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About this mod
Restores a total of 23 cut potions back into the game! Utilizes the dlc component as much as possible to maximize compatibility.
- Requirements
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
Introduction and Background
Introducing Restored Content: Additional Potions. This one has been in the works since January and is my biggest and most complex mod to date. This mod restores six entirely new potions, restores additional tiers for 2 existing potions, and makes the Potion from Tir Na Lia an actual potion like CDPR meant for it to be! This comes out to a total of 23 new potions! If there was evidence anywhere in the files that CDPR planned for a potion to be in the game that didn't end up making it in I restored it(with a few exceptions) trying to be as true to it's intended purpose as reasonably as possible. Some of these cut potions are making their return from W1 and W2. This is huge mod with scripts, xmls, w2ent, w2l, w2quest, and png files and I've leveraged the DLC system, Radish tools, and definition override hack as much as possible to make it as compatible as possible.
Mechanics
First I wanted to note that all the restored potions have also had new Recipes for them added to the game. I've used DLC to integrate them into the list of random diagrams that the game gives out and in the few shops that sell potions diagrams in the base game + B&W. As result, these potions will show up naturally while you play like they were always meant to be a part of the game. I've generally put the minimum level for the game to spawn the new recipes a bit higher than the vanilla potions at around level 10+. This is to help spread out the potions given to the player and prevent them from getting all the recipes at the beginning of the game.
With that said, if you want to get these potions earlier check out the file "modPotionsRestore/content/scripts/local/debugpotions.ws". In there I have
given instructions and a list of debug console commands you can input to get these potions and their diagrams individually or in specific groups.
Below I will detail every potion restored by this mod as well as the stuff I didn't restore.
1. Enhanced and Superior Killer Whale
In the vanilla game, Killer Whale only has a single tier which is a bit unusual for a general gameplay potion. Turns out, CDPR did plan for an Enhanced and Superior Tier and left stat/ability definitions for them in the xmls(not even commented out!). I simply restored these via DLC using CDPR's original stats. I also edited the first tier of Killer
Whale to be a Master Item and not a Relic so that it's more consistent with the other tiered potions. Unfortunately, I had to make this edit in the vanilla xml as overriding existing potion defs is not possible. Fortunately, this change is literally just changing a number so it should merge with no problem. Lastly, you will notice that I changed the
Killer Whale icon to a very early leftover icon for the Griffen decoction. This is because CDPR actually assigned the icon for the cut Tiara potion to Killer Whale. Since I restored Tiara in this mod, I had to change Killer Whale's icon.
2. DeVries' Extract
This W1 potion was supposed to make its return in W3 but sadly didn't make the cut. Only a leftover icon and dev comments in the scripts were left. In W1 this potion "makes concealed creatures visible". In W3 it was supposed to do something similar by making enemies and loot visible through walls like the Cat Potion in W2 did. The enemy and object highlighting effect is actually still in the game, as it is used in the Cat potion, but sadly any functionality for making it visible through level geometry was either disabled or removed in the native rendering code. This makes it very difficult or impossible to restore this. I tried all I could on this back in January but I couldn't do anything to make the effect visible through walls and it made my give up on this mod for a while. When I revisited the mod, I decided to make something in the spirit of the original W1 potion using the tools I had available. Fortunately, what a lot of people don't know is that CDPR made the Cat potion effect and its enemy/loot highlighting extremely customizable via script. You can adjust the brightness, near and far tint color, fog density, what object or point the effect centers on, highlighting color, highlighting blur, and highlight blur shading intensity. This gave me plenty of ability to make a custom effect that looks different from Cat and is specifically designed to make enemies and loot easier to spot. The enemy and loot highlighting range could also be customized here. I settled on make a golden brown tint that's nowhere near as blinding as cat in the day time. Enemies will be highlighted in blue to make them stand out against the background tint. Loot is highlighted with W2 Medallion highlight effect(CDPR chosen behavior). If you get the Enhanced Devries' Exact the enemy and loot highlighting range becomes larger.
I knew that I had to make this potion a bit more interesting and I thought people would want to customize the effect so I made the Superior Devries' Extract dyable. You can select and apply you're favorite dye color to change the background tint. The highlight color will automatically adjust to be a complementary or different looking color. Drag and drop is currently not supported for dyeing potions. You'll need to select the dye then apply.
