So that Witcher 3, eh?

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
43
tippy2k2 said:
1. Is the combat better? I thought the combat and whatnot was just awful in the W2 and it confused me how people loved it. Geralt would take a year to get his sword out, you had to use potions and whatnot to fight certain creatures but couldn't use them mid-battle and the only way to know what was coming was to get into battle, and much of the fighting was less "badass action sword fight" and more "I walk over, I stab you, then I roll away. Repeat until dead".
Yeah, it's better.

I didn't hate TW2's combat, I was merely ambivalent. But I still regard this as a distinct improvement.

You can slurp down potions mid-fight now. Although there's a limit to how many you can drink at once. Each one has a 'toxicity' value. Raise your toxicity too high and you poison yourself. I actually rather like this mechanic. Plus you can combat-scoff food to regenerate health, which has no toxicity effect.

The dodge controls are much more responsive. None of that nonsense in Witcher 2 where you press the dodge button, then wait for Geralt to fill out a permission form in triplicate and wait 3-5 business days for a response before he considers avoiding that incoming halberd. Now you press dodge, dude fucking dodges.

The engage-strike-strike-roll-away pattern is still very relevant though. Especially when fighting multiple enemies. However this time there's both a dodge button and a roll button. Use the dodge button to sidestep a single attack when you want to retaliate immediately, use the roll when you want to create space to do something else, like use a spell.

2. Will I understand the story without having to read five Bible's worth of material? That's one thing that bugged me with critiquing the W2's story; people said how much it made sense if you read all the stuff and studied up on what was going on. I'm here to play a video game; I'm not interested in reading the history of the land to find out why I should care about this king and that king...some people eat that stuff up; I'm not one of them.

3. Speaking of story, will I know what's going on without the other two games? I never played the first one (console gamer FTW) and as I have implied, I hated the second one and did not get all that far before I stopped playing.
Yes and no.

The main story thread is tied to a character who is a major part of the books but has previously had nothing to do with the games. Every so often the characters will refer to past events or start chatting it up about how King So-and-So did such-and-such.

However, the game does a decent job of establishing what you need to know and you can figure out most of the rest from context. I haven't read the books, nor did I get far on the first game, and I'm doing fine. (The events of the second game have thus far proven almost entirely irrelevant.)

Hell, I can sum up everything you really need to know in a couple of sentances: Geralt is hired to look for his surrogate daughter, who is Super Special and being hunted by damn near everyone who knows she exists. Meanwhile the Nilfguardians (aka 'The Black Ones', aka 'The Kinda Evil Empire') are waging war on the Northern Kingdoms (aka 'The Reds', think pre-unification Germanic states) and shit is getting messy.
 

freakonaleash

Wheat field gazer
Jan 3, 2009
329
0
0
I definitely agree with the haters being idiots, seriously, why are people picking a fight with a mutant sword fighter?
 

Aetrion

New member
May 19, 2012
208
0
0
The Witcher 2 is a good lead-in into Witcher 3, but not required.

As for the combat system differences between Witcher 2 and Witcher 3, I think the biggest difference is that Witcher 3 allows you to blend your moves together, while Witcher 2 did not. Basically in Witcher 2 if you told your character to attack or use a sign and then in the middle of that realized you should have dodged there was simply nothing you could do. Especially on the harder difficulties where a lot of the bosses and tougher enemies could one-shot you (or at least stunlock you), that made the combat feel terrible. There are simply too many times in Witcher 2 where you know you hit the right keys to avoid an attack, but the game insisted you had to finish whatever other move you were making first. Witcher 3 seems to allow defensive moves to always interrupt whatever you're doing.

Also one huge difference between the games is that in Witcher 3 you can regenerate stamina with Quen up, so it's not Quen or everything else, you can use your defensive sign while still using all the others.
 

Erttheking

Member
Legacy
Oct 5, 2011
10,845
1
3
Country
United States
Answer me one question.

Can Geralt actually fucking emote now? I have to say one of the MANY problems that kept me from getting into the previous two Witcher games was the fact that I secretly suspected Geralt was actually a malfunctioning Terminator. And is it needed to play through the first two games to get this one? Because I'd rather not go back to those two fuckers unless I have to

Ok, a bit more than one question. I'm actually a bit interested in the game now. Though considering there's unicorn fucking in it I feel like they still struggle with the sex scenes.
 

