Sick drive by troll my dude
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LTTP - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (is the greatest game of all time)
- Thread starter BizzyBum
- Start date
Haha, come on Norns, some of your comments ITT have been very similar single sentence declarative statements with little contribution to the actual conversation.
Peroroncino
Member
I stuck around to defend my one liners =PHaha, come on Norns, some of your comments ITT have been very similar single sentence declarative statements with little contribution to the actual conversation.
You have an alternate movement option if you don't care for the default. I find it hard to believe that someone would find both of the options "terrible". And I'm still really confused by the "combat is shit" comments that I haven't really seen echoed anywhere but here.
sublimit
Banned
One of my most memorable journeys i had in gaming in years even with all its flaws as the OP mentioned them.Loved its distinct Eastern European atmosphere.I hope they remain aesthetically unique with Cyberpunk and don't trap themselves in the cliches of the setting.I don't want to see another Blade Runner wanna be.
True, you're still here.
Alternative control absolute.y makes the game better, it should be set to default.
I think the "it's shit" comments are just people being lazy for the most part.
It's one of the best RPGs I've ever played, perhaps even the best. It's sort of ruined other RPGs for me, and to a certain extent JRPGs because the fantastic writing, dialogue, characterisation, and storytelling in TW3 makes anime tropes in JRPGs look ridiculously shit and juvenile. After TW3, I find myself scrutinising those aspects in other games and I'm always left unimpressed.
Video game scriptwriters in Japan, step it up!
Video game scriptwriters in Japan, step it up!
-Inconsistency
I don't know what Geralt is going to do when I press light/strong attack, we have 2 scenarios, Geralt vs a soldier, we are the same distance apart in both scenarios. In scenario A, Geralt will do a simple slash, in scenario B, Geralt will do some twirling dance and then slash at the end. So now you have a case where you don't know if you're gonna attack quickly and interrupt the enemy, or do a long drawn out twirl and have the enemy slap you mid animation. A lot of people don't like that because they want to be in control of the character and action they're doing.
-Camera/tracking
Geralt is always drawn to 1 target like a magnet and we have little control over it. Geralt is walking through the woods and encounters 3 enemies, he instantly draws out his sword and gets into his combat stance which is really annoying when we were controlling him one way, and now he's automatically in this hunched over, little crawl speed which is a pain to get out of. So now we have 3 enemies as mentioned before, Geralt will track one minimally, you can tell which one by the health bar, you press your light attack and he attacks that enemy, so far so good. Now the game will randomly track another enemy because they walked too close to some undefined point, so you now have cases where you're attacking one enemy, back off for a bit, and then attack again, but before you attacked that second time, the game thought "fuck you, we're now tracking this enemy" and you're now watching Geralt twirling his way towards another direction you have no say in. So now you'll probably say, use the lock on system, ok we've now locked on to an enemy, but now I can't fight the other 2 who are crawling from behind which makes locking on a big waste of time. And as mentioned before, if you try to run away, Geralt does this weird hobble away before he thinks "ok, now is the time to run". For an open world game, the combat is hardly open.
-General animation/feedback
As mentioned, animations are inconsistent in their length, don't know if he's gonna twirl or slash, which removes an aspect of skill as you can't plan your attacks as you hoped to. Also hitting enemies doesn't feel great, why did my last light attack stun the enemy, but this light attack just brushed past them and they took no notice? Shit like that is common.
-Movement
Geralt is a pain to move, it doesn't feel like you're controlling him, there is always this delay between your inputs and him moving, even simply running forward and stopping. Rolling and dodge doesn't feel great and it's annoying to aim where you're going to roll due to the magnet tracking thing. It's just clunky as all fuck.
-Difficulty
Apart from bosses, most fights are generally the same and just revolve around more health/damage because all your general mobs just fight the same and are limited. There isn't much challenge even on Death March. It just becomes are chore of Quen spam/block/countering until you get high enough level for Geralt to turn into a killing machine because hard difficulty in The Witcher 3 just means you take more damage. You can kinda button spam light and still have it working.