3. Tiara
This W2 potion was supposed to make its return in W3 but sadly got cut pretty late into development. It's icon got reused by CDPR for Killer Whale. The full strings for this potion in the string database that describe what it would have done state: "Limits loss of Stamina when parrying at the expense of damage dealt." As you probably know, in the vanilla game parrying does not cost stamina. During development, the game was supposed to have a system were almost every action would take stamina like in Dark Souls. There is a ton of evidence for this in scripts and xmls. They decided to cut most of this to make the game more accessible to casual audiences. Only the stamina cost for sign casting, jumping, and sprinting were left. With the NGE, jumping and sprinting were also dropped leaving just sign casting costing stamina. The Tiara potion was probably cut along with this system but to be honest even with the stamina system it kinda sucked. The potion only helped with parrying and carried a W2 style penalty with it. Not great. However, I thought I could make it a pretty great potion that pairs well with Yellow Mutagens while staying true to the stamina cost reduction concept. Tiara will now reduce the stamina cost of casting signs(or any other action if you've installed a mod that makes it use stamina) by 10/20/30 % for each given tier. The default non alternate sign casting cost is 100 and as far as I know nothing available in vanilla changes this. This means you'll have less time to wait between sign casts and if you increase your stamina with the restored yellow mutagens you can even cast signs back to back! I've also given Tiara it's original icon back from Killer Whale.
4. Virga
This W2 potion was to also make it's return in W3 but got cut for unknown reasons. It's strings were actually one of the first ever written for W3 and are left over in the database. There is no evidence for what it was supposed to do and no leftover icon. I decided to make it do what it did in W2 by giving you physical damage resistance,
bleeding resistance, burning resistance, and poison resistance all in one. I've also added elemental damage resistance which is new in W3. Each tier give you a bit more resistance. Since there was no icon left over, I tried to make one but didn't like it's look. I wanted a red potion since there weren't any in vanilla. Luckily the E3 swallow icon was far more red than the vanilla one and I just used that(it might not appear that way in this preview but it is in game).
5. Willow
This W1 potion was to also make its return in W3 but sadly got cut somewhere midway through development. Only leftover strings for this potion were left in the game files. In W1 this potion "grants immunity to the stun and knockdown". I'm pretty sure it was supposed to do the same in the W3 since that's exactly what the Chort Decoction does. It seems like they cut this potion in favor of the Chort Decoction. I tried finding something else for this potion to do but there was too much druid lore behind it in W1 so I couldn't. I decided to make it give you resistance to stagger only for a short amount of time for low toxicity cost. If you also want resistance to knockdown for a longer amount of time but for high toxicity cost, then you can use the Chort Decoction. The icon is from a cut quest item called the Florence Flask with Water.
NOTE: Stagger is NOT the hit reaction animation that plays when you get it hit. It's the stun effect that happens when you try to block a small monster like a drowner with a sword. Basically, this potion lets you block small to medium size monsters for a short time.
6. Potion from Tir ná Lia
This one is a fun one and got me using the Radish tools. In the vanilla game, this potion is just considered food that you can pick up off of dead wild hunt soldiers. However, I'm pretty sure it was intended to be an actual potion at one point and CDPR couldn't make it work for some reason. I have no clue at all what they intended it for but I'm sure it wasn't just to restore your vitality which is pretty lame. I decided to take creative liberties with this one and make something really cool with it. I won't spoil that here and let you discover it for yourself. I will say that there is only one tier and you can carry a maximum of 1 charge. You can pick this potion up off of dead wild hunt in BofKM but again only a maximum of 1 carried at a time. And once you've used it you can only get another by picking it up off a dead Wild Hunt solider. If you want to remake it you gotta find the diagram I've hidden somewhere in the game.
Hint: Answer is pretty obvious
7. Nekker Pheromones
A lot of people know about this one. The only thing making this potion cut was the fact it's diagram wasn't set to spawn anywhere in the game. It's item, ability, script, effect, and recipe were all defined in the game already and you could spawn it with console anytime. The official Player's Guide even listed it as a actual potion you could get so this one was cut super late. What a lot of people probably don't know is that it also had an Enhanced and Superior Tier left over in the strings. I've gone ahead and restored them all so you can explore the game in peace without any Nekkers bothering you. Note that the recipes for these potions are only available from the Pellar, Kaer Trolde Herbalist, Druid herbalists in Skellige, and Gremist.