Longing

New member
Nov 29, 2012
178
0
0
Consider me another clueless soul seeking answers to its questions, but W3 looks really gorgeous and like an actually fun rpg even though I had a pretty miserable time with the previous ones.

You've mentioned that they seem to have toned the maturity *finger quotes* down, but is it actually playable if you don't want to wade knees deep in gross GOT-like muddy waters? Does every woman in the game still throws herself cleavage first at Geralt and if they do can you just go 'no thanks mam'? Would appreciate some insight.
 

Sight Unseen

The North Remembers
Nov 18, 2009
1,064
0
0
tippy2k2 said:
Adam Jensen said:
tippy2k2 said:
Because I'm here to play a video game, not read a book. If I wanted to read a book, I would go buy a book.
Well, you should :p
When fellow gamers recommend you a book, you buy the book. Just read "The Last Wish". It's a collection of short Witcher stories. If that doesn't get you interested in The Witcher lore you can forget the rest of the books.
Charcharo said:
I am only recommending them. For your own good. The Witcher games were originally (and still are) made for Book fans BY book fans.
If it were the opposite... well I would have already had my way with CDPR...

If I had the power to force people to do what I want... well we would all be playing STALKER 3 or something...

Respect for the elder art form mate :p
I see where you're going with this....I should skip Witcher 3 and play STALKER! :D

Alright, back on topic. I didn't mean for that to sound quite so defensive or accusing or anything like that (flashbacks from Witcher 2 fanboys getting prickly about myself not getting into the story maybe?). I actually do intend to check those books out eventually for I am a heavy reader; generally I read a book every one to two weeks depending on the size.

What I was trying (and failing) to say was that I shouldn't have to read a book in order to understand the story in your game. The game should be able to tell the story on it's own and if you are required to have an encyclopedia with you to understand what's going on, your game didn't do story well. You can have those options (like the Mass Effect Codex; it can expand and give you more info but I can play Mass Effect without ever opening The Codex up) but your game shouldn't have to rely on them to make the story work.

...I hope I've explained it better.
The books aren't necessary to understand the plot of any of the games (I'm currently binging through the Witcher 2 to play 3 so I can't speak for the plot of the 3rd one.) They just give an interesting extra insight into the world and the profession of being a Witcher.

I've only read Last Wish (I plan to read the others sometime) and the book is literally a series of short stories of Geralt helping various people with their monster problems. It's really well written and interesting and makes you appreciate Geralt as a character a bit more. Not to mention the side characters (Zoltan, Dandelion and Triss primarily)

The first short story of Last Wish is actually the inspiration for the opening cinematic in the Witcher 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtrKfZqokl4&ab_channel=AaronHarris
 

FirstNameLastName

Premium Fraud
Nov 6, 2014
1,080
0
0
Consider me in the interested but cautious group as well. I ended up getting sick of the Witcher 1 after I began to forget how the hell any of my actions effected what ever the hell I was supposed to be doing, and it's been so long that I may have to start from the beginning to get what's going on. The Witcher 2, however, is on standby in my steam library, and I'm not sure I want to play through both games (or read the books) to understand what's going on.

And considering everything that's going on with AMD and this game at the moment, I'm not too sure my three and a bit year old rig is up to the challenge. What level of optimisation are we looking at here? Despite my cynicism over GTA 5, I'm glad to have been pleasantly surprised by the excellent optimisation and graphical level I'm able to run it at, so if the Witcher 3 is anything similar then I shouldn't have a problem.
 

LetalisK

New member
May 5, 2010
2,769
0
0
Zhukov said:
Well good folk, you may uncringe yourselves because I'm actually rather enjoying The Witcher 3.
Which begs the question: Why? If you didn't like the previous two then why did you pick up the third? That's as silly as me not liking DA:O and DA2 and then buying DA:I at full retail. So silly. So infuriatingly silly I should hit myself for it. >.<
 

Erttheking

Member
Legacy
Oct 5, 2011
10,845
1
3
Country
United States
LetalisK said:
Zhukov said:
Well good folk, you may uncringe yourselves because I'm actually rather enjoying The Witcher 3.
Which begs the question: Why? If you didn't like the previous two then why did you pick up the third? That's as silly as me not liking DA:O and DA2 and then buying DA:I at full retail. So silly. So infuriatingly silly I should hit myself for it. >.<
Zhukov strikes me as like Yahtzee. Freely criticizes games he doesn't like, but always gives them a chance to impress him first.
 

