Since the potions system is in a bit of a development limbo where the direction isn’t completely decided I thought I could provide an idea and see what people think and maybe give the devs some ideas that maybe that hadn’t thought of or considered.
As it was in the demo showcase of d4, potions were bound to a button and seemed to stack indefinitely in it’s own slot. Having a numerical limit and I think also a cooldown, limiting use.
I propose an updated version of diablo 2’s system of belts and potions. So potions would be limited on hand to 5-10 without cooldowns, allowing spamming if necessary, however, while out in the world they don’t recover. The only way to refill your potions is by returning to town. Town runs have always had a certain importance and necessity, and this could add more value to that. With this system, potions would be effectively endless like d3’s but would have limitations when out in danger, meaning using them needs to be strategic in the moment, but if it’s gotten to tough, and you’re all out, you can return to town to restock. Restocking however could be done from an npc for a cost like repair, but that’s kind of annoying to me, so i’d rather it just recharge once entering town or being in it for x (a short) time.
Now for the belts. Bringing belts back could provide an interesting utility. They would be a fusion between d2’s belt system, allowing more potions, and d3’s legendary potion system. Belts roll with a certain number of slots to hold potions, and determine what effects potions provide. This would mean there could be belts that have many potion slots to use, but each potion is rather weak, being rather useful early in the game but usefulness would drop off as health increases. the inverse would then be powerful potions possibly with multiple affixs or effects that proc when used, but have a much smaller number of slots, meaning you have to really know when to use them, or if it is worth spamming for the health even though the effect won’t stack and therefore be wasted.
I think this could add a decent amount of variability among players and allow further playstyle customization. From a design perspective, it adds more value to town returns as they would likely be more regular, and also provides a system that still allows the game to be difficult despite having potions, while also not needing to worry about collecting individual potions to make sure you can keep stocked.
Feedback on this idea would be welcome, so what do you other people think?
The potion isn’t as much the problem as the way how TP (Town Portal) works I think. Here, under #4
Take a look and let me know what u think
Ermm, #2 I meant, xcuse me 
I’m gonna be polemic here and say that out of all potion systems, D3 is still the one I think had the most interesting idea.
You rely mostly on your own life regen and life steal to stay alive. Potions don’t serve to give you extra sustain, they’re just a NOPE button in case of an emergency. And I like that.
I also like the approach games like Dark Souls take, where you have a limit of charges on your flask, as an incentive to use them wisely. Not chug every five seconds and be reckless with your health.
In comparison, something like path of exile, where you have virtually infinite potions with the rechargeable flasks, is a bit too lenient for my tastes.
And on D1 and D2 it’s a bit frustrating that most of your inventory space is potions.
Someone had mentioned (not sure who or when) that potions should become toxic if players attempt to drink too many of them at a time, which I honestly think would be interesting.
That reminds me of skooma from the Elder Scrolls series, a drug that highly boosts your speed and strength attributes, but gives a big debuff to intelligence and agility because it makes you dumb. So they’re useful when you need to run away from something, but you basically end up with a low (maybe even negative) magicka pool and can’t cast anything (that is what it did in Morrowind, idk about the sequels)
Having consumables with buff/debuff combinations is pretty interesting. Or maybe, idk, you drink too many potions and your character pukes and loses HP instead of regenerating it.
I very much agree that making potions consumable and cost inventory space would be going in the wrong direction. Instead, I would love to see an evolution to the system.
The idea I have is something like a ‘Potion Ability’ system. Essentially, as you play Diablo 4 you’ll find unique recipes that unlock new Potion-Specific Abilities. Once you unlock a Recipe you can customize your potion with these abilities - lets say that you get a number of effects based on the amount of health restored (Less health = more effects), when you use your Potion, there’s a cooldown based on what abilities you put into the potion as well (more cooldown based on the effects).
These abilities can include things like an anti-dote, anti-curse, etc, or even short-term buffs like a short-term shield that protects against damage.
This is the type of system I would like to see implemented in Diablo 4.