8. Drowner Pheromones
The original Drowner Pheromones were the only Pheromones used in the final game however there were also Enhanced and Superior tiers left over in the strings. A lot of people over the years have called the Pheromone potions bugged or useless outside of the one contract they're used in. However, this is not the case. CDPR actually hardcoded all the Pheromone effects to break if Geralt light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges, rolls, casts a sign, aims a bomb/crossbow, swims, dives, or rides a horse. All of these makes sense however they also coded for the effect to break anytime Geralt starts sprinting. This was probably done to make sure Geralt is quiet and sneaky amongst monsters when using pheromones. However, in my experience this makes the potions useless during exploration and annoying to use. While I've kept the vanilla sprint breaks pheromones function in this mod, I've also made an optional file that allows sprinting without breaking any of the pheromone effects applied. Also I should note there was a cut gameplay section in the Muire D'yaeblen quest where Geralt has to go buy the Drowner Pheromones recipe from the Kaer Trolde trader. Instead, CDPR decided to make the game just automatically give it to you mid quest. BiA didn't restore the originally store sequence because it just adds a ton of backtracking. I might restore it for showcase at some point. Note that the recipes for these potions are only available from the Kaer Trolde Herbalist, Druid herbalists in Skellige, and Gremist.
9. Bear Pheromones
This potion is very similar to the Nekker and Drowner Pheromones except the potion makes Bears not attack Geralt instead of Nekkers or Drowners. Note that the recipe for these potions are only available from the Pellar, Kaer Trolde Herbalist, Druid herbalists in Skellige, and Gremist.
NOTE: All the base tier pheromone potions were set to Master, Magic, and Relic items for the Nekker, Drowner, and Bear Pheromones respectively. To be more consistent with other potions and their tiers I made them all Master items. This required editing the vanilla xml but again like Killer Whale I only needed to change a single number for two potions so this should in theory be easy to merge.
10. Cut potions or potion related ideas I did not restore
a. Original Trial of the Grasses Potions
The Trial of the Grasses part of the game went though many revisions and there were some left over strings related to an earlier version of it. In the final game Geralt goes around collecting ingredients for a generic sounding "The Decoctions of the Grasses" item that you later in the cutscene find out consists of Mother's Tears, Wildrye Juice, and Speargrass Sap. However, there are a lot of strings referencing different potions for this section.
You have "Tear Grass", "Witchgrass", "Speargrass", "Feather Grass", and "Fescue Grass" each with the description, "Potion used in the Trial of the Grasses."
This was later cut down to "Tear Grass", "Speargrass", and "Witchgrass" as you can also find strings for the quest objectives "Prepare Tear Grass.", "Prepare Speargrass.", and "Prepare Witchgrass.".
You can also find the strings for the recipes: "Manuscript page: Tear Grass", "Manuscript page: Witchgrass", and "Manuscript page: Speargrass"
In addition, the cut document "Yennefer's notes" that is restored by Witcher Lore Collection by MerseyRockoff refers to these grasses making it likely from this earlier version of the quest. It seems the section was a lot more involved with Geralt having to prepare the different potions himself. Also, every potion used was a grass which might be more lore friendly for the "Trial of the Grasses" but idk. It's possible more development files could be found one day hopefully allowing restoration of this original gameplay section as it sounds really interesting. Without this gameplay section, I didn't see much point in restoring these grasses.
b. "Druid Techniques" Perk
When I was making Restored Content - Addition Perks, Flipper444 told me there was a cut perk called Druid Techniques but unfortunately we couldn't figure out what it was for so we didn't restore. Thanks to LewisElementary 's more organized string database in his changelog, I was finally able to figure out that it was supposed to: "Enables the use of level 3 alchemy formulae (without this ability they have the same effects as level 2 formulae)." This is actually the infamous Perk_08 that actually still in the game but hidden from the user interface and permanently turned on. Every superior potion in the game is actually still setup to default back to Enhanced stats if this perk gets deactivated. This is honestly a really lame perk and I'm glad it was "cut". As you would expect, there are no mods that turn it off. However the next "not restored
cut content" might give me a reason to bring this back.
c. Mastercrafted Potions
In the string database, there is a left over string for "Mastercrafted White Honey". This likely indicates that CDPR planned for another tier of potions beyond Superior just the like the Witcher Gear which has tiers of base, Enhanced, Superior, and Mastercrafted. For some reason, CDPR decided to max potions out at Superior pretty early in development. I could restore Mastercrafted Potions, but it would be a ton of work and I would have to re-balance all the existing potions in the game. This would require editing vanilla xmls surely bringing a ton of conflicts. I think if someone were to restore this it would be a good opportunity to bring back Druid Techniques which would be a perk to enable crafting Mastercrafted potions(not do something weird like make all Mastercrafted potions Superior which not a a good idea).
