mildTea
Learned
- Joined
- Mar 14, 2017
- Messages
- 69
Here are my thoughts after finishing the game yesterday (60h, 50h without reloads). Bear in mind, this applies to PC (especially with respect to performance).
TL;DR – incline in terms of quest writing, world building, complex mechanics. It needs lots of balancing and quest bugfixing, especially in the late game. Story is good, but uneven pacing makes the first and last thirds feel like an interactive film.
+ Overall:
- the game is ambitious, but some of the ambitions remained half-assed or botched completely
- the inclusion of systems like food, state of clothing, cleanliness and the interlinked web between these systems is nice
- sometimes the realism gets in the way of fun though, sometimes it leads to inconsistencies
- uneven pacing of the game
- the bugs in the first half of the game are mostly fixed and it's your standard open RPG experience now; the second half is still messy though
- the performance on PC was so-so to ok for a single-player game with the exception of areas with many NPCs where it dipped to 25-27 FPS occasionally (30-40 FPS in cities and 60 outside with i5-7600, RX 480 8GB and 16 GB RAM + SSD); hopefully the can optimize some more
- if not pure incline, it's at least a good direction toward incline as some of these things can be solved with patches and/or DLCs
- success of the game is a good thing, because there is hope that Warhorse will be able to perfect the formula with the next game. (Despite the leaders being veterans of the industry, majority of the studio are ppl new to the industry, oftentime fresh graduates.)
+ Good stuff:
- Map and world-building – absolutely stunning, believable and sensible world; at places feels empty though, but this could be filled with DLCs.
- Combat and armor system – very interesting idea, that's fun until the late game. The 'getting wrecked -> fair fights -> wrecking everyone' progress is uneven as it takes too long to get to the 'fair fights' phase which is short on top of it. But in general I liked the combat system as it's not a complete popamole. Well it is a popamole in the late game, but many other games are a popamole right from the beginning.
- Story and the quest writing – Based in real history, the story is very believable and in general it's quite well written. Henry, his father, Hans Capon, Radzig and Hanush are relatable and behave in a consistent manner. There were no moments where I would feel like, wtf did he do that, that's so much out of his character. The quests toward the end of the game are lame though, because they are just about fetching stuff. It fit's the story and is realistic, but it doesn't need to be split into so many little quests which just send you all over the map.
- Alchemy and herbalism – Initially feels like a chore, but I think the system and interplay between the two mechanics is done well. You suck at herbalism at the beginning and it's such a chore, mostly because of the pick-up animation. But once you start getting 3 herbs per one pick-up animation it's ok. The alchemy is done just right and other games should take example. The cooking steps are logical, the recipe learning and the fact it requires a bit of a reading skill is well thought out and the whole system deserves praise. The automation perk should come a bit sooner in my opinion, but overall it's one of the best alchemy mechanics I've ever seen in a game.
- Mechanics incorporation – Another nice thing about the mechanics is how well they are incorporated into the quests. Every mechanics is useful in one or more quests. The executioner quest comes to mind. Major incline here.
+ Bad stuff:
- Performance + AI – As mentioned above, it's so-so with a mid-level machine. What's bad is ppl with 1080 reporting similar performance in the cities. The AI in the game tries to be ambitious, but it burdens the CPU so much that the results is not worth it IMO. When I recall how Vávra was boasting about every sheep and chicken having it's own AI... Well if that's what takes 1-2 min to compute while you have to wait through sleep or waiting mechanics, then remove chicken. I don't care for them the slightest bit. The routines, etc. are better than Gothic 1+2, but I'm not sure if that much. Some of the less important NPCs sometimes just stare into wall the whole day, go to sleep, wash, eat and stare again. I think the next step is to create a few variations of the routine for everyone and randomize them. The game is really long, so you notice the repetitiveness sooner or later.
- Save&Quite should have been there from the beginning. This is aimed at mature audiences. Those people have life responsibilities and they need to be able to quit on a whim and continue where they left. Yuge oversight.
- Mechanics balance – You can just see in the second half of the game, that the devs didn't test it thoroughly enough. Not only bugs abound, but the mechanics need more tuning. In the combat, you become overpowered around level 8-9. Thx to availability of good armour, large stamina pool and quickly becoming proficient in the combat skill, you will feel invincible way before the end of the game. On the other hand you have many skills where you get new points, but it doesn't feel meaningful. You don't need your reading level much higher than five and the perks associated with it are useless. Herbalism gets good around level 7 too and you feel like a fucking grim reaper. The animation should change to you picking up herbs with a ninja-like swing of your sword. At this point, your coat of arms should be hammer and sickle.
- Choices and Consequences – There are few which end up altering the gameplay, but often time they just lead to triggering a different cutscene or dialogue. I want more of the former ones. Also sometimes the reactions to my acts are underwhelming. Suddenly I turn up in the plate armour in the city and people do start calling me a knight when greeting me, but that's about it. You have an option to court and bed a few women, none of which acknowledges your deeds from the main quests. You sleep with them and that's it. No semblance of a relationship. This was disappointing. As if my deeds, didn't impress anyone. All you get with a good reputation is the cancer below.