Edit: I had my control scheme set to alternate.
I'm sure there are other reasons I noticed but it's been a while since I dropped the game. It all comes down to control. And it's shitty to dismiss all complaints about combat/controls as over Souls fanboys gushing that their precious Bloodborne didn't get those prestigious awards (I'm sure those 200 awards are all equal in status and recognition). A lot of people are thinking "how did this game get so many goty awards when the "game" part of it is actually subpar." That is a legit criticism.
I'm convinced the real issue that some people have with this game is it didn't come out of Japan.
Kind of a jaded opinion to have, but when you've been on gaming message boards for way too long...
I've been playing RPGs since the early 80s, and the Witcher 3 is so good, I am pretty confident in stating it's the best RPG in the history of the genre. There really isn't anything that can touch it. Does it have the best combat? No. Does it have the best overall story? No. But the sum of its parts is just so far and away better than anything else I've played, it's inconceivable there's a better RPG out there I haven't played.
As another poster stated, Baldur's Gate 2 is one of the best RPGs ever made (and the only one in his/her list I'd even put in that tier). As an overall experience, though, Baldur's Gate 2 wishes that the technology had been there at the time to support a game as rich as TW3.
That is really why I think it's difficult for some to accept just how good the game is. The technology to make something as ambitious as TW3 simply didn't exist until recently; even look at recent Bethesda efforts like Skyrim or Fallout 4. That team is so handicapped by that god awful Gamebryo engine, they couldn't even have made something like TW3.
LegalEagleMike
Member
Remains my game.of the generation with no competitor in sight
The post directly above yours explains many of the issues with the combat/traversal, and as this is uch a huge part of TW3 experience.
This drags the game down for many players.
It's nothing to do with not being able to accept how good the game is, or being bitter somehow that older games didn't have today's tech, that's a really silly idea. I'm not sure you thought it though before typing.
Sanctuary
Member
That's a great example of why it's not very good. Firestream used to be a way to get around the annoying things that humans would do, especially when grouped together (namely hold block forever), but they nerfed the hell out of that. You can't do that any longer, but it actually doesn't matter that much when you can just toss one Igni and watch all them burn until you toss a second. On any boss that will burn (which is most), you can just toss an Igni, not attack and watch thousands of hit points vanish per tick. Similarly with Aard. Just toss it at a group of enemies and then run from enemy to enemy hitting X to "win". That's some Assassin's Creed tier shit right there. When you do that the first few times it is kind of fun, but the novelty wears out extremely fast.
But "Oh, that's just the cheap way to play. You aren't really taking advantage of what the system truly has to offer, and you're just cheesing it up!" you say? Melee combat is where the clunk factor really comes into play, and it goes from even easier than Signs most of the time, to super annoying. The game becomes laughably easy if you decided to pick up Whirl, and look out if you've gone the hybrid route that takes advantage of both.
Plus, while I do actually think the world is beautiful, can someone tell me if Geralt is just in the middle of tornado season or something? The perpetual bending of the trees gets ridiculous.
A number of your complaints are solved by simply going into the controll options and selecting the alternative movement option.
Selecting targets in combat: either hard lock or move your stick in the direction you want to attack if not locked on. I've never had an issue selecting the target I wanted.
Difficulty: I agree with you. Thankfully you can mod this on PC if it really bothers you.
Under the hood the combat is still dice rolls. That's why there's an inconsistencies per hit.
I didn't dismiss anyone's complaints about the combat. I simply why people thought it was shit.
People say this about everything.
Soulsborne is shit. Halo is shit. Chess is shit. Life is shit. Etc... Unless a person puts some decent reasoning into why a thing is shit it's probably best to pass it off as lazy venting and ignore it.
The Horror the horror
Banned
I need to play the first two to understand any significant storyline in W3?
Or I could ask the question like I did to understand the other point of view. I eventually got a response.
Nah, you don't need to. You'll only miss out on some references.
Yeh, fair enough. Most probably won't bother though and plenty of people have voiced the issues articulately.