Also note that this mod doesn't restore decoctions. There are cut decoctions but they are a whole different story for another mod at another time.
Installation
Unpack 'modPotionsRestore' to your 'Mods' folder. If there isn't one create it. Also unpack 'dlcpotionsrestore' to your 'dlc' folder. Merge all scripts with script merger and the one xml if you need/want. The mod can be installed in the middle of a playthrough no problem. However if you finished the main story you'll need console commands to get the Tir Na Lia potion recipe. In you currently have any Potions from Tir Na Lia, I would recommend removing them from your inventory prior to installing the mod and then adding it back afterwards. This isn't super important but may help correct a small cosmetic bug that may occur otherwise.
For the optional file that makes sprint not break pheromones, unpack 'modPheromoneSprint' to your 'mods' folder and merge scripts if needed.
Compatibility
This mod is only compatible with the next-gen version of the game(4.03). Sorry but this was really time consuming to make and I just don't have the time to support a classic version. The mod might also technically work fine with alchemy overhaul mods like Alchemy(aka Primer) but it will not adopt their new mechanics. A patch might be made one day but it would be a ton of work.
Make sure to merge scripts with script merger. Most of the this mod is DLC or uses the override trick. Unfortunately there is one vanilla xml I had to edit but most of the changes there are for cosmetic reasons and won't impact the mod's functionality. With that said merging this XML with script merger will probably work if you have a conflict.
Translations
This mod features 54 strings. If there were leftover strings in the vanilla files, I tried to use them to minimize the amount of localization work but in one case this caused issues so I had to remake the strings. I've included a Polish translation using Google translate but I felt that did not go well for this mod as it was translating the
same words inconsistently so I decided to ship the rest as English and hope people could help me properly localize it.
English (en) -- written by glassfish777
Arabic (ar) -- no translation
Portuguese (br) -- no translation
Simplified Chinese (cn) -- FreakVIP
Czech (cz) --no translation
German (de) -- no translation
Spanish (es and esMX) -- no translation
French (fr) -- no translation
Hungarian (hu) -- no translation
Italian (it) -- no translation
Japanese (jp) -- no translation
Korean (kr) -- no translation
Polish (pl) -- Google Translate
Russian (ru) -- Arkwulf
Turkish (tr) -- no translation
Traditional Chinese (zh) -- no translation
Special Thanks
I first want to thank Ard Carraigh for this help and support in making this mod. I also want to thank him for letting me use his custom dyeing framework and include it with this mod. Next I would like to thank MerseyRockoff, Flipper444 and the BiA discord server for their support as always. Lastly, thanks to the members of the Radish discord for helping me get the tools up and running.
My Other Mods
Old Witcher 3 (1.32):
Novigrad Crest in Journal Restored
Restored Content - Shrines of Verna
Restored Content - Ciri's Fate
Restored Content - Old Mutagen Icons
Restored Content - Additional Perks
Experimental Restored Content - Ice Skating
Smooth Camera Zoom for Base Game Signs and Posters
Restored Content - Yellow Mutagens
Next-Gen Witcher 3(4.0):
Smooth Camera Zoom for Base Game Signs and Posters
Restored Content - Old Mutagen Icons
Restored Content - Yellow Mutagens - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Additional Perks - Next-Gen
Experimental Restored Content - Ice Skating - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Ciri's Fate - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Woodland Spirit Aftermath
Restored Content - Shrines of Verna - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Usable Whetstones
Restored Content - Additional Potions
Other mods I have contributed to or collaborated on:
Restored Content - Buffed Monster
Restored Content - Buffed Monster - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Food
Healthy Food
Brothers In Arms-TW3 Bug Fix and Restored Content Collection(includes all my location fixes mods as well as some other things I've contributed)
Brothers In Arms- TW3 Bug Fix and Restored Content Collection - Next-Gen
DLC - Events
DLC - Events - Next-Gen
Introducing Restored Content: Additional Potions. This one has been in the works since January and is my biggest and most complex mod to date. This mod restores six entirely new potions, restores additional tiers for 2 existing potions, and makes the Potion from Tir Na Lia an actual potion like CDPR meant for it to be! This comes out to a total of 23 new potions! If there was evidence anywhere in the files that CDPR planned for a potion to be in the game that didn't end up making it in I restored it(with a few exceptions) trying to be as true to it's intended purpose as reasonably as possible. Some of these cut potions are making their return from W1 and W2. This is huge mod with scripts, xmls, w2ent, w2l, w2quest, and png files and I've leveraged the DLC system, Radish tools, and definition override hack as much as possible to make it as compatible as possible.
