Should I play The Witcher 2?

[RK47]

Didn't like how the controls felt.
I felt exactly the same as 'not knowing what Geralt would do when you press the melee button'
Using signs, traps felt like the safest option. Rolling away when stamina is down etc. It's so safe, it's silly not to use them.
I tried not using sign before, feeling confident in taking down this lone guard.
Bad mistake.
Died and had to reload to auto-save.
I can understand why my cousin in mid 30s can't stand it and gave up, even on easiest setting.
The control wasn't tight enough and the mechanics are too punishing.

 

[Akratus]

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

 

[aris]

1. Actually, for some reason, I found dark mode to be easier than any of the other modes. Dunno if it was just because I had broken the "code" of the combat at that point or not.

 

[Sodafish]

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

This. Especially the first time you fight Letho in that damn enclosed space.

 

[abnaxus]

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

Is rolling disabled on dark mode?

 

[DalekFlay]

Flame on.

Nothing to flame, you summed it up pretty well. UI flaws, signs of future console hopes and some combat issues can't prevent it from being a solid game in a marketplace of mostly shit. Hopefully 3 fixes some of the issues.

 

[Servo]

I didn't think reasons were necessary for flaming

But really I just like using that animated gif.

 

[DeepOcean]

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

Is rolling disabled on dark mode?

Even better, alchemy and igni spell spam are disabled on the dark mode?

 

[DeepOcean]

Since opinions on this game are mixed I did pick it up while it was on sale and have been playing it for the past few days. Here's wot I think.

There is a combat overhaul mod made by CDProjeckt, it supposedly make the combat a little closer of how is going to be in Witcher 3. They say it fixes mainly the latency on starting a sword attack and the uninterruptible sword attacks on combat, so you can roll with even more impunity.

 

[DraQ]

Diff:

TW1:
+ more atmosphere
+ better dice poker
+ sensible item progression
+ good interface
+ better music
+ good alchemy and toxicity
+ paintings as cutscenes
+ better portrayal of combat, no cinefaggic finishers, excessive special effects or huge exaggerated blood blobs wobbling around through the air
+ (interruptible) potion use in combat
+ responsive controls
+ important preparation phase
- a shitload of spurious sex approached rather immaturely with collectible cards
- overall decent, but largely recycled narrative
- some recycled dialogue
- lore inconsistencies with books
- poor combat dynamics and responsiveness of combat system as a whole
- imba healing alchemy, via potion loop

TW2:

- a little bit :kwanzania:atmosphere
- dice poker is not as good
- item progression makes no sense in setting, devaluation of epic gear from 1
- horrid interface (better than Skyrim, but what isn't)
- relatively poor music
- shit alchemy system
- no awesome alchemy effects like Blizzard or De Vries potion
- shit comic-style cut-outs as cutscenes
- excessively flashy combat portrayal - cinematic finishers, huge weightless blobs of blood, excessive GFX
- limited item use in combat
- laggy, unresponsive controls
- awful, awful QTEs
- awful, but easy fist-fighting QTE
- less important preparation
- some rather baffling PoV switching that impairs both narrative and gameplay
+ sexual content less frivolous and more meaningful in the context of the plot
+ good, original narrative, with limited information available during single playthrough and significant branching
+ lore more consistent with books
+ improved dynamics and responsiveness (on system level, not the controls) of combat
+ healing loop fixed by changing the way Raffard's Decoction works
+ trap system
+ witcher jobs requiring information collection

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

Is rolling disabled on dark mode?

Even better, alchemy and igni spell spam are disabled on the dark mode?

TW2 has alchemy?

 

[DeepOcean]

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

Is rolling disabled on dark mode?

Even better, alchemy and igni spell spam are disabled on the dark mode?

TW2 has alchemy?

No, I prefer Peter Hines: Now, is much better. In TW2 , the toxicity system with the alchemy perks made you a super every time you drink a potion.

 

[DraQ]

No, I prefer Peter Hines: Now, is much better. In TW2 , the toxicity system with the alchemy perks made you a super every time you drink a potion.

Unless the effects have worn off before actual combat because of a cutscene.

TW1 alchemy had very long durations, meaning it was dependable but required planning, and ability to drink in combat, which allowed you to adjust for unexpected situations, but required something to stop the enemies from just slaughtering you and forced you to watch that toxicity meter (since you were probably hopped up on something already and didn't want to catch some HNNNGG from elixir overdose).

TW2 alchemy lasted minutes at best and could only be used when meditating meaning neither sudden attacks, nor anything preceeded by a cutscene (like, you know, boss fight) allowed you to benefit from alchemy.

 

[abnaxus]

No, I prefer Peter Hines: Now, is much better. In TW2 , the toxicity system with the alchemy perks made you a super every time you drink a potion.

IIRC TW1 had a silver or gold upgrade that made your stats significantly increase when your toxicity neared maximum.

