CD Projekt Red Isn't Afraid of Making The Witcher 3 Too Difficult

Evonisia

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Jun 24, 2013
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I will give them credit for trying to make normal mode hard because of their desires.

Alien: Isolation tells you that Hard mode is the proper way to play. If it was the proper way to play, it would be called fucking normal.
 

major_chaos

Ruining videogames
Feb 3, 2011
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The Madman said:
Not sure that would be a wise bet to make. Witcher 2's Dark Mode was pretty fair in how it dealt out its damage, Geralt would die within only a few blows but so would most enemies making most fights more about avoidance and timing than anything. Dark Mode was also neat in that it introduced a few unique sets of armor and challenges to the game to reward players that powered through it.

If Witcher 3 does something similar with its Dark Mode then you'll find no complaints from me.
If that's all it is than the Dev is overhyping it just tiny bit. And by tiny bit I mean "holly fuck, chill dude". If you want to convey hard but fair you don't go "Dark Souls? MAN THAT'S PUSSY SHIT. WE XTREME UP IN DIS PLACE" (paraphrased), because that says to me that someone is taking their idea about difficulty from IWTBTG.
 

TheCaptain

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Feb 7, 2012
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Bleh, if it stops being fun, I'll cheat. I don't get a rise out of "challenge" at all - it's as if a book i'm reading jumbles up the the letters in every other word for the sake of "challenge"...
 

Gatlank

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TheCaptain said:
Bleh, if it stops being fun, I'll cheat. I don't get a rise out of "challenge" at all - it's as if a book i'm reading jumbles up the the letters in every other word for the sake of "challenge"...
That's a bad analogy. Books dont require any interaction from readers hence their intent isn't to provide a challenge.
Games require inputs and a certain level of interactivity from the people playing them to keep them invested (and this isn't just for electronic games).
Make them to easy and you're better off writing a book or painting some pictures.
 

JET1971

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Gatlank said:
TheCaptain said:
Bleh, if it stops being fun, I'll cheat. I don't get a rise out of "challenge" at all - it's as if a book i'm reading jumbles up the the letters in every other word for the sake of "challenge"...
That's a bad analogy. Books dont require any interaction from readers hence their intent isn't to provide a challenge.
Games require inputs and a certain level of interactivity from the people playing them to keep them invested (and this isn't just for electronic games).
Make them to easy and you're better off writing a book or painting some pictures.
There are other ways to make a game challenging without making the combat ridiculous. Using combat as the only form of challenge is probably the laziest challenge they can get. Witcher has a ton of story, they could have added challenge with the story when picking dialogue. Each choice has consequences and you could learn what they are by the story if you pay attention. They hinted at that in the first 2 games but sadly they didn't do much with it. I would love to see that expanded on and more challenge in picking choices.

You are also only half correct when saying all video games need challenge or they will be boring. A book has no challenge and reading one you enjoy is not boring, watching a movie you enjoy isn't a challenge but you again remain interested and enjoy yourself. A video game doesn't have to have challenge to be fun and keep you interested, a quality storyline and dialogue can do that. make characters likeable or make you hate them helps make a story based game fun. COD multiplayer needs challenging combat or it will be boring because there is no story. If the Mass Effect series had very little story I would've deleted ME1 and never bought ME2 and 3, the combat wasn't challenging, it was boring, hide behind chest high wall and pop up to shoot until your shields are low, wait for shields to come back up and repeat until everything is dead is the most boring combat I have ever played in a game. I hated it but I loved the whole game series because of the story, the combat was tolerated and a few tweaks and mods later combat took 1/16 the time and had as much challenge as turning on a faucet and that made the game even more fun.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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I really really love this attitude.

"Normal should be a challenge," Webber explained, telling us that in most games, "normal is easy, and easy is - well, you can be on your phone while playing."
completely this. Normal should be normal. Neither easy nor hard. it should be a challenge that average gamer can overcome but has to put effort to overcome. Easy is for people who are new to gaming or to the genre. Hard is for people who consider themselves above average. Normal though is what most people except to be reasonably challenging.

Enemies do not scale in The Witcher 3, and combat requires precise and accurate timing. Venture too far into end-game territory without the proper experience and you will get slaughtered.
I am deeply sadened that this is not true in EVERY game. this should be the default state. enemy strength should be based on location. you dont expect bandits wearing gold armor at city gates nor you expect rats in endgame boss fight. people should be able to fight harder monsters by going to their territory if they think they are stronger than thier level and the other way around. and yes even if that allows some people to abuse training in low level areas. Witcher 3 sounds more and more like a mustbuy now.

