The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[Haplo]

That said the itemization in TW1 is boring, it's p. much all herbs and ingredients for potions you're never gonna use. TW2 hit the right balance, ish, between "nothing interesting" and "fucking crapton of garbage".

I disagree. I mean herbs, non-witcher weapons and miscellaneous, maybe (but alchemy was really useful). But witcher swords and armor - were just right for a game of this size, I thought. Appropriately rare, felt rewarding to find/win, carried large performance upgrades.
I thought TW1 had great itemization.

 

[cvv]

That said the itemization in TW1 is boring, it's p. much all herbs and ingredients for potions you're never gonna use. TW2 hit the right balance, ish, between "nothing interesting" and "fucking crapton of garbage".

I disagree. I mean herbs, non-witcher weapons and miscellaneous, maybe (but alchemy was really useful). But witcher swords and armor - were just right for a game of this size, I thought. Appropriately rare, felt rewarding to find/win, carried large performance upgrades.
I thought TW1 had great itemization.

A matter of personal taste. For me non-witcher gear was pointless and witcher gear was a bit TOO rare for a 50 hour game.

That said relative rarity is one of the main pillars of good itemization, which is what most Western devs do not seem to be capable of grasping.

 

[Ravielsk]

There's too many witcher sets and they're too easy to make. If there were only two or three powerful witcher armor sets in the whole game, strategically placed, it would be balanced better.

I have to agree with this. The benefits of those sets render any other armor into basically irrelevant vendor trash. The game even gives you quest markers for finding diagrams for those witcher sets so really the only challenge there is to have high enough level to be able to pick them up(and sometimes not even that).

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I found the itemization to be the same sort of crap that Borderlands pulls.
A lot of gear that you enjoy using for a little bit before having to drop it because its suddenly underleveled.
Dark Souls has the better system because all weapons are viable (well in the sense that a longsword is a longsword, not some nonsense where a longsword is a longsword until you find a longsword that's a higher level), you just have to upgrade them and get your scalings right.

I don't remember what system Witcher 1 and 2 have, but I don't recall it being annoying like that and flooding your inventory with gear that quickly becomes obsolete.

 

[cvv]

the only challenge there is to have high enough level to be able to pick them up(and sometimes not even that).

That would be ok if true. In reality you always have enough level for SOME Witcher school gear. AFAIK you can find the Viper school gear very early in White Orchard.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

To be fair, Witcher school gear also suffers from the leveling crap, where Superior gear gets outclassed by level 32 armor, and Mastercrafted gear gets outclassed by something like 36 armor.
Grandmaster should be the best tier of armor until you go to NG+, so that's fine I guess.

 

[Haplo]

I found the itemization to be the same sort of crap that Borderlands pulls.
A lot of gear that you enjoy using for a little bit before having to drop it because its suddenly underleveled.
Dark Souls has the better system because all weapons are viable (well in the sense that a longsword is a longsword, not some nonsense where a longsword is a longsword until you find a longsword that's a higher level), you just have to upgrade them and get your scalings right.

I don't remember what system Witcher 1 and 2 have, but I don't recall it being annoying like that and flooding your inventory with gear that quickly becomes obsolete.

Witcher 1 was nothing like that. Equipment upgrades were rare and precious. In fact, weapons didn't even have a standalone damage stat - but % modifiers to Geralt's damage output.

Witcher 2 was in the middle. You're not quite flooded with junk like in W3, but still, equipment no longer felt as valuable or rare as in TW1. I never felt attached to any equipment in TW2 (I was very attached to certain swords in TW1 - which is a rare accomplishment in crpgs).

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

I found the itemization to be the same sort of crap that Borderlands pulls.
A lot of gear that you enjoy using for a little bit before having to drop it because its suddenly underleveled.
Dark Souls has the better system because all weapons are viable (well in the sense that a longsword is a longsword, not some nonsense where a longsword is a longsword until you find a longsword that's a higher level), you just have to upgrade them and get your scalings right.

I don't remember what system Witcher 1 and 2 have, but I don't recall it being annoying like that and flooding your inventory with gear that quickly becomes obsolete.

Witcher 1 was nothing like that. Equipment upgrades were rare and precious. In fact, weapons didn't even have a standalone damage stat - but % modifiers to Geralt's damage output.

