Improve Markos the potion seller - combined - one thread "to rule them all"

[Chemile0n]

Right now the potion seller has no real purpose in the game. Or at least he feels like a 3rd class vendor: selling stuff that is dropped in bulks or helping craft items with way too much investment.

I try to combine existing posts and new ideas here, so bear with me. Ironically i created this (duplicate) thread to create a central space for potion and potion seller related improvements. So if you find overlapping posts, please link them here.

without further ado, here are my (and other people’s) 2 or 3 cents:

after saving him from his cave, you might have felt like there is this new awesome shit waiting for you to enhance your experience. but what actually happens when you find Markos in sacrament is, that he only sells potions you already have multiple stack of (taking up all your inv space) or the recipes to said potions.

Remove resources stack limit in chests

I do agree. you need 4 worlds minimum to work with the current system, and in early game, the storage shortage hits like a tank. you may be dropping that one god piece because you have way too many potion craftables in your chests. speaking of craftables, unless potions were intended to be an alchemist style build, I feel the drop rates dig rates of potion resources is way out of line with the ore requirements to craft them. dozens of roots and herbs pop up in crates and digs, but just one poti…

the drop rates of potions are super high, so you don’t really need to buy them, and when you got the recipes, they are insanely expensive. Want an weapon enchanted? Sure, 1 silver coin. Want a focus potion: go fishing for 2h, get some ingots, and you are good to go for 1 focus attack (or just half a rune attack).

You got a build with armor abilities buffing your stamina, focus or poise? Nice, you don’t need potions. Don’t have one? well you don’t need Markos either, just dig a few dirt piles and you are good to go (you get the drift).

An alchemy bag for an alchemy class

Right now, the poor guy you save from the lsd cave has almost no use in the game. potions are way too expensive in an ore ingot sense, to craft a ton of them. also, potions pull from many other much need resources like upgrading weapons and the town. Lastly, potions ingredients are a nuisance for storage because they accumulate by the thousands w a 4-5x drop rate to other items, for breakables and shovel spots. Therefore, I suggest we create an alchemy bag and an alchemy class: you would not be…

What actually happens is, that you sell all potions, because you got too much of them, and never ever craft something at Markos table. Instead you spend hours and hours enchanting and upgrading, but Markos just sings a sad song.

TLDR: Potion seller needs a purpose, and it could also solver other issues.

Here is how:

1. reduce potion drop rate

2. make recipes less expensive. at least be reasonable compared to other crafting mechanics.

3. get some juicy new and actually useful potions in there:

For example a potion the removes healing item cooldown for a set amount of time or reduces it by x%

Time after eating is so annoying!

No combat eating/drinking That is a bit too harsh i feel. Nearly every game out there has some sort of healing. Most don’t have HP regen during combat, but u should be able to heal, when u made a mistake. overlaps a bit with point 8. i prefer situational healing on demand (with or without cooldown) over constant healing. imo constant healing or how u call it an “healing aura” makes the player lazy. and it is boring to stand around and wait until you are healed. Give us a garden system so we…

Consumables Timer Feedback & Suggestions

i feel reminded of monster hunter and the “pre quest” feast that gives you buffs as long as the quest lasts, or until you die. If implementing something like this there needs to be more than just a 600s timer, and it needs to be independent of the “in between” heals. which brings me to a point i suggested in one of the other treads: Keep cooldown, but instead of applying it to the whole “food item category” only apply it to the item consumed, for example, veggie cake. Time after eating is so…

4. Enable an alchemist build, which highly profits from bombs and throwables. Making those cheaper to craft, and maybe even give them some buffs via even more potions!! (see 3.)

5. Make upgrading his stall matter! just getting an larger even more expensive potion of the same type is really not worth it. Make him go crazy. Let him be a cave dwelling mad scientist. maybe even give him a new quest with each store upgrade you did at Danos’, sending you out for rare ingredients to get that next level buff potion.

I feel there is so much potential, but this poor guy just gets no love.

[Mathieu]

he also need an LSD potion that reveal hidden path or lsd path i don’t know, would be cool to sometime pop a drink and discover entrance to hidden paths, or invisible chest, or detect MIMIC (yeh i saw them somewhere in the files i think XD) or underground hidden monstrosity XD …
maybe he could also have a stand where, to help u get material u could perhaps give him a fish, he’ll let it rot or mix it (anything he wanna experiment XD ) to extract something from it, and will complete a part of the recipe, instead of having to walk the world for 5 fishes to get 1 oil XD …

also one of his line is something like no man is complete until he’s tainted blood, maybe like in the witcher he could give u boosted potion that come at a cost, like, poisoning u increased your hp by a ton, but will decrease ur attack, or just, boosted potion, but u wont be able to take all of them or u’ll basically poison yourself too much and die XD …

[Chemile0n]

Throwable should matter more

i loved how at the beggining of the game having a bomb to throw would really help me get rid of big monsters. But as soon as you reach sacrament, they slowly become almost irrelevant … i really would love to see our arsenal matter a lot more, wether it is bombs, oils, any kind of trap etc especially since now there’s a curse that can reduce up to 100% of your damage for 10seconds if u take a hit, it would be cool to have something to do during these windows~ Repairing kinda follows the same tr…

[oblyq1128]

love the potion idea. also some potions could be combined, like focus and stamina, or poise and weapon grease damage. or vice versa, potions could be expanded. the idea is to motivate players to have a reason to use them. i know that when i am underlevevel, i use bombs to exploit bosses. but staffs power creap bombs pretty quick., so maybe makes bombs be damage over time

[Chemile0n]

another nice potion idea: XP gain buff potion: Make it so respec costs 5 fallen embers - #10 by Solemn