The Witcher 2 with Full Combat Rebalance 2

[Perkel]

So i did 2 playtroughts of TW2 back when it was still non fixed edition. It was pretty good, combat though was janky and roll was op. I played it on Hard and back then it had reverse difficulty.

So for my 3rd playtrough before TW3 i decided to do run with FCR2 as i heard nice things about it.
So after few hours i got to Flotsam and i test this combat mod and.....

Holly hell, it is bloody good !

First of it recreated TW1 strong vs fast style where nekkers for example are best handled with fast attacks where strong attacks mostly miss. Bigger enemies = strong attacks.

Then there is rebalance thing. It is great. Skill tree is now actually meaningful without some broken skills. No shitty witcher training.

Biggest difference is in how you block. In vanilla game you had to press button to block and to riposte you had to hold block and attack at precise time which was rather easy.

This is completely changed in FCR2. Geralt automatically blocks all attacks be it ranged or melee from all sides even when you move.
Sounds broken ? Not really. After each parry geralt has according to stats some time when hit can land so it is easy for enemy to gang up on you and kill you. Then there are different attacks and some harder ones still do damage and some are impossible to block. Via skill tree you can upgrade this time to be shorter, better parry for attacks from back, better riposte etc.

Rolling. This also completely changed. Now Geralt uses his signature half spins to move fast between enemies but sometimes also use normal dodge. It is waaaaay better mechanic than vanilla game.

Armor/Weapons and other item balancing is 9/10 stuff. Really good.

Also no XP for monsters (yay)

Currently playing on Dark def.

If anyone is looking for reason to replay/play TW2 then FCR2 is good reason.

TLDR: It is perfect mix between stats and action combat. Waaay better than vanilla.

 

[Athelas]

The Codex is certainly an odd place for CDPR to focus its marketing activities on.

 

[Seari]

Had no idea there was a combat rebalance mod. I'll def try it out, thanks.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

It makes combat even easier, or so I've read.

 

[Multidirectional]

Some people say it's good, others say it's a piece of shit that ruins the game, I dunno whom to believe.

 

[Perkel]

Some people say it's good, others say it's a piece of shit that ruins the game, I dunno whom to believe.

You can't ruin something that is already shit. Playing currently with it and it is good. Way better than vanilla.

 

[Multidirectional]

You can't ruin something that is already shit.

Pretty sure you can always make shit even shittier. There's no stopping the progress!

But ok I'll install it. Just reinstalled the game recently for a replay anyway, and haven't gotten far yet, so I can restart. One question - how well are changes documented via in game descriptions? I hope I don't have to memorize that long changelog.

 

[Gord]

My personal experience with FCR2 is that it's not really anything special:

Difficulty:
Maybe I should have played on Dark or something, but reading how it's supposedly more challenging than vanilla, I went into it on normal and that was pretty fucking trivial 99% of the time.
One of the runes even gives +200% insta-kill, which I assume is a bug. Nevertheless, using said rune obviously trivializes the combat even more, as it will simply kill 80% of the enemies in one hit (stronger, mini-boss enemies are immune), regardless of which type of sword you put it in. My recommendation is to play at least on hard and avoid said rune.
I would have restarted on hard or above had I not hoped until the end of chapter one that it will get better. It didn't, but by that time I wasn't interested in replaying prologue and chapter 1 again, so I kept going.

Combat:
Ok, so combat in Witcher2 was about spamming Quen and rolling around. Now it's about spamming fast attacks, Aard and pirouetting around. Big fucking incline!
At least combat is faster, so you have to suffer less.
Ultimately how FCR2 feels to you might depend a good bit on how you approach combat. In my case simply spamming fast hits and Aard, doing a few pirouettes so as not to get surrounded by enemies and drinking some potions at times meant that my health bar barely dropped in about 80% of the fights.
One thing I did like: potions now last pretty long (most will last around an hour real-time, some are short-term but powerful). Not that I did need them particularly often.
If enemies are noticeably more different than before I sure didn't notice much of that. The same approach worked against 95% of them just fine.

Skills:
At first this looks better, as you get the Witcher skills right away and most other skills give some more-or-less meaningful effect (which however still is not really noticeable many times). Unfortunately you get so many skill points over the course of the game that you can learn almost ever skill eventually, meaning the game will still play the same everytime, unless you forcefully restrict spending your points.
Most recipes you can acquire are unlocked by learning a skill now.

Itemization:
This seems one of the biggest problems with the mod. It completely overhauls quest rewards and found items, unfortunately not in a very good way.
Most swords you find will simply give a little bit more damage than the one you already have (damage is flat now, no damage range anymore), same with armors. Overall there's much less variety now, I used the same stuff for most of chapter 1. Most stuff at vendors is shit, many interesting armors are gone or accessible so late that you don't need them anyway.