Witcher 2 was in the middle. You're not quite flooded with junk like in W3, but still, equipment no longer felt as valuable or rare as in TW1. I never felt attached to any equipment in TW2 (I was very attached to certain swords in TW1 - which is a rare accomplishment in crpgs).

Yeah that's right, I looked it up after and neither Witcher 1 nor 2 had the level locking nonsense.
Its funny reading about it in the forums where people try defending Witcher 3's system saying that getting a "higher leveled" weapon would break the game, as if that's not also an example of bad design and Dark Souls doesn't exist.

 

[Ravielsk]

Yeah that's right, I looked it up after and neither Witcher 1 nor 2 had the level locking nonsense.
Its funny reading about it in the forums where people try defending Witcher 3's system saying that getting a "higher leveled" weapon would break the game, as if that's not also an example of bad design and Dark Souls doesn't exist.

This is actually what annoys me the most about Dark Souls. Every fucking action RPG wants to be like it but so far I have yet to take any design ques from it beyond having (a badly implemented) a stamina bar. You would think that after a decade of everyone making "The Dark Souls of X" there would be at least some that successfully copied the formula but so far even big AAA projects like Witcher failed to come even close.

Spoiler

Except maybe for Hellpoint but only if you are willing to accept how low rent it is.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

That's probably because a lot of the people saying that "Dark Souls of X" nonsense (ie Game Journos) don't actually understand what Dark Souls is.
Its not about difficulty, its not about a stamina bar, its about an interconnected, barely scripted world that doesn't try to hold your hand, does not scale with your level nor does it really care about levels, expects you to learn from your mistakes, encourages you to learn enemy attack patterns and come prepared to a situation.
You know, like how games used to be before they turned into journo-friendly rail road crap.
Hell, Stalker had some of the same concepts as Dark Souls. The Dark Souls formula isn't really anything new, it was just released at a time where such concepts were considered novel, that is to say, during the Age of Decline.

 

[Ravielsk]

That's probably because a lot of the people saying that "Dark Souls of X" nonsense (ie Game Journos) don't actually understand what Dark Souls is.
Its not about difficulty, its not about a stamina bar, its about an interconnected, barely scripted world that doesn't try to hold your hand, does not scale with your level nor does it really care about levels, expects you to learn from your mistakes, encourages you to learn enemy attack patterns and come prepared to a situation.
You know, like how games used to be before they turned into journo-friendly rail road crap.
Hell, Stalker had some of the same concepts as Dark Souls. The Dark Souls formula isn't really anything new, it was just released at a time where such concepts were considered novel, that is to say, during the Age of Decline.

I am well aware that Dark Souls is a 2004 game made with 2011 technology. My problem is that so many games are trying to market themselves on its shoulders yet have adopted basically nothing from it. When it got popular I had hoped that some of its base design philosophies would see some kind of a comeback into the gaming mainstream. Instead we got "hurd mode" and stamina bars everywhere and nothing else beyond that.

Witcher 3 is especially depressing it that regard because it technically has everything in place to be that kind of a game but it just isn't. Like they make one step forward and then immediately make another back. So they have tons of armor pieces you can mix and match but then they gate them behind levels and include witcher armors/weapons that make everything else obsolete, they made this even worse in the DLC as they introduced new upgrade level for those armors that makes them even better and everything else even more irrelevant.
They create a frenetic action combat system but then hide half the freaking moves at the bottom of the skill tree and then force you to have only a couple active at a time.
Or lets have a crapton of quests but severely reduce or outright remove the exp rewards if you are even slightly overlevel for them, making them essentially optional filler content.
Or how about using oils to increase damage to certain enemy types but instead of having them on a timer lets have them as a set number of hits, because obviously nothing is more challenging than reopening my inventory every 20 hits to reapply a freakin oil.

There is just so much in that game that makes me feel like someone was actively trying to sabotage it because for every good decision there is another bad one that negates it.

