps I will change them to 99. The number isn't set in stone but it will almost certainly be much higher than TQ. I think 50 is probably the minimum.

There will only be one type /size of health and energy potion.

It isn't actually definite that we will have potions but I'm in no rush to pull them out. We have introduced other mechanics that should vastly reduce the need for potion chugging. Potions also will have a significantly longer cool-down and will be much more expensive.

I think the D3 health orb system sounds risky and it isn't something that I'd be inclined to try unless we had more time and money to thoroughly test it - like say, if we were Blizzard. ; )

I have actually been considering doing something similar to that for a long time but it was never intended to replace potions. I had just thought that perhaps it would be interesting to replace the fixed shrines with "power-ups". Basically it would be just like shrines but without the actual shrine. Seems more random and fun.

I also want to make more of an effort to ensure that players have the support of better healing and energy regen capabilities through their skill classes.

So, we are doing some things to change the dynamic of how health / energy are recovered. Potions are remaining in place as sort of a fail-safe though.

[medierra]

Originally Posted by cel

How do we know that?

If you look at the enemy team settings in the database you can see that no monsters in TQ are configured to be the enemies of any other monster race.

This won't be the case in GD where you may actually come across different monster races fighting one another.

Originally Posted by cel

I have to agree that the well named "extra-HP-in-a-jar" concept is getting a little old (comparable to having only skills that deal direct damage instead of having complicated effects, as the relation between a goal and how to get to it is retardedly simple in both cases, too simple to be considered a fun aspect).

To me it seems like the D3 system offers even less in the way of interesting decision-making. In that system, as I understand it, there isn't even an element of resource management. Healing orbs drop randomly and you have to use them on the spot or you loose them. There is no way to store them for later and make a strategic decision on when to use them.

I think the problem with potions in TQ was more a matter of balance than the functionality of the potions needing to be radically altered.

Originally Posted by cel

Something that comes to mind with 5 seconds of thinking would be to increase potion cooldowns and making players regenerations speeds a lot higher when "out of combat", promoting a more tactical approach in monster encounters.

Glad you like that option - it is essentially what I originally discussed with regard to potions on the TQ.net forum.

There is accelerated health regen that kicks in if you haven't be damaged for X seconds. I think the cooldown on potions is currently 15 seconds.

In TQ potions were a crutch for poorly balanced melee combat. Players had to constantly chug them to stay alive and keep fighting. I believe the new role of potions should be as an emergency measure that allows people to survive close-calls in combat or endure inescapable situations such as entrapment until they can break free.