So The Witcher 3 is three years old today
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I loved 1, liked 2, watched the polish TV show, read the books, know all the lore, pre-ordered 3...but still haven't played it. I completed the prologue as far as beating up a griffin attacking some small village and talking to a guard captain of some kind, but never returned. I don't know why i couldn't get into it and it's a great shame. I love Geralt, Triss, Dandelion, Zoltan et all, but can't seem to get into it. Maybe it's too big and intimidating, I'm not sure.
Too bad. It's freakin' terrific. Think of it as a new game, only you get to keep your stuff from the main game.jademunky said:
I finally beat that gargoyle in the Wandering in the Dark quest with Keira. Ironically enough after about half a dozen tries the time I beat him with little trouble was when she didn't even help. Must have glitched out because she just stood there staring at the door that just closed behind us while I laid into the monster. Then she's like, "Oh look, the door finally opened!" You're welcome.
Nithral wasn't much of a challenge after that; a bit tedious with his recharging and sending wolves after me, but it wasn't bad after a couple tries. I really wasn't even prepared for the level of this quest or its encounters, but it felt good to get through it, and I'll definitely be leveling up a bit before getting back into the main story.
I also need to get my currencies exchanged because I barely have any money to buy anything worthwhile even after over a dozen quests and at least as many hours scouring the countryside for loot. I did get a decent piece of armor crafted but my swords and potion collection need more tending to.
Nithral wasn't much of a challenge after that; a bit tedious with his recharging and sending wolves after me, but it wasn't bad after a couple tries. I really wasn't even prepared for the level of this quest or its encounters, but it felt good to get through it, and I'll definitely be leveling up a bit before getting back into the main story.
I also need to get my currencies exchanged because I barely have any money to buy anything worthwhile even after over a dozen quests and at least as many hours scouring the countryside for loot. I did get a decent piece of armor crafted but my swords and potion collection need more tending to.
I consider it an unparalleled masterpiece and an overall benchmark for RPGs. It does so many things so overwhelmingly better than any of its contemporaries it's kind of hard not to: the writing, the facial animation, the characters, the amount of detail and holy fuck the amount of content. I've been replaying Skyrim recently, and it's really hard to see the next Elder Scrolls being able to stand up to Witcher 3 even remotely if Bethesda don't seriously step up their game. It also has one of the greatest DLC expansions ever with Blood and Wine, which with its lantern-streaked cobblestone streets actually inspired me to take a trip to Prague. The combat's nothing to write home about and the game is just so fuckhueg that I'd probably need to catch pneumonia again to be able to replay it. It took me literally over 100 hours to play the main story and expansions just once, that's not something you can easily take the time out to repeat.
^^! Well hell, I?ve logged over 30hrs according to Steam and am only at lvl 6, so I take it I?ve a ways to go. It?s just so huge I find myself getting sidetracked on nearly every quest. That?s the other thing, there are like half a dozen main quests and around ten side quests active in my journal. Then I just started thinking, ?I really should get some of this currency exchanged so I have more $ to buy stuff.?
One of my favorite things is stumbling into something random, like a monster den or just last night I decided to check out a ? on the map (or maybe it was an alchemy symbol idk) and it was Keira! She told me to come visit her sometime but I wasn?t even tracking that quest, and she literally seemed surprised to see me.
One of my favorite things is stumbling into something random, like a monster den or just last night I decided to check out a ? on the map (or maybe it was an alchemy symbol idk) and it was Keira! She told me to come visit her sometime but I wasn?t even tracking that quest, and she literally seemed surprised to see me.
After currently replaying Final Fantasy VII, I have come to the conclusion that The Witcher 3 is the 2nd best game ever made imo. During my previous two playthroughs with TW3 and loving it to death, I almost made it my favorite game ever. But a replay of FF7 proved to me that it still is the best game ever in my eyes.
That being said, TW3 is objectively fantastic. No matter how you look at the game, you can't argue in any way that TW3 is a bad game. I don't care if you don't like the combat, I don't care if you think it's buggy (btw, it's not. Especially compared to a Bethesda RPG of the same scale).
The music, the graphics, the stories (the general stories not the main story), the quests, the dialog, the potential depth of combat approaches. It's all fantastic, and you can play TW3 to fit almost any playstyle you want, and you can make the game as hard as you want. The care that went into the game is just unbelievable, top it off with incredible DLC and expansions that put other FULL games to shame, The Witcher 3 is a very very special game and if you deny that...well you are incredibly ignorant to say the least.
It's okay to not like the game, based on combat or whatever you want to say.