"Dark difficulty is something that many people in the company are very passionate about," said Webber. As well turning the difficulty up to its very highest setting, Dark difficulty also features permadeath. "[Many people] want a real challenge. If you die five minutes before the ending, it's over. There are actually people who have already done it."
so i take it dark difficulty somehow removes the save system and expects you to finnish the entire game in a single sitting? because otherwise there is no such thing as perma-death in singleplayer games.

Call me an old man, but back in my day, games were supposed to be hard. That was the whole point!
the reason games were hard back in the day was to extract more quarters from you.

RJ 17 said:
Has anyone here ever made it to the kill-screen of the original Donkey Kong? I don't think so. How about Pac-Man? A little easier, but I highly doubt anyone on this site has ever made it to the kill-screen.
Original Pac-Man didnt have kill screen. when you won the last level the last level just restarted and you would try again. and again. and again. without end. the developers never expected anyone to even reach it anything so they didnt bother with ending.
 

Bat Vader

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TheCaptain said:
Bleh, if it stops being fun, I'll cheat. I don't get a rise out of "challenge" at all - it's as if a book i'm reading jumbles up the the letters in every other word for the sake of "challenge"...
Nothing wrong with cheating as long as it is done only in single player.
 

ExileNZ

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Good on CDPR.

EA's drive for 'easier' games sounds to me like they want to churn out casual Farmville clones.
 

JohnnyDelRay

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I'm all about the challenge. Even the dicky timing-based combat of the first one. So this is good news. Enemies not scaling is how IT SHOULD BE. I could not imagine any scenario where I wouldn't want that to be the case. Only 2 things bother me:

1)Lighten up a little on the load restrictions, yes I know typical RPG fashion you can level up stats to be able to hold more and whatnot, but in an open-world game this is flat-out irritating. Needless running back and forth and worrying about stuff, it's extra management that just adds stress. Well, maybe this is just me being a wuss.

2) Spend a little time on the difficulty curve as well, maybe? TW2 is insanely, brutally, unforgivingly hard right from the beginning, but as soon as I was done with that I only had trouble with one boss, and the hidden boss - the rest was cake.
 

Krantos

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Jun 30, 2009
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Kind of sad to hear "Dark" will have perma death this time. I like the challenge of Dark on Witcher 2, but don't like the idea of perma death in a 100+ hour game. That just seems silly. I hope there is another difficulty that has the same challenge, but allows you to die.
 

Krantos

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Strazdas said:
so i take it dark difficulty somehow removes the save system and expects you to finnish the entire game in a single sitting? because otherwise there is no such thing as perma-death in singleplayer games.
it probably does what the Witcher 2 did for "Insane" mode. I allows you save just fine, but it deletes all saves from that playthrough if you die.
 

TheCaptain

A Guy In A Hat
Feb 7, 2012
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Bat Vader said:
TheCaptain said:
Bleh, if it stops being fun, I'll cheat. I don't get a rise out of "challenge" at all - it's as if a book i'm reading jumbles up the the letters in every other word for the sake of "challenge"...
Nothing wrong with cheating as long as it is done only in single player.
Naturally. I don't actually play a lot of multiplayer games anyway.
 

Strazdas

Robots will replace your job
May 28, 2011
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Krantos said:
Strazdas said:
so i take it dark difficulty somehow removes the save system and expects you to finnish the entire game in a single sitting? because otherwise there is no such thing as perma-death in singleplayer games.
it probably does what the Witcher 2 did for "Insane" mode. I allows you save just fine, but it deletes all saves from that playthrough if you die.
Oh, thats not a problem then. i can always make local backups of save files and once dead just restore then and the game will think i just havent played that day. its not as fast as quicsaving, but it can do.
 
Apr 5, 2008
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I don't mind hard, but I don't particularly enjoy "punishing" or rather "punitive". Also, the intro/tutorial shouldn't be too hard. I played TW2 shortly after release and waaaay before the EE was available. As such, I got the brutal version of the tutorial and didn't last much longer than a short way into Chapter 1. It took me 1-2 years before I gave it another try since I'd permanently associated that bad, initial experience with the game. I'm glad I did give it another go, and while I liked it a lot, thought it was fun enough, I don't fancy a second playthru to see the different (Iorveth) path.

Still, open world, Geralt, Triss, sex, magic, monsters, Yenefer, Ciri, answers...can't wait. I pre-ordered this months ago, very much looking forward to it. This and Project Eternity are my biggest games this year (truth be told, I'm not even sure if there's anything else noteworthy coming out in 2015). Oh! And Shadowrun: Hong Kong. So three exciting things for 2015 :)