The Witcher 3 GOTY Edition

[HarveyBirdman]

Most RPGs and video games in general have very middling voice acting. Fallout 3 sits comfortably with most everybody else in the band of mediocrity.

Thing is, Bethesda isn't everybody else. They're one of the most prominent AAA companies in the industry, and many of those others in the band of mediocrity as you put it aren't spending nearly as much money on their games or reaping close to the same profits.

To me, poor voice acting stands out a little more when you know the game's budget was in the tens of millions. When you consider Bethesda's resources, stuff like this is mind-boggling to me.

And so their budget goes towards handcrafting massive sandboxes instead of getting 100 top tier voice actors. (And it's not like they didn't pay for good voice actors... Fallout 3 has Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman in the cast).
Again, I just dont buy the criticism. There are plenty of substantive issues to bring up re: Bethesda games. So long as the voice acting doesn't piss me off, I'm not too concerned with it.

Side note: is your link referencing Moira? Her whole schtick is being obnoxious, overly chipper, and painfully naive. She's basically an amalgamation of every stereoptypical middle class tourist from Minnesota you've seen in every 80's movie. You're supposed to kind of want to kill her -- that's why her transformation into a ghoul is a joke; you wanted her annoying ass dead, and even even a nuke couldn't deliver you from her grating personality.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

handcrafting massive sandboxes

With all the level scaling, loot scaling and general "radiance" prevalent, I wonder what hand crafting they do.

 

[RK47]

Handcrafted canvas bags

 

[Thal]

But because we're on the point, here's a brief diatribe: why do we even care about voice acting? Unless we're subjected to JRPG levels of horrendous ear torture, I rank voice acting far, far, far down the list of things I care about. And yet, whenever I see a list of criticisms for Bethesda games, voice acting pops up on the list shortly after actually important problems, like lack of C&C or retardo-level skill systems.
In other word, when people complain about voice acting, they're really echoing memes from 2006 that were supposed to target dialogue as a system, and not the quality of voice actors.

It's because people tend to parrot back opinions presented by others, which ends up creating a feedback loop. It's easier to elevate one glaring issue as the target than to articulate why a game is mediocre, or even decent instead of excellent. It's even easier is to simply repeat what others have said. Like Neverwinter Night's 2 infamously bad camera, which we never fail to hear about (An issue that almost never comes up with Mask of the Betrayer). The real problem with NWN2 is that it's a party based DnD game, whose GAMEPLAY in its entirety isn't as good or interesting as Baldur's Gate 1 or 2. How do you articulate that one? How do you articulate that not one game that has tried to emulate PST wasn't as good in terms of writing and plot? PST was full of purple prose, but why does the writing work there but in Pillars? Not saying you can't analyse these things, but it certainly requires time and effort. When it comes to Fallout 3 is that its dungeon, quest and world design is sub-par and that VATS trivializes combat encounters. That's the reason why people won't replay F03 or Oblivion for that matter but they do replay New Vegas, Deus Ex and even Morrowind. Although I suspect that most people who replay Morrowind end up not finishing the game, which is quite telling. If you don't put metagame limitations, you will end up breaking that game halfway through.

 

[JDR13]

And so their budget goes towards handcrafting massive sandboxes instead of getting 100 top tier voice actors. (And it's not like they didn't pay for good voice actors... Fallout 3 has Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman in the cast).
Again, I just dont buy the criticism. There are plenty of substantive issues to bring up re: Bethesda games. So long as the voice acting doesn't piss me off, I'm not too concerned with it.

My point is that their budget should easily be able to handle those things and still also have more voice actors as well. Who cares if it had Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman (who only does the intro anyways)? That doesn't make up for the fact that the 100+ other NPCs are voiced by about 10 people.

You can keep pretending it's not a legit thing though if that's what floats your boat.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

handcrafting massive sandboxes

With all the level scaling, loot scaling and general "radiance" prevalent, I wonder what hand crafting they do.

The virtual representation of physical space. Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, and Fallout 4 are all very well-designed open worlds.
As to filling those worlds with content worth playing... let's just say they've had widely varying success.

When it comes to Fallout 3 is that its dungeon, quest and world design is sub-par and that VATS trivializes combat encounters.

Fallout 3's world design is clearly superior to New Vegas. It's not even close, which shouldn't surprise you -- that's what Bethesda does, and has never been what Obsidian does.

Fallout 3 -- Simple mantra: The quests exist to serve the environment
- With a few exceptions, the quests aren't very good.
- Rather, game design's focus is on exploration.
- Can reasonably go in any direction after leaving the Vault. Enemies get much more difficult in a radius, guiding you towards the beginning quests.
- Dungeons all over the place.
- Metro effectively expands D.C. proper's playability into a massive a dungeon crawl. 30,000 foot level, if you consider downtown D.C. one big fat dungeon, it's one of the best dungeons ever made.
- The game is about feeling the sometimes goofy and sometimes grim apocalypse -- environmental storytelling is front and center. Most quest exist to give you a reason to explore new areas of the world, and give those areas some context.

