Editorial Choice and Combat in The Witcher II

[Mangoose]

The thing about the QTE fighting is that it is annoying and tedious, and those two qualities affect the gameplay in general. You have to spend a good percentage of your attention on making sure your click timing is correct. But since there are no tactical choices or no interesting thinking involved (again solely talking about the click timing mechanic), that's a lot of mental focus on banal shit boring that would have been better spent on managing alchemy, signs, and sword styles.

Kinda similar to why I don't like to play Starcraft. I like pure strategy, not dividing my attention between strategy and micromanagement. The difference here of course is that SC micromanagement is a difficult and rewarding skill for some people, whereas the QTE click timing in the Witcher is not one bit redeeming.

 

[DraQ]

The thing about the QTE fighting is that it is annoying and tedious, and those two qualities affect the gameplay in general.

Not any more tedious than going *clickclickclick* and it's certainly lighter on both your mouse and your hand.

You have to spend a good percentage of your attention on making sure your click timing is correct.

Except you don't. You can get the hang of it rather quickly and then it's pretty automatic.

 

[Mangoose]

The thing about the QTE fighting is that it is annoying and tedious, and those two qualities affect the gameplay in general.

Not any more tedious than going *clickclickclick* and it's certainly lighter on both your mouse and your hand.

Well...

You have to spend a good percentage of your attention on making sure your click timing is correct.

Except you don't. You can get the hang of it rather quickly and then it's pretty automatic.

Except for me it WAS annoying the whole game.

 

[Metro]

react to an icon.

Easy/normal skill level detected.

You'll forgive me because I'm used to a time when normal was actually challenging and you went back and played on hard to extend the game's longevity. So, yes, when I critique a game it's going to be based on the default level of difficulty. I did try a second play through on hard and my opinions on the combat still hold. Even without the icon you just swing away and pretty much mow everything down. Granted I couldn't bear to complete the second playthrough because I found the game too tedious...

It's also pretty hilarious on the one hand people dismiss 'hurf/durf you played on normal' and on the other try to argue Witcher had anything approaching interesting combat. Even without the icon the combat is worse than a Diablo clone. And, notably, you failed to address my main complaint: lack of variety/meaningful choice in abilities. Legend of Zelda combat was more complex.

If somebody wishes to use an example game or two and pitch it against the Witcher, I would love to read it.

Edit: An action rpg of course.

An example of an ARPG that is a better ARPG than Witcher? Hell, you could argue STALKER does a better job at offering more ARPG elements than Witcher and that isn't even an ARPG. You compare the combat favorably to Gothic but yet -- unlike Gothic -- there is barely any meaningful itemization, character progression, or give and take in specialization. The hallmarks of an ARPG. As far as the combat... you don't really have to go that far back to find a superior ARPG, e.g. Divinity 2.

 

[turn_based_fanboy]

An example of an ARPG that is a better ARPG than Witcher? Hell, you could argue STALKER does a better job at offering more ARPG elements than Witcher and that isn't even an ARPG. You compare the combat favorably to Gothic but yet -- unlike Gothic -- there is barely any meaningful itemization, character progression, or give and take in specialization. The hallmarks of an ARPG. As far as the combat... you don't really have to go that far back to find a superior ARPG, e.g. Divinity 2.

Sometimes I have a feeling that if someone made proper LoTR rpg game and told people to play as Aragorn there would be big cry that you can't custom him into female hobbit paladin.

 

[Coyote]

Really, of all the things you can get all about, this one's rather weak; the game made it pretty damn obvious when you should click even without the icon. It might have been slightly more difficult to transition from easy/normal to hard if you were used to the icon, but otherwise you should be able to figure out when to click by the end of the prologue.

Must have pushed a button here.

Nah, it just seemed silly to act superior for playing on hard in TW, which telegraphed when you should click just as heavily as the other two difficulties and presented no real challenges aside from the Beast* and the archespore. (Maybe the final battle, too, if you chose to fight; can't remember as I only finished one playthrough, back when the game first came out.) I may have misread the tone of your original post, though; I tend to read your posts as having an air of smug self-satisfaction about them. Might be the avatar that does it.

