Interview Monster Hunting In The Witcher 3: Returning to the Roots of the Witcher Concept

[Crispy]

Witcher 1-like gameplay, much larger open world, no W2 QTE's, incredible graphics, Geralt with a beard?

Sign me up.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I didn't really mind the "kill X monsters" quests in Witcher 1. They were optional, they fit the narrative, and the way loot worked made the rewards very meaningful. On that note, I dearly hope they keep that loot system, where you can't really get filthy rich by selling wagons of equipment torn from slain enemies, and actually need to do jobs for people in order to get any meaningful amount of money. Was there ever an open world RPG that did this?

I think Dragons Dogma did this well with its grabbing mechanic but it wont suit Witcher considering we mostly use two handed swords.

I don't know and largerly don't care wtf "dragons dogma" is, but I am pretty certain I want no "grabbing mechanic" in the games I play.

So you don't want to grapple a dragon?

 

[Kz3r0]

That's a bit misleading. They are open world games in the sense that you can go anywhere and discover things along the way. But they're not open world the same way as TES or Gothic, where there's one continuous world to traverse. Ultimately Fallout1&2 are composed of a bunch of discrete locations separated by empty space and random encounters - not unlike BG2 for example.

Arcanum, open and continuous.

 

[Cool name]

Shadow of the Colossus is one, only in the context of the gameplay system of Shadow of the Colossus. Unless the Witcher involved climbing and platforming then it would not be a solution for the Witcher. So you missed the point entirely.

You did mention the cost of animation previously. This does also apply to the animation side of QTEs. These do also need to be more detailed for the QTE to work as a cinematic experience. The monsters in The Witcher II are not really that big in comparison to the Colossi. You do not need all that hanging and climbing and jumping, nor do you need different versions of each as a smaller enemy is much less 'open' on the way you can 'navigate' it. I do believe the price to animate, what... One way of climbing, a few balancing animations, and a crouched 'push your sword deep into its head/face/thingie' animation does at face value seem less than the cost to animate all those AWESOME QTEs with unique shit going on. And it does add a memorable gameplay element to an otherwise pretty run-of-the-mill (if you are into action games at least) battle.

I am however not saying The Witcher should copy Shadow of the Colossus. I am saying QTEs are retarded. I do personally only like them when they are going into stuff that can't really be made into 'gameplay.' If you do have to choose between 'cinematic' and 'interactive cinematic' alright, 'interactive cinematic' should win. If you have to choose between 'gameplay' and 'interactive cinematic' it should not.

The only game to do QTEs right was Asura's Wrath. The entire game is pretty much nothing but interactive high budget spectacle, but then the best way to enjoy Asura's Wrath is to sit with a cup of tea next to someone else while he does play and go WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW at the awesome shit that does happen in the screen. It is not a GAME. Not by a long shot.

Spoiler

 

[tuluse]

The basic point being: systems need to be consistent. QTEs expedite the problems of hack&slash focused systems when they encounter large-scale boss fights. They are not sophisticated solutions, but one solution. I'd much rather a couple quick and dirty QTEs than a twenty minute boss fight where I hack and slash the legs of an HP bloated monster and wait for it to fall spraying blood out of its head as if I hadn't only been trimming its toe nails.

Yeah that's the point. There are better ways of doing it, and Shadow of the Colossus is one. QTEs are not fun.

Shadow of the Colossus is one, only in the context of the gameplay system of Shadow of the Colossus. Unless the Witcher involved climbing and platforming then it would not be a solution for the Witcher. So you missed the point entirely.

That's why I offered 2 solutions initially. I prefer the minigame/puzzle route to QTEs. Figuring out that the lighting would destroy the golem and tricking him into walking into the danger was better.

All that said, the Witcher 2 bosses weren't awful. The parts leading up to the QTE events were fine.

 

[Crispy]

I will admit that the part where Geralt is dropping down from those mini cliffs into the swamp below and avoiding the tentacles was exciting. But after the 15th attempt at killing the thing I was almost ready to ragedestroy my monitor.

 

[Mrowak]

Since we are all pouring our gripes at the bosses in TW2, here are my two cents:

1) The three main bosses (Kayran, Draugir and the Dragon) were all conditioned towards one universal, sword-style oriented build, which practically negated the benefits the player could draw from other progression trees. All (even maxed out) spells were ineffective against those bosses. The use of alchemy against Kayran was limited and you couldn't use potions against Draugir, because their effects were disspelled before the battle. So instead of offering at least three different paths to defeat those creatures depending on player's build the game decides to throw its character progression out of the window and force him to hack-hack, slash-slash his way through them. In the moments those character development choices should shine, they are completely abandoned. Clearly, the best RPG of all time.

