So I'm playing TW2 on Dark mode... First impressions.

[ZagorTeNej]

Mod that shit out man:

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher2/mods/649/?

I had already looked into it, and I must say it's tempting... But yet, I'm not a big fan of mods, and I realize I eventually got the hang of it, sorta. Dunno, I'll give myself some more playtime before raging.

Yeah, I get that, I use them rarely myself (and think most of them are terrible). Still, I'm willing to make an exception if removing a certain effect greatly improves the experience (and let's face it, graphics are one of the strongest Witcher 2 assets) or if I played the game many times and am looking for a somewhat different experience.

You're not forced to use the "dark set" swords with the armor though (you can wear the armor without them), their only advantage over best regular swords you can find/buy is health leech, other than you'll be able to find swords that do more damage/have better effects when upgraded with runes in the same chapter.

 

[Borelli]

W2 on lower difficulties does not require you to use bombs/traps/knives you can just go on with using basic swordfighting + quen. I might give it another playthrough on higher difficulties just to feel that advanced gameplay, making items before battle, planning for the hunt. You know, to feel like a Witcher.

Btw is Dark mode the one that forces permadeath?

 

[Carrion]

Btw is Dark mode the one that forces permadeath?

No, that's Insane. I think Dark Mode is the same thing difficulty-wise (meaning the amount of damage your enemies deal) but without permadeath and with some added items.

 

[Jools]

Btw is Dark mode the one that forces permadeath?

No, that's Insane. I think Dark Mode is the same thing difficulty-wise (meaning the amount of damage your enemies deal) but without permadeath and with some added items.

Yup, that's it. Same as insane, but with reloading after death enabled.

 

[Jools]

Mod that shit out man:

http://www.nexusmods.com/witcher2/mods/649/?

I had already looked into it, and I must say it's tempting... But yet, I'm not a big fan of mods, and I realize I eventually got the hang of it, sorta. Dunno, I'll give myself some more playtime before raging.

Yeah, I get that, I use them rarely myself (and think most of them are terrible). Still, I'm willing to make an exception if removing a certain effect greatly improves the experience (and let's face it, graphics are one of the strongest Witcher 2 assets) or if I played the game many times and am looking for a somewhat different experience.

You're not forced to use the "dark set" swords with the armor though (you can wear the armor without them), their only advantage over best regular swords you can find/buy is health leech, other than you'll be able to find swords that do more damage/have better effects when upgraded with runes in the same chapter.

I must confess, I've quickly gotten used to the grimdark effect. The background growling sound is still annoying and doesn't make any sense lore-wise, but whatever. On the other hand, you are right in saying that the grimdark effect makes you miss out on most of the game's colourful and vivid visuals, so I'm still debated whether to mod it out or not... :/

 

[Jools]

Letho (the first fight) down on 4th attempt. Then I found myself wondering, if this was going to be a scripted fight and Letho had to win, why did they make it so that the "Letho wins" cutscene only triggers when Letho gets beaten to roughly 50% of his health? It's a really annoying contradiction in design. It would have made much more sense if Letho has just trashed the player in a few, massive hits, and then spared their lives. I always had little tolerance for scripted boss fights, but this one really takes the cookie for retardedness. I really don't see the point of letting the player trash Letho down to 50% (it's actually pretty easy even on Dark, once you get the hang of it), only to have a cutscene stop you from destroying him and show you how Letho is actually stronger. Not cool, CDP, not cool.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

I must confess, I've quickly gotten used to the grimdark effect. The background growling sound is still annoying and doesn't make any sense lore-wise, but whatever. On the other hand, you are right in saying that the grimdark effect makes you miss out on most of the game's colourful and vivid visuals, so I'm still debated whether to mod it out or not... :/

Just do it to see if you like it? The installation process consists of placing a file inside the game folder

 

[Jools]

I must confess, I've quickly gotten used to the grimdark effect. The background growling sound is still annoying and doesn't make any sense lore-wise, but whatever. On the other hand, you are right in saying that the grimdark effect makes you miss out on most of the game's colourful and vivid visuals, so I'm still debated whether to mod it out or not... :/

Just do it to see if you like it? The installation process consists of placing a file inside the game folder

I did, and I actually found myself -almost- missing the grimdark effect. It made fights a bit more challenging and a bit more visually appealing: considering the lack of decent blood and gore in the game, the very colourful fights looks a bit campy. Verdict: I'm fine both ways.

 

[Cadmus]

Letho (the first fight) down on 4th attempt. Then I found myself wondering, if this was going to be a scripted fight and Letho had to win, why did they make it so that the "Letho wins" cutscene only triggers when Letho gets beaten to roughly 50% of his health? It's a really annoying contradiction in design. It would have made much more sense if Letho has just trashed the player in a few, massive hits, and then spared their lives. I always had little tolerance for scripted boss fights, but this one really takes the cookie for retardedness. I really don't see the point of letting the player trash Letho down to 50% (it's actually pretty easy even on Dark, once you get the hang of it), only to have a cutscene stop you from destroying him and show you how Letho is actually stronger. Not cool, CDP, not cool.

Yeah, this was so stupid, there's no excuse for that.

 

[Borelli]

Actual boss fight > boss thrashing you in few hits. Even with the stupidity it puts on the player influence on the story it is more fun gameplay-wise.

 

[Jools]

Actual boss fight > boss thrashing you in few hits. Even with the stupidity it puts on the player influence on the story it is more fun gameplay-wise.

Uhm, nope. It's really annoying and immershun-breaking. Also, since they were gonna script the fight, they might have scripted it so that the fight still felt "real" and "fair", or they could have come up with a better deus-ex-machina to force the plot go where they wanted it to. I repeat, a device like this is just utter bullshit and story-raping the player.

