The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Paul_cz]

Disabling markers telling you where something totally shit & pointless is doesn't stop it from being shit & pointless sadly.

It does stop you from running after it and wasting time with it unnecessarily though

 

[JDR13]

What's so incomprehensible about it? I actually like the combat in all three games, but I can totally understand why a lot of people like TW2 the best.

Well, to me the combat in TW2 and TW3 is pretty much the same except in TW3 I have more moves, more animations, more interesting skills et cetera. Plus it feels more responsive than TW2 ever did (at least on PC/60fps).

I am one of the weirdos who also enjoy the combat in all three games well enough (I would not play these games for combat, but it's fun for what it is and the games are about story/atmosphere first and foremost).

It's similar if you're only talking about the mechanics, but a lot of people like the greater challenge in TW2. The combat in TW3 gets too easy even on the harder difficulty levels unless you're using mods.

 

[Paul_cz]

It's similar if you're only talking about the mechanics, but a lot of people like the greater challenge in TW2. The combat in TW3 gets too easy even on the harder difficulty levels unless you're using mods.

Ok from that perspective I agree. TW3 is great on death march but gets too easy too early, sure.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

People gush about what a huge open world TW3 is, but I think that's to its detriment.

I fucking hate it when an open world game has an unbelievably huge world. It's just a chore to explore it. I'll take a more condensed open world like in Gothic instead of TW3's world any time of the day. In that aspect TW2 > TW3.

How did you manage phantom pain by the way?

 

[LizardWizard]

Witcher 2 had fucking QTEs which are an abomination

 

[JDR13]

Witcher 2 had fucking QTEs which are an abomination

There were maybe a dozen in the entire game. The only one that was annoying enough for me to actually remember it was during the Kraken fight.

 

[J_C]

People gush about what a huge open world TW3 is, but I think that's to its detriment.

I fucking hate it when an open world game has an unbelievably huge world. It's just a chore to explore it. I'll take a more condensed open world like in Gothic instead of TW3's world any time of the day. In that aspect TW2 > TW3.

How did you manage phantom pain by the way?

That's another prime example. Although it was easier to manage because it is not an RPG, and you don't have to explore the area, you just have to go to different mission locations.

 

[Falksi]

I loved how in TW2 attacks from behind were deadly without the right skills.

In fact TW2 was fucking brilliant, especially compared to TW3. It did SO much right. Yeah it dropped the ball here and there, but it struck a superb balance between action, RPG, mainstream & CRPG elements. All TW3 did was water that down.

TW3 really should have built on that instead. I was expecting every monster hunt to require research & having to craft the right potions, oils & traps whilst implementing the right stratergy to be successful. Instead we got "level up & awesome button to win!"

 

[Gerrard]

Combat being better in TW2 is also incomprehensible to me.

What's so incomprehensible about it?

How about the fucking awful 8-way movement straight out of console trash instead of proper movement with strafe that you'd expect from a game that uses mouse? How about the retarded Quen spam becoming the norm? The stagger when something blocks your attack? The fact that nobody on the dev team thought it was awful (or they did and were ignored/afraid to say anything because of abuse from their superiors) and it continued onto W3 says a lot.
And the most damning of them all is the fact that they thought they should take inspiration from fucking Dark Souls of all things.

 

[Puukko]

Witcher 2 had fucking QTEs which are an abomination

There were maybe a dozen in the entire game. The only one that was annoying enough for me to actually remember it was during the Kraken fight.

YRDEN! HIT IT WITH THE YRDEN!

 

[JDR13]

Combat being better in TW2 is also incomprehensible to me.

What's so incomprehensible about it?

How about the fucking awful 8-way movement straight out of console trash instead of proper movement with strafe that you'd expect from a game that uses mouse? How about the retarded Quen spam becoming the norm? The stagger when something blocks your attack? The fact that nobody on the dev team thought it was awful (or they did and were ignored/afraid to say anything because of abuse from their superiors) and it continued onto W3 says a lot.
And the most damning of them all is the fact that they thought they should take inspiration from fucking Dark Souls of all things.

This is why people shouldn't eat paint chips.

 

[user]

Ok, just finished the W3 & DLCs with the Ghost mode mod on death march (with reduced enemy hp to avoid generic monster sponges and increased boss hp). I didn't want to play it because it looked like a "console game", running around between map markers, completing unimpactful objectives, poor uninteresting character development, spam click combat, horrendous scaling that makes the world unimmersive, bland gear benchmark levels etc. I have to say that with Ghost mode it's not that bad.