At this point we're all pretty much repeating ourselves.
Messageboards in a nutshell
It was set to alternate! Gonna go back and edit that in my post.
And I wasn't implying you specifically about dismissing complaints, but something that generally happens.
It all comes down to expectations. If you're expecting Soulsborne-style combat, then you'll dislike the combat in TW3 because it's not Soulsborne-esque. You could also criticize the gameplay for not being more like Diablo, or Paper Mario, but those complaints would be just as silly. In the context of the genre, TW3's combat isn't deficient. It does exactly what it's meant to do: create a system that gives meaning to all the weapons, equipment, and skills that you collect over the course of the game. And it's actually fun once you get the hang of it - with the right skills you can finish most encounters without getting hit if you know what attacks are strong against what enemies, which is nice because the combat feeds into the exploration and puzzle aspects of the game. A significant part of the game is researching monsters and crafting bombs/potions that give you an advantage against them.
The combat, like all other aspects of the game, only makes sense in the context of the whole. You can single it out and criticize it, just like you can single out the Souls games' hilariously poorly-translated dialogue and nonsensical storytelling. But it would be unfair to lean too hard on these flaws, because the Souls games aren't about storytelling. They're about combat and exploration, with the lore serving as a mood-setting backdrop. Similarly, expecting TW3 to have combat that's as good as a Souls game's combat just isn't fair; they're different styles of game with different priorities. Skyrim's combat is absolute shit and I don't remember every thread on Skyrim devolving into "the combat is so bad I couldn't even play it" nonsense. The difference, in my opinion, is that Skyrim's combat is so easy that it's almost impossible to screw up. In TW3, if you aren't willing to put in the time to learn the systems, it comes off as opaque and and frustrates players, who then call the game clunky and exaggerate the combat's flaws.
The only expectation I had for TW3's combat is that it would be a fun gameplay loop.
As it's so awkward to control and lacking any real satisfying feedback or uniquye ways to build your character, it fails.
The context of the whole does nothing to alleviate these issues. They're valid concerns and should be discussed.
XV is a "more than the sum of its parts" experience, and my personal GOTY, but I would never ignore the myriad issues it has or be as absurd as to call it the GOAT.
Both of these games have far too many flaws for GOAT status, as remarkable as they are in their own ways.
GeordieMark
Member
The only RPGs I can think of with combat clearly better than TW3 are the Souls games, and they aren't really the same kind of game so it's not a 1:1 comparison. Souls combat is overrated anyway. For the most part you can strafe and backstab most enemies in the game. I've been playing the DS3 DLC recently, and the most common enemy can be dealt with using that strategy every time without fail.
Like Dark Souls, what makes TW3 so good isn't one particular thing. I'd say both are greater than the sum of their parts, and it's the way everything comes together that makes them both the games they are. When you start picking at individual aspects, there's plenty to be criticised in both.
Like Dark Souls, what makes TW3 so good isn't one particular thing. I'd say both are greater than the sum of their parts, and it's the way everything comes together that makes them both the games they are. When you start picking at individual aspects, there's plenty to be criticised in both.
It's disingenuous to say that your only expectation was for it to be "fun" when obviously your expectations are more specific than that. Everyone goes into a new game with their own set of likes and dislikes, and that's not necessarily bad. I don't think of the core "loop" of the game as just being combat. An average quest in TW3 contains dialogue, exploration, playing detective, making choices (sometimes moral, sometimes personal), and combat. If the game was all combat, it probably wouldn't be very good, but the game always provides context that makes it more interesting. Even random bandit camps and highway robbers sometimes carry notes that give their backstory or even start quests.
And honestly your specific complaints sound like nit-picks. Geralt is kind of awkward sometimes, yes. They did a lot to alleviate this with the changes to his movement. But the game has plenty of feedback (I'm not even sure that you're criticizing here, like the enemies don't scream enough when you hit them?) and there are myriad ways you can build your character. I played as a potion spec, my friend played the game as a caster spec, you can even mix and match skills from different trees without giving up too much. It's really quite serviceable.