Polish:
There are some bugs in it. Nothing gamebreaking, but a few are annoying, as they might break some quests (e.g. the quest with the fistech-dealers in the cave in Flotsam got fucked up in one of the possible solutions).
Also, the rune I already mentioned.

Most people seem to either love this mod or hate it. I found it mostly pointless. If you want to replay the game, check it out, but don't expect a 2nd coming from it.

 

[Perkel]

My personal experience with FCR2 is that it's not really anything special:

Difficulty:
Maybe I should have played on Dark or something, but reading how it's supposedly more challenging than vanilla, I went into it on normal and that was pretty fucking trivial 99% of the time.

Normal in EE is different to normal in non EE 1.0
Normal back then was something like hard now. And hard was basically two potshots and you are dead.

Playing currently on Dark and i need to sometimes run from battles as 2-4 hits and i am dead.

 

[Jools]

My personal experience with FCR2 is that it's not really anything special:

Difficulty:
Maybe I should have played on Dark or something, but reading how it's supposedly more challenging than vanilla, I went into it on normal and that was pretty fucking trivial 99% of the time.

Normal in EE is different to normal in non EE 1.0
Normal back then was something like hard now. And hard was basically two potshots and you are dead.

Playing currently on Dark and i need to sometimes run from battles as 2-4 hits and i am dead.

Dark was a bit of a disappointment to me. All was fine in the beginning, and the game was actually challenging and I was playing it with renewed fervour. Some fights would be just impossible to master (namely: fights VS multiple enemies in tight spaces without escape routes). Then I managed to craft the dark armour set, plus I gained a few levels (and skills), and it was uber-EZ mode ACTIVATED!, apart for the occasional random fight where I'd still get my ass frustratingly handed to me over and over. Past mid-game, I was just mowing through trash and bosses alike, without even having to spam Quen (or rolling, for that matter) too much.

 

[subotaiy]

From what I remember FCR mod disables dark dificulty specific armors, but I hope I'm not mistaken.

 

[Multidirectional]

Played a little bit with FCR. Doesn't seem that big of a difference, but at least I'm not tempted to use same lame "cast Quen, attack, roll away" shit anymore, actually, Quen seems to be mostly useless now except maybe when being swarmed. And I'm not starting with DLC armor which is another improvement. I like increased potion durations but what I would've really liked is the ability to drink them from inventory, without meditating. Eh, still better than before. Combat seems to be over faster, which I like, even if it means an easier overall game. Playing on Dark btw.

 

[Xathrodox86]

Was the combat in Witcher 2 really that bad? I'm asking because I have the first part and am about to play it, and then go on to 2nd. Fortunately Witcher 3 has been moved forward a couple of weeks, so I have some time to finish the two previous ones.

 

[Seari]

I know that I played it twice, but I can't remember the combat at all. Probably because it was mind numbingly boring. I do know that the first time I chose to fully invest into the melee talent tree or w/e and the talents were boring as fuck.

 

[DalekFlay]

I experimented with an early version of the mod and thought it made combat easier and less interesting. Then again, I always play rogues and enjoy dodging and moving fast, which was how TW2 was built to be played, so I guess it was designed for me to beginwith.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I didn't have a significant problem with TW2 combat when I first finished the game, back when it came out - shield sign was too strong obviously and rolling was ridiculously overpowered, but you could limit yourself not to abuse these mechanics.

I tried an early version of FCR2 about a year ago and didn't like it. Wasn't enough for me to come back to the game.

I'm trying another playthrough now with FCR1.2 on Dark (back when I finished TW2 the EE patch hadn't even come out yet), and it seems alright; the autoblocking is a little odd, and the unpredictable spins instead of rolling look a little silly, but I'm looking forward to the rebalanced items, etc.

It's amazing how a potato game looks and plays so much better than an ultra blockbuster from a major american studio that came out 3 years later.

 

[polo]

Was the combat in Witcher 2 really that bad? I'm asking because I have the first part and am about to play it, and then go on to 2nd. Fortunately Witcher 3 has been moved forward a couple of weeks, so I have some time to finish the two previous ones.

Kinda, it was too easy. Just spam the electric defense rune (Quen?, i mix it with dota invoker quas, lol) and smash roll smash smash smash. Something like that in every battle.

 

[NotAGolfer]

Twitcher 2 combat was good for what it is. At least it wasn't the annoying Guitar Hero combat style from the first game anymore.
Actually the biggest gripe I had with the second game wasn't the combat (which was okayish) but equipment upgrading. It felt just like a Bethesda game in that you didn't feel rewarded for finding a nice weapon/armor because maybe an hour later (next chapter or next area) you get something just as good from some shitty vendor.

