Restoration alchemy loop is broken and I can't figure out why it's not working

I'm on my second playthrough (PC, USSEP) and I remember the restoration loop being ridiculously overpowered, but I just tried it and my potions aren't scaling at all. I'm enchanting gear with Fortify Alchemy, drinking the potions, re-equipping, making stronger potions... rinse and repeat. But after like three cycles the potions stop getting noticeably better. Am I doing something wrong or did a patch actually nerf this? Level 24 right now if it matters.

The restoration loop does still work, but yeah, it hits a hard cap pretty fast and people misremember how broken it actually was.

The issue is that once your Fortify Alchemy gear gets strong enough, the potions you make get exponentially weaker relative to the boost. Like, if you're making a potion that gives +50% alchemy and you drink it, re-equip, and make another one, that second potion is weaker because the math is working backwards on itself. It's not a straight multiplication loop - it plateaus hard after a few cycles.

What actually made the loop "ridiculously overpowered" back in the day was people combining it with other stuff. The big one being Fortify Restoration potions on top of the Alchemy gear, which would then boost your enchanting, which would boost your next set of gear, which would boost your potions again. That's the spiral people remember. But even that gets soft-capped eventually by the game's internal limits.

At level 24 you're probably just hitting the wall earlier because your base Alchemy skill is lower. If you're curious how far it actually goes, keep pushing it - you'll see it flatten out around cycle 5 or 6 max. Not useless, but definitely not the "make 1000% damage potions" thing people talk about.

Yeah, that explanation's solid. The other thing people forget is that you need Alchemist rank perks to actually see the loop pay off - if you're only level 24 and haven't sunk points into the alchemy tree yet, you're working with a base multiplier that's just... not great. The loop amplifies what you already have, so if your foundation is weak, the gains look tiny.

Also worth checking: are you actually seeing your Fortify Alchemy numbers go up on the gear itself when you re-equip? Because if your enchanting skill is low too, the gear enchantments won't be strong enough to make a visible difference in the potion. It's a two-skill problem - you need both alchemy and enchanting decent to see the spiral actually work.

If you want to actually test how far it goes without gimping your playthrough, slap a quicksave before you start and just push it for like 10 cycles. You'll see exactly where it flatlines. Honestly though, at level 24 you're probably better off just using whatever decent potions you make naturally and moving on - the loop's more of a "I'm curious how broken this gets" thing than something that actually helps your character much anymore.