Mechanics
First I wanted to note that all the restored potions have also had new Recipes for them added to the game. I've used DLC to integrate them into the list of random diagrams that the game gives out and in the few shops that sell potions diagrams in the base game + B&W. As result, these potions will show up naturally while you play like they were always meant to be a part of the game. I've generally put the minimum level for the game to spawn the new recipes a bit higher than the vanilla potions at around level 10+. This is to help spread out the potions given to the player and prevent them from getting all the recipes at the beginning of the game.
With that said, if you want to get these potions earlier check out the file "modPotionsRestore/content/scripts/local/debugpotions.ws". In there I have
given instructions and a list of debug console commands you can input to get these potions and their diagrams individually or in specific groups.
Below I will detail every potion restored by this mod as well as the stuff I didn't restore.
1. Enhanced and Superior Killer Whale
In the vanilla game, Killer Whale only has a single tier which is a bit unusual for a general gameplay potion. Turns out, CDPR did plan for an Enhanced and Superior Tier and left stat/ability definitions for them in the xmls(not even commented out!). I simply restored these via DLC using CDPR's original stats. I also edited the first tier of Killer
Whale to be a Master Item and not a Relic so that it's more consistent with the other tiered potions. Unfortunately, I had to make this edit in the vanilla xml as overriding existing potion defs is not possible. Fortunately, this change is literally just changing a number so it should merge with no problem. Lastly, you will notice that I changed the
Killer Whale icon to a very early leftover icon for the Griffen decoction. This is because CDPR actually assigned the icon for the cut Tiara potion to Killer Whale. Since I restored Tiara in this mod, I had to change Killer Whale's icon.
2. DeVries' Extract
This W1 potion was supposed to make its return in W3 but sadly didn't make the cut. Only a leftover icon and dev comments in the scripts were left. In W1 this potion "makes concealed creatures visible". In W3 it was supposed to do something similar by making enemies and loot visible through walls like the Cat Potion in W2 did. The enemy and object highlighting effect is actually still in the game, as it is used in the Cat potion, but sadly any functionality for making it visible through level geometry was either disabled or removed in the native rendering code. This makes it very difficult or impossible to restore this. I tried all I could on this back in January but I couldn't do anything to make the effect visible through walls and it made my give up on this mod for a while. When I revisited the mod, I decided to make something in the spirit of the original W1 potion using the tools I had available. Fortunately, what a lot of people don't know is that CDPR made the Cat potion effect and its enemy/loot highlighting extremely customizable via script. You can adjust the brightness, near and far tint color, fog density, what object or point the effect centers on, highlighting color, highlighting blur, and highlight blur shading intensity. This gave me plenty of ability to make a custom effect that looks different from Cat and is specifically designed to make enemies and loot easier to spot. The enemy and loot highlighting range could also be customized here. I settled on make a golden brown tint that's nowhere near as blinding as cat in the day time. Enemies will be highlighted in blue to make them stand out against the background tint. Loot is highlighted with W2 Medallion highlight effect(CDPR chosen behavior). If you get the Enhanced Devries' Exact the enemy and loot highlighting range becomes larger.
I knew that I had to make this potion a bit more interesting and I thought people would want to customize the effect so I made the Superior Devries' Extract dyable. You can select and apply you're favorite dye color to change the background tint. The highlight color will automatically adjust to be a complementary or different looking color. Drag and drop is currently not supported for dyeing potions. You'll need to select the dye then apply.
