Fixing Herblore (potion bank - potion skilling station - removing bloat items and menial actions)

[u/Colossus823]

With the portable well being removed, an important QoL disappears.

Do you remember how it used to be before? If you want to make an extreme potion, you have to click use on the extra ingredient and then click on the super potion. But occasionally, you would misclick or slip up and accidentally took a sip and ruin that entire vial? Good times...

This reminds me how bloated Herblore is: cleaning herbs, making unfinished potions and having 4 versions of each potion in the GE. If Jagex would make RS3 from scratch today, I don't believe they would make Herblore as it is today.

So, this is my idea of fixing Herblore

Removing bloat items and menial actions

There's no need to have a double version of each herb - grimy and clean. If it is from a monster drop or harvesting a herb patch, there should be one herb item. Just irit herb, torstol herb, avantoe herb, ranarr herb,... That will also remove a menial task (cleaning herbs) and the (already useless) Herblore cape can get a new perk (later more which).

Another item that shouldn't exist: unfinished potions. If you click mix on a vial of water, you should make the potion instantly if you have all the items in your inventory. Jagex can adjust the number of ticks required so it's basically the same xp/hour. It will make loading from banks so much easier as you just load 9 of each in your inventory with just one preset and be done with it.

Removing these bloat items and menial actions will save space in your bank, in the GE and overall QoL improvement.

Potion bank - the potion cabinet and botanist's workbench

If you're making potions, especially overload potions that require multiple potions, you get a bank that's quickly full. Not to mention that sometimes you need a (3) version and sometimes a (4) version.

So, throughout Gielinor, there should be a potion cabinet with a botanist's workbench for you to use. Like with metal banks, a potion bank will bring an important QoL to the game. You can store all herbs, secondary ingredients, vials & flasks and potions into the potion cabinet.

Possible locations of potion cabinets: Aggie in Draynor, Betty in Port Sarim, Hetty in Rimmington (after Witch's Potion), Apothecary in Varrock, Maysa in Pollnivneach, Zahur in Nardah, Baba Yaga in Lunar Isle, Lady Meilyr in Prifddinas, at the Botanist's Workbench in Fort Forinthry and of course at War's Retreat.

The potion cabinet doesn't store physical potions, but potion doses. If you want to put a potion in your inventory, it automatically decants it in a vial or flask (if available). If you use a potion and you've for instant 2-doses left, you simply store it back into the cabinet. Storing this way does not break flasks, you store the empty flask back.

This also removes the need for (1) and (2) versions of each potion in the GE. Only the (3) and (4) versions should be tradeable and the rest are untradeable. This will remove a lot of bloat in the GE.

Zahur and Granny Rowan don't need to decant your potions anymore.

What with the herb bag? It gets its original purpose back: a temporary storage item during PvM. It was never meant to be a bank space saver. Of course, you can directly deposit herbs from the herb bag to the potion cabinet.

Cauldron - the main Herblore skilling station

With a potion bank available, there's one thing missing: a skilling station. Some potion cabinets will have a cauldron available.

Like with an anvil, cauldrons will have all stored herbs, secondary ingredients, vials & flasks and potions available to you. With one click, you can make any potion that you want in an improved menu, with potions sorted by type (combat, skilling) and strength (regular, super, extreme,...). This way, you make 28 potions per click, without needing to load ingredients. You can then deposit with two clicks all those potions back into the potion bank and start again.

All effects that make a (4) potion will instead make an extra dose and send it straight to your potion bank.

You're not obligated to use the cauldron; you can still stand at a bank, load the ingredients and mix it straight from a vial of water. Using a cauldron doesn't add a benefit, it just makes it more convenient and faster.

A second function of a cauldron is that you can take one dose of a potion of your choosing (a configure option which one is available), without needing to physically extract it from your potion bank. To keep the recent POH potion cauldrons relevant, those still allow you to take more than one dose and customise how much doses you take with each sip.

Interconnectivity and long-term use

One good aspect of Herblore is that it is upgradeable. To make an extreme prayer potion, you need a super prayer potion. To make a super prayer potion, you need a regular prayer potion.

This interconnectivity makes that each potion has its use in the economy. Lots of potions still retain value because they are a building block for an endgame potion downstream.

