The Witcher Officialsky Witcherovda 2 Impressiovna Threadskaia

[Excidium]

I saw the scans of that magazine here on the codex. It's decent, less photoshopped than the real models.

The talent trees look really shitty, though, except for the Magic one somewhat. Swordsmanship is all +damage and +vigor and shit, and Alchemy is all +duration and +potency and shit. It seems like if you spec in those trees you decrease the complexity of your play.

Magic gives new different effects to each Sign, though (plus another Sign), so I'm eyeing that one.

Well it's a matter of preference. Most talents I've seen on the magic tree just improve the signs duration and potency, apart from some cool stuff with the Yrden sign.

But I prefer magic too, I got 5 vigor points. Feels good.

 

[Mangoose]

Well (just off the top of my head), upgraded Aard causes damage + AOE, upgraded Igni causes incineration and also AOE. Those add new utility to those Signs, which is what I am looking for (in the swords and alchemy trees, where the talents gain potency but not lateral utility).

The question is how many points do you get? Can you fill out a whole entire specialization tree easily, or do you have to pick and choose between talents? (Because then you'd have some specialized Signs and some basic Signs and that would be pretty cool).

 

[Lesifoere]

About to finish chapter 1. Must say that things are picking up nicely with regards to plot, politics and intrigues.

I'm going heavy with swordsmanship because I really, really want the group style equivalent back.

 

[1eyedking]

I saw the scans of that magazine here on the codex. It's decent, less photoshopped than the real models.

Sad, but true.

 

[Mrowak]

...

Ok I admit that being fresh after the game end I kind of overreacted, but there are still certain things that annoy me.

How to put it brother. The thing is if you streatched your imagination hard enough you could somehow find justification for all the things CDP Red did there in the novels. However, it just reeks of 'that would be cool!' and 'they will totally buy this' vibe with all the facts bending and twisting so that events that transpire seem hardly believeable in the context provided by the books.

Spoiler

There are those additions to the plot like 'The school of the viper' which to someone familiar with the saga is pure nonsense (yeah, I know it was mentioned it TW1). There are characters we know who strike as mere shadows of their former selves e.g. the two sorceresses - Philippa and Sheila being outsmarted by Letho. How the hell that meatbag had fooled the two most powerful and prominent mages in the North who had all the financial and informational backing they needed I don't even... Or that Philippa allowed a Nilfgaard agent to become her lover... This is the same Philippa that forced Djikstra - the master chief of Redanian intelligence service - into exile? Seriously?

The same applies to organisations. The Lodge's authority being damaged so easily? I mean thorought Witcher Saga no one knew about their existence, but here the Lodge receives blow after blow as if there were no tomorrow. Also Triss being pushed out from the Lodge's meetings? The what? Is it the same Lodge that acknowledged Yennefer's status out of the fact that she was their member even though she effectively had betrayed them? And now they push out one of their most prominent members? The prinicipal characteristic of the Lodge was their unity and impartiality in spite of the minor squabbles between each of the participants? Now, however, they abandon trust and efficiency in favour of idiocy and incompetence.

All of these, I suppose, may strike you as rubbish - a fanboy's rant with no point and matter other than powerless rage. That maybe somewhat true. Still, I cannot shake off the impression that the game lacked someone with stronger vision and direction. Damn you Sapkowski for not taking the reins into your own hands

Mind you, I liked the game very much. It's just those little things + little annoying plot inconsistencies

Spoiler

(e.g. the troll believes you you killed the murderers of his wife with no proof whatsoever; the elf girl attacks you saying that she wants to dispatch of the witness although she couldn't possibly know if you had been lying about the victims being munched up by Nekkers; Neither Letho or the comic-strips never mentioning the name of the assassin that died in TW1's outro while describing who were the others, plenty of things like that)

Yes, you can accuse me of nitpicking, but...

I must also add that consolitis doesn't help in the reception

Spoiler

Fighting DraQ in chapter 3 was just rage inducing. That was one hella consolish encounter design and that's saying a lot in comparison with other boss fights.

Could you also clarify one thing for me regarding the Wild Hunt from the books?

Spoiler

When was it established that Eredin's Red Riders (Dearg Ruadhri) and the Wild Hunt are one and the same? My memory is fuzzy and I can't find the proper passage in 'The Lady of the Lake' now.