3. Tiara
This W2 potion was supposed to make its return in W3 but sadly got cut pretty late into development. It's icon got reused by CDPR for Killer Whale. The full strings for this potion in the string database that describe what it would have done state: "Limits loss of Stamina when parrying at the expense of damage dealt." As you probably know, in the vanilla game parrying does not cost stamina. During development, the game was supposed to have a system were almost every action would take stamina like in Dark Souls. There is a ton of evidence for this in scripts and xmls. They decided to cut most of this to make the game more accessible to casual audiences. Only the stamina cost for sign casting, jumping, and sprinting were left. With the NGE, jumping and sprinting were also dropped leaving just sign casting costing stamina. The Tiara potion was probably cut along with this system but to be honest even with the stamina system it kinda sucked. The potion only helped with parrying and carried a W2 style penalty with it. Not great. However, I thought I could make it a pretty great potion that pairs well with Yellow Mutagens while staying true to the stamina cost reduction concept. Tiara will now reduce the stamina cost of casting signs(or any other action if you've installed a mod that makes it use stamina) by 10/20/30 % for each given tier. The default non alternate sign casting cost is 100 and as far as I know nothing available in vanilla changes this. This means you'll have less time to wait between sign casts and if you increase your stamina with the restored yellow mutagens you can even cast signs back to back! I've also given Tiara it's original icon back from Killer Whale.
4. Virga
This W2 potion was to also make it's return in W3 but got cut for unknown reasons. It's strings were actually one of the first ever written for W3 and are left over in the database. There is no evidence for what it was supposed to do and no leftover icon. I decided to make it do what it did in W2 by giving you physical damage resistance,
bleeding resistance, burning resistance, and poison resistance all in one. I've also added elemental damage resistance which is new in W3. Each tier give you a bit more resistance. Since there was no icon left over, I tried to make one but didn't like it's look. I wanted a red potion since there weren't any in vanilla. Luckily the E3 swallow icon was far more red than the vanilla one and I just used that(it might not appear that way in this preview but it is in game).
5. Willow
This W1 potion was to also make its return in W3 but sadly got cut somewhere midway through development. Only leftover strings for this potion were left in the game files. In W1 this potion "grants immunity to the stun and knockdown". I'm pretty sure it was supposed to do the same in the W3 since that's exactly what the Chort Decoction does. It seems like they cut this potion in favor of the Chort Decoction. I tried finding something else for this potion to do but there was too much druid lore behind it in W1 so I couldn't. I decided to make it give you resistance to stagger only for a short amount of time for low toxicity cost. If you also want resistance to knockdown for a longer amount of time but for high toxicity cost, then you can use the Chort Decoction. The icon is from a cut quest item called the Florence Flask with Water.
NOTE: Stagger is NOT the hit reaction animation that plays when you get it hit. It's the stun effect that happens when you try to block a small monster like a drowner with a sword. Basically, this potion lets you block small to medium size monsters for a short time.
6. Potion from Tir ná Lia
This one is a fun one and got me using the Radish tools. In the vanilla game, this potion is just considered food that you can pick up off of dead wild hunt soldiers. However, I'm pretty sure it was intended to be an actual potion at one point and CDPR couldn't make it work for some reason. I have no clue at all what they intended it for but I'm sure it wasn't just to restore your vitality which is pretty lame. I decided to take creative liberties with this one and make something really cool with it. I won't spoil that here and let you discover it for yourself. I will say that there is only one tier and you can carry a maximum of 1 charge. You can pick this potion up off of dead wild hunt in BofKM but again only a maximum of 1 carried at a time. And once you've used it you can only get another by picking it up off a dead Wild Hunt solider. If you want to remake it you gotta find the diagram I've hidden somewhere in the game.
Hint: Answer is pretty obvious
7. Nekker Pheromones
A lot of people know about this one. The only thing making this potion cut was the fact it's diagram wasn't set to spawn anywhere in the game. It's item, ability, script, effect, and recipe were all defined in the game already and you could spawn it with console anytime. The official Player's Guide even listed it as a actual potion you could get so this one was cut super late. What a lot of people probably don't know is that it also had an Enhanced and Superior Tier left over in the strings. I've gone ahead and restored them all so you can explore the game in peace without any Nekkers bothering you. Note that the recipes for these potions are only available from the Pellar, Kaer Trolde Herbalist, Druid herbalists in Skellige, and Gremist.
