The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Review

[Ishiro32]

snip

I'll only address one issue here.

Loading during combat? Are you serious? The streaming of data is so fluid I don't even experience any slowdown when the streaming icon shows up. It's more probably your hardware issue, especially your HDD speed.

Maybe it's mine PC... You know, it's very small issue but loading new environment when i fight? Even the small jump in the animation is anoying.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

The developer created a game that is difficult because the governing mechanics are, in many ways, faulty - a problem exacerbated by an utter refusal to tell the player what they need to know in order to play the game.

Did you even bother to check the journal? All the information is there, 1 key press away.
And I'm really curious what exactly are you referring to when you say many mechanics are faulty.

No, in fact all the information was NOT in my journal. Indeed, if it gave me information, It was often incredibly vague such as where it told me I needed to destroy nests but offered no real direction as to where I'd find said nests (I simply had to go and look for them the hard way - by wandering around) or how I might destroy them (I needed a particular kind of bomb that could only be constructed through the use of a schematic I had to purchase from a random vendor).

As far as faulty mechanics, I am simply referring to the very real problems of balance that occur throughout. That I can choose to jump into incredibly difficult fights at the START of the game is one such example. Or how about the fact information is delivered to the player in a way that they are incredibly unlikely to even notice most of the time? Or that feedback on what the player is doing in combat is often difficult to understand (did I actually charm that target or not? Is that target rooted or just briefly stunned). This could go on for quite some time.

When I say faulty, I do not mean "broken" or "non-functional", simply that many of the game's systems function poorly.

 

[Keava]

No, in fact all the information was NOT in my journal. Indeed, if it gave me information, It was often incredibly vague such as where it told me I needed to destroy nests but offered no real direction as to where I'd find said nests (I simply had to go and look for them the hard way - by wandering around) or how I might destroy them (I needed a particular kind of bomb that could only be constructed through the use of a schematic I had to purchase from a random vendor).

Erm, it told you the nests are in forest, and the Nekker entry did say which bombs are best used for them. All the information is in the game, it just takes some, you know, checking stuff out rather than "Press X to win".

What happened to gamers over last 8 years that made them require exact location of every objective? I well remember, when WoW launched there was no quest tracker, no marks on map as to where to go to finish the quest, just a vague description and yet people managed. Only later someone developed a mod that showed a huge arrow pointing you in the quest direction and Blizzard decided to include it as the player-base grew and started including more "weekend" / "casual" players that weren't exactly into "gaming".

The game doesn't cater to people that aren't actively playing games, but is it it's fault? Is it wrong to simply not make a game for "everyone"? Is there some rule somewhere that says given game needs to be accessible by as broad audience as possible?
I don't go around complaining about not being able to use aim-bot in "competitive" shooters just because i suck at them, if i'd be interested in playing them i'd take my time to experiment and practice till i get it right, which is mostly about muscle memory.

 

[abija]

Probably "fuck this game". Or "I quit". Or "give me a break". Or "I don't deserve this frustration". Really, pick one. He wasn't playing it to prove how awesome he is on a forum or something, just to have fun.

Not at all what I meant. By thought process I meant the way he analyzed his failures and what changes he tried after each of them.

Expecting a game to tell you that is just wishing for extreme hand holding.

was meant for

I didn't mean dodging is trial and error. I mean learning how to use the mechanics, when to use them, in what situation to use them and where to use them is very much trial and eror.

And your materials/crafting diatribe is totally pointless. The rare parts are obvious since they come from some special monsters, everything else you can buy from merchants or craft from parts sold at merchants. Game even tells you merchants refresh the wares after 1 day.
So yeah, solution would be to keep what's rare or doesn't weight much and is expensive at merchants, the usual stuff when you handle inventories.

 

[Throwitawaynow]

The alchemy system in the Witcher franchise is half the combat system, not an inconvenience, it's clear the reviewer never figured this out. When approaching a battle one has to think of what potions are best to take to handle the situation, the idea is to be prepared, not say "oh shit" and down 50 potions in battle to survive.

Also, heaven forbid a combat system exists where you're not a superhero that can saw through wave and wave of enemy carelessly by simply mashing buttons.

Quen lvl 3, difficulty hard, saw through wave and wave of enemy carelessly by simply mashing buttons.

(This not directed at the poster) Finally finished the game on hard, not seeing ane of the tactical stuff needed in this game. Drinking a potion once or twice while not in combat doesn't make the game tactical. Making your own bombs and traps doesn't make the game tactical. You can defeat most of the hard bosses with 1 damaging move.

Spoiler: You can defeat most of the hard bosses with 1 damaging move.

Letho bombs, demon Aard/Heavy, Dragon dodge/heavy, 2nd Letho Aard/Heavy.

I guess I played the game incorrectly, oh wait everyone who says that are usually on the other side of the argument.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Erm, it told you the nests are in forest,

Yes, the forest, which is only 1/3 of the game world in it's entirety and represents most of the explorable area in the first act. That really narrowed it down by essentially telling me they probably weren't in the small part of the map that was the town.

and the Nekker entry did say which bombs are best used for them.