 

[Old Hans]

reopening my inventory every 20 hits to reapply a freakin oil.

this was seriously one of the clunkiest systems, especially if you played the first game which had the nice animation. I could rant all day about the farty systems in this game

 

[Danikas]

this was seriously one of the clunkiest systems, especially if you played the first game which had the nice animation. I could rant all day about the farty systems in this game

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

So are dimetrium bombs actually fucking useless? They are supposed to counter magic, but mages just ignore them.
Did nothing against the Mage boss in Hearts of Stone, did nothing against those elven mage cunts in Extreme Cosplay (shitty side quest in Blood in Wine which highlights how bad the combat system in this game is), and are pointless against elementals because their spells can be easily avoided anyway

Edit : I just used it against a Leshen, which are supposed to be countered by it. It still teleported and used its vines. How did CDPR fuck up that badly?

 

[ga♥]

So I beat the main quest line, and other than nice cinematic I got (Empress Ciri ending) I found the resolution rather underwhelming.
It left a lot of questions and plot threads unanswered. Here's a list

Spoiler

- What happened to Yennefer? If you romance Triss the game just forgets about her, which is bloody weird considering how important she is to the story
- Ditto for Avellach. No ending slide for him, the game just forgets
- What happened to the last crone? Shouldn't there be a raid boss like quest after her as Geralt? Apparently you kill her in the bad ending, but having to make all of the wrong choices just to resolve a loose end is kind of bullshit
- What happened to the Lodge? There was all of that talk about restoring it, and then nothing
-What happened to Dandelion and Priscilla? Do they get hitched or what?
-How did Ciri return from the White Frost? What did she even do to it?

For fucks sake, even Skyrim has a more comprehensive ending.

As most games, storywise the end is rushed and chopped up.

E.g. they ruined the crones, great villains and a bit of Ravel in them, by making them servants of the wild hunt (wtf???) and easy killable.
Because they needed some sort of closure.

Also Keira Metz best waifu.

 

[Ravielsk]

As most games, storywise the end is rushed and chopped up.

E.g. they ruined the crones, great villains and a bit of Ravel in them, by making them servants of the wild hunt (wtf???) and easy killable.
Because they needed some sort of closure.

Also Keira Metz best waifu.

Witcher 3 in general feels weirdly rushed in the story department. Everything surrounding Ciri is obviously a late development addition as neither her gameplay nor story sections seem to be actually finished. Her gameplay is just stripped down Geralt with teleport dodges that obviously cover too much ground to be practically useful(outside of that one endgame boss) and no signs(which is fucking bizarre because Ciri was explicitly trained to use magic by Jennefer). Those sections are also miserably short and not communicate anything that could not have been said in dialogue.

As far as the story goes her entire presence appears to have been hastily tacked onto the story as the vast majority of the game is only loosely connected to searching for her. Most mainline quests in fact connect to her via a brief cutscene or an offhand mention that have no bearing on the plot at all. Worst of all the whole "search for Ciri" quest ultimately resolves it self via a obvious deus ex machina, again almost as if unfinished or tacked on at the last minute. Especially in context of the previous two games where nobody even bothered to mention Ciri by name(spoilers: because her story was already fully resolved in the books and bringing her back made no sense even if Geralt had all his memories) its just bizzare to suddenly make the whole game revolve around her and stopping the White Frost.
Which BTW was up until Witcher 3 clearly presented as a natural ecological catastrophe(like the sun dying) that is simply destined to happen far into the future either way and had nothing to do with Ciri or elder blood but was exaggerated by prophets who had no real idea what they saw. Hell, the whole story of Witcher 1 was clearly written to establish that Ciri and her elder blood are not as rare or unique and that others might possess it as well(a.k.a Alvin).

It smells of rewrites or just plain desperation as the release date was getting closer and the game was only 50% done.

 

[Storyfag]

White Frost.
Which BTW was up until Witcher 3 clearly presented as a natural ecological catastrophe(like the sun dying) that is simply destined to happen far into the future either way and had nothing to do with Ciri or elder blood but was exaggerated by prophets who had no real idea what they saw.

Not quite. The purpose of the Elder Blood was to command the Gate of Worlds, thus allowing for evacuation of the Witcher world before it is doomed by the ice age. But it was indeed a natural ice age.

Hell, the whole story of Witcher 1 was clearly written to establish that Ciri and her elder blood are not as rare or unique and that others might possess it as well(a.k.a Alvin).

That's not quite right either. Alvin was't as pure and as powerful as Ciri, though clearly her very distant relative.