8. Drowner Pheromones
The original Drowner Pheromones were the only Pheromones used in the final game however there were also Enhanced and Superior tiers left over in the strings. A lot of people over the years have called the Pheromone potions bugged or useless outside of the one contract they're used in. However, this is not the case. CDPR actually hardcoded all the Pheromone effects to break if Geralt light attacks, heavy attacks, dodges, rolls, casts a sign, aims a bomb/crossbow, swims, dives, or rides a horse. All of these makes sense however they also coded for the effect to break anytime Geralt starts sprinting. This was probably done to make sure Geralt is quiet and sneaky amongst monsters when using pheromones. However, in my experience this makes the potions useless during exploration and annoying to use. While I've kept the vanilla sprint breaks pheromones function in this mod, I've also made an optional file that allows sprinting without breaking any of the pheromone effects applied. Also I should note there was a cut gameplay section in the Muire D'yaeblen quest where Geralt has to go buy the Drowner Pheromones recipe from the Kaer Trolde trader. Instead, CDPR decided to make the game just automatically give it to you mid quest. BiA didn't restore the originally store sequence because it just adds a ton of backtracking. I might restore it for showcase at some point. Note that the recipes for these potions are only available from the Kaer Trolde Herbalist, Druid herbalists in Skellige, and Gremist.
9. Bear Pheromones
This potion is very similar to the Nekker and Drowner Pheromones except the potion makes Bears not attack Geralt instead of Nekkers or Drowners. Note that the recipe for these potions are only available from the Pellar, Kaer Trolde Herbalist, Druid herbalists in Skellige, and Gremist.
NOTE: All the base tier pheromone potions were set to Master, Magic, and Relic items for the Nekker, Drowner, and Bear Pheromones respectively. To be more consistent with other potions and their tiers I made them all Master items. This required editing the vanilla xml but again like Killer Whale I only needed to change a single number for two potions so this should in theory be easy to merge.
10. Cut potions or potion related ideas I did not restore
a. Original Trial of the Grasses Potions
The Trial of the Grasses part of the game went though many revisions and there were some left over strings related to an earlier version of it. In the final game Geralt goes around collecting ingredients for a generic sounding "The Decoctions of the Grasses" item that you later in the cutscene find out consists of Mother's Tears, Wildrye Juice, and Speargrass Sap. However, there are a lot of strings referencing different potions for this section.
You have "Tear Grass", "Witchgrass", "Speargrass", "Feather Grass", and "Fescue Grass" each with the description, "Potion used in the Trial of the Grasses."
This was later cut down to "Tear Grass", "Speargrass", and "Witchgrass" as you can also find strings for the quest objectives "Prepare Tear Grass.", "Prepare Speargrass.", and "Prepare Witchgrass.".
You can also find the strings for the recipes: "Manuscript page: Tear Grass", "Manuscript page: Witchgrass", and "Manuscript page: Speargrass"
In addition, the cut document "Yennefer's notes" that is restored by Witcher Lore Collection by MerseyRockoff refers to these grasses making it likely from this earlier version of the quest. It seems the section was a lot more involved with Geralt having to prepare the different potions himself. Also, every potion used was a grass which might be more lore friendly for the "Trial of the Grasses" but idk. It's possible more development files could be found one day hopefully allowing restoration of this original gameplay section as it sounds really interesting. Without this gameplay section, I didn't see much point in restoring these grasses.
b. "Druid Techniques" Perk
When I was making Restored Content - Addition Perks, Flipper444 told me there was a cut perk called Druid Techniques but unfortunately we couldn't figure out what it was for so we didn't restore. Thanks to LewisElementary 's more organized string database in his changelog, I was finally able to figure out that it was supposed to: "Enables the use of level 3 alchemy formulae (without this ability they have the same effects as level 2 formulae)." This is actually the infamous Perk_08 that actually still in the game but hidden from the user interface and permanently turned on. Every superior potion in the game is actually still setup to default back to Enhanced stats if this perk gets deactivated. This is honestly a really lame perk and I'm glad it was "cut". As you would expect, there are no mods that turn it off. However the next "not restored
cut content" might give me a reason to bring this back.
c. Mastercrafted Potions
In the string database, there is a left over string for "Mastercrafted White Honey". This likely indicates that CDPR planned for another tier of potions beyond Superior just the like the Witcher Gear which has tiers of base, Enhanced, Superior, and Mastercrafted. For some reason, CDPR decided to max potions out at Superior pretty early in development. I could restore Mastercrafted Potions, but it would be a ton of work and I would have to re-balance all the existing potions in the game. This would require editing vanilla xmls surely bringing a ton of conflicts. I think if someone were to restore this it would be a good opportunity to bring back Druid Techniques which would be a perk to enable crafting Mastercrafted potions(not do something weird like make all Mastercrafted potions Superior which not a a good idea).