It's not okay to look at it and say it's a bad game, because that is simply wrong. Factually wrong.
That being said, TW3 is objectively fantastic. No matter how you look at the game, you can't argue in any way that TW3 is a bad game. I don't care if you don't like the combat, I don't care if you think it's buggy (btw, it's not. Especially compared to a Bethesda RPG of the same scale).
The music, the graphics, the stories (the general stories not the main story), the quests, the dialog, the potential depth of combat approaches. It's all fantastic, and you can play TW3 to fit almost any playstyle you want, and you can make the game as hard as you want. The care that went into the game is just unbelievable, top it off with incredible DLC and expansions that put other FULL games to shame, The Witcher 3 is a very very special game and if you deny that...well you are incredibly ignorant to say the least.
It's okay to not like the game, based on combat or whatever you want to say.
It's not okay to look at it and say it's a bad game, because that is simply wrong. Factually wrong.
I think the combat is a bit of an anomaly, in that it feels simple in its execution but has a ton of backloaded depth to it. I also don?t understand how people think the controls are clumsy and whatnot. Geralt is actually very nimble and can dodge around slicing up Nekkers and the like as if toying with his prey like a cat.
I think its less of the fighting, and more of the action button prompts being a bit fiddly. Try swimming underwater to unlock a chest, but the "press x" prompt keeps disappearing because your character has moved slightly out of the action prompt radius, and now you have to do a full figure of 8 to get back to it because Geralt can't just turn on the spot underwater, and oh no now you're too close to the chest to open it, so you need to reverse, which you can't do, so you need to try all again.hanselthecaretaker said:
I hope you're not serious about games being objectively good. Much of why most people love Witcher 3 is the writing, which is naturally extremely subjective. Witcher 3's greatest strength can be easily done in with someone saying they found it boring or didn't like Geralt or a number of other completely valid things. And, Witcher 3 isn't very strong when just looking at its RPG mechanics and balance. There's one skill box in the whole skill tree (Axii for conversations) that's specifically not for combat purposes, that's not very RPGish for what is referred as the best RPG. And, the balance of certain signs is a joke; no PnP RPG DM would allow any player character to have the power of Quen or Axii because they both literally break combat.CritialGaming said:
Well, CDPR patched in alternate movement because they thought the controls weren't good. I think even with the patched movement, it's still pretty finicky just to accurately have Geralt to run through a doorway. I personally don't like how the Geralt's movement completely changes when in combat. A lot of the "depth" of the combat is only useful against humanoid enemies; stuff like deflecting arrows and countering attacks isn't useful against monsters, the things Geralt is an expert at. I want to have epic monster fights in a game about a monster hunter, not jump around the like a medieval Batman fighting humanoid creatures that feels both like a poor man's Arkham and Souls game all at once. And, as mentioned above, Quen and Axii completely break combat and make it a joke.hanselthecaretaker said:
I agree there is a weird range or lack thereof for opening things, but the general combat feels snappy and nimble imo. Left Ctrl to walk also helps keep him from running around and bumping into things when in close quarters.maninahat said:
Well, as for combat it's not cinematically epic like a God of War bossfight or as nuanced and strategic as Monster Hunter, but for a developer that turned an elaborately spun narrative about a diverse cast of characters, medieval fantasy and political intrigue into a videogame series it feels to me about like it should. The combat and action was brought to life from the narrative, and gives enough freedom and sense of control and "role playing" to feel like you're in the shoes of The Witcher. The game is challenging on higher difficulties unless you really get over-leveled, which can be said for pretty much any RPG.Phoenixmgs said:
I played about an hour of Witcher 1 a few years ago and didn't see the fuss. It was very clunky with a lot of railroading in the gameworld and story and vastly inferior to what I was used to with the Gothic/Risen series. So I didn't bother looking into Witcher 2 or 3. That brief experience combined with the stories I've heard about Geralt being a "sex god" and the game seemingly obsessed with the player banging as many digitally rendered ladies as possible and in graphic detail means I don't believe I have missed much.
Witcher 1 really isn't the best example of the series and pretty much everything you saw in it is true. It's by far the weakest and I honestly encourage everyone to skip it unless they really, really have to play the entire series(in order or not). Read the Wikipedia summery if you want to find out what story beats you missed. Witcher 3 barely even acknowledges the first game at all.Blood Brain Barrier said:
Witcher 2 or Witcher 3 is a much better representation of what the series is.
