Compiled 1.6 Changes/Issues/Solutions to Potions, Alchemy, and Related Passives/Abilities

ThatNeonZebraAgain · February 2015

For those not aware, 1.6 had some mostly undocumented changes that introduced big changes to potions, Alchemy, and their related passives and enchants. While there are a number successes and issues with 1.6 that have been discussed at length, I wanted to bring all potion-related things together as another aspect of 1.6 that needs evaluating. The changes are:

Increased global potion cooldown to 45 seconds (used to be 30 seconds)
Increased duration of potion effects to roughly 19-25 seconds for 2-ingredient potions, and 23-30 seconds for 3-ingredient potions (with some exceptions and depending on how many points are invested into Medicinal Use). For example, with 3/3 invested into Medicinal Use, three-ingredient Invisibility lasts for 15.1 seconds (2-ingredient lasts 12.5); Detection potion lasts for 25 seconds; 2-ingredient stat regen lasts for 25 seconds; 3-ingredient stat regen lasts 30.2 seconds.
Combined potion effects with the new Major/Minor Buff System, so that, for example, the +spell damage effect from a potion has the same value as the effect from a class/weapon/etc ability (note only one major/minor buff of each type can be active at a time, and the values are fixed).
Healing Potion Effectiveness glyphs have been replaced with Potion Boost Glyphs that increase duration of potion effect (Potion speed glyphs are still the same).
Nightblade passive Catalyst (Siphoning line): After drinking a potion, you gain 12 Ultimate. [used to be +30% Potion Effectiveness]
Argonian racial passive Amphibious: Increases swimming speed by 50% and whenever you drink a potion you gain 6% of your Max Health, Magicka, and Stamina. [used to be +15% Potion Effectiveness]
Added Determination in the Lord Constellation (120 point reward): Absorb 1547 damage for 15 seconds after drinking a potion.
Added Nourishing in the Lord Constellation: Increase effectiveness of healing potions 25% (at 100 points invested).

As is evident, these are pretty big changes to how potions are used, as well as to valuable abilities (especially for Argonians, who don't have much else going for them other than general badassery). The changes make sense from a design standpoint in terms of streamlining how buffs/effects work, but it's what their unintended consequences are for gameplay and class/racial balance that I found problematic. The main issues that I see from these changes are:

With the bundling of potions into the Major/Minor buff system, potion effects overwrite (or are overwritten) by abilities that grant the same buff. Since the values of Major/Minor buffs cannot be altered, this renders any kind of general "potion effectiveness" ability obsolete (which is why they understandably removed it). With effects from potions and abilities now competing (instead of stacking), it raises the question of why use potions whose effects could just be overwritten by an ability you have on your rotation? As others have pointed out, it flattens difficulty and skill in PvE (and to a certain extent PvP) because all you need now is just 1 ability to provide a major buff and 1 ability to spam for maximum DPS, rather than timing/maximizing potion use alongside your combat rotation. In short, while people will still of course use potions (and likely a narrower range of potion types), the dynamism that they created in gameplay is largely gone.
In regards to Alchemy as a craft and the player economy surrounding it, given how potions are now part of the Major/Minor system, and thus compete with the buffs/effects from abilities, I foresee a lower demand for +damage/+crit potions because their effects will be rendered useless by what abilities provide. Between all class and weapon skills, everyone has access to at least 1 Major +damage buff, so why waste money on a potion that does the same thing? This makes stat potions a more reliable choice, which I think would increase the demand for them. For the same reason, I can also see people now wanting 2-effect potions (+crit and +magicka, for example) instead of three since, like I said, the third effect would likely just be overwritten by a buff from an ability. With stat potions becoming the most reliable choice (invisibility and movement speed would be other situational potion choices not often found in abilities), what we will likely see is a lack of diversity in the kinds of potions players use, thus rendering a large swath of one crafting skill even more meaningless (because potions with negative effects, ie poisons, are currently useless).
Argonians and Nightblades lost one of their best passives (major/minor buffs can't be modified, so they had to go as part of new system), and received new passives that provide much less utility/value. There have been several threads about this on the official forums, but it is plain to see the new passives are not nearly as good as what they replaced, and what they replaced were by no means overpowered or unbalanced. The NB passive provides no real-world benefit during combat due to longer potion cooldown and myriad of other (and less costly) ways to quickly build ultimate with the new ultimate generation mechanic. The new Argonian passive essentially equates to 1 or 2 "ticks" of stat regeneration, which can only occur every 45 seconds (or 30 if you use three potion speed glyphs). With these changes, and in terms of race/class selection, many players are locked into a choice based on information that is no longer valid due key design changes, and there is currently no way to even partially rectify that change if you did make an educated choice based on your racial/class attributes. Moreover, with the lack of softcaps, Argonian passives are now extremely underpowered compared to pretty much all other racial passives.
Sorcerers and Nightblades, who have no reliable self-heals (only HoTs, mostly based on damage dealt, number of targets hit, or critting, and that largely do not proc against damage shields) relied heavily on potions to keep up with DK and Templar health sustain. Increasing the cooldown and decreasing potion effectiveness serves to exacerbate this disparity between classes and further pushes to reliance on Resto staff (or maybe 2h because Momentum rules).
The easily attainable by everyone heal-potion effectiveness enchantment was removed in favor of a constellation passive that does the same thing, but now will require investment of CP to get something we already access to (although it does eventually becomes more powerful than the old glyph). Given the increased potion cooldown, the new glyph (increase potion effect duration) may be useful, but now having to grind for yet another thing people already had is not a good design for current players.