Pickles

That Ice Ain't Nice
Mar 1, 2012
116
0
0
Country
Australia
Longing said:
Consider me another clueless soul seeking answers to its questions, but W3 looks really gorgeous and like an actually fun rpg even though I had a pretty miserable time with the previous ones.

You've mentioned that they seem to have toned the maturity *finger quotes* down, but is it actually playable if you don't want to wade knees deep in gross GOT-like muddy waters? Does every woman in the game still throws herself cleavage first at Geralt and if they do can you just go 'no thanks mam'? Would appreciate some insight.
I've played about 20 hours, and in that time there have only been a couple of characters that I'd say fit that description. I can think of one thats particularly in your face about it but from what I can tell you can avoid a reasonable amount of it, and in those kind of situations you are given the opportunity to just turn people down.
 

Zhukov

The Laughing Arsehole
Dec 29, 2009
13,769
5
43
LetalisK said:
Zhukov said:
Well good folk, you may uncringe yourselves because I'm actually rather enjoying The Witcher 3.
Which begs the question: Why? If you didn't like the previous two then why did you pick up the third? That's as silly as me not liking DA:O and DA2 and then buying DA:I at full retail. So silly. So infuriatingly silly I should hit myself for it. >.<
erttheking said:
Zhukov strikes me as like Yahtzee. Freely criticizes games he doesn't like, but always gives them a chance to impress him first.
Oh, dear Ert, you have way too much faith.

I actually tried it because a certain stellar individual on this very forum gave me a spare gift code for free.

Granted, the trailers and previews had actually piqued my interest. Then again, so did the ones for TW2, so it was a case of once bitten twice shy. I would not have paid full price for it. Presumably would have picked it up on sale.

erttheking said:
Answer me one question.

Can Geralt actually fucking emote now?
Almost.

He can do neutral, taciturn badass, wry sarcasm, pervy and compassionate.

He's also generally quite polite, which makes a surprising difference. He's not one of those baaadaaass heroes who go around threatening people for no reason at all, thank fucking God.

And is it needed to play through the first two games to get this one? Because I'd rather not go back to those two fuckers unless I have to.
I reckon you could go into this one cold. There are many references to past events that will leave you feeling left out, but it wouldn't be anything like, say, trying to play ME3 cold.

Though considering there's unicorn fucking in it I feel like they still struggle with the sex scenes.
Heh, yeah, that trailer left me dubious as well. I was wondering if it was a dream sequence or somesuch.

I haven't got to that bit yet, but I can confirm that the unicorn isn't real. As in, they're having sex on a prop. It's brought up early on and played for a chuckle.

Longing said:
You've mentioned that they seem to have toned the maturity *finger quotes* down, but is it actually playable if you don't want to wade knees deep in gross GOT-like muddy waters?
That's a somewhat imprecise question. Hard to answer.

The muddiness is still there, it just isn't shoveled down your throat quite as enthusiastically as in previous outings.

Does every woman in the game still throws herself cleavage first at Geralt and if they do can you just go 'no thanks mam'?
They do not. I've only encountered one cleavage-catapult thus far, and they tried to give it some context and reason. Said reason makes fuck-all sense, but they tried. She was actually a rather likeable character too, which was nice.

The option to say "no thanks" is provided.
 