There are, however, potions that do not have this unbreakable chain. For instant, the super combat potions do not require the regular combat potions to make. This way, guam and tarromin are absolutely worthless. For a low-level player, regular combat potions have no resale value and are absolutely worthless beyond using it for yourself. Herblore only becomes profitable with super combat potions, which start at level 45.

This has to change. Every better version of a potion should require a lower version as a basis. This will require some changes in the use of herbs and secondary ingredients.

Leveling up benefits and new Herblore cape perk

With Ironman mode in mind, stacking up potions this hard will make potion making very slow.

To ameliorate, you get two boosts at higher levels:

- At 88 Herblore, you make regular potions 1 tick faster.

- At 95 Herblore, you make regular and super potions 1 tick faster.

The Herblore cape perk has a 1% chance to make all potions instantly, while earning all xp.

The Master Herblore cape keeps the current perk.

The Botanists' Amulet is pretty useless. You should be able to stack up to 1000 charges. Maybe Invention should provide a compactor device?

With these improvements, Herblore becomes a better, smoother skill.

[u/Yuki-Kuran]

I dont think they need to stray too far from the original method of training Herblore. Though I do like most of your suggestions

They just need to add some QOL unlocks to work towards and make it part of a Herblore activity that functions as an alternative training method.

Examples from OSRS, Zahur being able to clean grimy herbs/mix unfinished potion for you at a cost, Reagent Pouch (Stores secondary ingredients), the Amulet of Chemistry (stores botanist amulet charges) and Potion Storage from Mixology.

• Reagent pouch (with preset loading function for smooth banking process) would let you make 27 potion per inventory.
• Amulet of Chemistry allows you to overcharge it with botanist amulet charges while providing higher proc chance from 5% to 15%
• Potion storage would clear up a lot of bank space and auto-decant potions for you.
• Zahur will speed up the slowest, no XP part of the herblore process for a price, effectively cutting time needed making potions in half.
• She also helps with skipping the cleaning process for those who doesn't have the herblore cape and do not want the XP. (Edit: i think this is alr in RS, lmao)

With Anya and Esther being botanist/mixologist enthusiast, surely Jagex could create a herblore skilling activity in Havenhythe regarding helping them in those aspects and offer herblore QOL rewards.

[u/vituhyva123 → u/Yuki-Kuran]

Potion storage would actually be useful in RS3 because we have presets rather than an account downgrade like it is in osrs. They should definitely look at adding it.

[u/Bakugo_Dies → u/vituhyva123]

Potion storage is amazing in OSRS what do you mean?

It works properly with bank tabs now for the most part, only exception is if you need a particular dose that isn't 4. The solution is to just put whatever that special dose is in the normal bank.

It's jank, but absolutely not a downgrade. Never having to decant is so nice.

[u/vituhyva123 → u/Bakugo_Dies]

Haven't played osrs in a hot minute but I remember when it released it didn't play nice with bank tags or inventory setups

[u/Kratorix → u/Yuki-Kuran]

I like the idea of Zahur getting her OS functionality ported to RS. This could free up the Partial Potion Producer from Invention for some other use.

Maybe scrap the "partial" part, and just make it create finished potions. My main goal with this idea would to free players from the purgatory of making potions with low xp. The machine costs and operating speed can be adjusted to balance it out if this is still too strong.

[u/Yuki-Kuran → u/Kratorix]

Pretty sure people only make their own unf pot for the dg scroll effect or the portable well.

With the latter being gone soon, i doubt most people will want to make the unf pots.

[u/michael7050 → u/Yuki-Kuran]

Herblore has a whole building (well, renovation) in Fort Forinthry that could use some love as well.

[u/Far_Structure9555]

the real bloat is the unfinished potions, they only exist as an xp sink and a GE listing tax. just make cleaning herbs and mixing the base happen in one action at a station and suddenly half the inventory clutter and 3 of the 4 GE versions disappear without touching the actual progression

[u/Kratorix → u/Far_Structure9555]

just want to add that this also frees up the flash powder factory outfit set effect, which you could fill with some other herblore benefits if needed

[u/Far_Structure9555 → u/Kratorix]

right, and then you could slot in something like a small chance to save secondaries or faster station processing, which would feel way more useful than just skipping a cleaning step.