That was always the case when it comes to WRPGs. Although it's not cinematics and graphics but more writing, story, characters, world, atmosphere. Planescape Torment has one of the worst combat and progression system in any RPG and yet it it's considered as one of (if not THE one) best WRPG of all time. Same for Morrowind - the combat there was laughable at best from the very beginning (although magic system was decent). And yet almost every RPG fan has it in high regard despite it. Gothic I and II are some of the best examples of "open world done right" but the so called "gameplay" is really nothing to write about.
In WRPGs combat was never a crucial component of the genre (or at least it wasn't necessary to consider the game as brilliant).
btw. I like combat in The Witcher 3.
Please don't tell me what my expectations were.
My only expectation was that it would be fun. That's honest, 100%. That's my only expectation with any RPG combat system. In RPGs I like to spend a lot of time exploring and engaging with combat, be it a rhythm game or character action or bullet hell or whatever,as long as the gameplay loop is fun I don't care. This is why I adore XV's combat despite its flaws as, overall, I'm finding it incredibly enjoyable. TW3's combat became a chore after a few hours.
And the other aspects you mention as part of the gameplay loop are all either awkward or merely ok. The context helps yes, but it doesn't prevent the traversal being awkward, the combat being bland, the detective mode being shallow, etc... If anything the quality of the story and surrounding context highlights the flaws in the gameplay.
Feedback in combat is things like weight of blows, and the /feel/ that you're connecting with an enemy. Many games do this remarkably well and really make it feel like you're connecting with your target, TW3 doesn't manage this. Most of the time it feels like you're just slicing at air and the enemies often don't even react to your blows. This isn't something you can ignore, it's an objective weakness with the combat system. It might not bother you as much personally, but it does exist.
And no, there are not "myriad ways" to build your character, there are a few branches but none of them are very in-depth or offer any truly unique abilities or skills.
You're being incredibly dismissive of the flaws with combat and traversal by calling them nitpicks. They are fundamental flaws that drag the experience down considerably for many players, and even many of those who enjoy it still recognise aspects deeply flawed.
Also, "Servicable" is not a standard we should be aiming for.
peanutbutterlatte
Member
I thought Skyrim's combat was far more enjoyable than TW3's. There's a much more palatable sense of feedback.
SwipeLeftHoney
Banned
I have never played any of the Witcher games and recently picked up the Witcher 3 Complete Edition ( PSN Sale ). Do I need to play the others to truly enjoy the story here or should I just throw myself into this world for the next little while...
Peroroncino
Member
I mean, this phrase has to be a running joke by now here on GAF right? RIGHT!?
Absolutely no need to play the previous games, but I would strongly recommend you play them in order as they all offer unique experiences that would be a shame to miss.
If you have no desire too, or don't have the time, etc... TW3 is pretty much standalone.
SwipeLeftHoney
Banned
Thanks for this. Maybe I'll watch a playthrough for the story of the other 2 games before I play it. I own the Witcher 2 on the 360 which I hear has all kinds of buggy issues so I'm not sure I wanna jump into that ever and torture myself.
Peroroncino
Member
You can try watching some story recaps, just to get your bearing on what this world is and who are the major characters, but all in all, it's not necessary.
Sanctuary
Member
I've said this before too, and hated myself for saying it, because I've always complained about how Bethesda just can't seem to get unstuck from their Hexen phase.
Every TES game since Daggerfall:
I actually have little problem with the truly classic WRPG gameplay, when it used to be turn based. Even RTwP is more engaging, or at the very least rewarding. It's when Western developers decided to start going into real time combat that it actually did matter. Stop making every fucking RPG a generic fantasy first-person shooter if you're going real time, or stop making it perform like a bad mid 90s third-person console action game as though we haven't progressed way beyond that.
Also, while some people will say that they actually liked the story of Dragon's Dogma, that's about the last reason it gets the praise that it does. Just because there have been RPGs that were considered classics despite their lame gameplay, that doesn't mean that shit still needs to fly today.