- "Hey, Henry's come to see us!" – you will hate this after hearing it 1000x.
- Bugged quests – the main quests are mostly bug free, but the side quests in the second half are still not fixed (v 1.2.5). I skipped the side quests from Feyfar and Hanush. I tried them and couldn't achieve the outcome I wanted, because a person I needed to arrest always attacked me and it ended in a kill. A few quests require you to follow someone, but their pathing is messed up and they end up in the bushes or walls so it takes forever for them to reach their destination. Upon getting stucked they teleport once you turn around, but then they get stuck again.
- Sometimes you can't solve the quest the way you want. At one point NPC A tasks with killing NPC B. I respond I don't wanna kill B, thinking I'll kill A and get his key. Nope, can't do that, because they want to show you this cool quest, which turns out not be so cool. It also lets me eventually to keep B alive, for which A attacks me in the end. I kill A and take his key. Why couldn't I do it from the beginning?
- Pacing problem – Vávra was bragging so much about the 3h of cutscenes, but honestly it's an overkill and it bites back. Apart from cutscenes you have the in-engine dialogues and those add easily another 1h. Together these 4h of talking are split unevenly throught the game. You basically get 2h of this in the first third and 2h in the last third. The middle third is the best part of the game also because the combat and other skills feel balanced and exploring the world and doing the quests is a somewhat challenging adventure. The early game is too long (or slow, if you wish) and too punishing and you can't do shit as you need to learn everything. The final part is just being forced to do long travels across the whole map, where you have a short and easy fight in the better case. Mostly you just travel for 5 min, trigger a cutscene, travel 5 min to trigger another one and so on. Also once you get to the Sasau monastery area you stare at the wait/sleep clock too much. Even after you're out of that area in the final part of the game, you're twice required to wait a few days for a certain event to trigger and as there are many NPCs around you, the wait is 3x slower than normally. And you need to trigger it multiple times, because max waiting is 1 day and max sleep is 12h. This was the lowest point in the game for me. I hate that clock.
Ok, I could write even more, but let me stop here and conclude with a question: The final quest leads to – a DLC or KCD 2?
Sorry for the wall of text.
P.S.: Do people here start a new thread to discuss the ending of the game in order to keep the original Release thread spoiler-free?
TL;DR – incline in terms of quest writing, world building, complex mechanics. It needs lots of balancing and quest bugfixing, especially in the late game. Story is good, but uneven pacing makes the first and last thirds feel like an interactive film.
+ Overall:
- the game is ambitious, but some of the ambitions remained half-assed or botched completely
- the inclusion of systems like food, state of clothing, cleanliness and the interlinked web between these systems is nice
- sometimes the realism gets in the way of fun though, sometimes it leads to inconsistencies
- uneven pacing of the game
- the bugs in the first half of the game are mostly fixed and it's your standard open RPG experience now; the second half is still messy though
- the performance on PC was so-so to ok for a single-player game with the exception of areas with many NPCs where it dipped to 25-27 FPS occasionally (30-40 FPS in cities and 60 outside with i5-7600, RX 480 8GB and 16 GB RAM + SSD); hopefully the can optimize some more
- if not pure incline, it's at least a good direction toward incline as some of these things can be solved with patches and/or DLCs
- success of the game is a good thing, because there is hope that Warhorse will be able to perfect the formula with the next game. (Despite the leaders being veterans of the industry, majority of the studio are ppl new to the industry, oftentime fresh graduates.)
+ Good stuff:
- Map and world-building – absolutely stunning, believable and sensible world; at places feels empty though, but this could be filled with DLCs.
- Combat and armor system – very interesting idea, that's fun until the late game. The 'getting wrecked -> fair fights -> wrecking everyone' progress is uneven as it takes too long to get to the 'fair fights' phase which is short on top of it. But in general I liked the combat system as it's not a complete popamole. Well it is a popamole in the late game, but many other games are a popamole right from the beginning.
- Story and the quest writing – Based in real history, the story is very believable and in general it's quite well written. Henry, his father, Hans Capon, Radzig and Hanush are relatable and behave in a consistent manner. There were no moments where I would feel like, wtf did he do that, that's so much out of his character. The quests toward the end of the game are lame though, because they are just about fetching stuff. It fit's the story and is realistic, but it doesn't need to be split into so many little quests which just send you all over the map.
- Alchemy and herbalism – Initially feels like a chore, but I think the system and interplay between the two mechanics is done well. You suck at herbalism at the beginning and it's such a chore, mostly because of the pick-up animation. But once you start getting 3 herbs per one pick-up animation it's ok. The alchemy is done just right and other games should take example. The cooking steps are logical, the recipe learning and the fact it requires a bit of a reading skill is well thought out and the whole system deserves praise. The automation perk should come a bit sooner in my opinion, but overall it's one of the best alchemy mechanics I've ever seen in a game.
