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The Witcher Analysis: How Witcher 3 could have been much better.

  • Thread starter Duralux for Durabux
  • Start date

Is Witcher 3 dissapointing?

  • Yes

    Votes: 42 34.7%
  • No

    Votes: 54 44.6%
  • Kingcomrade

    Votes: 25 20.7%

  • Total voters
    121

Ol' Willy

Arcane
Zionist Agent Vatnik
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Messages
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Location
Reichskommissariat Russland ᛋᛋ
By that same token, so are GTA and Tomb Raider.
Indeed, and this is the point. San Andreas has skills that directly affect the gameplay. San Andreas has some player reactivity (lift weights - get muscles - hit people heavier). It has "sidequests" and factions. But no one in his right mind calls San Andreas an RPG.
 

Old Hans

Arcane
Joined
Oct 10, 2011
Messages
1,442
everything about Witcher 3 bothers me in some way. all the junk shit treasure that has no purpose, the dumbed down alchemy, the braindead combat, the poorly paced story, no animations for potion drinking (which feels lazy)

I would have much rather had a flashy batman style combat over what they created. Witcher combat is all about being fast, deadly and flashy (Witcher 1 did this pretty well with group style) but the way it plays out is so dull and boring.

outside of the nice landscapes, the game has the most uninspired systems behind it.
 

Semiurge

Cipher
Joined
Apr 11, 2020
Messages
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Location
Asp Hole
Witcher 2 and 3 had no excuse for not using the first game's alchemy system, other than making the game more enticing to smoothbrain casuals. Being able to drink during combat was fine also, with an obvious cost of being open to attacks for a few seconds, there was absolutely nothing wrong with it! But nooooo..... CoD kids are more important.
 

ekrolo2

Learned
Joined
Jun 8, 2019
Messages
201
Considering the fact I really, really didn't like 2 when it released or during a recent playthrough, 3 was a massive incline. Which is not to say its without fault. 1 is still better at making you feel like a Witcher and I'd gladly cut down the open world shit in favor of chapter by chapter hubs like before to improve the story pacing.
 

wahrk

Learned
Joined
Aug 13, 2019
Messages
216
Let's compare the Father Gascoigne (First Boss in Bloodborne) vs The Chief of the Wild Hunt(the last boss in Witcher 3)
When Father Gascoigne uses his axe in one Hand he can:
Single attack you with his axe.
Attack while jumping.
dodges and attack
rolls and then attack.
He scrapes the ground with his axe and then attck you with it.
Does a concentrate attack on you to do more damage
Uses his pistol to destabilize you.
When father Gascoigne uses his axe in one two hand:
Does a thrust attack with his axe
Does a concentrate attack
uses his pistol while using his axe in two hand.
Does a single attack
When father Gascoigne is in Beast mode:
Claw attacks
High kick attacks
Attacks from above
Uses all of this strength to do a strong powerfull attack with his claws
Father Gascoigne has 14 DIFFERENTS TYPES OF ATTACKS.

Now Witcher's last boss:
Can do a single attack.
Can teleport.
Can do a magic attack
He can parries.
Can destabilizes you with his legs.
Eredin Has 5 differents types of attacks

iu
 

Chippy

Arcane
Patron
Joined
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Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Voted Kingcomrade. Just finished it for the first time. Tried to get through it once before but gave up when I got to the B&W expansion and saw all the points of interest again. This time I just took a break at that point and played another game for a bit before coming back to it.