-The scaling isn't that bad and besides finding the occasional 34 level stronger-than-a-wyvern nekker that makes no fucking sense, the world did feel right.
-Economy/encubrance was great since I couldn't carry 10 tons of things to sell to vendors, valuables were scarce and money was actually something that I was in need of for most of the game. Was even meaningful to bargain for contracts or find POIs for materials.
-I am not a fan of the Witcher's character development and the way mutations and talents were made but meh, could live with it.

What the game excells at though is:
-The story and impact you can have on it is great but, but the highlight is actually the side quests. Great writing, creativity and variety considering their number. The writing is stellar in general.
-Worldbuilding - towns, geometry, viewing angles, architecture, atmosphere. The worldbuilders are excellent at their jobs.

 

[Gerrard]

Combat being better in TW2 is also incomprehensible to me.

What's so incomprehensible about it?

How about the fucking awful 8-way movement straight out of console trash instead of proper movement with strafe that you'd expect from a game that uses mouse? How about the retarded Quen spam becoming the norm? The stagger when something blocks your attack? The fact that nobody on the dev team thought it was awful (or they did and were ignored/afraid to say anything because of abuse from their superiors) and it continued onto W3 says a lot.
And the most damning of them all is the fact that they thought they should take inspiration from fucking Dark Souls of all things.

This is why people shouldn't eat paint chips.

Great counter argument you dumb fuck.

 

[JDR13]

Combat being better in TW2 is also incomprehensible to me.

What's so incomprehensible about it?

How about the fucking awful 8-way movement straight out of console trash instead of proper movement with strafe that you'd expect from a game that uses mouse? How about the retarded Quen spam becoming the norm? The stagger when something blocks your attack? The fact that nobody on the dev team thought it was awful (or they did and were ignored/afraid to say anything because of abuse from their superiors) and it continued onto W3 says a lot.
And the most damning of them all is the fact that they thought they should take inspiration from fucking Dark Souls of all things.

This is why people shouldn't eat paint chips.

Great counter argument you dumb fuck.

There was an argument? All I see is a gimp trying to sound edgy.

 

[gurugeorge]

People gush about what a huge open world TW3 is, but I think that's to its detriment.

I fucking hate it when an open world game has an unbelievably huge world. It's just a chore to explore it. I'll take a more condensed open world like in Gothic instead of TW3's world any time of the day. In that aspect TW2 > TW3.

Heh. This must be a difference in weighting between OCD completionism and a desire for immersion (granted that most of us here probably have a bit of both, to varying degrees). I could quite happily wander (in fact WALK) around a virtual world that has nothing in it except animals and plants for acres of space and time, I wouldn't mind that there isn't anything special or handmade in every square inch of the map, AND I wouldn't care that much if I missed any special "things" that were squirreled away somewhere in the vastness (and that shouldn't happen anyway, as there should always be clues in the game for any really important "things").

For example, much as I loves me a bit of Skyrim, to me it's ridiculously cramped, there seems to be some special "thing" every 5 feet in every direction, when all I want to do is walk about 3 or 4 times as far, and just enjoy the lush graphics and the feeling of "being there." If I want to compress space further, or make it more convenient, I'd just get a horse or something.

My ideal virtual would be something that had as many "things" as a game like Skyrim, but where the space between the "things" was about 3 or 4 times as big, and empty bar natural world stuff.

 

[MajorMace]

Yeah unless you live on a space station, just go hiking dude.

 

[DalekFlay]

Heh. This must be a difference in weighting between OCD completionism and a desire for immersion (granted that most of us here probably have a bit of both, to varying degrees). I could quite happily wander (in fact WALK) around a virtual world that has nothing in it except animals and plants for acres of space and time, I wouldn't mind that there isn't anything special or handmade in every square inch of the map, AND I wouldn't care that much if I missed any special "things" that were squirreled away somewhere in the vastness (and that shouldn't happen anyway, as there should always be clues in the game for any really important "things").

The problem is few of the "things" you find in TW3 are that interesting. Flotsam in TW2 was a well designed little town with a lot of character, and you got to know its nooks and crannies well and there was always interesting stuff to see because it was more compact and well designed. I would have NO problem with the same thing being 100 times bigger, but it literally can't be because it would take an ungodly amount of development time. That's why most "BIG HUGE OPEN WORLDS!!!!" feel more boring, because you have to fill all that space with generic shit. If you want to just walk through the trees and feel immersed then hey, have at it, but I want to balance that with actually finding interesting stuff. Most of the interesting stuff in TW3 is quest related, and everything else is collect-a-thons, loot you already have better versions of in your inventory and endless combat.

 

[cvv]

I vastly prefer an open world in my RPGs. When I played TW2 I thought the game was basically perfect and the only thing it really lacked was an open world structure.