- Mechanics incorporation – Another nice thing about the mechanics is how well they are incorporated into the quests. Every mechanics is useful in one or more quests. The executioner quest comes to mind. Major incline here.
+ Bad stuff:
- Performance + AI – As mentioned above, it's so-so with a mid-level machine. What's bad is ppl with 1080 reporting similar performance in the cities. The AI in the game tries to be ambitious, but it burdens the CPU so much that the results is not worth it IMO. When I recall how Vávra was boasting about every sheep and chicken having it's own AI... Well if that's what takes 1-2 min to compute while you have to wait through sleep or waiting mechanics, then remove chicken. I don't care for them the slightest bit. The routines, etc. are better than Gothic 1+2, but I'm not sure if that much. Some of the less important NPCs sometimes just stare into wall the whole day, go to sleep, wash, eat and stare again. I think the next step is to create a few variations of the routine for everyone and randomize them. The game is really long, so you notice the repetitiveness sooner or later.
- Save&Quite should have been there from the beginning. This is aimed at mature audiences. Those people have life responsibilities and they need to be able to quit on a whim and continue where they left. Yuge oversight.
- Mechanics balance – You can just see in the second half of the game, that the devs didn't test it thoroughly enough. Not only bugs abound, but the mechanics need more tuning. In the combat, you become overpowered around level 8-9. Thx to availability of good armour, large stamina pool and quickly becoming proficient in the combat skill, you will feel invincible way before the end of the game. On the other hand you have many skills where you get new points, but it doesn't feel meaningful. You don't need your reading level much higher than five and the perks associated with it are useless. Herbalism gets good around level 7 too and you feel like a fucking grim reaper. The animation should change to you picking up herbs with a ninja-like swing of your sword. At this point, your coat of arms should be hammer and sickle.
- Choices and Consequences – There are few which end up altering the gameplay, but often time they just lead to triggering a different cutscene or dialogue. I want more of the former ones. Also sometimes the reactions to my acts are underwhelming. Suddenly I turn up in the plate armour in the city and people do start calling me a knight when greeting me, but that's about it. You have an option to court and bed a few women, none of which acknowledges your deeds from the main quests. You sleep with them and that's it. No semblance of a relationship. This was disappointing. As if my deeds, didn't impress anyone. All you get with a good reputation is the cancer below.
- "Hey, Henry's come to see us!" – you will hate this after hearing it 1000x.
- Bugged quests – the main quests are mostly bug free, but the side quests in the second half are still not fixed (v 1.2.5). I skipped the side quests from Feyfar and Hanush. I tried them and couldn't achieve the outcome I wanted, because a person I needed to arrest always attacked me and it ended in a kill. A few quests require you to follow someone, but their pathing is messed up and they end up in the bushes or walls so it takes forever for them to reach their destination. Upon getting stucked they teleport once you turn around, but then they get stuck again.
- Sometimes you can't solve the quest the way you want. At one point NPC A tasks with killing NPC B. I respond I don't wanna kill B, thinking I'll kill A and get his key. Nope, can't do that, because they want to show you this cool quest, which turns out not be so cool. It also lets me eventually to keep B alive, for which A attacks me in the end. I kill A and take his key. Why couldn't I do it from the beginning?
- Pacing problem – Vávra was bragging so much about the 3h of cutscenes, but honestly it's an overkill and it bites back. Apart from cutscenes you have the in-engine dialogues and those add easily another 1h. Together these 4h of talking are split unevenly throught the game. You basically get 2h of this in the first third and 2h in the last third. The middle third is the best part of the game also because the combat and other skills feel balanced and exploring the world and doing the quests is a somewhat challenging adventure. The early game is too long (or slow, if you wish) and too punishing and you can't do shit as you need to learn everything. The final part is just being forced to do long travels across the whole map, where you have a short and easy fight in the better case. Mostly you just travel for 5 min, trigger a cutscene, travel 5 min to trigger another one and so on. Also once you get to the Sasau monastery area you stare at the wait/sleep clock too much. Even after you're out of that area in the final part of the game, you're twice required to wait a few days for a certain event to trigger and as there are many NPCs around you, the wait is 3x slower than normally. And you need to trigger it multiple times, because max waiting is 1 day and max sleep is 12h. This was the lowest point in the game for me. I hate that clock.
Ok, I could write even more, but let me stop here and conclude with a question: The final quest leads to – a DLC or KCD 2?
IMO, the expedition is going to be a DLC, while you will only fight Markvart and Istvan in KCD 2.
Sorry for the wall of text.
P.S.: Do people here start a new thread to discuss the ending of the game in order to keep the original Release thread spoiler-free?
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