My Witcher 3 Revisit

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

Nothing that can't be overcome with some tactical planning, but I don't enjoy fighting any of them, but just made me think "Great, more of these. Welp, time to slog through them".

I can understand why people don't enjoy the combat. I enjoy it well enough, but it's not stellar by any stretch of the imagination. In fact I can't help but to think how wonderful The Witcher 3 would have been with Shadow of Mordor swordplay.

It's more particular enemy types rather than the combat as a whole, but yeah, they could've done a better job with the swordplay. Shadow of Mordor style might be an option, maybe throw in some Dragon's Dogma for big enemies.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

It's all just what appeals to you right?

You have to keep in mind who you're talking to. This is Phoenixmgs. He's the Armond White of Escapist game criticism.

 

[Zetatrain]

Spoiler

Those fucking spiders were really frustrating to fight because they keep their distance ant they web you, so you can't move.

Honestly, I think most of the new enemy types introduced in the DLCs are pretty annoying to fight.

Spoiler

Beside those Arachnomorphs and their little keepaway game, the Archespores, Kikimora, Bruxa and Giant Centipedes all have their little annoying gimmicks like spammy attacks that stunlock, being pretty damage spongy or moments where you can't attack them and you're just waiting for them to pop out again (seriously, fuck Archespores popping up on a ledge you can't jump or climb on). Also, some of them don't actually seem to be hampered a lot by their supposed weaknesses.

Nothing that can't be overcome with some tactical planning, but I don't enjoy fighting any of them, but just made me think "Great, more of these. Welp, time to slog through them".

Actually I really enjoyed the new enemies. One of the problems I had with the vanilla game was that a lot of the monsters could easily be beaten by just simply dodging and attacking. I liked how the newer monsters forced you to make better use of other weapons and abilities in the Witcher's arsenal.

With the spiders, giant centipedes. and archspores you had to make use of stuff like ard, yrden, and freeze bombs to immobilize them. With the Bruxas, moon dust became useful for something other than wraiths. Yeah I know that other vampire type enemies could turn invisible before, but the problem is that their size and slow speed made them too easy to spot. Black blood was a nice "ace in the hole" to have in case they bit you. And if all else fails you could ard's alternate form to knock them down or at least stagger them. Also the alchemy ability that increased your toxicity's "safe" threshold to 100% was very useful against kikimoras. Since their attacks raise your toxicity you never had to worry about taking toxic damage. Also golden oriole completely neutralizes any damage from the centipede's spit attacks.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

But you are clearly a person who values gameplay over story and that's fine.

I will say that your complaints do sound like you played on too low of a difficulty for your skill level maybe? Because on Death March you have to absolutely be a Witcher. Every fight you must prepare oils to coat your sword, potions to enhance your abilities, and your signs can't save you from shit until very high level, and even then they are almost like "oh shit" buttons with very long cooldowns in combat.

I wouldn't say I value gameplay over story, I would say I value my time spent most of all. If the majority of my time played is not enjoyed, how can I call a game good? Most of Witcher 3 is gameplay, which I did not enjoy. If Witcher 3 was an adventure game with basically no gameplay, then Witcher 3 would be a good game as then most of my playtime would've been enjoyed. Most games are comprised of gameplay as the majority of content and the writing in games is generally abysmal; thus, the games I do like usually excel in gameplay due to those 2 major reasons. There's quite a few games that I very much enjoyed for story that have very little gameplay like Telltale's Walking Dead, Phoenix Wright, Life is Strange, and one of my most remembered PS2 games is Shadow of Destiny.

I played Witcher 3 on Hard and the game really is joke easy if you understand RPGs and how skills/abilities/powers interact with each other. Just base Quen is broken, an ability to cancel all damage from a hit and then just be able to reapply it is straight game breaking. If Witcher 3 were a pen and paper RPG, no DM in their right mind would allow their players to have Quen (or Axii). Then, actually playing the game with the mindset of a witcher makes the game even easier. Just applying the proper oil and downing the proper decoction (with no alchemy skills) allowed me to literally just spam light attack without blocking or dodging or using signs against monster contracts at my level. I didn't even maximize my build or anything like a few builds I've seen in Youtube vids where Geralt is literally untouchable even on DeathMarch.

 

[FakeSympathy]

The monsters with the unique names are defeated in the same way as their regular counter parts. For example, During the Jenny O' the Woods quest the dialogues build her up to be a hate-filled ghost lady. However, she was defeated with the same strategy I use for all other specters in the game.

I also question why people went ape-shit over gwent. I was never a fan of card games, and that solidified by disbelief even more. This is like if you were going crazy over tennis in GTA 5.

The mutagen system is a nice idea, but I never found myself using green or yellow mutagens. Red and Blue were enough to decimate any monsters.

Lastly, I found weapons and armor repairs to be very annoying. It was just like in Fallout 3 and oblivion; I understand it's part of the immersion, but this feature just slowed down the game.