5 years after release codex GOTY The Witcher 3 breaks its all times user peak.

[Carrion]

The Witcher 1 is still CDPR's finest achievement.

Haven't seen the show - is it based only on the books? It is just me or are the writers for the games better storytellers?

I mean, in the sense of better dramatic power.

If you just want to make a comparison between the Netflix show and the games, watching the show would probably just make you respect CDPR more. The writing, the visuals (costumes, locations etc.), the music, the "acting", the atmosphere, the way each character is portrayed — the games do most of this stuff so much better that it isn't even funny. Even Henry Cavill, who's probably the best thing about the show, is essentially mimicking Doug Cockle most of the time, except that he has a worse script to work with.

 

[Not.AI]

I disagree about games having better "dramatic power". They are just more streamlined for western audiences, books (and Witcher 1 to some degree) use more quirky narration common in Polish culture that western audiences interpret as less dramatic/epic/interesting.

Conflict caused by misunderstanding and resolved with insight and communication = boring. Conflict between ancient evil and a defender of humanity resolved with superpowers and strong will = good shit. That's why they added White Frost in the Witcher 3 as the main villain - because for western audiences a good story needs the baddies and must be about saving the world. Saving a few elves from starvation by talking with them isn't nearly enough.

Good point. I agree with you on this subject.

What I meant by "dramatic power" was not "more epic" versus "less epic". I agree that a "less epic" plot may actually be far better. And in this case (Sapowski), it is better.

Agree that many stories in the west have been ruined by producers thinking everything has to be more epic and "improving" accordingly. Tim Cain said: "The shopkeeper can just be a shopkeeper. He doesn't also have to be a master of assassins."

What I meant by "dramatic power" was that dramatic power and writing style itself is often a craft that can be divorced from plot or setting, and some writers are good at it. What we mean by style as distinct from storytelling. A great stylist or writer per se may be a merely ok storyteller.

Just like you can have pure syntax without semantics, all medium and no message, you can have pure drama with no substance, and evaluate writing quality by itself. Just like you can taste brand by itself, independent of product, in market testing.

I mean like the same plot, but if it were two films, one has actors method acting, and filmed in a serious manner, long pauses and silences with loud noises in between, the other not. The first would appear far more dramatic because of these tricks. This consideration also applies to pure text.

Seemed to me writers of the games were exceptionally good at the dramatic style part.

 

[Gerrard]

Wow guys, did you hear? A game that sold 5+ million on the platform over a couple years gets more concurrent players than it did at release! Incredible!

Disagree Witcher 3 still feels like a polish game and there is shit ton of references that only a polish person will get. This is only from Hos dlc.

References, not design. The first game had a certain amount of eurojank and unorthodox choices that felt very unlike what a north american studio would produce. TW3 is built of what are considered "best practices" in current AAA RPG design, although some of that had already started in 2.

Including the visual design change starting with W2. The fucking awful edgy logo and fonts, the movie cover, pretty tough guy Geralt, etc.

Its problems are in RPG mechanics - looting, leveling, balancing, which for ARPG are superficial anyway.

Because all those elements were done at the last moment, as an afterthought.

 

[Puteo]

I never thought highly of TW games, but I am surprised to hear that TW2 is considered by someone to be worse than TW1.

Is this because TW2 is basically a worse copy of Dark Souls in terms of combat (with TW3 being a bit more refined worse copy of Dark Souls) and TW1 is "click when your cursor changes icon (also, click to change style)"? It was so mind-numbingly primitive that I could win fights while not even looking at the screen (all I had to do is click in a rhythm).

TW1 combat was functional. It was not good but it largely accomplished the low bar it set for itself.

TW2 combat was just straight retarded. It felt like a cargo cult copy of Dark Souls/Gothic combat made by someone who never played either game and had half their brain removed.

Combat balance was all over the place and awful.

You're given all your magic powers at the start of the game, but the only useful one is invincibility and you just spam that the whole game.

Idiotic design decisions all over the place. You're a witcher, supposed to drink potions for combat. However you were only allowed to do so outside of combat while sitting on the ground and going through a tedious ritual/cutscene to do so. The problem there being you never knew what you were going up against in order to properly prepare and the game always failed to telegraph that a bossfight was about to occur, dropping you into it with no preparation possible at all. Most bosses were tedious damage sponges as well.

Optimization was terrible weeks after release, for some reason, in the starting forest, looking up at less geometry would tank your framerate far more than looking straight level at all the shit on the ground. Houses, NPCs, enemies included.

Inventory system was clearly designed to make consoles a first-class citizen, it was utter shit, item descriptions could only be scrolled by highlighting the item and waiting for it to scroll. Anyone who denies the game wasn't made from the ground up for consoles is an irredeemable fanboy. The real reason it released PC first is because the optimization was terrible.