Otherwise, yeah, I pretty much agree with what you, commie, and DraQ have said; the Witcher's combat may not exactly be stellar, but it's still more engaging than the majority of action RPGs out there where you either click once and watch a screensaver or mindlessly click-click-click, occasionally downing a health potion. I understand the desire to have character skill matter more than player reflexes in an RPG - I prefer that myself in general - but I'd rather a game rely primarily the player if relying on character skill is going to result in such a tedious combat system.

* Even the Beast wasn't so much hard as it depended a bit too heavily on luck. Had you invested heavily in Aard? Then the battle could be a cakewalk, and you could even stun it and kill it with a finishing move. Otherwise, you could very easily lose if you were unlucky enough to be repeatedly stun-locked by the Beast's pain ability, no matter how much you'd prepared. And the only things that made you resistant to pain were a level 3 stamina talent that you couldn't have gotten by that point without serious grinding - and to a much lesser extent, each level of stamina - and Buzz, which you had no way of knowing you should take since the Beast's journal entry makes no mention of its pain ability.

 

[CrunchyHemorrhoids]

react to an icon.

Easy/normal skill level detected.

You'll forgive me because I'm used to a time when normal was actually challenging and you went back and played on hard to extend the game's longevity.

I remember that time too, it was over 10 years ago, slow learner?

The hard setting clearly tells you that you will need to make use of alchemy for it, implying that the settings labelled as normal and easy are so easy as to let you ignore an important gameplay mechanic.

How someone would expect gimped combat to be challenging baffles me.

 

[deuxhero]

While Bioware's shit shows it is indeed possible to do worse than TWitcher 1's combat, a "Beat-them-up" style combat system has promise.

 

[made]

An example of an ARPG that is a better ARPG than Witcher? Hell, you could argue STALKER does a better job at offering more ARPG elements than Witcher and that isn't even an ARPG. You compare the combat favorably to Gothic but yet -- unlike Gothic -- there is barely any meaningful itemization, character progression, or give and take in specialization. The hallmarks of an ARPG. As far as the combat... you don't really have to go that far back to find a superior ARPG, e.g. Divinity 2.

So out of those three supposedly superior aRPGs only one has better combat than TW? Interesting. Which version are we talking here - the original Div 2 that was a decent challenge (largely due to the amount of damage enemies could dish out and soak) or the trivially easy even on hard DKS? Let's assume for the sake of argument you meant the former and that you, against your habit, played on hard. Unfortunately, you don't actually explain what made Div2's combat better so I'll have to rely on my memory of a melee-focused build which amounted to charging in, holding down LMB to auto attack, using highly tactical cooldowns like "AoE" and "high-damage-strike", and occasionaly jumping around and dodging enemies while spamming hp pots.

Honestly, what Div2 has over TW is more flexibility in character builds since you can spend points all over the place and combine skills from several trees - whether that is effective or even interesting is another matter, as many abilities are boring and useless past the first point. The combat system itself, which is what we were talking about here, is plain and standard aRPG fare so I fail to see where it shines over TW.

 

[FatCat]

Witcher has better and more meaningful story than 90% of RPG's and is atmospheric.
RPG doesn't only stand for customization and builds , but more for ability to do things your way.
Game with dozen story related choices is more of an RPG than story wise linear game that has shit tons of customization and builds.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

Witcher has better and more meaningful story than 90% of RPG's and is atmospheric.

fucking atmospheric i felt beating 3 bruxas in a row with 5 ghouls where in the books geralt had his ass kicked by a single vampire. not to mention the fucking swamps and thoooooooousands of respawning monsters.

and choices were so meaningfull... like which shopkeeper will sell me stuff in next act

ffs

 

[FatCat]

Witcher has better and more meaningful story than 90% of RPG's and is atmospheric.

fucking atmospheric i felt beating 3 bruxas in a row with 5 ghouls where in the books geralt had his ass kicked by a single vampire. not to mention the fucking swamps and thoooooooousands of respawning monsters.

and choices were so meaningfull... like which shopkeeper will sell me stuff in next act

ffs

play with FCR on hard


and choices ware meaningful like side with the order of the flaming rose and proceed with annihilation of non-humans or join squirrels and let them terrorize poor civilians or not give a fuck and see world crumble.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

play with FCR on hard

i still beat those monsters just this time with some oily shit on my blade

not give a fuck and see world crumble.

my option. i could kill those two fuckers an elf and knight in the end

i will give it to the twicher: the second( without the swamp) and fifth act were the best in that 60 hours long quick time event

 

[J_C]

play with FCR on hard

i still beat those monsters just this time with some oily shit on my blade

Yes, this is the problems with videogames, you can kill the opponents in them. Wouldn't it be better if the enemies were unbeatable?

fucking atmospheric i felt beating 3 bruxas in a row with 5 ghouls where in the books geralt had his ass kicked by a single vampire.

