The Witcher 3 Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Xenich]

Yes. Yes, you're absolutely right.
The save system is the most dangerous element when comes to C&C system. It can entirely break the system of Choice & Consequences.
I think the way to avoid the "load game" is to set the consequences far away from the choices.

I mean, you make a choice, and later you get the consequence.

To apply this method, you have to make sure the choice properly establishes the nature of the consequence. If you provide a choice and there is no real determination to be made with the consequence being unforeseen. All you have done is created a random penalty system for a random choice. Long term consequences should be reasonably deduced. You can make the determination of such very difficult, complex in the evaluation, but the element of being able to properly consider the possible ramifications of a decision should always be in the players hands.

Problem with your statement is that you want everything to know beforehand.
TW1 showed that above is bullshit and you don't need to know it.

In TW1 case and in TW2 case (just worse than in TW1) C&C is handled this way:

Problem ---> Choice ---> instant resolve of problem ---> late consequences.

There is nothing here about establishing consequence part. Sure you can try to reach some long term goal like siding with order but consequences of your decisions are working either way and usually they have 0 to do with your planning.

That is superior to any other system.

In most of RPGs C&C is completely resolved in close to max 20 minutes aside from few choices in whole game which can last hour or more but their consequence is never negative.

You don't have to know that the town will be lost to fire, this can be deduced as a possibility by the fact that a town made of straw buildings combined with archers being trained to use flaming arrows. That is the sort of deduction I am talking about. The player doesn't have to know the late consequence exactly, but if they are completely surpised by it, then the story development and player interaction was poorly done. Like I said, the player should always have control over the general likelihood of an outcome. Now you can hide it cleverly and you can use unexpected plot twists and events to mix things up (ie a random natural event that due to the players choice produced an unlikely or unforeseen consequence such as simple bad luck. Don't want too many of those or it defeats the point of C&C) , but you have to allow the player control or there is no point in game play, it becomes a movie with random button clicking.

 

[Perkel]

You sound like party pooper.
What is the point of playing RPG where you predict everything what happens next ?

I mean to compare it to something (GoT):

You are trying to argue that when Rob Star stark has binnary choice to marry some lord ungly dauther and secure alliance vs his hot lover you want to know future of your choice.

Red wedding is part of the fun. Without it, it wouldn't be so fun.

 

[Rahdulan]

>DPS

Damage per Swing, obviously.

 

[Xenich]

You sound like party pooper.
What is the point of playing RPG where you predict everything what happens next ?

I mean to compare it to something (GoT):

You are trying to argue that when Rob Star stark has binnary choice to marry some lord ungly dauther and secure alliance vs his hot lover you want to know future of your choice.

Red wedding is part of the fun. Without it, it wouldn't be so fun.

That is not what I am saying. Random outcome and elements in play can and should exist, but throwing a choice before a player then bitch slapping them with an outcome they had no idea would even result isn't C&C, that is because you took away choice. You are attempting to argue that randomly picking between two unknown tunnels is an element of C&C. It is not, there is no choice, merely a random selection. A choice as it concerns C&C is a process of evaluating factors to decide the best course of action. Random selection isn't a choice, it is a simple physical action and that is fine if you want to have a system where you go "pick a card, wrong card... electric buzzer, pick a card, wrong card... electric buzzer, pick a card, wrong card... Winner!", but it isn't something even remotely intelligent and defies the entire point of an RPG system.

To reiterate, I am not saying map out everything for the player, but have an intelligent system where the players choice ACTUALLY is a process of intellectually reasoning.

edit:

Let me put it in the same format you used.

In your example, Rob Stark Made a choice. He knew the consequences before, just not the exact outcome. He knew, that by doing such, he would make enemies. That he broke a major vow, that there were going to be consequences. His mother knew the consequences could be dire for such a choice and so she sought great effort to find a means to satisfy those who objected. Even when it was thought there was finally a resolution, an avoidance of consequence, there he and his men were still... leery.

The unknown element, but not "surprising" element was the deal made to kill off the starks. That was unforseen in occurrence of that given night, but... they were at war AND they had severely insulted and broken the vow of their family. When they killed the starks, it was surprising not because they died, that they were attack, that they were killed, rather because it happened in manner that is considered a breech of proper etiquette, even for those at war. That was the shock. Starks choice and the eventual result of his consequence, that one you could see coming the moment he broke his vow.