 

[Ulminati]

Well. I got it.

I even paid potato for it.

Whoee, what a mistake.

The story is pretty uninspiring so far. I'm past the prologue and I'm guessing mostly through chapter 1. they make a shitload of references and namedroppings that mean nothing to me, since I didn't play Twitcher 1 or read the potato books. The journal is only of limited help here, so apparently I'm supposed to hate Nilfgaard and there's made-up elf words I'm supposed to understand. Also there's a king who got killed and for some reason I have amnesia.

The gameplay is shite. Complete and utter shite. The aiming is wonky if there are more than 1 enemy about (and the game follows the DA2 school of a wave of samey creatures popping out of the ground, so there's always more than 1 enemy about). the animations are long and awkward, the controls unresponsive and most of the time you just feel disconnected from the character. As if he's numb or drunk and sort of unable to move entirely the way he wants to. Fret not! you can select somethign called a Quen, press Q and mash LMB (AKA Awesome button) and everything will die on Hard difficulty. If you run out of Quens, just run about for a bit and the shit will recharge so you can mash more awesome button.

The crappy animations are especially apparent in the tortorous instances where the game wants you to be stealthy. Paticularly if you try to - gods forbid - move backwards through a doorway to back away from a guard. this will make Gerald spin on the spot until the guard decides to shove hot coals up his arse.

The game has the dubious honour of being the first game I had to play on low settings on this machine. It looks more or less like oblivion with a few mods slapped on, but the framerate still drops to nearly unplayable levels in combat. For those who wank to numbers, it's a 2.8ghz intel duo core with 8gb of ram and a geforce 9600gt with 512mb ram. While the environments are more imaginative than standard space shooter #23523, there are older, prettier games that satisfy my inner graphis whore better. And they all have lower system requirements.

So yeah. If you're not already a Twitcher fan, this game probably isn't going to win you over. All I know from my odyssey of choppy framerates, weird glitches, confusing yet uninspiring characters and clickfest, floaty combat is that suddenly Mass Effect 2 seems rather entertaining by comparsion. So congratulations CD Projekt. Your game was what it took to finally make me give in and lower my standards. Since the issues I have with your product are unlikely to be patched out, I guess I'll count it as money wasted and uninstall now :/

 

[Havoc]

1/10

 

[commie]

1/10

What's with the IGN scoring there Havok? That troll didn't deserve such high a mark!

 

[Hamster]

they make a shitload of references and namedroppings that mean nothing to me, since I didn't play Twitcher 1 or read the potato books. The journal is only of limited help here, so apparently I'm supposed to hate Nilfgaard and there's made-up elf words I'm supposed to understand. Also there's a king who got killed and for some reason I have amnesia.

Troll or not, this is a legit complaint. I have no idea how someone is supposed to fully appreciate the game without reading the books. I of course am a big fan of the books and know that, for example, bard and Zoltan are true bros, but a regular non-potato gamer will have two random characters forced oh him for unclear reasons, and thats pretty bad design.

 

[Rancen]

Well. I got it.

I even paid potato for it.

Whoee, what a mistake.

Dude, now you have nothing to eat. Yeah, big mistake.

 

[Ulminati]

Troll or not, this is a legit complaint.

It wasn't an intended troll. I honestly played through about a quarter of the game and found it a confusing mess that failed to entertain me. I thought it was relevant to put out there, since I bought the game largely on the basis on the praise lavished upon it by Codexians and feel more than a litte dissapointed with my purchase.

And I really did get through pretty much every encounter with Quen + Awesome button, except when Commander Geralt decided he'd rather get stuck inside a barrel or spin repeatedly in a stuck animation loop while Darkspawn ate his HP.

 

[Jaesun]

For reference, what was the last Action cRPG you enjoyed then Ulminati?

 

[Frau Bishop]

I honestly played through about a quarter of the game and found it a confusing mess that failed to entertain me.

I hear ya.
Stopped playing after the Kayran encounter. Console bossfight, disable weak spots, realtime sweating action, hack&slash&run&roll. No further questions.

Maybe mods can salvage this wreck.. but hey, I guess I'd rather play some heavily modded Oblivion. They had years to create them and to patch this old wreck up.
The brave people trying to mod TW2 into something worthy of the tag "rpg" are just starting their huge quest.
Godspeed!

