Game Mechanics Potion usage limitation

What do you think?

  • Absolutely, it makes sense

    Votes: 14 17.3%
  • Sure, but only for Expert Mode

    Votes: 29 35.8%
  • Maybe...I was thinking something else (clarify in a post)

    Votes: 2 2.5%
  • No thanks, I'll pass

    Votes: 36 44.4%

  • Total voters
    81

FlakMaster

The Destroyer
As the title suggests, I am proposing a limit to how much buffs the player can have active at one instant. Before I go along with how I am going to propose to do this, I am going to answer this question:

Why?

I am aware that the freedom to use whatever potions one could want is satisfying, but just look at an optimal set-up for engaging the Frost Moon with the Tsunami:

Buff image.png


(ignore the insane times, too lazy to prove my point without inventory editing :p)

Now, you tell me, isn't this a little much? We have potions such as Ironskin and Regeneration that you have access to at the start of the game, but because there is no limit they remain usable throughout the whole game. While this in itself is not bad whatsoever, it means that the more potions you add, the more people are going to use.

One could ask, "What is the problem with that?" This was a difficult one at first, but observing a recent thread made me realise that this unlimited buff train actually makes it difficult to suggest potions that would have purpose in this game. For example, one could ask for a 15% damage potion. However, this would be copying a potion that exists already and it makes the whole game easier because you can just add the 10% damage potion to this. However, that 15% damage potion could be granting it in a numerous amount of ways such as ranging in damage given alike the Mana sickness debuff. But because it gives damage at the end of the day, it is still mimicking the other potion.

And since all potions are made to make a specific task easier, any potion makes the game easier without a compromise. One solution to this would be dual-function potions where you get a positive benefit in trade for a negative trait. The only kind of buff that does exactly this through consumption is Ale. But that is for another day.



I shall now present my idea on how to limit potion usage. Put simply, there will be 'buff points' that add up until a limit is reached. Using a potion, such as Ironskin potion being 5 points, will take up a portion of a bar. The limit is determined by how much progress you have made into the game (more on this later). The maximum limit possible will be 35 points. Once a limit is reach, attempting to consume a potion will not work (if you want a different buff desperately, remember that you can cancel a buff at any time by right-clicking the buff icon).

I have listed what I am proposing each potion/food would cost in points in the spoiler below:

Well Fed - 3
Tipsy - 2
Ammo Reservation - 2
Archery - 5
Battle - 10
Builder - 5
Calming - 10
Crate - 4
Dangersense - 4
Endurance - 6
Featherfall - 3
Fishing - 3
Flipper - 3
Gills - 3
Gravitation - 5
Heartreach - 5
Hunter - 3
Inferno - 5
Invisibility - Uhm...who actually uses this? 2
Ironskin - 5
Lifeforce - 6
Magic Power - 6
Magic Regeneration - 4
Mining - 5
Night Owl - 2
Obsidian skin - 5
Rage - 7
Regeneration - 6
Shine - 2
Sonar - 1
Spelunker - 6
Summoning - 5
Swiftness - 4
Thorns - 2
Warmth - 4
Water Walking - 3
Wrath - 7

Disclaimer: List not final as it would need a lot of fine-tuning to be perfectly balanced. Any other buff is unaffected by the limitation.

The points used will be displayed in a form of a bar, specifically this one (not yet finalised, open to criticism)

Buff limit 1.png


Each bar represents 5 buff points. Using an example of a combination of Archery Potion, Battle Potion, Ironskin, Lifeforce, Night Owl and Wrath (which sums up to the limit), the way this will be displayed in-game would be like this:

2014-10-31_00003.jpg


This isn't how I want it to look aesthetically, I just want to point out where it would be on the UI. And no, I'm not the Guide, I just forgot I had Shroomite ;)

A small problem is that a 35point limit will have near to no effect on new characters. To solve this, I will say that the limits start at 10 points upon a fresh character. The Player can then upgrade their character by 5 points (one bar) by using these consumables (names are placeholders):

- Shady token (10 Demonite Bars, 15 shadow scales/10 Crimtane bars, 15 tissue samples)
- Skull token (100% drop by Skeletron)
- Wall of Flesh token (100% drop, can be sold for 1 gold so it doesn't clutter up the inventory of single-player characters uselessly)
- Mechanical token (5 Souls of Might, Fright and Sight, 10 Hallowed Bars)
- Plantera token (100% drop, can be sold for 1 gold)

I will present two examples with this method to present the idea better.