2) The three battles were build around one control mechanic - rolling. Not a single other player input enjoyed similar importance. As a result the battles came down to "roll left", "roll right", roll-fests, with constant repetition of enemy attack patterns and player's response to them. What's practically criminal - this resulted in rolling overshadowing all other modes of defense throughout the game! There were plans to link rolling to endurance in the EE, and remove one or two points per roll (like Namco did in Dark Souls). However, because of the boss battle design this proved impossible. The result is obvious: roll spammage throughout the game, limiting the usefulness of Blocking and Parrying and other skills. Fortunately in TW3 "dodges" will involve losing endurance and can cause stagger.

3) Those three battles were taken out of proportions when you look at them from the broader perspective of the in-game lore. They were meant to be "epic", in the gameworld that pretty much was as "anti-epic" as it could get. The whole game keeps itself down-to-earth, reminding you that although you are technically more than a human, certain matters are too big for you to deal with. But then it just sends you - just you alone - against something whole armies cannot deal with... And ultimately you prevail not because of some special faculty that the said whole army doesn't have, but due to twitch combat and QTEs. In consequence the boss battles strike me as tacked on, placed there just because, "duh, it's a video game, so there's got to be a huge, epic monster".

4) If we take the three abovesaid points together it will turn out how ill-conceived all of those boss battles were gameplaywise. There are no mechanics, no character progression attributes, no abilities, no inputs, no game-lore justification, no nothing that would serve to depict the scale of those encounters - how they should really look like. The effect? QTEs and cutscenes, when it turns all of the gameplay was a busywork, a prelude to what "real battle" was meant to be depicted; but too bad player - you are not going to *do* any of the cool stuff. Just roll some more.


This last point - methinks - underlies the crux of the discussion about QTEs in this thread. In my opinion QTEs in TW2 are pretty bad, because they are a suboptimal means of depicting the actual action. Implementing them means a major failure of game design - it's essentially saying "we don't have a clue how to create an encounter around the gameplay mechanics we designed". o_O

That said, I enjoyed this game immensely.

 

[made]

This last point - methinks - underlies the crux of the discussion about QTEs in this thread. In my opinion QTEs in TW2 are pretty bad, because they are a suboptimal means of depicting the actual action. Implementing them means a major failure of game design - it's essentially saying "we don't have a clue how to create an encounter around the gameplay mechanics we designed". o_O

But then they had Letho. The game needed more Letho-style encounters and fewer Draugir. In fact, no Draugir at all; that was the single-most annoying sequence in the game.

Dark Souls had a lot more variety in its boss fights, and while some were gimmcky and had QTE elements, the majority was designed around standard gameplay mechanics or creative use of the environment. Particularly the DLC bosses were really fun and dynamic.

 

[Carrion]

I didn't really mind the "kill X monsters" quests in Witcher 1. They were optional, they fit the narrative, and the way loot worked made the rewards very meaningful. On that note, I dearly hope they keep that loot system, where you can't really get filthy rich by selling wagons of equipment torn from slain enemies, and actually need to do jobs for people in order to get any meaningful amount of money. Was there ever an open world RPG that did this?

Agreed on both points. I really liked how the mundane monster killing quests in TW1 introduced you to characters that would become important later in the game, like Abigail, Kalkstein and Vincent Meis. The actual quests in TW2 were probably better since you had to figure out what to do first instead of just collecting monster organs, but they didn't really tie into the rest of the narrative in any way. I wish they'd go back to the limited inventory system of TW1, but simply going the TW2 route wouldn't be too bad either.

 

[Mrowak]

This last point - methinks - underlies the crux of the discussion about QTEs in this thread. In my opinion QTEs in TW2 are pretty bad, because they are a suboptimal means of depicting the actual action. Implementing them means a major failure of game design - it's essentially saying "we don't have a clue how to create an encounter around the gameplay mechanics we designed". o_O

But then they had Letho. The game needed more Letho-style encounters and fewer Draugir. In fact, no Draugir at all; that was the single-most annoying sequence in the game.

Ehh... I am not a big fan of the fight with Letho on account how broken it was - as opposed to combating lvl 35 yourself (a mirror fight of sorts) you got a boring hulk with "uber" Aard, Quen, bombs and so forth and hp bloat. The clash with the other witchers in act 2 (Roche's path) was the same. Also I hated that the fight with Letho ended with a cutscene that nullified the entire point of gameplay.

IMO, TW2 was at its best when you had to fight hordes of pawns. These were quite demanding and fair battles where you had to use all the skills and tools at your disposal - there the character progression system they devised worked. It was also so cool when they enabled some enemies to throw bombs and daggers in EE.

Dark Souls had a lot more variety in its boss fights, and while some were gimmcky and had QTE elements, the majority was designed around standard gameplay mechanics or creative use of the environment. Particularly the DLC bosses were really fun and dynamic.

Agreed. Dark Souls' bosses are far superior.

 

[Maiandros]

That's a nice way of saying "we'll implement trash MMO quests to fill up the vast amount of empty space in our open world"