Then the base attack combo, which felt worse with every upgrade. I don't know if anyone did proper frametime analysis but it felt like the hitboxes and time between strikes were completely different. 2nd attack was a thrust that fired faster and did the same damage as the 4th attack which was an idiotic spin attack that left you open to enemies.

Never played TW3 because TW2 was a good enough reason not to.

 

[Valky]

Take away the story from TW3 and there is literally no reason to play the game at all I.E. it fails to stand on its own two legs as a video game.

 

[Carrion]

I never really got the hate for TW1 combat. It's quite unorthodox and not the most exciting thing ever, but it isn't really any more obnoxious than most RTwP stuff out there (high praise, I know). Add in the alchemy system and it can even be quite nice at times. I don't think moving to action combat was necessarily a bad move in itself, but both TW2 and TW3's combat have much more profound issues within them, something that even countless patches haven't been able to address.

 

[Valky]

The auto aiming and arbitrary animation changing based on distance to enemies is one of the most retarded parts about the combat, practically taking away control from you and acting differently from what your intentions were.

 

[Old Hans]

I never really got the hate for TW1 combat. It's quite unorthodox and not the most exciting thing ever, but it isn't really any more obnoxious than most RTwP stuff out there (high praise, I know). Add in the alchemy system and it can even be quite nice at times. I don't think moving to action combat was necessarily a bad move in itself, but both TW2 and TW3's combat have much more profound issues within them, something that even countless patches haven't been able to address.

yea once they started going into the direction of real time combat, you start noticing how weak it is. like combat against humans is posibly the most boring tit for tat. Something like Shadows of Mordor with its basic Batman style combat managed to pull off Witcher combat better than the witcher.

 

[Riddler]

Take away the story from TW3 and there is literally no reason to play the game at all I.E. it fails to stand on its own two legs as a video game.

It is beautiful, well acted, has great music, tits, interesting lore and a fun mini-game. This is a level barely any modern games reach even without the story. It's an extremely well made game in practically every single area, even though the combat is a bit lackluster.

Or do you include everything that contributes in some way to the narrative in your definition of story?

 

[ItsChon]

Third-person faggotry, who cares.

 

[Valky]

Take away the story from TW3 and there is literally no reason to play the game at all I.E. it fails to stand on its own two legs as a video game.

It is beautiful, well acted, has great music, tits, interesting lore and a fun mini-game. This is a level barely any modern games reach even without the story. It's an extremely well made game in practically every single area, even though the combat is a bit lackluster.

Or do you include everything that contributes in some way to the narrative in your definition of story?

Try skipping every cutscene in the game, all conversations with NPCs, and you have nothing that you can call a good game. There is no salvageable gameplay. It could be a CYOA like disco elysium, if you kept the story intact, and the game would be the exact same.

 

[Gerrard]

The fact that W3 has had 10-15K average players every day for years is way more impressive than the peak number.

 

[typical user]

Might play it again. The RPG elements are nonexistent, the story overall is shit but the characters and dialogs.

Goddamnit I am already at chapter 2 in Gothic 2. Raven ain't going to get his ass impaled on Beliar's Blade on his own.

 

[Harthwain]

Puteo The only reason I find TW1 combat worse than TW2 is because TW1 was putting me to sleep, while TW2 at least made me do something in that department. Other than that I do agree with everything you've said.

 

[RNGsus]

still havent played this despite it being installed for over a year

The twitcher series would be great if it wasn't trying tell a story.

 

[Falksi]

Can't we just leave this piece of decline back in the last decade where it belongs?

FWIW.....

TW1 - Very enjoyable RPG but requires significant effort to enjoy because of the terribly dull combat, and brick wall that is the swamp level. But it's strength lies in making you feel like a Monster Hunter, with creation & application of potions, traps & oil etc, and that is spot on.


TW2 - Brilliant. I fucking love it. Hated it at first, but after around 10 hours it clicked. Those first 10 hours I spent lambasting the more popamole nature of the game, and struggling to take to it. But once I was over that hurdle it became apparent just how brilliant an RPG this is. It has many strengths, but it's biggest ones are how significant skill choices are & how they effect the game (on the hardest level), but more so the choice & consequence aspects of the game. Seriously not only do your choices take you on a whole new different path, but there are paths within paths, and choices within choices. It took me 5 playthroughs to see it from all angles, and playthroughs 2, 3 & 4 were all thoroughly enjoyable. It also captures the feel of the world. When I'm in Flotsam I feel like I'm in a quaint little village with a ton of character, whereas every village in TW3 feels exactly the same. And it strikes a superb balance of grounded, earthy low fantasy and fanciful, magical high fantasy. You see the lows of the everyday soldier camping for war, you feel the highs of touring the war towers with the king; you're just a bloke doing his job, but you're also a man on the run who gets caught up in an epic adventure etc.