Given these changes and issues, here are some ideas for small adjustments I think would fairly promote player skill, class/race balance, and interesting overall gameplay.

Potions need to stack with active ability buff effects. Obviously, it can't be a simple additive equation as that would be extremely overpowered, but there needs to be a way to keep potions as situational temporary boosts to one's stats/abilities.If an ability you use grants Major Brutality, drinking a potion that gives that same buff should add on top of that in some way. This should be a "smart system," so that if the ability effect wears off, but the potion effect is still active, the potion scales to become the Major buff; if you were to re-use the ability that grants Major Brutality the same potion effect was still active, the potion effect would scale down to its "stacked" value. This should hold true for all buffs/effects, including hp/mag/stam regen. This doesn't affect the value of potions themselves, but rather effects how they interact/stack with the same effects offer by abilities in order to retain the complexity and dynamism that skilled potion usage offers. The more ways players can use skill to improve their combat and survival, the better; simplifying combat makes for boring interactions, and leaves little room to hone one's capabilities.
Nightblade's Catalyst passive should not focus on ultimate generation as it is easy enough to generate ultimate without the tiny bump offered by drinking a potion every 30-45 seconds. Rather, it should provide another, actually useful potion-related benefit, such as reducing potion cooldown or increasing potion duration, increasing effectiveness of hp/mag/stam potions, etc.
Argonians' Amphibious passive should either be increased in value, and/or take the same approach as the NB Catalyst passive above. I would also argue that Argonians' other passives should have their values doubled (e.g. up to +12% healing received, +6% max health, etc) to be at least competitive with those of other races.
Relating to the last two issues I identified, we need more than 70 Champion Points, or the amount of XP per CP needs to be reduced, or non-quest end-game XP (eg crafting at max level, Trials, and PvP) needs to be increased. I realize this is another thread in itself, but 70 CP is not enough to retain the current flexibility and power of our current builds.

Robbmrp · February 2015

ZoS needs to give the greater of the two buffs instead of stacking. If I take a potion and my effect is stronger and will last longer than the one I get from a passive/weapon it should NOT over write that buff. These potions would still be effective with this. Once you lost the effect of the potion then they could trigger the weapon or passive buff.

IMO the Development team really needs to do a better job with cause and effect. They should be doing this for every change they make to the game. With all of the changes that are being applied to fix/even out things it's clear that they aren't thinking about a how changes will affect this or that. What are the short and long term effects going to be?

When they start changing things that make items in the game worthless, they are taking steps back instead of forward progress. That isn't going to help the future of ESO.

Sharee · February 2015

One change you did not mention is that potion effects are now significantly longer-lasting than on live. For example, on live invisibility potion lasts 3 seconds (4 if three invis components are used) while in 1.6 the invis durations are 12 seconds (15.1 seconds). Detection potion duration went from 10 seconds to 25 seconds etc. (Numbers vary depending on passives)

About other things, i don't agree with your assessment that potion effects like major damage boost are useless just because skills have the same effect. Some builds may prefer to not use(waste) and ability slot on a major damage buffing ability when the same effect can be gained from a potion, saving the slot for something else.

For example, as a NB i could use power extraction to get a damage buff, but i don't really want to use that since i already have all my slots spoken-for, so to say, in my build. And since my fights are generally short, the fact the potion buff has limited duration does not bother me. Having the potion provide the same buff as other abilities unties my hands when it comes to selecting "what abilities do i really need slotted?"

Kragorn · February 2015

ThatNeonZebraAgain wrote: »

As others have pointed out, it flattens difficulty

That seems to me to be the core of much of what ZOS are doing in 1.6, and can easily be seen in their going back on their plan to allow food and drink to be used together.

They don't want those who are prepared to invest in time and effort using potions and food/drink to have an 'unfair' advantage of those too lazy to bother.

Sad.