What game are you wasting time on?

[Sigourn]

The Witcher 3
Been on a downward spiral since... I dunno, some 50 hours ago. It's commendable how CDPR turned a franchise whose first game I couldn't get enough of (I remember feeling so empty after finishing TW1 because I wish I had at least another 10 hours ahead of me), to a franchise whose third game I want to be over with as soon as possible.

I'm in Skellige. At this point I'm seriously considering skipping all sidequests, going straight with the Main Quest, and call it a day. It's just not as fun as the first game. Short of graphics and animations, almost everything was changed for the worst. And by everything, I do mean everything.

• The interface is trash. Enjoy having to browse through hundreds of notes just to find the most recent one, because CDPR apparently didn't playtest their own game to realize this is fucking essential.
• The map is just too big and empty.
• Quests start to feel very samey because no matter how many notes you throw the player's way, killing bandits to get a sword is still killing bandits to get a sword.
• That Witcher Senses™ shit. And all the damn quest markers that make paying attention to what NPCs say pointless. How I miss having to pay attention to my journal in Morrowind, or else I wouldn't know what else to do. TW3 throws so many names at you during quests: all names that don't matter because a) You can't talk to those characters, b) Those characters probably don't even exist in the game world, and c) You don't even know how to find them, the quest arrow will do that for you.
• The atmosphere is inferior. TW3 was at its best in the first part of the MQ, before reaching Novigrad.
• The combat is trash.
• The enemy variety is too. Most of the game was spent fighting wolves, drowners, and those tiny ogre things.
• Empty village after empty village.
• Watered down alchemy and oil system, but at this point I'm thankful for this because I would have 300 hours in this slogfest otherwise.
• Leveled loot, and it always feels like the "good stuff" comes after it's no longer good.
• Last but not least: THIS ISN'T AN RPG. It's an action-adventure with stats, you could remove the stats and the game would be better because of this.

What made the first game so good is that, apart from the swamp section, it didn't waste your time. Every quest was unique, every village/city had its purpose in both gameplay and the story. And the gameplay was perfectly tailored to the scope of the game. As usual, normies run everything.

I'm really mad with this game. How can you fuck up something SO bad?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

And despite the myriad ways in which The Witcher 3 is worse than the original, it's still superior to its immediate predecessor, Bioware Simulator 2011.

 

[NecroLord]

Yeah, why isn't the first Witcher game getting more press?

 

[Modron]

1>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>2>>>>3.

 

[Vic]

Could never finish witcher 3 despite restarting 3 times. Skellige was the farthest I’ve gotten.

Best RPG ever amirite.

 

[NecroLord]

Best RPG ever amirite.

PorkyThePaladin

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Witcher 3 is a masterpiece. If some of you are too stupid to realize this, too damn bad.

The Witcher 3
Been on a downward spiral since... I dunno, some 50 hours ago. It's commendable how CDPR turned a franchise whose first game I couldn't get enough of (I remember feeling so empty after finishing TW1 because I wish I had at least another 10 hours ahead of me), to a franchise whose third game I want to be over with as soon as possible.

Typical Codex opinion without an ounce of thought. Just regurgitating the party line to get some brownie points.

I'm in Skellige. At this point I'm seriously considering skipping all sidequests, going straight with the Main Quest, and call it a day. It's just not as fun as the first game. Short of graphics and animations, almost everything was changed for the worst. And by everything, I do mean everything.

• The interface is trash. Enjoy having to browse through hundreds of notes just to find the most recent one, because CDPR apparently didn't playtest their own game to realize this is fucking essential.

Eh, not like W1 interface was anything to write home about either.

• The map is just too big and empty.

Maybe for you. Most people find it very interesting and beautiful.

• Quests start to feel very samey because no matter how many notes you throw the player's way, killing bandits to get a sword is still killing bandits to get a sword.

That can be said about any RPG ever.

• That Witcher Senses™ shit. And all the damn quest markers that make paying attention to what NPCs say pointless. How I miss having to pay attention to my journal in Morrowind, or else I wouldn't know what else to do. TW3 throws so many names at you during quests: all names that don't matter because a) You can't talk to those characters, b) Those characters probably don't even exist in the game world, and c) You don't even know how to find them, the quest arrow will do that for you.

