Potion charges are a gimmick that doesnt make the game harder

I'm told the idea to make potion have limited to charges was to make the genre harder by limiting how many pots you can carry around.

In old diablo games I spam potions and return to town when I need to buy more.
In PoE I spam potions and return to town when I need them restocked.
In both cases I have unlimited potions.


I don't see how it makes the game harder.

Why not make it so that returning to town does not restock potions and only entering a new instance will restock pots?

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NotRegret wrote:

I'm told the idea to make potion have limited to charges was to make the genre harder by limiting how many pots you can carry around.

In old diablo games I spam potions and return to town when I need to buy more.
In PoE I spam potions and return to town when I need them restocked.
In both cases I have unlimited potions.


I don't see how it makes the game harder.

Why not make it so that returning to town does not restock potions and only entering a new instance will restock pots?

Not really, to return to town in poe you need a portal, thus unless you have the gem you are in no way granted unlimited refills, not to mention to return to said place you need to re-use/cast portal how are they the same?

Flask charges were never intended to make the game more difficult. The flask system is intended to eliminate the hassle of potion spam that was common in D2 and other arpgs while also making the system a more interesting part of the character's gear and playstyle.

I doubt that anyone thinks that the flask system makes the game harder. If you find that you're regularly running out of flask charges and need to go back to town to refill them then you probably built a pretty poor character.

Dont change flasks. They are awsome. I like the idea implemented the way it is for sure, and being able to customize your flasks with Augmentations just makes it all that cooler.

Simple solution, really: Potions shouldn't automatically refill on visits to town.

Have a vendor in town charge for refilling flasks.
This addresses the OP's concerns and acts as a minor currency sink.

From what I remembered they mentioned different modes where a league might not allow flask recharge at town.

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tpapp157 wrote:

Flask charges were never intended to make the game more difficult.

This.

There was an excellent post in the "Dev Diary" about GGG's philosophy behind the flask system, but I can't find it anymore. Basically:

* Eliminates the need to purchase potions

* Similar concept to health globes in D3 that drop as you kill monsters, but superior as you have much better control of when you can use them

* Flasks can have additional mods which can synergize with your character build


I'd take the flask system over potions any day, it's a far superior system. If you're flasks are consistently running out you may need to invest in some of the following:

* Increased damage mitigation: life passives, better defense on gear, defensive passives, higher resists

* Life on hit, life leech, life regen passives

* Mana regen, incresed mana, mana leech support

* Reduced mana cost support, reduced skill cost passives

* Reduce the number of linked support gems on your main skill

* Reduce the level of a high mana cost skill gems (using a scouring orb)

* Consider using a Blood Magic support gem or taking the passive skill (need high life regen and/or leech)

As a person with high loss aversion, flasks are much better than potions. This is because with potions, I keep thinking "potions = gold", and I always feel like I need to conserve potions so that I can save more money for better gear. This leads to sub-optimal behaviour, like keeping a bunch of potions in my inventory that I never use, or using them too late and dying anyway. With PoE, I know that if my flask is full and I'm not using it, I'm essentially wasting charges. This makes me feel much better about popping a flask whenever I need to, and not worry about wasting potion duration or currency expenditure.

if you have to go back to town to get them refilled, you're doing it wrong

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nebb1234 wrote:

if you have to go back to town to get them refilled, you're doing it wrong

I always felt that the flasks were too generous in PoE. You can typically manage fine with flasks that are quite a few levels lower than your character. That's not true for the rest of your gear. It also means flask quality and flask mods that increase amount and speed recovered aren't valued as highly as I think they should be.