Instead of a long drawn out review, I'll be as brief as I can.
  • The story was probably the best story in any game I've ever played. It's right up there with PST.
  • Everything else (and there was so much of it) almost made me desensitized to the story & characters. That's why I gave up the first time round. This time I tried to do all the fluff, and then focus as much as possible on the main story arc in one go.
  • Because of the above issue, it actually felt like I was playing multiple games. E.g. I romanced Triss before I did the B&W expansion. By the time I got to see Triss again, it felt like I had been playing a completely seperate game for 2 months. Then it was: "Oh yeah, I'd almost forgotten about Triss and that she was a part of this story".
It felt a bit like this: imagine reading the LOTR books, and you really want to focus on the awesome characters like Aragorn and his party, but Tolkien had split the ratio as 80% about Bilbo and Sam, and you only got about 20% with Aragorn, Gandalf, and the party etc. Or 80% awesome Tolkien writing, and 20% 'The Silmarillion'.

Any self respecting RPG player is gonna prepare their character as much as possible. So I did all the points of interest and all of the quests. And all of that made the game feel like work. After I got all the schematics, I was still hoping for a relic or two, but because of the nature of the loot system I got fuck all. So what was the incentive? I'd rather sand down my hardwood floors in my flat by hand and re-varnish them with shitty EU water-based varnish that washes off after a few mops. At least I've got the satisfaction of a result in RL - in the game I got nothing.

And as I said; this feeling of the game being mostly about 'work' stays with me after it's over, and I have to try to remember the fun bits and the awesome story.
 
Joined
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Any self respecting RPG player is gonna prepare their character as much as possible. So I did all the points of interest and all of the quests. And all of that made the game feel like work.
Unless you managed to skip all the AAA open world games since AssCreed 1 you should've known better when you saw hundreds of POIs on the map. It's the ubisoft design of littering their gameworld's maps with hundreds of POIs to keep the ADHD crowd busy and potentially paying for mtx (absurd in a story-focused game with no mtx). You can at least hide them from the map in the game options and leave true exploration and completionism for after the base game+expansions main stories and associated side quests are done with.
 

Chippy

Arcane
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Joined
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Messages
6,037
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Any self respecting RPG player is gonna prepare their character as much as possible. So I did all the points of interest and all of the quests. And all of that made the game feel like work.
Unless you managed to skip all the AAA open world games since AssCreed 1 you should've known better when you saw hundreds of POIs on the map. It's the ubisoft design of littering their gameworld's maps with hundreds of POIs to keep the ADHD crowd busy and potentially paying for mtx (absurd in a story-focused game with no mtx). You can at least hide them from the map in the game options and leave true exploration and completionism for after the base game+expansions main stories and associated side quests are done with.

I have skipped all of those games ackshually. Although I did play AC 1 and the three Ezio games, as well as Shadow of Mordor. I think the difference in those games is the loot wasn't broken and/or there was a reason for visiting those places. Also, the travelling methods were more interesting, as were the enemies encountered.
 

Ryan muller

Educated
Joined
Oct 10, 2021
Messages
162
There's an actual time limit in fallout 2 but long enough to let you the time to explore and it was there to not forget your objective. https://www.nma-fallout.com/threads/fallout-2-time-limit.151567/ (too much time in my opinion ).

Even if you exhaust every single piece of content in the world and grind all of your skills to the max cap you still wouldnt met the limit.

In fact i dont think ive ever did and i play this game since i was a fucking child.

And fallout 1's timer is quite overrated


Its most cool/unique feature would be the mutant invasions and they got scrapped out of the game in order to make it more acessible, which leaves you with just a single timer that is not only pretty long but also doesnt matter much as you can even extend it without any consequence (as telling your vault's location also got its consequence scrapped)


For better or worse the only people affected by the timer will be starters who have no idea at how much time it will take to find the water chip and even then, they will probably save scum the whole game in order to not lose.

I just cant see how this is a real game changer.

The invasions would be so much more interesting, thats why i rather play with the invasion mod.
 

Skinwalker

*teleports within you*
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The main questline is disjointed to the point of incoherence. There's no story as such, only a collection of random episodes and characters. I still don't know what the fuck Ciri did at the end of the game, where she went, or what the Wild Cunt had to do with anything. The ladies of the wood should have been the main antagonists and final boss of the game tbh.