Amaror

New member
Apr 15, 2011
1,509
0
0
Zhukov said:
- Maybe I'm missing something here, but the Witchers being considered freakish pariahs makes no damn sense. The world is up to it's goddamned ears in monsters. Every single village you go to has got something or other eating their kids the moment they step into the treeline. You'd think in a world like that people who kill the monsters for a living would be incredibly popular. There's something about Witcher mutations and/or training "stripping them of humanity and emotion" or whatnot, but that doesn't jive either since Geralt, inexpressive though he may be, pretty clearly feels emotions and shit. Hell, if nothing else you'd think the haters would keep it to themselves. "Hey, so, see that heavily armed, spell-slinging, sword-swinging, cat-eyed guy over there who represents a guild known entirely for being remorseless killing machines? Yeah, well, imma go spit in his beer. There is no way this could possibly end poorly."
Well there are several reasons for this.
For once their not considered human and being non-human is not very liked in this world. Otherwise there's this anti-witcher book called Monstrum. But most people can't really read in the setting so, that most likely not THE reason.
You have to see it out of the village-peoples point of view. Witchers are heavily armed and well equipped to kill all the monsters that they find. Yet it's also the Witcher's job so he has to get paid. And if you can't pay him because they take a LOT of money than it makes sense that you would resent them. After all they could just go kill the monster, but don't because they want money. In the first village they mention that they had to make a large collection of money from the whole village in order to pay a witcher to kill a single monster.
Additionally the way witchers are trained, children get trained by them at a very young age and get mutated into witchers. But only a third of them survive this process. Taking children for training and not having them return is not something that endeers you with people.
 

Jack Action

Not a premium member.
Sep 6, 2014
296
0
0
Leon Royce said:
Gold is balanced. 25 hours into the game I still have to manage my money. Buying the best saddle for my horse (expanding inventory space) will cost me a quarter of what I've got so far. New armor would cost me an eight. So you have to manage your resources. You have to buy herbs to upgrade your potions, and you have to fix your weapons and armor.
Murder some necrophages, sell their parts. A stack of ten rotfiend hides goes for ~450 gold. Same for Alghoul claws. I'm level 11 and I've got nearly 10k gold (and still have half my carryweight taken up by crafting bits I'm scared to sell because I'm afraid I won't find them again when I'll need them). It doesn't help that there's almost nothing to buy; 99% of the things you need you can loot/gain as quest rewards, and you've got more than enough for the other 1%.
 

Ishal

New member
Oct 30, 2012
1,177
0
0
Funny... I actually do remember you having a less than stellar opinion about the series. I- I don't know why, or how...

WAIT. It was probably in one of the DA:I threads when the game just released. Surely there was bashing of the Witcher games and comparing them to Inquisition, or something. I dunno.

OT: I have no idea how this series is supposed to be, or how I'm supposed to feel about it.

I know that the first game was pretty sub par with below average controls, and that juvenile sex deck of cards thing

Witcher 2 wasn't all that great either.

This is the first one I've played, and so far it's surprisingly enjoyable. Though I have complaints, quite a few so far.

I won't list them here, since I'm barely out of white orchard. But on the subject of Geralt, he's better now? Or something?

You say Mary Sue, and I just scratch my head. Most playable characters in games would be considered a Sue by traditional writing standards, especially the ones who are characters unto themselves, and not a creation of the player. But traditional writing standards don't exactly mesh with game writing all that well. At the very least, they become unhelpful when talking about player interactivity and the idea of gameplay. The two things that passive media do not have. Playing a character in a world, being given the powers of the protagonist (and all that would entail), being the center of the story, characters reacting to you differently. Shades of Sue, but sadly out of the author/writer's hands. We players are in control, not them. So, not really helpful. Rather like comparing oranges to Leer Jets.

That said, I'm having a hard time caring about Geralt. His voice is waaaaay too raspy. Does he have throat cancer? I understand he's the white wolf, and there is a history behind him. All well and good. I just wish I could customize him more. Give him more weapons, more spells, more armor variety. Make him carry one sword at his side like a normal person. Every time I start to think about the two on his back I just facepalm. But... it's a game, and I understand the significance of having a silver sword as a monster hunter. Fine. I just want my character to be even MORE of a special snowflake. I want control. I want to give him a spear, or a damn shield that might be useful taking on these huge monsters. The thing that games like Skyrim and others get right is that the world is the main character. Or at the very least, a very important one. You as the player are given agency and a place, sure. But it's all about the world and what you can do in it. Execution of these worlds regarding gameplay and design do vary, true. But ultimately the reason you're playing is to pilot the character through the world, and quest. To experience what the world yourself. To me, putting a character like Geralt there just limits me and what I can do. He's in the way, forcing me to play it a certain way. I don't identify with him. I don't care about him, and that's not likely to change.