...
Will maybe try out that rebalancing mod, I still have to play the tree hugger side.

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

It makes combat even easier, or so I've read.

I've played on normal in old version and it was way harder. You can still die if there is a couple of guys near Geralt but one on one fights are faster and more deadly.

 

[Gord]

I've played on normal in old version and it was way harder. You can still die if there is a couple of guys near Geralt but one on one fights are faster and more deadly.

Then he either changed it in the most recent version or you were playing it wrong. Newest version on normal is a cakewalk most of the time (only exception being some bosses).

 

[Daemongar]

I am trying to go through TW2 for the first time now without this mod, and maybe I'll load it up for the update to the talent system but to be honest, combat isn't my biggest gripe with this game. I'll probably finish it since I pre-ordered TW3 after completing TW1, but damn this game sucks all around.

 

[throwaway]

Assuming one was popamole enough to replay TW2 before getting to TW3, would this mod be considered a must or would the EE, alternate path (Iorveth) and Dark Mode changes be more than enough for a fresh run?

 

[Sensuki]

Don't use this. Use the Rise of the Sword mod instead. So much better.

 

[throwaway]

Don't use this. Use the Rise of the Sword mod instead. So much better.

I must admit I'm in the process of downloading stuff after a fairly lengthy research and I never came across this. My interest is piqued. Looks significantly more involved - I was already not keen on the idea of reading pages of bloody text to learn an action combat system and unless something escapes me this will require a similar approach.

It also looks miles more responsive than vanilla and like it's approach is less likely to result in buggy combat than FCR2. My main gripe is that it's seems to be even more of a roll-fest than vanilla. I was already planning on replacing the standard roll with a FCR2's pirouette dodge* in case I opted against FCR2 -which I would also try to patch with everything I could possibly come across(e.g. FCR2 Fixes, Adrenaline and Finisher Fixes, Dark Mode Weapon Fixes, and even one-off fixes) since the it had such a lukewarm reaction.

Care to write a few more things on Rise of the Sword ? I wasn't able to find a community that had adequate and organized information on TW2 (combat) modding and aside from a few reddit posts and wild outliers like this guy I don't think I would have even come across Rise of the Sword if not for this desperate-casual necro.

*Edit: Seems that is actually compatible with Rise of the Sword - the point about it being more twitchy than vanilla (probably) and FCR2 (definitely) still stands though

 

[Nryn]

Don't use this. Use the Rise of the Sword mod instead. So much better.

Care to write a few more things on Rise of the Sword ?

There was a similiar discussion in another thread, and here's what I had posted regarding the mod: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...2-enhanced-edition.68899/page-25#post-3662020

More specifically,

The second, and far less known, mod I discovered, The Rise of the Sword, is my personal favorite mod for the game since it addresses the shitty animation issue by giving you complete confidence about which animation will play out (sort of like in the Souls games or any competent action rpg). For any future playthroughs, this mod is going to end up the first mod I install despite its negatives. This is what the mod does from my experience:

- It separates all of Geralt's attacks into 3 categories based on attack ranges: short, medium and long range attack animations. Within each range, the WASD direction buttons determine which of the 4 attacks Geralt will perform. If you've played Mount & Blade, you should sort of get the general idea. By holding down the Control or Shift keys, you change the attack range to medium or long.

- The game also allows you to manually aim your attacks with a targeting reticule. As a result, it's possible to precisely choose attacks that are aimed at an enemy soldier's right half of the body when he is carrying a shield on his left side.

- It takes a bit of getting used to since there are over 20 attacks that Geralt can do, and I had to clear 20 waves in the arena before I got the hang of the mod's combat system. The combat becomes entirely offense driven, and on the plus side, the necessity to roll around or spam quen is quite minuscule. Clearing entire waves in the arena without taking a hit or rolling around is actually quite fun and does justice to the in-game lore that states Geralt is one of the best swordsmen in the game.

- As a bonus, it allows you to hold down the medallion key to continuously send out pulses (rather than having to wait for the medallion to cool down), which helps a ton in looting.

The biggest issue with the mod is that once you are used to it and figure out the more potent attack animations, combat becomes trivial. You absolutely must play it on Dark difficulty to have any semblance of challenge, but even then, the AI is not designed around the player having complete control over which attack Geralt performs, and so the game becomes a cakewalk. The mod also makes all of Geralt's actions instantaneous, which allows you to spam attack enemies to death. Give the mod a try in the arena to see if you like the combat changes.