 

[DalekFlay]

- awful, awful QTEs

Completely optional, to be fair.

 

[DraQ]

- awful, awful QTEs

Completely optional, to be fair.

Not completely, that's the problem.

Keiran battle was almost one huge QTE even with QTEs disabled, dragon escape scene in the prologue also forced you to QTE regardless of of whether or not you had QTEs disabled, even though it would be perfectly controllable with standard controls, it's just that it simply killed you if you tried.

True, they had some elements disabled if turned QTEs off, but they were still awful consoletard mess.
Seriously, the person who invented this nonmechanic should be castrated with an industrial saw.

 

[Servo]

I rather like QTE's when I know to expect them. For example, Heavy Rain was great fun. Problem is when they're thrown in unexpectedly and you get killed because of it.

 

[Mrowak]

- awful, awful QTEs

Completely optional, to be fair.

Not completely, that's the problem.

Keiran battle was almost one huge QTE even with QTEs disabled, dragon escape scene in the prologue also forced you to QTE regardless of of whether or not you had QTEs disabled, even though it would be perfectly controllable with standard controls, it's just that it simply killed you if you tried.

True, they had some elements disabled if turned QTEs off, but they were still awful consoletard mess.
Seriously, the person who invented this nonmechanic should be castrated with an industrial saw.

Actually all boss battles were underwhelming, partially due to consoltard nature, partially because devs switched off most imba skills so you could not two-shot kill enemies.

 

[DraQ]

I rather like QTE's when I know to expect them.

Go away and never come back.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I rather like QTE's when I know to expect them. For example, Heavy Rain was great fun. Problem is when they're thrown in unexpectedly and you get killed because of it.

Uh, that's the whole point of QTEs. That's why they're called "quick time events".

 

[Coboney]

I rather like QTE's when I know to expect them. For example, Heavy Rain was great fun. Problem is when they're thrown in unexpectedly and you get killed because of it.

Uh, that's the whole point of QTEs. That's why they're called "quick time events".

While I don't like QTES much - I think his point is more that when you expect QTEs organically evolving from the game play as its part of its staple its fine. When its tossed in randomly at moments it gets silly and just leads to reload and redo knowing its coming.

 

[Servo]

While I don't like QTES much - I think his point is more that when you expect QTEs organically evolving from the game play as its part of its staple its fine. When its tossed in randomly at moments it gets silly and just leads to reload and redo knowing its coming.

Thanks for explaining this better than I did. What I mean is you play Heavy Rain and you know there are going to be QTEs, so you're usually prepared for it (as much as you can prepare it, because you never know what button it's going to ask you to push or whatever). As opposed to Resident Evil 4, where you are inevitably going to die every time a QTE comes up because there are only a handful of them, they are very infrequent, and the first one doesn't show up until several hours into the story.

My point is that QTEs can be done right and, in the case of a game like Heavy Rain, can be a lot of fun. They can also be done horribly, horribly wrong.

For the most part, they don't belong anywhere near RPGs. But I will take the QTE fist fights in TW2 over the awful hand to hand combat of TW1 any day.

 

[Joni Odin von Hassenstein]

Worth playing, but overall a mediocre game, worse than the first in pretty much all aspects.

Worse graphics, writing, world design, characters, quest design and choice and consequence my ass.

Combat comparison is subjective. I would take TW2's action combat over the timed clicking of the original, but I realize that's opinion. The rest though? Objectively better in the second game. Triss' dress in first game was hotter than her walkabout outfit though, I'll give you that.

The Witcher 1 did have way larger maps (either wilderness or city), the sequel felt a lot more corridor like.

Da fuq?!? TW1 was pure corridor!?

 

[Servo]

The Witcher 1 did have way larger maps (either wilderness or city), the sequel felt a lot more corridor like.

Da fuq?!? TW1 was pure corridor!?

That's what I thought too but was afraid to speak up

Only exception I can think of is the swamp, but you couldn't walk five steps there without getting into a fight with a mob of drowners. So far combat doesn't seem as constant in TW2.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Da fuq?!? TW1 was pure corridor!?

Well, yes that's its basic design but you still had some fairly large open maps like swamp in chapter 2 and the fields in chapter 4, you didn't have those (that I recall atleast) in Witcher 2.

Also Vzima Temple and Trade quarters both felt bigger than Flotsam and Vergen.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Anyone who says The Witcher 2 has easy combat, or that it consists of button mashing, obviously never played on dark mode.

Button mashing? No, that will get you killed fast on higher difficulties.

That said Witcher 2 combat is only hard for the first few hours, once you get the hang of it (abuse rolling, quen is very useful to take the 1st blow, move to the left in order for Geralt to execute the spinning attack which is the more useful one etc. ), the difficulty won't make that much of a difference in my experience as you'll rarely get hit and enemies' health doesn't scale with difficulty (something which I approve of as I hate HP sponges) so they drop just as fast.