New Vegas -- Simple mantra: The environment exists to serve the quests
- With a few exceptions, the quests are excellent.
- Thus, games design's focus is on fleshing out these quests.
- Can technically go in any direction after leaving Doc's, but heading to Nipton is really the only viable and fun option. Cross the Deathclaw death trap if you want... but why would you? You miss out on good quests, and there isn't really anything worth exploring outside of the quests. Speedrunning is the only reason not to follow the railroad tracks Obsidian places you on.
- Only a small handful of dungeons, about half of which suck. The vaults are good, REPCONN is good... and that's about it.
- The game is about exploring the politics and morality of the factions that have emerged in the apocalypse -- dialogue storytelling is front and center. The quests are about exploring people and institutions, and not about exploring the world.

My point is that their budget should easily be able to handle those things and still also have more voice actors as well. Who cares if it had Liam Neeson and Ron Perlman (who only does the intro anyways)? That doesn't make up for the fact that the 100+ other NPCs are voiced by about 10 people.

You can keep pretending it's not a legit thing though if that's what floats your boat.

Sure, I'd rather they get another 20 voice actors of decent quality than blow the budget on two superstars. But again, I see voice acting as such a minor part of the experience, that if it's average compared to other RPGs -- which it is -- then I don't mind. The shitty quests, increasingly poorly designed dungeons in Skyrim and Fallout, complete lack of meaningful C&C, and dumbass combat systems are the real problems.

 

[OldNorseSaga]

Any suggestion on how to complete all quest without feeling burned out too quickly?

 

[JDR13]

Sure, I'd rather they get another 20 voice actors of decent quality than blow the budget on two superstars. But again, I see voice acting as such a minor part of the experience, that if it's average compared to other RPGs -- which it is -- then I don't mind. The shitty quests, increasingly poorly designed dungeons in Skyrim and Fallout, complete lack of meaningful C&C, and dumbass combat systems are the real problems.

It's not average compared to other AAA RPGs though. It's more comparable to lower budget or indie RPGs.

As far as the other stuff, yeah, voice acting isn't their #1 issue, but I never claimed it was. To me, the biggest issue in their games is the terrible balancing.

 

[Old One]

Any suggestion on how to complete all quest without feeling burned out too quickly?

Pace yourself? I've been playing for a long time now, and doing all the quests is...nearly impossible. There are too many and they're too hard to find.

I'm sure it can be done, but I'm playing without any silly guides or anything, and I'm sure I've missed quite a few. Even so doing them all would be a chore if I played more than a couple hours a day.

Spoiler

I recently completed the Dr. Moreau quest, and I found that one very satisfying, even without the excellent payoff. Freezing aard with crit potential is pretty fun though.

Is there a way to turn off the pathfinding on the mini-map? Man, is that annoying. So often it's completely inaccurate.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

It's not average compared to other AAA RPGs though. It's more comparable to lower budget or indie RPGs.

Bethesda, CDPR, and Bioware are the only AAA devs that consistently make RPGs. If we throw Far Cry or AC in the mix, then I guess we can also add Ubisoft.

CDPR:
- latest is Witcher 3. Excellent voice acting.
Bioware:
-
-Ubisoft
-

Wow, those AAA devs and their AAA budget games display some superlative voice acting... How can the following even compete?

 

[Old One]

And of course Bloodlines is better than any of them to this day. 15 years and counting.

 

[Falksi]

Any suggestion on how to complete all quest without feeling burned out too quickly?

Don't complete all the quests FFS mate, thems hours of your life you'll never get back.

Main quest, most the Skellige ilses quests, main character's side-quest and Carnal Sins + Fools Gold's. That's all you need. Even the main quest you can jack in after Bloody Baron & all you'll really be missing is the comical pre-last battle piss up.

Some of the contracts & optional side-quests are so fucking pointlessly dull it's unreal. Well written nothingness.

Now the expansions on the other hand, do everything. They're both mint.

 

[JDR13]

Bethesda, CDPR, and Bioware are the only AAA devs that consistently make RPGs. If we throw Far Cry or AC in the mix, then I guess we can also add Ubisoft.

Why would it have to be an RPG from someone who consistently makes RPGs? Are other RPGs absolved for some reason?

I'm really not sure what you were trying to say there to be honest, and your examples don't do anything to support your opinion.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Name other AAA RPGs. And if you can't see the obvious differences in quality, I'm afraid your tastes are dangerously unrefined.

 

[JDR13]

I'm not the one who's having a hard time seeing (or hearing) an obvious difference in quality.

If you don't have anything significant to add, I think we should let this topic get back on course.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

Yeah I'm done hijacking this platform to spout off about Fallout 3.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Name other AAA RPGs. And if you can't see the obvious differences in quality, I'm afraid your tastes are dangerously unrefined.