The quest compass is indeed a bane of modern games, but it sorta existed in W1 also. Otherwise, your whole opinion is stupid. Pretty much every character mentioned, you either do get to meet in W3, or met in W1/W2, or is from the Witcher general lore. It's an extremely rich setting, and everything is tied together. Maybe you are just not paying enough attention.

• The atmosphere is inferior. TW3 was at its best in the first part of the MQ, before reaching Novigrad.

Fake news.

• The combat is trash.

How are you playing it? If you play on Death March difficulty with Enemies of Rivia mod (simple combat mod that makes enemies use defensive techniques), it's one of the better, more enjoyable aRPG combat systems out there.

• The enemy variety is too. Most of the game was spent fighting wolves, drowners, and those tiny ogre things.

Again fake news. Tons of enemies throughout.

• Empty village after empty village.

With such a huge world, of course the amount of content at any given location will be smaller than in W1, where there were only like 6-7 locations in the entire game, but there is a lot of content anyway.

• Watered down alchemy and oil system, but at this point I'm thankful for this because I would have 300 hours in this slogfest otherwise.

It still comes in useful at times, for truly tough fights, and there are mods that increase this if you really want it.

• Leveled loot, and it always feels like the "good stuff" comes after it's no longer good.
• Last but not least: THIS ISN'T AN RPG. It's an action-adventure with stats, you could remove the stats and the game would be better because of this.

Perhaps, but what does that have to do with the level of enjoyment one gets from the game?

What made the first game so good is that, apart from the swamp section, it didn't waste your time. Every quest was unique, every village/city had its purpose in both gameplay and the story. And the gameplay was perfectly tailored to the scope of the game. As usual, normies run everything.

I'm really mad with this game. How can you fuck up something SO bad?

Now you are just completely full of shit. W1 wasted your time a TON (and I like the game quite a bit). Running back and forth through drowner infested swamps, or wraith infested fields, a million times, while the enemies endlessly respawn, you don't call that a waste of time?


As much as I like W1, W3 was a huge improvement on it (and even more so on W2, the red headed stepchild). Take off the pink nostalgia glasses, and recall all the shit in W1. The horrible one way combat system. The amateurishly broken quest-lines (do stuff in wrong order, get weird results). The way you couldn't interact with the world at all, forget climbing, you couldn't even step over a 2 inch wooden platform, had to run around it. The tiny, fenced off world.

There is a reason W3 has such a positive rating on Steam and is universally beloved. Stop trying so hard to be an edgelord and enjoy a great game.

 

[Vic]

read while listening to:

 

[Sigourn]

Typical Codex opinion without an ounce of thought. Just regurgitating the party line to get some brownie points.

I don't give a rat's ass about what the Codex thinks about my videogame opinions.

Eh, not like W1 interface was anything to write home about either.

It was far more usable than this piece of trash with a hundred tabs.

Maybe for you. Most people find it very interesting and beautiful.

Beautiful, sure. Interesting? You would be hard pressed to find anything of note if not because of the question marks. (And those tend to be bandits or monsters guarding a chest).

That can be said about any RPG ever.

Most RPGs ever don't have me waste my time galloping around the map only to be met with a generic quest.

The quest compass is indeed a bane of modern games, but it sorta existed in W1 also. Otherwise, your whole opinion is stupid. Pretty much every character mentioned, you either do get to meet in W3, or met in W1/W2, or is from the Witcher general lore. It's an extremely rich setting, and everything is tied together. Maybe you are just not paying enough attention.

You are not very good at reading, aren't you. I'm not talking about important characters, I'm taking about "characters" mentioned in notes, as if a random note found in a dead NPC will make a "dive to retrieve loot from a chest" quest any less interesting than it is.

How are you playing it? If you play on Death March difficulty with Enemies of Rivia mod (simple combat mod that makes enemies use defensive techniques), it's one of the better, more enjoyable aRPG combat systems out there.

Hard, because if I wanted fights to be over in an instant, I would play a true action game.

Again fake news. Tons of enemies throughout.