 

[Perkel]

No, what you are arguing is a choice between red and black shirt and instant resolve of that vs long therm consequence.

Let's take for example other choice from TW1 from first 5 minutes:

You have to choose:

- help other witchers fight monster in the courtyard
or
- help to prevent stealing of mutagens

There is instant short consequence or what i call it resolve/outcome. You either kill monster or fuck up thieves plan

You choose one of those and game gives you short consequence:

- you fucked up a lot thieves plans
- you killed with other withers monster

Thing is that this is not the end.

If you choose to help witchers after few hours time you will see that enemies will be mutated and stronger than normal ones. This is the real consequence part of that C&C. Now for rest of the game each dude from slamandra will be mutated.

And you can't just reload and pick different version because :
A) C&C doesn't guarantee you positive outcome for different choice
B) It was few hours ago, you would need to play those few hours again.

So effect is that player sticks to his choice no matter what is the outcome.

 

[Xenich]

No, what you are arguing is a choice between red and black shirt and instant resolve of that vs long therm consequence.

Let's take for example other choice from TW1 from first 5 minutes:

You have to choose:

- help other witchers fight monster in the courtyard
or
- help to prevent stealing of mutagens

There is instant short consequence or what i call it resolve/outcome. You either kill monster or fuck up thieves plan

You choose one of those and game gives you short consequence:

- you fucked up a lot thieves plans
- you killed with other withers monster

Thing is that this is not the end.

If you choose to help witchers after few hours time you will see that enemies will be mutated and stronger than normal ones. This is the real consequence part of that C&C. Now for rest of the game each dude from slamandra will be mutated.

And you can't just reload and pick different version because :
A) C&C doesn't guarantee you positive outcome for different choice
B) It was few hours ago, you would need to play those few hours again.

So effect is that player sticks to his choice no matter what is the outcome.

Why are the witchers fighting? What is going on with the area? What do you know about the conflict? What have you had a chance to learn? How can you make a decision when you have no information? If your point is that C&C should be constant blind decisions with no information, then you are giving an example of why these systems are pathetic pointless button smashing movie events. Either you have a real choice to make (weighting based on criteria of value) or you are randomly selecting. Now I am not saying "blind" choice situations are always bad, but if you think that is how C&C is supposed to work, then you argue for meaningless shallow pointless decision making.

A choice is not Pick A or B, not as it concerns the concept of C&C play. You have to understand your choices to have meaningful play. Without meaning, without actual intelligent deduction, then you didn't make a choice, you pushed a fucking button.

 

[odrzut]

First, rpgs aren't perfect-knowledge games. You can make rational choice according to false information that is irrational in general. The Witcher series is big on this - it often forces you to choose between 2 not obviously good or bad things, without being 100% sure which one is better (and this is great adaptation of short-stories atmosphere and the story Lesser Evil in particular).

This actually forces people to think more, not less about the choice.

I'll give you examples from TW1:

you meet villagers trying to kill a witch for bringing a curse to them. They are backward dumb misoginists lead by hypocrite priest, and don't like her because she's independent women and don't live like their religion tell women should. Also she sells them potions, including abortion potions, and poisons. Some of them murdered others or commited suicide using her potions and that was the thing that brought the curse on the village. She probably knew what they will use the poisons for when she sold them, but you can't be sure, and she says it's not her business what thye use the potions for. Both sides have good arguments. The witch is more likeable from modern perspective, but she does some manipulation on you (offers to fuck you before you give judgement). She also had a voo-doo doll in her hut, and some of the villagers accused her of manipulating them with magic to do the bad things they did that brought the curse. The villagers that claim that are drunkards, though.

In the end you have to choose side, without knowledge who is right.

After the choice you never learn who was right, but you can find hints that she was a member of lion-spider cult, that was doing very dark magic.

Do you seriously argue that a choice with perfect knowledge would be better, and would require more thinking? It would be "the witch is right, I'll kill you all, case solved" or the other way.