Roddslayer
Member
I'm on my second playthrough now and coming from PS4 to PC it's really a world's difference. With many QOL mods enabled it's really fueled this playthrough in which I rarely if ever play an RPG for a second time.
Another point is how so many choices are available not only in the main quest but in a lot of side quests as well. The game is just massive and I'm finding a lot of quests I never completed or even knew about from my first playthrough. I'm a mainstream RPG fan and this ranks right along my favorites of Mass Effect and Skyrim.
Another point is how so many choices are available not only in the main quest but in a lot of side quests as well. The game is just massive and I'm finding a lot of quests I never completed or even knew about from my first playthrough. I'm a mainstream RPG fan and this ranks right along my favorites of Mass Effect and Skyrim.
BizzyBum
Member
I was happy to see my month old thread bumped with 4 new pages then disappointed when it was basically arguing about the combat. lol
As someone who beat both 2 and 3 (never played 1), I highly recommend playing 2 first. It's a phenomenal game in its own right and it will get you accustomed to the world, lore, and characters that you'll be seeing in 3 which will make the game more meaningful. It's also nowhere near as long as 3, you can beat it and move on to 3 at around 40-50 hours of play.
As someone who beat both 2 and 3 (never played 1), I highly recommend playing 2 first. It's a phenomenal game in its own right and it will get you accustomed to the world, lore, and characters that you'll be seeing in 3 which will make the game more meaningful. It's also nowhere near as long as 3, you can beat it and move on to 3 at around 40-50 hours of play.
The combat is one of the min reasons why your claim that TW3 is the greatest game of all time is silly.
Peroroncino
Member
The combat is one of the min reasons why your claim that TW3 is the greatest game of all time is silly.
It's not silly tho, cuz my man Geralt is GOAT af.
Ultimadrago
Member
You're Goddamn Right.
lowhighkang_LHK
Member
It's combat is underwhelming but the game excels in so many other areas the overall package is fantastic.
But no, it's not the greatest game ever made. Probably not even the best RPG ever made.
Also, LOL at people suggesting Skryim has better combat than TW3. Fucking Skyrim folks...really?!?
I still have yet to play Blood and Wine, hoping for Pro support. Even though it's probably not going to happen. But, eh - I've got other things to play until then.
But no, it's not the greatest game ever made. Probably not even the best RPG ever made.
Also, LOL at people suggesting Skryim has better combat than TW3. Fucking Skyrim folks...really?!?
I still have yet to play Blood and Wine, hoping for Pro support. Even though it's probably not going to happen. But, eh - I've got other things to play until then.
Souls games have more in common with a metroidvania then witcher 3 dont know why the comparisons. Soulsborne and dragons dogma are both very different rpgs then witcher 3. I wouldnt compar combat in pillars of eternity to witcher 3. Genres do have radically different sub genres. Im surprised honeslt how many people seem to view them as straight rpgs. Ive always just viewed them as an action game series with a character progression mechanic.
amigastar
Member
The Witcher 3 was released 6 years ago, who's installing it again?
en.cdprojektred.com
The Witcher Universe | Action-Adventure RPGs
Discover award-winning games from the universe of The Witcher, featuring unforgettable characters and immersive storytelling set in a dark fantasy world.
PleaseDontBanMe
Banned
Never un-installed itThe Witcher 3 was released 6 years ago, who's installing it again?
The Witcher Universe | Action-Adventure RPGs
Discover award-winning games from the universe of The Witcher, featuring unforgettable characters and immersive storytelling set in a dark fantasy world.
Kev Kev
Member
i quit after an hour or so. it just idnt capture me. in fact, i felt overwhelmed and was not having fun at all. went out to fight bad guys on one of the first missions after you find the first town and kept getting my ass handed to me. i had no idea what to do, and everything just felt complicated, so i gave up after dying like 10 times in a row.
ill have to try it out again one day.
ill have to try it out again one day.
ValiantTraveler
Member
It can’t be the goat if it has no memorable boss fights.
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