Yes, this is why one is is videogame, and the other is book.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

no you faggot

if you rip off half of the dialogues from the book and claim how this game is close to sapkowskis world at least try to keep your word

is it really dificult to make a fucking bruxa a fucking end act/quest boss instead of random monster nr 347?

 

[J_C]

no you faggot

if you rip off half of the dialogues from the books

I feel a bit of an exaggeration here.

 

[meanwhileInPoland]

tbh more than a bit
but still too much if you knew the books

 

[Carlos' Bitch1]

fucking atmospheric i felt beating 3 bruxas in a row with 5 ghouls where in the books geralt had his ass kicked by a single vampire. not to mention the fucking swamps and thoooooooousands of respawning monsters.

Oh dear, we never see respawning monsters, do we? Only in certain parts of one area? Well, talk about an overload.

I also hate it when I play these RPG's and you can beat legions of Dragons, Vampires, Wizards, Beholder regiments and so on. Really, I wish they would get their act together and make games more like books.

 

[laclongquan]

no you faggot

if you rip off half of the dialogues from the book and claim how this game is close to sapkowskis world at least try to keep your word

is it really dificult to make a fucking bruxa a fucking end act/quest boss instead of random monster nr 347?

You sound cranky. You ARE cranky.

Are you missing posting in your original account?

Or are you not laid enough lately?

Which is better and why? Discuss!!!

 

[janjetina]

I must be a fucking moron, but I still don't get what was so terrible about combat in TW. Maybe I'm easily entertained, maybe I just enjoyed the animations or maybe I just don't mind in the slightest that things are simple and easy, but I enjoyed combat in TW1 and am kind of surprised that the consensus is that it sucked. I really, really didn't think it did at all.

It's the repetitiveness of click-clickety-click-click combined with no intellectual effort necessary to perform that task. I have low tolerance for such activities and to me they represent the pinnacle of boredom. Boring is opposite of fun, and what's the point of playing a game if it isn't fun? I may treat the combat as an necessary obstacle to overcome between dialogues, but the ratio of total duration of combat to combined duration and quality of story and dialogues is too high for me.

In short, if the combat isn't tactical, make the number of encounters and their duration low.

 

[commie]

fucking atmospheric i felt beating 3 bruxas in a row with 5 ghouls where in the books geralt had his ass kicked by a single vampire. not to mention the fucking swamps and thoooooooousands of respawning monsters.

Oh dear, we never see respawning monsters, do we? Only in certain parts of one area? Well, talk about an overload.

I also hate it when I play these RPG's and you can beat legions of Dragons, Vampires, Wizards, Beholder regiments and so on. Really, I wish they would get their act together and make games more like books.

Yeah, just have about 5 things to kill all game. Then spend 10-20 hours just moving through a forest or the side of a mountain, occasionally stopping to eat and sleep to simulate the traveling that's in books.


I think we've found the dumbest Polack on the Codex here or is it Andhaira?

 

[DraQ]

Actually reducing amount of combat, which has always been mostly filler in RPGs would be a nice thing provided some alternative gameplay in its place.

Have you played Azrael's Tear? It can be done.

 

[a budda]

Actually reducing amount of combat, which has always been mostly filler in RPGs would be a nice thing provided some alternative gameplay in its place.

Have you played Azrael's Tear? It can be done.

waht if we had more random encounters, not that "quest" encounters, go kill my girl danger, but just a talk or some shit

hmmm... that must be why i've been missing ps:t recently, though on the other hand, last time i played it i quit in catacombs becaues of filler combat...
oh fuck! and that's it:
MOAR TALK LESS FIGHT
: x