As to the Witchers being Pariahs. My buddy loves the series, and he explained this to me. Apparently there is a character in one of the previous games who has dialogue about it. Basically saying that Witchers don't belong in this age, and were meant for an age before. An age where people were living in more primitive times. No kingdoms, no fortresses or large towns with walls, no empires with standing armies for protection. Just little communities and tribes that were being terrorized. Of course, as we see in the game, that is still very much going on today. However, there are a few things to consider.

1) For the griffin quest in the first area, Captain Gwenleve the Nilfgaardian captain ultimately didn't need you. He could have mobilized his small forces and brought down the griffin, but he had reasons he'd rather hire you. It made sense, and having a Witcher is for precisely that. He had the coin, and you were a professional.

2) Ludo narrative dissonance. Look at that! Our favorite term! There are indeed several monsters roaming about the countryside and populating the various maps. Some of them are justified. A swamp? Sure, not many people around. A battlefield with corpses? Fair enough, especially if it's recent. Ghosts, ghouls, other foul things that gather around the dead. Makes sense. But tons of wolves near a populated village? Drowners hanging around near a populated settlement and possibly attacking? Suspension of disbelief taking a few hits. So far the game has done a decent job, but even still there are snags. Monsters nests near villages, and other small things don't make much sense given the world. Those are things that get maybe one person killed, and the town goes to the authority, let's say the Nilfgaardians, and demands they be protected. The Nilfgaardians round up a bunch of soldiers, and kill the monsters. Done. Can't collect taxes from dead villagers. The griffin situation is a larger threat, and might call for a Witcher, sure. But the small stuff not so much.
 

Silence

Living undeath to the fullest
Legacy
Sep 21, 2014
4,326
14
3
Country
Germany
For the question if everything is as grimdark in The Witcher 3 as in 2:

I just finished a quest/looked after it some time after I finished it. And it was a 100% good, heartwarming ending (at least until now, but with a short drawings-cutscene (however you can call them) which probably means it is finished).

So, the world still has bad things, and sometimes you can't decide for good. And sometimes the consequences are only good. :)

CAPTCHA: needs must
lol
 

Spushkin

New member
Nov 2, 2011
75
0
0
I am probably one of those weird people who find that Geralt is the same in Witcher 3 as he has always been, serious business with occasional irony/sarcasm, trying to choose between the greater and lesser evil most of the time. I don't find him more likable here, I like him just the same.

Well, except that he now has a beard that grows and can be shaved, which is completely irrelevant, yet very much fun.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

I never asked for this
Sep 8, 2011
6,651
0
0
All those elaborate explanations as to why people don't like witchers. It's quite simple. They're social outcasts who keep to themselves, they're weird and they ask for money to kill monsters that just ate your loved ones.

I could actually write an essay on this subject. How the people in the medieval period thought and felt and how it's absurd to expect them to react how we would react to things. Most people have no idea how much different life was in medieval times. You can't simply compare your own experience as a person living in 21st century to experience of someone living in medieval times. Especially if that person is also fictional. But the fact that The Witcher is a work of fiction doesn't matter.
 

Gethsemani_v1legacy

New member
Oct 1, 2009
2,552
0
0
Adam Jensen said:
All those elaborate explanations as to why people don't like witchers. It's quite simple. They're social outcasts who keep to themselves, they're weird and they ask for money to kill monsters that just ate your loved ones.

I could actually write an essay on this subject. How the people in the medieval period thought and felt and how it's absurd to expect them to react how we would react to things. Most people have no idea how much different life was in medieval times. You can't simply compare your own experience as a person living in 21st century to experience of someone living in medieval times. Especially if that person is also fictional. But the fact that The Witcher is a work of fiction doesn't matter.
It is also as simple as "Witchers are essentially monsters themselves", which is how most people in that world understand their mutations. You are paying one monster, albeit a rather human looking one, to kill another monster for you while knowing that the monster you hired will use witchcraft and other bad things. On top of that comes the casual racism, fear of the unknown and all that other stuff.