Witcher 2 had an infinitely better story, one of the best in any RPG I've ever played. Don't know why everyone at CD Project Red fell ill with encephalitis while working on the sequel, but judging by Cyberpunk it only got worse afterwards.
 

Frozen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
8,303
Story is simplistic and dragged out you just did not pay attention.

What could make Witcher 3 gameplay compelling is better itemization where 99% of items is not useless junk. That would make potions and weapons a thing like in Witcher 1 not just MMO loot filler.

Also adding some urgency in main plot like water chip from fallout 1 so if you don't speed it up in finding Ciri you fail the game. And changing world state based on what side quest you had to ignore because urgency would be true C&C in "real" gameplay time + add to true reparability.

And at the end if they just tied combat efficiency to stamina bar as the most important thing (that fills in so slow after being depleted) would add tactical layer to fighting in a really simple way. As it is Geralt can kill million people and only thing stopping him is level scale. If instead you start to lose efficiency during fighting as stamina goes down to the point of not being able do fight because humans even mutants get TIERED you would actually had to plan fights.

Most of these things could be implemented but they went for vanilla to please the normies because muh real gameplay-hard!
 

Frozen

Arcane
Joined
Jan 1, 2014
Messages
8,303

You must have forgotten then this breaking the 4th wall cutscene where Ciri is directly retelling you the player like an idiot what happened and where she was during entire game.



See, Potatos got you covered. They knew that most people would forget what went on after doing errands for peasants last 100h
 

Skinwalker

*teleports within you*
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You must have forgotten then this breaking the 4th wall cutscene where Ciri is directly retelling you the player like an idiot what happened and where she was during entire game.
I remember that and it raised more questions than it answered. Witcher 3's story had the distinct feeling of being a secondary product, something that depended on something else to be consoomed in order for it to actually make sense. Witcher 2 had none of that problem.
 

Ryan muller

Educated
Joined
Oct 10, 2021
Messages
162
What could make Witcher 3 gameplay compelling is better itemization where 99% of items is not useless junk. That would make potions and weapons a thing like in Witcher 1 not just MMO

W1 still had the problem of making side weapons completely worthless tho

maybe to a point where it was even worst than w3 as You couldnt use the witcher style moveset, essentially making them suck
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
4,688
My two biggest issues with The Witcher series are:

1) Monster hunting not being as good as it could be, which is a huge wasted opportunity, considering the whole role of being a Witcher is hunting monsters.

2) For the game that's centered around the player being a master swordsman the sword combat is either boring (1) or mediocre (2 & 3). And I mean it both from the mechanical standpoint as well as from gore/animations standpoint. It's truly stunning how little video games progressed in this department since Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast.
 

Haplo

Prophet
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Joined
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Messages
6,138
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
What could make Witcher 3 gameplay compelling is better itemization where 99% of items is not useless junk. That would make potions and weapons a thing like in Witcher 1 not just MMO

W1 still had the problem of making side weapons completely worthless tho

maybe to a point where it was even worst than w3 as You couldnt use the witcher style moveset, essentially making them suck


Then use swords. Like every other Witcher out there. There was a nice selection of those. Problem solved.
 

Ryan muller

Educated
Joined
Oct 10, 2021
Messages
162
What could make Witcher 3 gameplay compelling is better itemization where 99% of items is not useless junk. That would make potions and weapons a thing like in Witcher 1 not just MMO

W1 still had the problem of making side weapons completely worthless tho

maybe to a point where it was even worst than w3 as You couldnt use the witcher style moveset, essentially making them suck


Then use swords. Like every other Witcher out there. There was a nice selection of those. Problem solved.


Yep, because of course we should put other weapons in our game when they are completely worthless.

Never understood this logic in witcher games

Besides the fact that swords are boring asf in any game that isnt Kingdom come deliverance
 

luj1

You're all shills
Vatnik
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witcher 3 is the same shit as cyberpunk or gta

not really RPGs, but action adventure games
 

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