This bar is the result of someone only consuming a Shady token as well as having the Spelunker and Dangersense buffs (10 points):

Buff limit 2.png


This bar is the result of someone consuming all but the Plantera token, while having the Regeneration, Ironskin, Wrath and Mining buff active (23 points):

Buff limit 3.png


The coloured area indicates how much has been used, while the grey areas indicate how much buff points there are remaining and the black represents the currently unusable.

As the game expands further, there could be more slots open if the amount of potions increase drastically. This is a very complex idea, but it creates the same effect that having 5 accessory slots provides; variety in builds. I still love chugging down twenty-odd potions down as much as the next guy, but I believe this would give room for buffs to expand without over-saturating the game with the player having all of the buffs active. That's about it for my idea, but I have an important question to ask for those who don't like this idea much:

If not in the game as it is now, what about Expert Mode?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Additional proposition

With this suggestion, it could very well be possible to allow buffs to be gained multiple times. Possible buffs that could be acquired again are:

- Ammo Reservation potion (Not sure how this would work if you consume it 17 times)
- Regeneration (Having over five of these active might be a little overpowered)
- Swiftness (It might make you a little fast having over five of these)
- Ironskin (40 defence sounds game changing, because it is)
- Magic Power
- Wrath
- Rage
- Battle (Sceptical because I believe the spawn limit is also so low-end computers don't get fried. Still, would only be able to have 3 of these active)
- Archery
- Lifeforce
- Endurance
- Summoning

While I agree some of these ideas will be over-powered to stack (primarily Regeneration and Ironskin), there still is the drawback that you can only have so many buffs active. Just something to think about, is all.
 
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The problem with a flat-out cap of how many buffs you could have is that there are those that are less useful (night-owl, shine) and will never be used again because they take up the same room that an important potion does.

This idea would make it so that the less useful potions take up less space, therefore it wouldn't be as punishing to use them.
 
I've got two opinions, one is long, one is short. Read one, or both, up to you.

I find the number of diversity for potions really depends on the situation- you're not going to need a lot of potions for a lot of situations- most would come up useless in others- that being said most of what you're showing aren't even potions that do anything (potentially) beneficial for the player- Blue candle, love struck, love struck is from love potions sure but it doesn't really do anything aside from some floating graphical tiny hearts. Then there's the honey regen, the campfire regen, and the heart lamp regen. I don't really find those to be in the same category as "potion buffs" to be honest.

The first Ammo buff is from the ammo box which you have to buy from the traveling merchant for 15 gold- sure with a little grinding that's not hard to get at all but you still have to grind for it- I find that everything is like that in the game. Everything is balanced because while you can get freebies easy enough through chests and random pots; you still have to make a good majority of a lot what you are showing in that picture and talking about in general. I absolutely LOVE having tons of buffs, but to even make half of those buffs appear I need to purchase lots of items and craft and create things.

I find that given we have to use specific things to make a lot of those buffs even appear- or collect certain things; or even grinding for money makes the trade off even in my opinion. The more time you spend collecting things and making potions, the more buffs you get which effect rewards and happy times.

Overall though, expert mode sounds great. I'd certainly think buffs should be more limited.
 
I find the number of diversity for potions really depends on the situation- you're not going to need a lot of potions for a lot of situations- most would come up useless in others- that being said most of what you're showing aren't even potions that do anything (potentially) beneficial for the player- Blue candle, love struck, love struck is from love potions sure but it doesn't really do anything aside from some floating graphical tiny hearts. Then there's the honey regen, the campfire regen, and the heart lamp regen. I don't really find those to be in the same category as "potion buffs" to be honest.

The first Ammo buff is from the ammo box which you have to buy from the traveling merchant for 15 gold- sure with a little grinding that's not hard to get at all but you still have to grind for it- I find that everything is like that in the game. Everything is balanced because while you can get freebies easy enough through chests and random pots; you still have to make a good majority of a lot what you are showing in that picture and talking about in general. I absolutely LOVE having tons of buffs, but to even make half of those buffs appear I need to purchase lots of items and craft and create things.

Any other buff is unaffected by the limitation.

I've already considered this. Any buffs (and debuffs, if you want to go technical) that aren't listed is not affected by this at all.
 
I've already considered this. Any buffs (and debuffs, if you want to go technical) that aren't listed is not affected by this at all.