You are shitting me, right? Not only is the variety low, but also fights against most enemies play out exactly the same. This is unsurprising given how little arsenal you have at your disposal, but moreover, because of how bad an action game The Witcher III is.

It still comes in useful at times, for truly tough fights, and there are mods that increase this if you really want it.

Mods don't count.

Perhaps, but what does that have to do with the level of enjoyment one gets from the game?

Getting enjoyment from loot and rewards for completing a quest is core RPG experience.

Take off the pink nostalgia glasses, and recall all the shit in W1. The horrible one way combat system.

I enjoyed the combat. And it made me feel in control of my character.

The amateurishly broken quest-lines (do stuff in wrong order, get weird results).

Just like The Witcher 3, lmao. Not to mention the journal that is either too brief in its quest descriptions, or outrights spoils the ending of a quest before you are close to it.

The way you couldn't interact with the world at all, forget climbing

Things I would never miss from The Witcher III.

There is a reason W3 has such a positive rating on Steam and is universally beloved. Stop trying so hard to be an edgelord and enjoy a great game.

The same reason Skyrim is universally beloved, I'm sure.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Typical Codex opinion without an ounce of thought. Just regurgitating the party line to get some brownie points.

I don't give a rat's ass about what the Codex thinks about my videogame opinions.

Doubtful considering you are pushing the standard Codex line.

Eh, not like W1 interface was anything to write home about either.

It was far more usable than this piece of trash with a hundred tabs.

Which part? The 300 things with tiny icons put together into one tab?

Maybe for you. Most people find it very interesting and beautiful.

Beautiful, sure. Interesting? You would be hard pressed to find anything of note if not because of the question marks. (And those tend to be bandits or monsters guarding a chest).

It is interesting though. Forget the question marks, everywhere you go, there is a ton of interesting shit happening. Unique monsters hidden away in caves or forests, villages with interesting shit going on, towns, cool quests in out of the way locations.

That can be said about any RPG ever.

Most RPGs ever don't have me waste my time galloping around the map only to be met with a generic quest.

W3 quests are never generic, even the smallest side-quests is typically better written and presented and has more choices than main quests in a typical RPG.

The quest compass is indeed a bane of modern games, but it sorta existed in W1 also. Otherwise, your whole opinion is stupid. Pretty much every character mentioned, you either do get to meet in W3, or met in W1/W2, or is from the Witcher general lore. It's an extremely rich setting, and everything is tied together. Maybe you are just not paying enough attention.

You are not very good at reading, aren't you. I'm not talking about important characters, I'm taking about "characters" mentioned in notes, as if a random note found in a dead NPC will make a "dive to retrieve loot from a chest" quest any less interesting than it is.

I wasn't talking about "important" characters either. All the minor characters are full of meaning. Like the note in the Novigrad bookstore from Alvin, or meeting Thaler from W1 in an out of the way place with 2 trolls. That's why I say you are full of shit, W3 can be criticized for some stuff, but criticizing characters not being important? That's just retarded.

How are you playing it? If you play on Death March difficulty with Enemies of Rivia mod (simple combat mod that makes enemies use defensive techniques), it's one of the better, more enjoyable aRPG combat systems out there.

Hard, because if I wanted fights to be over in an instant, I would play a true action game.

Well, that's on you then. Play it on Death March with a single, simple mod, and it's a beautiful combat system.

Again fake news. Tons of enemies throughout.

You are shitting me, right? Not only is the variety low, but also fights against most enemies play out exactly the same. This is unsurprising given how little arsenal you have at your disposal, but moreover, because of how bad an action game The Witcher III is.

Again, this is demonstrably false. W3 has a ton of enemies, just go to Witcher wiki and look up a list of enemies, then tell me it has no variety. And your arsenal is good enough, you got strong and fast attacks, steel and silver swords, parry/counters, dodges, rolls, 5 spells, crossbow, and all the abilities you pick up from leveling up (e.g. reflecting arrows with a timed parry, etc). Not sure what you are whining about here.

It still comes in useful at times, for truly tough fights, and there are mods that increase this if you really want it.

Mods don't count.

