Not sure if I am a fan of needing to meditate to drink potions. When do you guys and gals drink your potions? Do you "potion up" before heading out just in case you might stumble upon some baddies? How am I supposed to know that around the corner is something that, for example, incinerates, bleeds, etc. I'd love to be able to see that and react and then down a golden oriole quickly. Do you retreat and find a safe place and meditate to drink? Or do you guys just always have potion "buffs" up while you're out in the wilderness?

I feel like I have to venture into battle, die, and only then I know which potions would probably have helped.

I'm not a fan.

That said, I always drank potions if I died in a fight that was too hard when doing it again.

Or, if I knew a hard fight was coming along.

Or, if I went underground. I think I had like 30 Cats in my inventory once. Most useful potion of all, and the potion I'd make until I ran out of ingredients before making anything else. ;p

I follow roughly the same logic. I pre-drink in one of two situations:

a) I am heading underground. I need a Cat anyhow, might as well add at least a Swallow and a Rook.

b) I know a group is coming, I can see them, or their nest, or it's story-wise easy to guess. Down with all the drugs! (+oil if I know the type)

I always drink "Hirondelle" (it's the healing one) when getting to a new "hostile" area. After all what is unknown remains dangerous. When i get back to an area i already visited i know what i need to drink (if it is needed) and what type of monsters i may be able to encounter.

It get sense to use potions (at least basic one for heal/damage, oil etc..) when discovering a new territory and don't blame yourself to use more than one while discovering. Potion only requires plants and you won't get out of plants to pickup ! ;)

that's why I save often. if I'm getting my ass kicked more than twice in the same area, then it's Potion Tiem! :D

This is one area that I have a small gripe with. You CAN pre-plan a bit with potions, but the only way to truly take advantage of them seems to be to meta-game, which I dont' like doing. I think potions should last at least twice as long as they do, so that there is more of a guarantee that whatever potion you take comes in handy.

I also don't like the change. Geralt has a belt for potions, it would seem plausible that they're there for the convenience of last minute consumption if the need arises.

Like you, I am puzzled about the rationale of this change. How do you know which pot to pop in advance????

I agree. I thought the potion length is waaaayyyy too short. I mean, potions lasted for 8 hours in TW1!

Well, there was longstanding conflict in the first game's fanbase over how closely it adhered to the pen and paper rules. Like almost any topic in gamedom, you'll find passionate opinions for anything. I have no idea if this more closely emulates the pen and paper game, but I do think it was a poor design choice that lends itself too much to meta-gaming while essentially removing a combat reflex option where you used to be able to respond to events naturally, rather than having died ahead of time and now you know what you should do this time response.

What pen and paper game? The Witcher is based on a series of novels, not a PnP role playing game.

There's an earlier game that was pen and paper.

Wasn't TW1's 1h =1minute real time? Anyway, to increase the duration invest into the alchemy tree a bit, it's not twice, but 50% (or 54% depending on how it's calculated) more on level 2

One thing they did change though - since you're no longer limited by alcohol availability, and ingredients are a plenty - you can basically spam potion use whenever feeling like it, and toxicity goes away quicker.
I remember that game! The mechanics were great, but imbalanced. The team witcher was basicaly unbeatable in every way, and everyone playing one would be just silly, as would having no witchers in the team.

Today I'd probably port it to FATE, but ten again, I'd do that to every setting >.<

I dislike the change to potions as well. It disrupts the flow of the game (having to stop every 10 minutes to sit down, watch the long animation of drinking and wiping his forehead, exiting out of the screen etc) and it forces you to die to know what potion you need or just drink something and hope you didn't waste it by not running into the right enemies.

As for this pen and paper game... who cares what fans of that think? This isn't a pen and paper game, this is a video game, a completely different medium that warrants a system made specifically for it.

theres also books

Yeah i dislike the new potion system and the inventory weight limit is not the way id imagine them going.