But isn't that making the game more limiting just because they are potions VS other items? I'm not trying to like force a point or argue. I just don't see how we can force a restriction on one set of items while others are exempt from the rule while still being buffs. (Not that I don't understand WHY, I simply see it as unfair.)

My brother runs a "potion shop" if you will through Terraria, he collects ingredients and sells the potions to me and my sister who also own and play the game together. It's a fun submersion role playing experience that adds to the game and gives me something to spend my money on- if something like this happens his net worth is surely going to plummet--Jokes aside, I still find that what you're saying is more limiting than what would be warranted in my opinion; I could only see it as an expert mode feature and not something that could be implemented into "normal" game play without a lot of raging and headaches. Personally I'd feel like I'd have to make lists of what works best, compare and test things, which for what it worth gives me more playtime value- but it's not something I entirely want to invest myself in just because buffs are OP. Not that it isn't a good idea it's just something else to keep track of- or rather manage when there's already things like ammo, mana, health, and what accessories we need when that we; at least myself in any case- are juggling.

Now if there was a debuff that caused something like this to happen..say from a final boss- or one up there...that would be interesting... >.>
 
But isn't that making the game more limiting just because they are potions VS other items? I'm not trying to like force a point or argue. I just don't see how we can force a restriction on one set of items while others are exempt from the rule while still being buffs. (Not that I don't understand WHY, I simply see it as unfair.)

Some exempt from this, which are direct buffs, are:

-Fairy
-Clairvoyance
-Ammo Box
-Honey
-Campfire
-Lantern
-Water Candle (it's technically a debuff)

These require creation as well as placement. For the environmental ones, I just don't think using buff points by walking into a different area would make much sense.

Personally I'd feel like I'd have to make lists of what works best, compare and test things, which for what it worth gives me more playtime value- but it's not something I entirely want to invest myself in just because buffs are OP. Not that it isn't a good idea it's just something else to keep track of- or rather manage when there's already things like ammo, mana, health, and what accessories we need when that we; at least myself in any case- are juggling.

Management and preparation is a big thing in Terraria. Someone experienced in this game should have no trouble selecting the right potions for the situation.

I get that this is limiting, because that's what the actual title of the thread implies, but one of the key reasons for this is:

And since all potions are made to make a specific task easier, any potion makes the game easier without a compromise

And the other:

observing a recent thread made me realise that this unlimited buff train actually makes it difficult to suggest potions that would have purpose in this game.
 
Sorry I don't like it, potions are hard to make, it's basically farming, and that balances everything, and most of the ingredients for the most powwerful potions are from fishing, which is like farming, but even worse, and for your potion list for Frost Moon, if you are normally constitued and want to go past wave 15 without exploiting anything and in solo, you need all those potions, and it's not easy at all to make them, countless hours to farm those materials, and if you make a farm ? It doesn't change it a lot because the hardest ingredients to take are the fishing ones, and you can't farm it. And in your list there's a lot of useleff buffs. Bad idea (in my opinion).
 
Sorry I don't like it, potions are hard to make, it's basically farming, and that balances everything, and most of the ingredients for the most powwerful potions are from fishing, which is like farming, but even worse, and for your potion list for Frost Moon, if you are normally constitued and want to go past wave 15 without exploiting anything and in solo, you need all those potions, and it's not easy at all to make them, countless hours to farm those materials, and if you make a farm ? It doesn't change it a lot because the hardest ingredients to take are the fishing ones, and you can't farm it. And in your list there's a lot of useleff buffs. Bad idea (in my opinion).

I don't want to sound like a bully, but you'd be doing me a favour if you don't comma splice :/

Firstly, I understand what you mean. But again, what about expert mode? This difficulty coming with 1.3 is presumably designed for the experienced players. Because of this, players should know how to acquire almost everything so acquiring the ingredients for any potion is far from difficult. I hope when you say 'hours' to get materials that you mean it as hyperbole, because otherwise you're probably making too much potions or doing something wrong. Actual farming in this game is nice enough, just plop seeds and do something else, acquire herb and plant again when ready. Biome-specific fish could be a pain, but they're all pretty common to get while fishing.

I'd also like to know what buffs in my list are 'useless'. Frankly, all of them except invisibility is useful and I've scaled how much points they take up with how useful it generally is.

The skeltetron crafting one is unnecessary, you can just fight him again.

Meh, I suppose. Didn't really think much about that part, but I'll change it now.
 