The Witcher 3 is not a game that any gamer should skip. The Witcher 2 as well, but to a lesser extent. Both are terrific narrative driven RPG's.Blood Brain Barrier said:
It took me three attempts to get into the first one. But then, for some reason, something clicked when I arrived at Vizima, and I just couldn't put it down. So it takes about 5-8h to get to the good parts, which is really stupid. But it was their first game. Or maybe I just didn't have anything else to play at the time. I don't think that I could play the first one again though. It didn't age well. I only played through it once before TW2 was released. So at the time it was tolerable.
Adam Jensen said:
It?s strange. For me the original is still one of my favorite games, if only because I?d never really played a CRPG before besides a bit of Diablo II, and it felt so well-realized even though the combat was rough. I still didn?t have a problem with it though; basically just took it in stride as a quirky timing-based system meant to work around the engine limitations. I was too enthralled with the depth of everything else, from inventory to characters to questing to the atmospheric settings and music. Its setting felt oddly inviting and lived in, and stuff like the romance cards were merely like whipped icing on this thick, delicious cake vs the other way around.
Having said that, for some reason it still took me years to finish. I finished the first act rather quickly but after that I think sometimes I?d get stuck on a certain area or get distracted by another, more action-heavy game, or even feel like I?d never get done with it so never really bothered with too many marathon sessions. Anyways, once I did finish it I still considered it one of my favorite games of all time. I played through TW2 very quickly by contrast. Probably because it felt a lot more linear and cinematic as far as story progression. For some reason I didn?t enjoy it as much. It was an awesome game for sure, but it just felt ironically shallow by comparison, with only the combat and presentation improving imo.
The Witcher 3 however feels like CDPR took what was good about both, learned from their mistakes and made the ultimate conglomeration of it all.
I never said it was the best rpg ever. I'm saying it is objectively a good game. If you don't like the writing, fine, that doesn't make the writing bad. The graphics are top notch. Gwent was a blast. The world design is great. The monster design and the art is fantastic. The combat is good and fun.Phoenixmgs said:
Now you can not like any number of these things. That doesn't make them bad. You can not like things that are good. You can not like certain foods. Does that make those foods bad? Of course not.
There are games where everyone can look at and say, "God that is a shitshow." Ride to Hell, Day1 Gary's Incident, etc.
But games like The Witcher, or God of War, or Uncharted, etc. You might not like that style of game, or aspects of that game, but you can't say those games are shit, because they are very clearly good games even if you might not like them. It's just being realistic.
Witcher 3... For over a year now I'm stuck in Velen, scared to proceed because I might miss a Gwent card due to stupidity or the game bugging out on me ( however irrational this fear may be )... Maybe someday I'll return to it.
Here's to you, Witcher 3 🥂
Here's to you, Witcher 3 🥂
I played it on Hard and unless Death March fundamentally changes how Quen or Axii work, the game never comes close to hard because of how the aforementioned skills break the game. I could literally beat any enemy in the game regardless of what level the enemy and Geralt were, the question was just how long would it take. I think you only need to upgrade Quen and Axii just once and either of them break the game. With Quen, you take no damage from any one hit so you can put up Quen, hack away until you get hit, dodge away and reapply Quen, rinse and repeat. With Axii, you can constantly stun enemies so you just Axii them, get a few swings in, back away and Axii again, rinse and repeat. No DM running any PnP RPG would allow a player character to have either Quen or Axii as powers in the unlimited fashion Witcher 3 allows.hanselthecaretaker said:
Try out the new Divinity games.
I was just referring to how Witcher 3 is quite often referred as the GOAT of the genre when the game has very little actual role-playing in it. I'm pretty sure you feel it's at least a fantastic example of the genre from what you said.CritialGaming said:
The point is no game or anything is objectively good. If someone doesn't like something, that is the very definition of that something being bad (for them). There is no way to prove anything is inherently good (for all) and say people that dislike it just don't find it to be their cup of tea. The only way you can really say something is objectively good is if literally everyone has tried it and everyone has liked it, but I doubt that is something that has ever happened in the history of mankind besides for necessity related stuff like breathing air.
I've played Uncharted 1-4 and I only found one of the games to actually be good, and I have rated the other three below a 5/10 because they were below average (AKA bad). How is it that I personally just don't like the style when I did indeed like and even love 1 of the 4 games? I've played the main 4 God of War games and only really liked one of them (the 1st one), found 2 and 3 to be shit, and found the new one only slightly above average (6/10). The only time Witcher 3 actually excels at being an RPG, you know a ROLE-PLAYING game, is after finding Ciri when Geralt actually has to make important and organic feeling decisions. Video game RPGs have gotten lost in the RPG elements instead of just simply being about actual role-playing.