Joined: Jan 6, 2019

 

[Old One]

I certainly enjoyed Hearts of Stone, and Blood and Wine is...enormous. It's like an entirely new game almost.

Neither one fits all that well with the main story however, which seems to be rather time-sensitive until Geralt suddenly drops everything to head off to spend days or weeks on a completely unrelated adventure.

The Witcher armor sets are pretty underwhelming considering how much time you have to devote to acquiring them. Once you get beyond a certain level you just find better equipment than the sets, which is odd and disappointing. In fact, that would be one of my nitpicks about this game: it violates the general rule I have that I don't like loot systems that make you sift through a giant pile of 20 magic swords to find the one that is only slightly better than the others.

 

[Zombra]

Jesus christ, I've already put 70 hours into this game with no end in sight. No way I'm buying any DLC.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Jesus christ, I've already put 70 hours into this game with no end in sight. No way I'm buying any DLC.

DLC is a lot better. Hearts of Stone isn't terribly long, Blood & Wine was arguably long enough to be its own game.
I personally liked Hearts of Stone more than Blood & Wine. It had one of the best quests in the entire game(wedding quest — heist quest is rather good too… come to think of it, I think the old mansion quest was also part of it, another really good quest), the best girl(Shani), and a very good plot.
Not to spoil anything, but it's one of the few times you don't feel like an unstoppable Witcher. Highly recommended.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Okagron]

First and foremost, Fallout 3 is infinitely better than Fallout 4 -- Fallout 4 is the worst AAA RPG I have ever played by orders of magnitude.

They're both equally terrible, but for different reasons. Fallout 3 tries to pass itself as a RPG in a pathetic attempt to trick people into think it has deep RPG elements, while its RPG elements are so weak and faint, and Fallout 4 mostly drops the pretense of being a RPG. So no, Fallout 3 isn't infinitely better than 4.

And i'll take New Vegas world over any garbage Bethesda world, at least since Oblivion. All Bethesda worlds have been theme parks since Oblivion, everything scales to you and because of this, the sense of danger is gone. There's absolutely no possibility of running to an enemy so much stronger than you that you either defeat it after a long and ardous fight or you give up and have to come back later. Exploration without sense of danger is a theme park because you go around unopposed. The design of the world is also shit, where location placement makes no sense. Old Olney, a place filled with Deathclaws, next to Republic of Dave. How does the latter even exist? They should be dead because they are so close to Old Olney. The dungeon design is also shit, where every cave looks the same, has the same horseshoe type of layout, where there's also a convenient switch at the end to bring you to the entrance. Same for the Aleyid ruins all looking nearly the same. Same for the metro ruins in Fallout 3, it all looks the same.

The main story also clashes completely with the main design of their worlds since Oblivion. They put so much drama and agency in the story, but then tell the player to fuck around in the world. You can't have the main story claim to be so urgent and then tell the player to go anywhere. Morrowind worked on this front because it's reasonable to assume the player maybe don't buy into the whole Nerevarine thing and decides to explore the world instead.

This nonsense of "at least Bethesda makes good worlds" needs to die. They don't make good worlds, they make fucking theme parks.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

You have an irrational hatred for Bethesda games that I doubt is even sincere -- it's a persona you've adopted to fit in with the Codex. By this point, you may have convinced yourself that you believe it, but trust me: nobody else is fooled.
None of your criticisms are valid or even accurate descriptions.

 

[JDR13]

The Witcher armor sets are pretty underwhelming considering how much time you have to devote to acquiring them. Once you get beyond a certain level you just find better equipment than the sets, which is odd and disappointing. In fact, that would be one of my nitpicks about this game: it violates the general rule I have that I don't like loot systems that make you sift through a giant pile of 20 magic swords to find the one that is only slightly better than the others.

I like TW3 in general, but the loot system is terrible. Easily the worst aspect of the game imo.

 

[HarveyBirdman]

The looting system is bad because:

(1) The crafting system is bad. Sounds neat on paper, but it felt like a constant chore, which is probably why they got rid of inventory limits for ingredients.

(2) Getting awesome weapons and armor doesn't feel very connected to the world. To me, the thing that makes legendary weapons in a fantasy game (either RPG or adventure for that matter) feel legendary is their history. Dark Souls masterfully ties the weapons to deep lore. All the weapons feel special, and the truly epic weapons feel truly epic. But in TW3, the weapons you loot usually only feel tenuously connected to the world.

You'll find a tomb belonging to somebody, but that tomb won't have any lore behind it -- it's just an old Elven ruin or something. Inside the tomb, you'll get Ye Olde Sword of Coolness. But why should we care about this sword aside from its stats? There is no reason. Now, there are exceptions, but they are very rare. For the most part, players find themselves drawn to crafting the Witcher gear, because they feel a connection to those weapons/armor, and their stats are comparable to the weapons/armor you can loot. Which in turn brings us back to (1), and the loop of the bad system is thus complete.