Problem is the maps in TW3 kindda suck. The Velen map has a few interesting, distinct places, especially in the south, but most of it looks very samey. In most places between Novigrad and Crookback Bog you can't tell your position just from the landscape. Same problem for Skellige. Even after 200+ hours I sometimes couldn't tell which goddamn island I'm actually on.

In comparison the map in Kingdom Come is grate. After a few hours I almost always knew where I am just by looking around, and that's even without fantasy elements like giant trees and magic towers.

 

[Carrion]

In fact TW2 was fucking brilliant, especially compared to TW3. It did SO much right. Yeah it dropped the ball here and there, but it struck a superb balance between action, RPG, mainstream & CRPG elements. All TW3 did was water that down.

TW2 was a total sellout, just a well-executed one. You got an excessive amount of cutscenes, stillborn ideas like those QTEs and literal combat awesome buttons (Heliotrope sign and the group finishers), dumbed-down and/or half-assed mechanics, atmosphere that owed more to Hollywood blockbusters than Slavic folklore, and all sorts of gameplay-related missteps that made the whole game a bit of a mess. It was only really held together by the storyfag elements, i.e. the great cast of characters and the best story in the series. Still a fun game, but in terms of decline it's about on the same level with TW3.

Problem is the maps in TW3 kindda suck. The Velen map has a few interesting, distinct places, especially in the south, but most of it looks very samey. In most places between Novigrad and Crookback Bog you can't tell your position just from the landscape. Same problem for Skellige. Even after 200+ hours I sometimes couldn't tell which goddamn island I'm actually on.

I'd say the look and feel of the world was one of the strongest aspects of TW3. You get three very different environments, and CDPR nailed all of them (plus White Orchard, Kaer Morhen and Toussaint in Blood & Wine, all of which are just excellent overall). The only real problems I have with it are the points of interest, which make especially Velen look a bit ridiculous with those treasure chests everywhere, and the fact that the world feels a bit empty since most NPCs feel more like props than actual characters. TW2 suffered from a similar problem but on a smaller scale, feeling rather static compared to TW1's Vizima.

 

[cvv]

I'd say the look and feel of the world was one of the strongest aspects of TW3. You get three very different environments, and CDPR nailed all of them

Lemme get this straight, the feel and vibe of the world in TW3 is great, no doubt. But in terms of navigation it sucks.

 

[Carrion]

Lemme get this straight, the feel and vibe of the world in TW3 is great, no doubt. But in terms of navigation it sucks.

Velen's pretty flat, which makes sense, but most areas have major landmarks that make it pretty easy to figure out your position and direction. You can see Novigrad and Beauclair from miles away, for example, whereas Skellige has its mountains, castles, cliff faces, lighthouses... I also think there's plenty of variety in the environments, with Crookback Bog looking very different from the war-torn Northern parts of Velen, for example.

I can get why one would find KCD's map easier to navigate, but I don't think it's really about the environments as much as overall game design. One major difference between TW3 and KCD is that the former is clearly designed with the minimap and map markers in mind, whereas the latter actually forces you to pay some attention to your surroundings, especially with the addition of the Hardcore mode. In KCD you'll learn the map by heart since memorizing all the different routes makes your life much easier, whereas in TW3 you can usually just follow the magic arrow and take a beeline to your next objective.

 

[oldmanpaco]

Which mod brings back W1 style potions?

 

[Jinn]

Which mod brings back W1 style potions?

Enhanced Edition makes potions essentially necessary in a number situations from what I've experienced from it so far. One of the several reasons I like the mod so much.

 

[karoliner]

I will never forget the blacksmith girl, she was so fine.

 

[Falksi]

In fact TW2 was fucking brilliant, especially compared to TW3. It did SO much right. Yeah it dropped the ball here and there, but it struck a superb balance between action, RPG, mainstream & CRPG elements. All TW3 did was water that down.

TW2 was a total sellout, just a well-executed one. You got an excessive amount of cutscenes, stillborn ideas like those QTEs and literal combat awesome buttons (Heliotrope sign and the group finishers), dumbed-down and/or half-assed mechanics, atmosphere that owed more to Hollywood blockbusters than Slavic folklore, and all sorts of gameplay-related missteps that made the whole game a bit of a mess. It was only really held together by the storyfag elements, i.e. the great cast of characters and the best story in the series. Still a fun game, but in terms of decline it's about on the same level with TW3.

Yep, I agree with regards the direction TW2 took and it being a sell out. But without doubt the combat was way more fun than the clicky clickathon in TW1. As you say a well executed decline.

Key thing is that I still felt like a Witcher. It was worth me spending time investing in potions, traps & reading up on monsters. In TW3 they included an absolute plethora of beasts, their strengths & weaknesses, and not once did I have do anything different other than level up my skills & dodge-attack, dodge-attack. Only in the expansions did I have to stop to think about my stratergy slightly.