Another example - you were hired by a shaddy trader to protect some crates with "medicaments and food" from monsters. At night terrorists/freedom fighters come - you can give them the crates because they tell they have a deal with the trader and they are starving and their women needs medicaments etc. Or you can kill them protecting the crates. After the decision you learn there were weapons in the crates, and the terrorists used these weapons to massacre some village.

You could guess something is fishy, but you had to make choice without 100% knowledge again.

This is what makes the witcher series good and realistic.

It's not random as in 50-50, it's random as in - not 100% predictable. It makes you question your assumptions and your informations from different persons in the world. It's the biggest selling point of that franchise for me.

 

[Comrade Goby]

Team Triss or Team Yennefer?

 

[Gerrard]

>DPS

Damage per Swing, obviously.

I doubt that very much.

 

[Perkel]

Team Triss or Team Yennefer?

Team Whores

 

[odrzut]

I hope for Team Both being implemented.

 

[Ivan]

game needs more

 

[MicoSelva]

That is one impressive and well-done trailer. Good job, CDPR.

 

[Perkel]

That is one impressive and well-done trailer. Good job, CDPR.

aside from shitty GTA style narrator explaining children what game is all about

 

[bozia2012]

Don't think this has been stressed enough:

 

[Ivan]

should i preorder? (rhetorical, not really, or maybe)

 

[Darkzone]

Now that in polish please, and put it on the witcher forum.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Team Triss or Team Yennefer?

Team Shani.

Spoiler

 

[Ivan]

timer during dialogue choices (perhaps exclusive to those imposing on you) a la alpha protocol

 

[buzz]

Team Shani.

Spoiler

Team Ciri

 

[Infinitron]

timer during dialogue choices (perhaps exclusive to those imposing on you) a la alpha protocol

Witcher 2 had some of those also.

 

[Karwelas]

Polish trailer.

Spoiler

- Czy to już 1358?
- ...Nie.
- A. To spierdalać.

 

[Perkel]

Team Shani.

Spoiler

Team Ciri

 

[Darkzone]

odrzut, I don't get why people keep bringing up the witch-vs-villager questline as an example of a plot where you lack definitive knowledge and where no side is innocent (or at least detectably so).

On the contrary, everything paints the witch as mostly innocent, and the villagers as guilty and hysterical. The villagers do have points a handful of points in their favour, but they are fewer and weaker, and feel like they serve mainly as a token of goodwill towards players who side with the villagers, so they would feel less guilty.

It becomes obvious the more you get into the game, which is very PC: men are rapists (Elsa) and wife-beaters (vampire whorehouse), Christians are crazy and evil (the Reverend), Whites are racist genocide-mongers and other races are victims and only become violent in reaction, etc. The game got praise for talking about hard issues, but when you look into it, it does so in a very childish way and thus doesn't bring anything new at all to the table.
So everything is as PC as it gets, but then, all of a sudden, in the most obvious setup where hysterical villagers led by a crazy religious man want to burn a terrified woman (a healer at that!), this very specific time, it wouldn't be the typical black-and-white scenario for some reason? I don't buy it.

That was a homage on the topic of innocence and guilt, because everybody has some skeletons in the closet. This topic is older than any computer games, and has a many incarnations, but i know only one case in cRPGs and that is the witcher.

The medium is the message here: the villagers are jerks, they are dirty, they are unsympathetic (especially their leader), while the witch is young, attractive, and a goddamn healer. Moreover, when it is time for the final decision, you can give a long, heart-felt tirade to side with the witch, but if you want to side with the villagers, it is simply "found doll, had sgeks, lol guilty, burn the bitch". The writer has already made up his mind; whater you believe, whatever hints you think point towards the other direction are irrelevant.

Then you will not understand polish literature like Dziady.

Also to add that Gothic 3 was the worst Gothic.

 

[bozia2012]

The last straw was an alchemist in another questline much later in the game: she says she is unable to brew a potion for you because you murdered an innocent, specifically talking about the witch. It's... "magic", you see. This particular magic doesn't work if you killed an innocent. When such things happen, the only conclusion is: it is not the character who is talking to you, it is the writer. Once again, the writer has clearly made up his mind and you get the truth once and for all: the witch was innocent.

She is innocent because a character can't brew a potion? Fucking morality - how does it work?