Herbalism Needs A Revamp Honest Discussion

[Teralitha]

When you get down to the brass tacks, herbalism is pretty much a useless skill. Here is why...

1. None of the perks matter because no stat can go over lvl 20. Str gain... useless.. why bother picking herbs to gain str when you can just do it many other ways. +2 vitality, also, wasted because of the lvl 20 limit. Also +2 charisma perk, wasted.

2. They are worth so little in value its not worth collecting them. Even with the +15% perk.

3. You need herbs for alchemy, but every herb trader sells everything you need, so why collect them? And they are so cheap...

4. Horse shyness buff. No point, just buy the best horse in the game and courage is no issue, max 20, like everything else.

5. The only time collecting herbs is useful is in the skalitz intro, and only if you want to be a min/maxer. After that, pointless.

6. There are no quests involving the gathering of herbs. At least none that I have seen as yet. There is one exorcism quest that needs 10 poppies, but again, u can just buy it, or collect it. Your skill level in herbalism has no significance.

7. Make potion right? Again, you can either buy the potions, or buy the herbs to make the potions. There is no need whatsoever to gather them yourself as they are dirt cheap.


What are some ideas to make herbalism have a point to it?


Remove rare herbs from traders. This would mena you would HAVE to find those herbs yourself if you wanted to do alchemy. Second, make potions that require the rarer herbs more expensive. And also remove such potions from traders. this way it makes players have to choose between spending a fortune, or making the potions yourself. Thirdly, add several quests that need a special or rare potion to complete. Could also just add in some fetch herb quests much like the ones we have to gather meats and hides.

Change or add perks that help with alchemy. Maybe like... boost to potion duration or something.. Or maybe you could remove the skill cap so bonuses matter.

Please make herbalism great again.

[upuaut2]

there are several quests that are involved around herb gathering. at the monastery for instance. speak with one of the monk who work taking care of the wounded refugees.

there is another quest where you have to pick some flowers for a girl .

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by upuaut2:

there are several quests that are involved around herb gathering. at the monastery for instance. speak with one of the monk who work taking care of the wounded refugees.

there is another quest where you have to pick some flowers for a girl .

Niether of those require any skill whatsoever.

[Dingor]

And still herbalism is better than archery that has 0 perks.

[Bramborough]

I'm not sure Herbalism is quite as useless as you say. But I'd agree it's primarily only in the earliest stages, and quickly becomes lackluster. I kinda like the +2 Charisma from Flower Power...even later in game it remains helpful to keep Charisma up in the 18-20 range when a few other buffs may temporarily not be active.

As far as some of the perks/buffs negated later by skills getting capped at 20, well, that's true, but that also happens with lots of perks in many skill/attribute trees, as well as potion effects, bathouse buff, the list goes on. I don't think it's a Herbalism-only issue.

I do agree that a few rare herbs like Belladonna and Wormwood ought to be a lot more expensive to buy.

[thisoldguy57]

Sorry guys but I disagree. I try to role play as much as possible, not rush through the game, so herbalism plays it part .. although I do agree that some rarer items should be more expensive. Also, bane and poison are fun when raiding camps, and making your own potions is part of the fun of the game for me.

[neofrommatrix]

You get large AoE harvesting at high skill level. Isn't that the main perk of this skill?

[showler]

Axe skill is useless in this game, you can just use a sword.

[JoelTarnabene]

I think the problem is that you approach an immersive RPG with a min-max mindset. Of course, you can mindlessly grind all your skills up to lvl 20. It's an unfortunate side effect of the skill based progression system. Does that mean that you should? No, I'd say. Play the game as you were the character Henry and dont exploit weak mechanics to pad your stats and the game becomes much more enjoyable. This is not Diablo 2, this is a role playing game.

[Creepy]

I think there are a hand full of potions that cannot be bought. I haven't tried them yet, though. Not sure if the Witch potion is the same as the one from the Monastery. Something I need to look into later

[Teralitha]

Originally posted by showler:

Axe skill is useless in this game, you can just use a sword.

Swords are useless in this game you can just use a bow

[Sunrock]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

When you get down to the brass tacks, herbalism is pretty much a useless skill. Here is why...

1. None of the perks matter because no stat can go over lvl 20. Str gain... useless.. why bother picking herbs to gain str when you can just do it many other ways. +2 vitality, also, wasted because of the lvl 20 limit. Also +2 charisma perk, wasted.

2. They are worth so little in value its not worth collecting them. Even with the +15% perk.

3. You need herbs for alchemy, but every herb trader sells everything you need, so why collect them? And they are so cheap...

4. Horse shyness buff. No point, just buy the best horse in the game and courage is no issue, max 20, like everything else.

5. The only time collecting herbs is useful is in the skalitz intro, and only if you want to be a min/maxer. After that, pointless.

6. There are no quests involving the gathering of herbs. At least none that I have seen as yet. There is one exorcism quest that needs 10 poppies, but again, u can just buy it, or collect it. Your skill level in herbalism has no significance.

7. Make potion right? Again, you can either buy the potions, or buy the herbs to make the potions. There is no need whatsoever to gather them yourself as they are dirt cheap.


What are some ideas to make herbalism have a point to it?


Remove rare herbs from traders. This would mena you would HAVE to find those herbs yourself if you wanted to do alchemy. Second, make potions that require the rarer herbs more expensive. And also remove such potions from traders. this way it makes players have to choose between spending a fortune, or making the potions yourself. Thirdly, add several quests that need a special or rare potion to complete. Could also just add in some fetch herb quests much like the ones we have to gather meats and hides.

Change or add perks that help with alchemy. Maybe like... boost to potion duration or something.. Or maybe you could remove the skill cap so bonuses matter.

Please make herbalism great again.

Collecting herbs is good for the early game. And the money is good in the early game too. Especially if you sell sage and wormwood.

Same with the perks they are mainly good for early to mid game play.

There is a quest at the monestary to pick herbs. And if you need allot of herbs for the sige if you want to get the achivment for it.

But the main point in leveling herbalism is so you don't have to pick every single herb one by one. When you get 10+ herbalism you can easily gather 20+ at the time if they grow close to each other.

[Teralitha]

Yes but the herbs are very low in value and you can make money alot faster in other ways. Thats why it is pointless and I made suggestions to fix that.

[Sunrock]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Yes but the herbs are very low in value and you can make money alot faster in other ways. Thats why it is pointless and I made suggestions to fix that.

Yea but you can gather like 300 sage in like 1 minute and they sell for 0.3 each. That is 90 grochen in 1 minute. That is allot of money when you first arive at Rattay.

PS: Telling herbs is also a good way to increase the rep with the traders by selling them for a lower price then what they ask for. As the price is low to begin with you only "loose" 0.1 grochen to gain 1 rputation point.

[Teralitha]

Thats why I said its only useful at the beginning. Try to keep up.

[Sunrock]

Originally posted by Teralitha:

Thats why I said its only useful at the beginning. Try to keep up.

No you sad that is was only usefull when you were in Skaliz before the attack. You don't arive to Rattay until after the prologue.

PS: The truth is that fixing Herbalism should be on the bottom of the list of things that needs to be fixed. In fact how herbalism is designed is totally ok.