[u/Pulsefel]

cleaning is a hold over from the pre grimy herb days when ALL herbs were "unidentified" herbs on drop. you had to check them to see what they were. if you didnt have the level it just told you you couldnt. they added the grimy herbs to make it so people would be harder to scam using them. grimy is the unidentified state, clean is the identified.

you were using the bag as bank saver? really? i have THOUSANDS of herbs at a time, the bag can only store 100.

its not a bad idea for the cauldron but it seems kinda bleh. there needs to be a tie between the current and new ways of training. it really does need to be easier to train, but that just doesnt seem to fit.

id rather they adapt the workbench in grannys area to be like the forge interface. stores herbs, vials, flasks, and potions. non potion secondaries youd have to bring, but theres a bank chest nearby so thats not a problem. simplifies the process, doubles production per preset click and uses tech they already have in place.

[u/Colossus823 → u/Pulsefel]

I didn't know that little history. It's strange how these relics linger in the game.

Your suggestion isn't as far removed as mine. I see the potion cabinet and workshop as the equivalent of the furnace, while the cauldron is the equivalent of the forge/anvil.

[u/Cube_luke]

The left click issue accidentally drinking a potion or eating a secondary will be solved with menu entry swapper plug in next week

[u/whosdr → u/Cube_luke]

Oh yeah, that's true.

[u/whosdr]

I'm not a fan of much of this proposal. I think it removes a lot the classic identity of the skill.

I would rather just keep things much more simplistic, by having an action button or item to open a context-aware menu.

However, making my own suggestion, making a potion directly without the (unf) state (using clean or grimy herbs) seems like it would be an interesting design choice as a faster training method at the expense of XP potential. 'Hasty Herblore' as it were. Receive 2/3rds the XP in exchange for skipping the steps, making the potion faster and more directly.

Or maybe instead of lower xp, it yields 2 doses instead of 3. Lots of interesting ideas.

(In which case, the unf potions could even be made untradeable. But that's totally optional.)

[u/Colossus823 → u/whosdr]

Smithing got changed with the exact same idea. It's considered the best skill rework ever.

The classic identity of Herblore stays the same. Using the potion cabinet and cauldron is entirely optional. But for those that want a better training experience, this will be a huge improvement.

Your suggestion doesn't make sense. You can buy unfinished potions or make them through the invention machine, so "Hasty Herblore" is a net loss.

The whole idea that you have to mix in two steps is so bad, no dev would make Herblore like that if it was made today.

[u/whosdr → u/Colossus823]

Smithing got changed with the exact same idea. It's considered the best skill rework ever.

There are some things I would prefer to revert, to be fully honest. Mostly making gloves/boots though. :p

Your suggestion doesn't make sense. You can buy unfinished potions or make them through the invention machine, so "Hasty Herblore" is a net loss.

Ah. I approach things from the view-point of an ironman; I've not played as a 'main' properly in close to a decade. Though I did also suggest that unfinished potions could be made untradeable in the same vein.

[u/Colossus823 → u/whosdr]

I don't understand how making unfinished potions untradeable would be an improvement. As a main, you cannot use the shortcut of buying them at the GE. As an ironman, it doesn't change anything.

[u/whosdr → u/Colossus823]

An improvement in what sense?

If untradeable, it resolves the issue of "Just buy unf potions and make fast xp normally", by having you pick a faster option with more resources, or a slower option of making unfinished first.

I'm thinking about widening the scope of training methods, rather than just streamlining the existing potion-making to the point of triviality.

Anyway, it's fine. I just don't personally like what you've proposed here. We can disagree.

[u/Colossus823 → u/whosdr]

You make Herblore training worse. The whole point of the partial potion producer or buying from the GE is to bypass making unfinished potions as A) it takes time and B) it gives pretty much no xp.

This could be entirely avoided by removing the unfinished potion step entirely.

[u/whosdr → u/Colossus823]

It doesn't necessarily make herblore worse. You could still do a quicker method of herblore by shoving unfinished ingredients together for a lesser reward. That XP rate could even be set to what it is right now for making finished potions, buffing the XP per resource of going through the process of making unfinished.

I fail to see how this is any worse than what exists in the game at the moment.

[u/Few-Chipmunk-5957]

I don’t understand why portables are being removed anyway. Been in the game for years and years so there’s no integrity gained from taken them out unless there was some sort of reset.

[u/Hood-Peasant]

I disagree. As a 20 year veteran, this change would ruin my experience. There's already so many features ingame which have requirements that speed up herblore as it is.

[u/Colossus823 → u/Hood-Peasant]

Ruin how? You can still mix straight from the vial. This will just add some convenience.