In fact, for this kind of situation, a cutscene would have been even better: a cutscene wouldn't have tricked the player into believing they were going to win, only to make them lose for reasons that don't make any sense. In the specific case, and if we don't dwelve into metagaming and 4th-wall-breaking, there is no logical reason nor hint, in the game/story/events so far, as to why Geralt should be defeated at all.

Furthermore, this could have been a great chance at implementing story branching. Had the player been skilled enough to win the fight, the story could have gone one way, while if the player got defeated, they could have popped the Letho-spares-your-life cutscene and made the plot go in another direction. Unfortunately, IMHO, one of the main flaws of TW2 is it's not-even-too-disguised railroadedness, and this just is infamous proof of that.

 

[Borelli]

To each their own i guess. Personally, i would put it so that when Letho drops beneath 50% he gets a power boost which makes him guarantee to defeat you thus satisfiying my desire for a boss fight and yours for a non 4th wall breaking conclusion.

 

[Jools]

To each their own i guess. Personally, i would put it so that when Letho drops beneath 50% he gets a power boost which makes him guarantee to defeat you thus satisfiying my desire for a boss fight and yours for a non 4th wall breaking conclusion.

That would work too. In other words, they picked the one option that's the most meh.

 

[Carrion]

Letho beating Geralt is one thing and somewhat acceptable in terms of story (even though I pretty much always dislike forced failures like this), him "sparing Geralt's life" and even gloating about it afterwards is just terrible. I would've been fine with two different cutscenes for different outcomes: If Letho kicks your ass, you get the current one. If you kick Letho's ass, he barely escapes collapsing a passage with Aard or something, maybe mentioning something about Triss before hastily leaving the scene. It would've still been railroading and kind of cheap, but at least they wouldn't have kicked the player on the balls the way they did, and they could've just rolled with the current plot that they had. Alternatively they could've just had Geralt take part (or remain neutral) in the fight above ground with Roche and the Scoia'tael and let Letho escape in the middle of the chaos, which would've required some minor changes to the next portion of the main quest but nothing too drastic.

edit: Better yet, they could've made Geralt fight Serrit or Auckes (or some third guy) instead and have him spill the beans on Letho's whereabouts. It's not like Geralt has to have a face-to-face meeting with the Kingslayer at this point of the game.

 

[Jools]

Letho beating Geralt is one thing and somewhat acceptable in terms of story (even though I pretty much always dislike forced failures like this), him "sparing Geralt's life" and even gloating about it afterwards is just terrible. I would've been fine with two different cutscenes for different outcomes: If Letho kicks your ass, you get the current one. If you kick Letho's ass, he barely escapes collapsing a passage with Aard or something, maybe mentioning something about Triss before hastily leaving the scene. It would've still been railroading and kind of cheap, but at least they wouldn't have kicked the player on the balls the way they did, and they could've just rolled with the current plot that they had. Alternatively they could've just had Geralt take part (or remain neutral) in the fight above ground with Roche and the Scoia'tael and let Letho escape in the middle of the chaos, which would've required some minor changes to the next portion of the main quest but nothing too drastic.

edit: Better yet, they could've made Geralt fight Serrit or Auckes (or some third guy) instead and have him spill the beans on Letho's whereabouts. It's not like Geralt has to have a face-to-face meeting with the Kingslayer at this point of the game.

Also a very valid suggestion.

Meanwhile, I got to act3 and I lost all wind. I dunno, the fact that I know this is the end of the game, the fact that I know this chapter is really short, the fact that the settings is utter crap (I really don't like this ruined city setting), the fact that in the whole game there hasn't been any major city environment (which I personally love, EG Vizima in W1, or the whole first part of NWN, all the stuff one could do without even leaving town in Gothic 1, Gothic 2, Risen, etc)... Whereas I've played act 1 and 2 as a completionist, I'm now tempted to go straight for the grand finale and skip everything else, not even sure I'll bother crafting the third Dark armour set.

As I approach the end of this playthrough, I realize I need to change my stance about TW2 a bit. While I used to like it a lot, this playthrough, with the complicity of Dark mode, has put me face to face with its shortcomings. In all honesty, I must admit that 80% of my love for the game comes from the settings, I am just really fond of the world of the Witcher, and just crave to see more of it. The game is visually beautiful and believable while retaining vivid and bright colours, the story is compelling enough despite being railroaded, there are some original ideas here and there but, I can't lie, the game really sucks as an RPG. Gameplay-wise, it's really no more than an action game (and a mediocre one at that) with talents, and few plot choices, and whores.

 

[Carrion]

So, did you go with Roche or Iorveth? Vergen's kind of supposed to be TW2's Vizima, but with Roche you won't get to see it (although I think Roche's path is overall better, especially with the Enhanced Edition). Too bad that they ruined both dice poker (it should be best-of-three, goddammit) and fist fights (piss-easy QTEs) and didn't include alcohol, so fucking around in the city isn't nearly as fun as it was in the first game.

 

[Jools]

This time I went with Roche and yes, it is a much better path. Also a much preferrable character, IMHO: I could never really stand Iorveth, plus you get to bone Ves. On the other playthrough I went with Iorveth, but I wouldn't count Vergen as "city". Even Flotsam has a better "city" feeling than Vergen, or than Loc Muinne. Chapter 2 is really meh, it feels like a transitional chapter, but in fact it's half the game, and it's nowhere near as nice as chapter 1. And it sorta transitions into something even more meh. Witcher 1 had a much better chapter sequence and better balanced alternance of countryside/city stuff.