Dumb position. Many of the most respected RPGs of all time are nigh unplayable without mods (Deus Ex, Bloodlines, Fallout: New Vegas, etc).

Perhaps, but what does that have to do with the level of enjoyment one gets from the game?

Getting enjoyment from loot and rewards for completing a quest is core RPG experience.

You are not answering my question. If you tell me a game doesn't have this thing A, and I tell you, ok, but it has B, C, D, and E, it can still be (and in this case is) a great game. Not every game will have everything.

Take off the pink nostalgia glasses, and recall all the shit in W1. The horrible one way combat system.

I enjoyed the combat. And it made me feel in control of my character.

Haha. Well, if you enjoyed W1 combat... that clarifies some of your positions.

The amateurishly broken quest-lines (do stuff in wrong order, get weird results).

Just like The Witcher 3, lmao. Not to mention the journal that is either too brief in its quest descriptions, or outrights spoils the ending of a quest before you are close to it.

Haven't seen any quests as jarringly dissonant in W3 as almost every single long quest chain in W1 was.

The way you couldn't interact with the world at all, forget climbing

Things I would never miss from The Witcher III.

Yes, ignore all the great stuff, focus on the bad. That's the way.

There is a reason W3 has such a positive rating on Steam and is universally beloved. Stop trying so hard to be an edgelord and enjoy a great game.

The same reason Skyrim is universally beloved, I'm sure.

Skyrim is admired by plebs. W3 was voted as like #15 greatest game of all time even here (despite the edgelords sperging about it). The difference is Skyrim really has nothing going for it, you cannot name a single thing it does well besides being big and open.

W3, on the other hand, has a ton of great stuff. Great writing, lore, characters, atmosphere, graphics, physics, characters, quests, combat (with one mod and correct settings). So while it does have some flaws, the overall thing is a great game.

 

[Sigourn]

Doubtful considering you are pushing the standard Codex line.

Oh, you are one of them retards. Sorry for criticizing your perfect game.

 

[Gamezor]

Still Diablo 2, fucking around in Nightmare with my Barbarian. Curse the day I decided to pick up Diablo 1 ~2months ago. It's been way too much time wasted for a game that is not worth it.

I am starting to enjoy it now, which is scary.

Yeah I felt like nightmare is where d2 was at it’s best.

 

[Ezekiel]

Witcher 3 had too many quests. I would walk five meters and a dwarf would shout for help, initiating yet another unless I chose to ignore him, which would have felt weird to do in a game that rewards you for doing quests and has no reason for not doing them except boredom. I did not much care for the main story on my first playthrough when the game came out, so I went into the second playthrough last year intending to do it more for the side quests. But it just became too much, and many felt too similar or basic. Quit before reaching Skellige. Days and days, maybe weeks, Geralt planned to go to Skellige, but the odd jobs kept him. People talk about the excess like it's a positive, but it's not. I'm mostly not into open world games and how western devs choose to design mission structure in them.

 

[Ezekiel]

Oh, also, said this in the screenshot thread, but the excessive use of journals and audio logs in modern games is so abundantly stupid. Villager had time to write all this to no one as bandits were out to kill. For what?

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Ace Combat. Nice music, great sense of speed in the gameplay. I haven't gotten to the games with the crazy anime plots yet, though.

 

[Bigg Boss]

I locked myself out of the good ending in Persona by not paying attention.

 

[Jonathan "Zee Nekomimi]

Ace Combat. Nice music, great sense of speed in the gameplay. I haven't gotten to the games with the crazy anime plots yet, though.

But Ace Combat always had crazy anime plots.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

But Ace Combat always had crazy anime plots.

Not in the first two.

 

[Wunderbar]

Villager had time to write all this to no one as bandits were out to kill. For what?

this is especially ridiculous since CDPR's writers went out of their way to portray their peasants as illiterate backwards idiots.

 

[Darth Roxor]

this is especially ridiculous since CDPR's writers went out of their way to portray their peasants as illiterate backwards idiots.

you just don't see the deep metanarrative storytelling in this journal bit that stays in line with that portrayal:

Oh, also, said this in the screenshot thread, but the excessive use of journals and audio logs in modern games is so abundantly stupid. Villager had time to write all this to no one as bandits were out to kill. For what?