Also note that this mod doesn't restore decoctions. There are cut decoctions but they are a whole different story for another mod at another time.
Installation
Unpack 'modPotionsRestore' to your 'Mods' folder. If there isn't one create it. Also unpack 'dlcpotionsrestore' to your 'dlc' folder. Merge all scripts with script merger and the one xml if you need/want. The mod can be installed in the middle of a playthrough no problem. However if you finished the main story you'll need console commands to get the Tir Na Lia potion recipe. In you currently have any Potions from Tir Na Lia, I would recommend removing them from your inventory prior to installing the mod and then adding it back afterwards. This isn't super important but may help correct a small cosmetic bug that may occur otherwise.
For the optional file that makes sprint not break pheromones, unpack 'modPheromoneSprint' to your 'mods' folder and merge scripts if needed.
Compatibility
This mod is only compatible with the next-gen version of the game(4.03). Sorry but this was really time consuming to make and I just don't have the time to support a classic version. The mod might also technically work fine with alchemy overhaul mods like Alchemy(aka Primer) but it will not adopt their new mechanics. A patch might be made one day but it would be a ton of work.
Make sure to merge scripts with script merger. Most of the this mod is DLC or uses the override trick. Unfortunately there is one vanilla xml I had to edit but most of the changes there are for cosmetic reasons and won't impact the mod's functionality. With that said merging this XML with script merger will probably work if you have a conflict.
Translations
This mod features 54 strings. If there were leftover strings in the vanilla files, I tried to use them to minimize the amount of localization work but in one case this caused issues so I had to remake the strings. I've included a Polish translation using Google translate but I felt that did not go well for this mod as it was translating the
same words inconsistently so I decided to ship the rest as English and hope people could help me properly localize it.
English (en) -- written by glassfish777
Arabic (ar) -- no translation
Portuguese (br) -- no translation
Simplified Chinese (cn) -- FreakVIP
Czech (cz) --no translation
German (de) -- no translation
Spanish (es and esMX) -- no translation
French (fr) -- no translation
Hungarian (hu) -- no translation
Italian (it) -- no translation
Japanese (jp) -- no translation
Korean (kr) -- no translation
Polish (pl) -- Google Translate
Russian (ru) -- Arkwulf
Turkish (tr) -- no translation
Traditional Chinese (zh) -- no translation
Special Thanks
I first want to thank Ard Carraigh for this help and support in making this mod. I also want to thank him for letting me use his custom dyeing framework and include it with this mod. Next I would like to thank MerseyRockoff, Flipper444 and the BiA discord server for their support as always. Lastly, thanks to the members of the Radish discord for helping me get the tools up and running.
My Other Mods
Old Witcher 3 (1.32):
Novigrad Crest in Journal Restored
Restored Content - Shrines of Verna
Restored Content - Ciri's Fate
Restored Content - Old Mutagen Icons
Restored Content - Additional Perks
Experimental Restored Content - Ice Skating
Smooth Camera Zoom for Base Game Signs and Posters
Restored Content - Yellow Mutagens
Next-Gen Witcher 3(4.0):
Smooth Camera Zoom for Base Game Signs and Posters
Restored Content - Old Mutagen Icons
Restored Content - Yellow Mutagens - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Additional Perks - Next-Gen
Experimental Restored Content - Ice Skating - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Ciri's Fate - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Woodland Spirit Aftermath
Restored Content - Shrines of Verna - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Usable Whetstones
Restored Content - Additional Potions
Other mods I have contributed to or collaborated on:
Restored Content - Buffed Monster
Restored Content - Buffed Monster - Next-Gen
Restored Content - Food
Healthy Food
Brothers In Arms-TW3 Bug Fix and Restored Content Collection(includes all my location fixes mods as well as some other things I've contributed)
Brothers In Arms- TW3 Bug Fix and Restored Content Collection - Next-Gen
DLC - Events
DLC - Events - Next-Gen