 

[ekrolo2]

As most games, storywise the end is rushed and chopped up.

E.g. they ruined the crones, great villains and a bit of Ravel in them, by making them servants of the wild hunt (wtf???) and easy killable.
Because they needed some sort of closure.

Also Keira Metz best waifu.

No signs(which is fucking bizarre because Ciri was explicitly trained to use magic by Jennefer).
Which BTW was up until Witcher 3 clearly presented as a natural ecological catastrophe(like the sun dying) that is simply destined to happen far into the future either way and had nothing to do with Ciri or elder blood but was exaggerated by prophets who had no real idea what they saw. Hell, the whole story of Witcher 1 was clearly written to establish that Ciri and her elder blood are not as rare or unique and that others might possess it as well(a.k.a Alvin).

A couple clarifications, Ciri can't use magic like Yennefer since the second book, she forsook that ability. She can only use proper spells if an outside source of power enters her body to draw from but Ciri deafened herself to using it of her own volition. Alvin also doesn't really make sense with the books either as they establish that men with the Elder Blood can't use its power. They might be born capable of being mages but travelling between worlds and time travel is a power that passes them. It appears only in females from Larra Doren's line.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Hm interesting, would explain why there seems to be a general apathy towards Alvin and why CDPR just sort of forgot about him, if he's that out of line with the books.

Playing the game with Upscaling just shows how silly the itemization and leveling system in this game is.
Upscaling should have been the default (as in, no leveled enemies or equipment at all) and weapons and armor performance should depend on runes, skills and upgrades, not levels.
There should only be one Deardeth or Moonblade in the game not 10 of them of various levels.

 

[ekrolo2]

Hm interesting, would explain why there seems to be a general apathy towards Alvin and why CDPR just sort of forgot about him, if he's that out of line with the books.

Playing the game with Upscaling just shows how silly the itemization and leveling system in this game is.
Upscaling should have been the default (as in, no leveled enemies or equipment at all) and weapons and armor performance should depend on runes, skills and upgrades, not levels.
There should only be one Deardeth or Moonblade in the game not 10 of them of various levels.

There is a mod that removes all quest, item, character and monster levels, allowing you to play the story in any order you choose but I've never tried it. Enhanced Edition does the same thing but its also got a lot of added extra bells and whistles that may or may not to be someone's liking.

 

[Ravielsk]

A couple clarifications, Ciri can't use magic like Yennefer since the second book, she forsook that ability. She can only use proper spells if an outside source of power enters her body to draw from but Ciri deafened herself to using it of her own volition.

My bad. Its been over a decade since I read the books so some details slipped my mind. Either way my point remains the same, Ciri should be able to do a bit more with her powers especially since she was supposedly training with Avalach.

Alvin also doesn't really make sense with the books either as they establish that men with the Elder Blood can't use its power. They might be born capable of being mages but travelling between worlds and time travel is a power that passes them. It appears only in females from Larra Doren's line.

That is an easy problem to circumvent in multiple ways. You could make the argument that natural mutation or external tampering by mages or elves made him able to use said power. You could have written it so that he possess some other form of power that is only mislabeled as "elder blood". Declare that he was actually not human... etc. There is a ton of ways Alvin could have been integrated and still be in line with the books.

The point is though that Witcher 1 and 2 seemed to have been aware of the books flaws. As in making a gritty grounded fantasy world entirely depended on one predestined hero is kind of jarring and perhaps in need of fixing(so they made Alvin). I assume this is why the first two games do not even really touch upon the Wild Hunt or Ciri and instead focused on the world. With Witcher 3 this obviously changed and since we can make comparison directly within the series I would say it changed for the worse.

 

[ekrolo2]

That is an easy problem to circumvent in multiple ways. You could make the argument that natural mutation or external tampering by mages or elves made him able to use said power. You could have written it so that he possess some other form of power that is only mislabeled as "elder blood". Declare that he was actually not human... etc. There is a ton of ways Alvin could have been integrated and still be in line with the books.

The point is though that Witcher 1 and 2 seemed to have been aware of the books flaws. As in making a gritty grounded fantasy world entirely depended on one predestined hero is kind of jarring and perhaps in need of fixing(so they made Alvin). I assume this is why the first two games do not even really touch upon the Wild Hunt or Ciri and instead focused on the world. With Witcher 3 this obviously changed and since we can make comparison directly within the series I would say it changed for the worse.