I think you’re basically suggesting a parallel way to achieve the same in-game result as D3. D3’s system is a good one:
- Quick, one-button use
- Doesn’t require inventory space, forcing players to stack up dozens of them to play at the highest levels
- Does have a cd limitation to force strategic use (think of it as a defensive cd)
- Has lots of modifiers available, unlocked via legendary drops
It sounds like you want the same thing, but with a recipe instead of a legendary drop. It’s fair enough to create an alchemist-type character and let you craft your potions. I like your ideas of adding a cleanse effect (antidote for poison, anti-curse, etc). They could be valuable mods, and there’s some creative space to expand there. There are some catches:
- You don’t want a potion to invalidate boss mechanics (like for example Mara’s does with poison GR bosses)
- You don’t want any one potion type to feel mandatory
- You do want the potion variants reasonably accessible
- I’m not convinced this needs to have an internal power grind treadmill like the legendary gems, where you have to upgrade your potions, but it’s an idea worth considering to reward open-world play, and offer some progression.
- I do think there’s something to be said for the everyone-gets-60%-hp on a fixed cd. It’s simple and fair.
I’m envisioning something where you have to go adventure in the open world looking for reagents for recipes. You find something odd, bring it back to the alchemist NPC, and he says: “Eureka! I can now make you this wonderful new potion.”
D3’s system is relatively fine. It is simple, but it works. Though the potions could be a bit more interesting.
Path of Exiles potions are fairly interesting, but in reality they end up as quite spammable on normal enemies, only really having some limit on bosses.
A quick mashup:
Potions can spawn with bonuses - kinda like D3, but more varied than just a defensive buff on use. A bit more like PoE. Some bonuses might be passive. Others on use.
The potion have some cooldown. like 30 sec.
But there are item stats/runes that interact with it.
For example a rune combo: Crit with fire skill → 1 sec reduction on potion cd - basically allowing for charging potions, somewhat like in PoE.
Since using potions themselves, as shown in the demo, can also be a rune trigger, that could even allow for some feedback loop where you try to lower the potion cd to trigger rune effects to lower the cd again ad infinitum.
I like that.
Potion enhancement would be a good match for crafting.
I think your post is way underrated.
No one ever remembers me! I suggested to rip off “The Witcher” game where potions become toxic and your life ball starts to turn green from the bottom up. But this was in combination with re-introducing belts as away to carry a limited supply. Also note that there should be a lot of other potion types, some class specific. Spamming health potions should not be allowed. Refilling potions from kills is too POEish. Maybe look at life steal mana steal repurposed for filling potions? Still too POEish but a slight compromise. Not sure what the developers have in mind for life/mana steal.
Sorry, my memory has never been the best. But it’s really a great and interesting idea imo.
Don’t worry about it, mine is probably worse. Beside I was joking, I don’t expect anyone to remember me, after all most of my 500 and some odd posts are not particularly good or enlightening. Ha!
Hi
I liked your post.
Healing ability with Cooldown is like a pacient who needs oxigin, also you keep it 5min then you remove. We did say to blizzard century ago, that healing ability with Cooldown is bad… it won’t work, cuz this is diablo game not WoW.
These blizzard dev remind me the French army commanders in WW2. They didn’t remove their heads from Maginot line sands, until the Germans take almost all France…
Man…
I wouldnt do anything to potions, but I would add one extra life. Change potion system doesnt really add anything to the series.
With one extra life, they could make the game harder and more challenging, bad players dies, get death penalty, good players keep their life and trade it for something nice.
Yeah, health potion is not good route.
No piano flask spam like in PoE, pls.
I would keep the D3 default potion and allow you to craft enhancements onto it. To make it even more interesting you can add up to 3 different enhancements.
I like that.
Potion enhancement would be a good match for crafting.
Kinda like it too but not “merged” into one system, potions should be separate from buff/debuff consumables… Speaking of consumables they don’t have to add 100 of them, even 10 types are enough
- Lifesteal
- Mana return
- DecreaseATK
- DecreaseDEF
- IncreaseRes (each type separately)
- DecreaseRes (all, different % for different class, for ex. minor = 7%, greater = 15%, max-size = 22%)
- Invis (100% dodge for 0.5 seconds)
- Increase hit-effect % [cancels all other buff effects]
- Increase ATK [cancels all other effects from consumables]
- Cleanse
That’s it, in fact would vouch for better to near-completely remove “reactive” type of potions (HP and mana) and sub them with the Lifesteal and ManaReturn ones (let HP and mana be rare and unbuyable, like Rejuv were), i.e. better make combat strategic/complimentary as much as possible, and up to the player to decide which foe they want to fight with and which without a bonus (rather than based on reaction… 
)