I don't want to sound like a bully, but you'd be doing me a favour if you don't comma splice :/

Firstly, I understand what you mean. But again, what about expert mode? This difficulty coming with 1.3 is presumably designed for the experienced players. Because of this, players should know how to acquire almost everything so acquiring the ingredients for any potion is far from difficult. I hope when you say 'hours' to get materials that you mean it as hyperbole, because otherwise you're probably making too much potions or doing something wrong. Actual farming in this game is nice enough, just plop seeds and do something else, acquire herb and plant again when ready. Biome-specific fish could be a pain, but they're all pretty common to get while fishing.

I'd also like to know what buffs in my list are 'useless'. Frankly, all of them except invisibility is useful and I've scaled how much points they take up with how useful it generally is.



Meh, I suppose. Didn't really think much about that part, but I'll change it now.
M'okay I changed my mind, I changed my vote from "no" to "m'okay but for expert mode then".
 
I just realised today that either only twenty buffs/debuffs can be displayed, or only twenty buffs/debuffs can work at the same instance. Didn't even hit that limit with the buff spammage in the image I displayed though, there are 16 there.

Anyway, something new I added to the original post.

Additional proposition

With this suggestion, it could very well be possible to allow buffs to be gained multiple times. Possible buffs that could be acquired again are:

- Ammo Reservation potion (Not sure how this would work if you consume it 17 times)
- Regeneration (Having over five of these active might be a little overpowered)
- Swiftness (It might make you a little fast having over five of these)
- Ironskin (40 defence sounds game changing, because it is)
- Magic Power
- Wrath
- Rage
- Battle (Sceptical because I believe the spawn limit is also so low-end computers don't get fried. Still, would only be able to have 3 of these active)
- Archery
- Lifeforce
- Endurance
- Summoning

While I agree some of these ideas will be over-powered to stack (primarily Regeneration and Ironskin), there still is the drawback that you can only have so many buffs active. Just something to think about, is all.
 
NO.

LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS IS BAD:
POTIONS ARE A CRUTCH FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE TROUBLE WITH STUFF.
LETTING PEOPLE CONSUME LIMITLESS POTIONS WILL NOT MAKE THE GAME TOO EASY. IT JUST MAKES IT BEATABLE AND KEEP THE PLAYER IN THE GAME WITHOUT WALLING THEM OFF WITH A DIFFICULTY WALL, WHICH LEADS TO BETTER REVIEWS OF THE GAME WHICH LEADS TO MORE SALES WHICH LEADS TO MORE MONEY WHICH LEADS TO MORE UPDATES.
PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE A VERY EASY TERRARIA CAN DO THE THING WITHOUT POTIONS AND BRAG ABOUT IT.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY,

THIS IS A SUGGESTION BY FLAKMASTER​
 
NO.

LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS IS BAD:
POTIONS ARE A CRUTCH FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE TROUBLE WITH STUFF.
LETTING PEOPLE CONSUME LIMITLESS POTIONS WILL NOT MAKE THE GAME TOO EASY. IT JUST MAKES IT BEATABLE AND KEEP THE PLAYER IN THE GAME WITHOUT WALLING THEM OFF WITH A DIFFICULTY WALL, WHICH LEADS TO BETTER REVIEWS OF THE GAME WHICH LEADS TO MORE SALES WHICH LEADS TO MORE MONEY WHICH LEADS TO MORE UPDATES.
PEOPLE WHO DO NOT LIKE A VERY EASY TERRARIA CAN DO THE THING WITHOUT POTIONS AND BRAG ABOUT IT.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY,

THIS IS A SUGGESTION BY FLAKMASTER​
why has this not received a warning yet?
 
Ignoring the obvious trolling, please notice these few words:



And kindly exit the room. Have a good day.
These systems are clunky for the UI.

Besides, the 'Potion Bar Upgrade Items' are very much like the 'Starmap Upgrades' from Starbound (they removed it), and both of them are examples of bad sandbox game design.

It breaks immersion and it is counterintuitive. Why would it work only once? Why does it not stack? Why does similar items stack? Those are the questions a new player will ask.
 
I will have to agree with putting the limit in expert mode. Strongly. Now that there is an expert mode it can be used as a train all the hardcore gamers can get on and leave casual and medium core gamers alone.

Also I must frown upon the OP for using unscientific methods of obtaining buffs. Is it practical to gather ALL these buffs? Will people actually seek out ALL these buffs or use just enough to kill the boss or run events?
 
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