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

[luj1]

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.

ye jedi outcast had great swordplay, so did jedi academy but i prefer outcast

in the witcher series the first game had best combat

 

[KateMicucci]

Big problems-

-Combat is extremely easy even on the highest difficulty
-There was no reason to even have Gerald level up. They could have removed the levelling system from the game entirely and nothing would change.
-Mutagens? What's the point?
-Potions are just a cooldown instead of having to actually use them
-Crossbow does no damage for some reason and is only good for killing swimmers and knocking down fliers.
-Traps removed
-Every quest is solved by having Gerald follow his smell-o-vision and then fight something, or else fight something and then follow the smell-o-vision.
-Itemization mostly sucked. It was a better experience to limit yourself to witcher gear only.
-Potion system is a downgrade from Witcher 1. You will never run out of potions/bombs after the prologue.
-Cutscenes and storyfaggotry everywhere
-No way to prevent Gerald's beard from growing back every day and Gerald doesn't know how to shave

 

[wishbonetail]

When I want to replay something and my thoughts turn to W3, I recall: "Nah, I already watched that movie". That's the problem. Open world, rpg systems, itemization are the lowest tier MMO quality. If you already watched all the cutscenes, there's nothing really engaging except gwent and maybe some vistas.

 

[luj1]

When I want to replay something and my thoughts turn to W3, I recall: "Nah, I already watched that movie". That's the problem. Open world, rpg systems, itemization are the lowest tier MMO quality. If you already watched all the cutscenes, there's nothing really engaging except gwent and maybe some vistas.

it really plays like a single player MMO

 

[Falksi]

Witcher 3's biggest problem is that it's essentially Assassins' Creed Origins in a different setting, but without the good gameplay.

Running back and forth constantly to trigger cut-scenes is bullshit, even if some of the cut-scenes are good.

Big problems-

-Combat is extremely easy even on the highest difficulty
-There was no reason to even have Gerald level up. They could have removed the levelling system from the game entirely and nothing would change.
-Mutagens? What's the point?
-Potions are just a cooldown instead of having to actually use them
-Crossbow does no damage for some reason and is only good for killing swimmers and knocking down fliers.
-Traps removed
-Every quest is solved by having Gerald follow his smell-o-vision and then fight something, or else fight something and then follow the smell-o-vision.
-Itemization mostly sucked. It was a better experience to limit yourself to witcher gear only.
-Potion system is a downgrade from Witcher 1. You will never run out of potions/bombs after the prologue.
-Cutscenes and storyfaggotry everywhere
-No way to prevent Gerald's beard from growing back every day and Gerald doesn't know how to shave

That's a great summary.

I'd add
- Largest portion of the actual gameplay was spent either running from point A to point B or fannying about with the inventory.
- The pacing of everything was awful.
- The main quest was not only shit after Bloody Baron, which was admittedly excellent, but the way the Wild Hunt were barely center stage for more than a few sections of the game was crap.

The expansions were far better for being a far tighter and more focused experience.

 

[Konjad]

I liked the first Witcher way more than 2 and 3. Becoming mainstream brought the decline.

 

[ItsChon]

Turn Witcher into an isometric, turn-based cRPG. Anything else has a 99% chance of being a dogshit RPG.

 

[wishbonetail]

Turn Witcher into an isometric, turn-based cRPG. Anything else has a 99% chance of being a dogshit RPG.

That's Thronebreaker - The Best Witcher Game.

 

[Lambach]

You know, other than the last part of the game being a rushed mess and the shitty open world, most problems I've seen listed here have been fixed by mods. Overhauls to combat that, among other things, make it a lot more challenging, Witcher 1 Alchemy system, overhauled itemization, economy and character development etc. The problem is that I don't know of any one mod that overhauls everything in the right way, so while certain game elements get drastically improved, some others are even more dogshit than the original. I guess that's the curse of Modder Autism, so you have to either do some serious Mod Alchemy to get your ideal experience, or you have to suck it up and tolerate some dumb changes to enjoy the good ones.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

Among Us ඞ

 

[Whisper]

-Main quest: Why there is absolutely no sense of urgency ? Why they didn't put an actual time limit like in Fallout 1? It would make a lot of sense because in that case you have the feeling that the Wild Hunt is actually searching Ciri instead what we got is a static world.Why the final battle against the Wild Hunt is so ridiculous? (The Wild Hunt is supposed to be an actual army minimum 5000-10000 men expected ready for battle. What we got is a bunch of hundred men).Why the final battle is that bad?Add more move sets to bosses.Also too much cinematics please stop.

Because casulas would complain.

Casuals hate timed quests even more than jews hate Hitler.

 

[Semiurge]

-Main quest: Why there is absolutely no sense of urgency ? Why they didn't put an actual time limit like in Fallout 1? It would make a lot of sense because in that case you have the feeling that the Wild Hunt is actually searching Ciri instead what we got is a static world.Why the final battle against the Wild Hunt is so ridiculous? (The Wild Hunt is supposed to be an actual army minimum 5000-10000 men expected ready for battle. What we got is a bunch of hundred men).Why the final battle is that bad?Add more move sets to bosses.Also too much cinematics please stop.

Because casulas would complain.

Casuals hate timed quests even more than jews hate Hitler.

There's nothing wrong with timed quests as long as they don't span the entire game. A timed sidequest or a mini-quest part of the main quest would be ok.