 

[Jaesun]

I guess I'd rather play some heavily modded Oblivion.

 

[Frau Bishop]

That's how bad playing TW2 feels, sad but true.

 

[1eyedking]

FFS, Quen is auto-win. Never sweated through a single encounter on Hard as long as that shit was on.

PS: I just finished the game, and the ending was shit. What a convoluted and poorly crafted mess of a back-story for...fucking everything; and I'm *really* tired of this 'New World Order' crap, they shoveled that already in the first one, get a better plot goddammit.

 

[Jaesun]

SO it is not an intelligent game?

 

[torpid]

If a torrent has a ton of seeders, shouldn't the download be fast, or are the number of seeds and the download speed unrelated? I'm not interested enough to keep the torrent running for three-four days in order to demo the game. And the combat really sounds like shit. I think I'll pass, and maybe wait till it hits the bargain bin.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Ah cool, glad I'm not the only one finding the combat on Hard too easy and boring, and Quen overpowered.

I'd rather play some heavily modded Oblivion

:D

 

[Mangoose]

From what I've read, in general the game gets too easy as it continues. Right now just starting to explore the forest, Quen would not save me in hard mode. But I can imagine if I had the reflect talent and just general damage and defensive swordsmanship talents, then Quen would make things way too easy.

 

[Mrowak]

Ah cool, glad I'm not the only one finding the combat on Hard too easy and boring, and Quen overpowered.

No, you are definitely not the only one. At the start when I was learning the controls every encounter seemed challenging. By the middle of the game the combat became trivial largely due to the Quen sign. There is something wrong with the game if all you have to do to win the fight is spamming one spell.

Moreover, the 'I win - AAAwesome button' you get for developing swords tree is just silly.

I'd rather play some heavily modded Oblivion

However twitchy it is, TWitcher 2 vanilla is miles above Oblivion with craploads of mods. Yet, I sincerely hope that someone will create a mod for it to improve combat, like it was done with TW1 and Full Combat Rebalance pack.

 

[made]

Well, I finished the prologue after ~7 hours. Very good storytelling so far, but too linear and railroaded, was starting to get impatient towards the end. Supposedly game opens up now; can't wait.

As far as the combat goes, on hard you can simply get by (so far) simply spamming LMB and rolling, but it's boring and tedious (and you will die if you get surrounded). If, however, you use all the signs and stuff like traps you kill not only faster, it's also a lot more fun and involved. Quen is godmode though, no question. Hoping for some more challenging encounters now in Act 1, else a combat re-balance mod will be high priority just like in TW1.

 

[Mrowak]

Well, I finished the prologue after ~7 hours. Very good storytelling so far, but too linear and railroaded, was starting to get impatient towards the end. Supposedly game opens up now; can't wait.

The good news is, from now on you will get some interesting meaningful C&C. The bad news is the combat will slowly, steadily be turning into... maybe not shithe, but it will become dissatisfying. Wait till you get your first boss battle :picard:

 

[KalosKagathos]

Since some butthurt Pollack retardoed my thread of truth and justice, I'll reply to the retardation that consumes the Codex here.

Sure it does fucking matter. You complain it leaves you open, it doesn't. If you don't want to do it then maybe don't attack enemies that are far away?

1. I still waste frames on the start-up animation of the attack I didn't want to do.
2. What if I want to do the basic combo specifically from a moderate distance because I anticipate that the enemy is about to walk into my sword slashes? I can't. I have to do the stupid lunge, which takes just too long to do to pull of something like this.
3. The entire issue could have been easily avoided by making the lunge a command move executed by pressing towards the enemy and attacking. Is there any sane reason for it not to work that way?

 

[Lesifoere]

The game has the dubious honour of being the first game I had to play on low settings on this machine. It looks more or less like oblivion with a few mods slapped on, but the framerate still drops to nearly unplayable levels in combat. For those who wank to numbers, it's a 2.8ghz intel duo core with 8gb of ram and a geforce 9600gt with 512mb ram. While the environments are more imaginative than standard space shooter #23523, there are older, prettier games that satisfy my inner graphis whore better. And they all have lower system requirements.

Lol, you have a shitty PC. Whine whine whine.