There is some game material later that implies Master Mirror may have had a hand in Alvin and all the stuff surrounding him but honestly, I'll take Alvin being some strange aberration genetically rather than making him some convoluted MM plot. Alvin's entire character is really, really weird once you factor in he's apparently alive through a LOT of the book material retroactively.

My take on why they switched gears to Ciri is partly because of their own setup and the books. The games clearly setup Eredin as the eventual antagonist of a third, final game where Geralt, Yennefer and company fight him. The books also leave off Eredin and Ciri on a final, foreboding conversation where he says that sooner or later she WILL have to return to a world he can catch her along the planets the WH can go to and they will do battle again. We know he's right about this since someone with time and space powers returns to the witcher world and opens doorways for the elves to permanently leave the setting behind.

All the other weirdness is rewrites, however. W3 had lots of cut content that drastically cut down the post-Kaer Morhen material which is why a lot of the last third feels half-assed and empty. Combine this with some of the earlier games weirdness in how they handled characterization, lore and you get a trio of games that don't even work well as sequels to each other a lot of the time and certainly not the books. I just find myself not really caring because CDPR cared enough to capture the spirit of the work well and made lots of good stories of their own either through main or side quests. I'd easily call Hearts of Stone just as good as the short stories, if not better than quite a few of them.

 

[CthuluIsSpy]

Where does it imply that Gaunter had something to do with Alvin?

Anyway, I'm really liking the Toussaint map. Its a lot prettier than the North, and its a refreshing change from how ugly the base game maps are.
Dunno if they'll release another witcher game, most likely not, but if they do it should be further south or even east, like in Ofier or something.

The only problem with Toussaint is that the NPCs speak in rhyme sometimes and that's just weird.

 

[Danikas]

Where does it imply that Gaunter had something to do with Alvin?

Right here.

 

[Falksi]

As most games, storywise the end is rushed and chopped up.

E.g. they ruined the crones, great villains and a bit of Ravel in them, by making them servants of the wild hunt (wtf???) and easy killable.
Because they needed some sort of closure.

Also Keira Metz best waifu.

Witcher 3 in general feels weirdly rushed in the story department. Everything surrounding Ciri is obviously a late development addition as neither her gameplay nor story sections seem to be actually finished. Her gameplay is just stripped down Geralt with teleport dodges that obviously cover too much ground to be practically useful(outside of that one endgame boss) and no signs(which is fucking bizarre because Ciri was explicitly trained to use magic by Jennefer). Those sections are also miserably short and not communicate anything that could not have been said in dialogue.

As far as the story goes her entire presence appears to have been hastily tacked onto the story as the vast majority of the game is only loosely connected to searching for her. Most mainline quests in fact connect to her via a brief cutscene or an offhand mention that have no bearing on the plot at all. Worst of all the whole "search for Ciri" quest ultimately resolves it self via a obvious deus ex machina, again almost as if unfinished or tacked on at the last minute. Especially in context of the previous two games where nobody even bothered to mention Ciri by name(spoilers: because her story was already fully resolved in the books and bringing her back made no sense even if Geralt had all his memories) its just bizzare to suddenly make the whole game revolve around her and stopping the White Frost.
Which BTW was up until Witcher 3 clearly presented as a natural ecological catastrophe(like the sun dying) that is simply destined to happen far into the future either way and had nothing to do with Ciri or elder blood but was exaggerated by prophets who had no real idea what they saw. Hell, the whole story of Witcher 1 was clearly written to establish that Ciri and her elder blood are not as rare or unique and that others might possess it as well(a.k.a Alvin).

It smells of rewrites or just plain desperation as the release date was getting closer and the game was only 50% done.

Fantastic summary

It's fucking sickening the bollocks I read praising TW3's story. It misses SO many beats, and fails at so many basics it's unreal. It just doesn't nail certain storytelling fundamentals, so for all it's lavish presentation and grandeur, at it's core it's actually really shit.

Ciri & the Wild hunt both feel like expansion packs to "The Witcher 3: Geralt wonders around a medieval shithole doing some odd jobs, and putting up with far too much lip off his gobby wench"