If you hate TW2 and have played it all the way through, fair enough. If you hate it but haven't got past Flotsam, or taken the "Elf" path then you've not even scratched the surface.



TW3 - What a total bag of boring wank. Seriously, I'm still amazed to this day that so many lap it up. They've taken TW2, removed any path-changing real C&C, dulled it down to a series of fetch quests, and stretched that 40-60 hour journey over 100 hours and rammed it full of filler. Do potions/traps/oils matter any more? No, level up. Do you discover wondrous monsters at every turn now? No, it feels like a day job because each one is ten a penny. You spend a massive chunk of this game running from A to B, and holding down the Witcher Senses button. Seriously Assassins Creed: Origins does investigatory work better, at least in that you actually have to look around & can miss things. And the fact that they set the whole game up to be a tense, hide & seek race for Ciri against the Wild Hunt, but then decides to build a game around you plodding along & doing every menial job between here & Timbuctoo is laughable. There are around 5-10 enjoyable quests in there, and the cutscenes are done very well, but it's a fucking chore of a game. Gets a whole Codex Troll for the Bloody Baron quest alone.



TW3 Expansions (Blood & Wine + Heart of Stone) - Way more like it. It's amazing what a difference it makes to TW3 experience by simply tightening up the world, & adding enemies you actually have to think about. But the real incline is having 2 well structured, cohesive, fleshed out main stories which aren't drowned out by filler or fetch quests. It still lacks the depth the other 2 games did, but I'd much sooner have seen TW3 broken up into 5-10 "mini-stories" like these ones.



Somewhere between TW1 & TW2 & TW3 Expansions is an amazing game that I'd like to see. All the C&C + ease of access & action of TW2, all the depth & more CRPG elements of TW1, all the modern polish of the expansions.

But from the looks of Cyberpunk 2077 we'll never get that or anything remotely good from these Skyrimmers ever again.

Thankyou for listening.

 

[Geisler]

TW2

 

[Falksi]

Just to slag TW3 off some more, just how shit are the main villains & morally grey characters in it compared to the previous chapters?

Vilgefortz, Dethmold, Letho, Philippa, Iorveth, Sile, Henselt etc. All lushly enticing & interesting characters.

Now compare that to the blandness of Eredin & Var Emreis. Again, the Bloody Baron saves the day here.

If it wasn't for the Bloody Baron questline there's be nothing worth playing TW3 main game for.

 

[Falksi]

Just to slag TW3 off some more, just how shit are the main villains & morally grey characters in it compared to the previous chapters?

Vilgefortz, Dethmold, Letho, Philippa, Iorveth, Sile, Henselt etc. All lushly enticing & interesting characters.

Now compare that to the blandness of Eredin & Var Emreis. Again, the Bloody Baron saves the day here.

If it wasn't for the Bloody Baron questline there's be nothing worth playing TW3 main game for.

Sorry, but Vilgefortz in the novels is a Skeletor-tier villain. Basically a parody of "I'm evil for the lulz".

You remembered him though didn't you? The Witcher 3 ones were just bland.

But I'm the twat there anyway, I got mixed up with Jacques de Aldersberg. Brain fart on my part.

 

[Storyfag]

It needs to be pointed out that both Eredin and Emhyr are book characters too. But I have to agree they were presented in a less than stellar fashion in TW3.

 

[Tito Anic]

Who cares about skyrim now? I play neither, both are bad games in their own way.
Tbh i must say homever, i had more fun choosing and installing skyrim mods ( wich is the most fun part of that game) than playing witcher. Go figure

I mainly play bad games and mod them
After that i go to RPGcodex and post about modded Skyrim

Damn, Bethestards are dumb!

 

[vonAchdorf]

I'm gonna repeat myself:
TW1 > TW2 > TW3

 

[Storyfag]

Oh no no no. It's TW1 > TW3 > TW2

 

[Gerrard]

Also, there are suits at CDPR (or in its board of directors) asking why they didn't do anything to monetize all those people that keep playing the game and how they will do it with Cyberpunk.

 

[taxalot]

Calling it now :

The Witcher 4 will be CD Projekt adapting the TV show, except the story and writing will actually be good, and Sapkopopowskiya will die of a heart attack when reading the Codex reviews.

 

[fizzelopeguss]

The Witcher 1 is still CDPR's finest achievement.


If you just want to make a comparison between the Netflix show and the games, watching the show would probably just make you respect CDPR more. The writing, the visuals (costumes, locations etc.), the music, the "acting", the atmosphere, the way each character is portrayed — the games do most of this stuff so much better that it isn't even funny. Even Henry Cavill, who's probably the best thing about the show, is essentially mimicking Doug Cockle most of the time, except that he has a worse script to work with.

yeah, real difficult to copy pasta warhammer.