"ours or there's"

 

[Azalin]

I finished Iratus Lord of the Dead along with the Wrath of the Necromancer dlc,it's a Darkest Dungeon clone with a few twists here and there,the graphics are ok although they don't have that gritty style that make DD look great.The gameplay like is said is that of DD with a few variations.Overall an enjoyable game but not as good as Darkest Dungeon

I also finished Monster Boy and the Cursed Kigdom,it was made by the lead designer of the Wonder Boy series and it shows,it's basically a sequel to Wonder Boy III Dragon's Trap in all but name.The graphics are nice and the gameplay is very similat to Dragon's Trap,you get to change form and use various abilities like in that game.If you liked Dragno's Trap get this one too

 

[LarryTyphoid]

Villager had time to write all this to no one as bandits were out to kill. For what?

Perhaps he was dictating!

 

[Sigourn]

Oh, also, said this in the screenshot thread, but the excessive use of journals and audio logs in modern games is so abundantly stupid. Villager had time to write all this to no one as bandits were out to kill. For what?

Devs don't fucking know how to tell a story without using notes.

Protip: if you need notes to tell a story, and you have to write a hundred notes for your game, you are doing something wrong.
It's a shame because The Witcher III has great animations during dialogue, which makes them feel much more lively than that from other games. But so much time is spent on pointless locations where monsters or bandits guard """treasure""" (i.e. piece of shit), or tiny little quests that do nothing to flesh out the world. It's just so tiresome.

This is in stark contrast to my favorite RPG, Fallout: New Vegas. More often than not, the quests in the game flesh out characters, locations, and/or factions, at the very least. It is a rare sight where a quest does absolutely nothing of the sort. Even a retardedly simple quest like killing ants for the NCR drives home the point of how inept their management is.

The typical Witcher III quest in New Vegas would have been like this:

• Talk to NPC.
• Random question mark pops up indicating the presence of a cave.
• Enter cave.
• Glowing note sitting besides some rock.
• 5 paragraph-long story about how some random miner lost his precious gun.
• MY PRECIOUS (track quest). Find the lost treasure.
• Find a gun at the end of the cave.
• AAAAAHHHHH COMPLETED: MY PRECIOUS.

 

[Caim]

Oh, also, said this in the screenshot thread, but the excessive use of journals and audio logs in modern games is so abundantly stupid. Villager had time to write all this to no one as bandits were out to kill. For what?

Devs don't fucking know how to tell a story without using notes.

Protip: if you need notes to tell a story, and you have to write a hundred notes for your game, you are doing something wrong.
It's a shame because The Witcher III has great animations during dialogue, which makes them feel much more lively than that from other games. But so much time is spent on pointless locations where monsters or bandits guard """treasure""" (i.e. piece of shit), or tiny little quests that do nothing to flesh out the world. It's just so tiresome.

This is in stark contrast to my favorite RPG, Fallout: New Vegas. More often than not, the quests in the game flesh out characters, locations, and/or factions, at the very least. It is a rare sight where a quest does absolutely nothing of the sort. Even a retardedly simple quest like killing ants for the NCR drives home the point of how inept their management is.

The typical Witcher III quest in New Vegas would have been like this:

• Talk to NPC.
• Random question mark pops up indicating the presence of a cave.
• Enter cave.
• Glowing note sitting besides some rock.
• 5 paragraph-long story about how some random miner lost his precious gun.
• MY PRECIOUS (track quest). Find the lost treasure.
• Find a gun at the end of the cave.
• AAAAAHHHHH COMPLETED: MY PRECIOUS.

It's like finding that one guy who "won" the lottery in Nipton, except instead of a guy it's a note.

Yes, the guy with the broken legs made it out before you got there. No, there's not some corpse with broken legs in the area as visual storytelling.

 

[Darth Roxor]

well i like how at one point chaos theory just drops all pretense of being a stealth game

good that i never use any gadgets so i could hog all those insta-knockout tazer shots for commandos with night vision storming me en masse

this game feels confused as to what it actually wants to be