It does? Because I'm looking right now at the entry I had built after killing nekkers AND getting the required books and it says

Geralt learned that the local nekkers used a system of underground tunnels to move about. He thought if he could find and destroy all the entrances to these tunnels, most of these nekkers would be buried alive. . .

Getting additional information required me find a nest and try to destroy it where it finally told me to check the forest near town for nests (which handily omits one of the nests) and that I needed a particular kind of bomb I had never heard of.

I completed the quest of course. All it took was finding a book on the subject and exterminating an arbitrary number of nekkers before I was told that the direct approach wouldn't work. Then I found a nest only to be told I could not destroy it. So I had to go to each vendor in turn until I found one that carried the recipe I needed and then had to search the woods for half an hour for ingredients to construct the bombs (unless I wanted to spend more on a single ingredient than I had on, say, my entire wardrobe). Then it was a simple matter of wandering "through the woods" until I simply stumbled across the nest entrances.

All the information is in the game, it just takes some, you know, checking stuff out rather than "Press X to win".

You see, there is a significant difference between your glib remark of pressing x to win and telling me the most basic things I need to do my job. I have nothing against a hard game. I do, however, resent it when a game seeks to waste like this.

What happened to gamers over last 8 years that made them require exact location of every objective? I well remember, when WoW launched there was no quest tracker, no marks on map as to where to go to finish the quest, just a vague description and yet people managed. Only later someone developed a mod that showed a huge arrow pointing you in the quest direction and Blizzard decided to include it as the player-base grew and started including more "weekend" / "casual" players that weren't exactly into "gaming".

While I respect the fact that some people like having their time wasted when playing games for whatever reason they choose to use, I, quite generally, resent it. At every turn this quest (and many others to be honest) refused to give me relevant information that caused me to needless backtrack time and again. Personally, I don't care for the trial and error style of game.

The game doesn't cater to people that aren't actively playing games, but is it it's fault?

Yes. The games design failings as I see them are the fault of the game. The designers made those decisions and worked on implementing and shipped a game that included them.

Is it wrong to simply not make a game for "everyone"?

Nope. But it's also not wrong of me to dislike a parts of the game and recognize them as being poorly designed. Just like it isn't wrong of me to like a game in spite of these near damning flaws that I see around every corner of the game.

Is there some rule somewhere that says given game needs to be accessible by as broad audience as possible?

Nope. What's more I never argued otherwise. All I'm arguing is that they made the game inaccessible not because it is inherently difficult but because they generally refuse to tell you what you need to know.

 

[Ishiro32]

I didn't say boss fights are harder. Took me 2 tries to kill Letho and 5 on the kayran. I took out boss fights because I have yet to kill the last boss and I don't want to talk about things I don't know.

Fine... It's not big issue but i agree.

I have a broader definition for mechanics. Regardless, the point was the trial-and-error game design. Which, yes, a tutorial would probably fix, but not exclusively.

I try to tell you that from the design level there is no trial-and-error. Trial and error is when you do something and you can't predict the outcome, so you do something without thought and watch what happens. Good example of that is Mirror's Edge. In the Witcher case if you know the mechanics there is no trial and error. You use trial and error to learn, but you could achieve the same thing by reading the manual. It's the matter of tutorial not design... Yeah design of tutorial but you know what i mean.

If something is unintuitive, the issue is that it is unintuitive. Not that the game didn't implement some solution for it. If the game doesn't have a tutorial, the resulting idea is that it doesn't need one.

The controls are good. Placment of the keys is good. The only thing game fail is to tell you what some of they do. And there is no game similar in gameplay mechanics to witcher 2 so you shouldn't expect to know what to do just by looking. WSAD is here, space is to dodge, i-inventory m-map j-journal... come on. It's new game so read a manual, you don't want to so blame the lack of tutorial, don't try to say it's control issue. It's as intuitive as it can for RPG. It isn't Racing game where you basicly need 4 buttons

Animations were put there to create immersion, I know. The problem is that they BREAK immersion. You could argue the animation in Too Human was also put there to create immersion. Because it was, but it obviously didn't work.

In the Too Human problem was that those animations were longer and you died a lot. And after death you want to restart asap so long animation was annoying as hell. In this case animations are out of combat and they are not so long. Drinking potion could be faster, but overall i don't think those animation have any significant impact on expierience.

Oh hell yes it's a design problem. The game is designed so you can only know what materials you need to craft something when you have the recipe to craft it. But some recipes you don't find until chapters 2 and 3, and in those chapters you don't have access to any of the materials lying around in Chapter 1. So you have to carry them with you, but can't because of the weight limit. So you have to make a lucky guess at what you will need later on and carry that. It's not as bad as The Witcher 1, where the whole skill system was like this, but it's still a flaw. You simply cannot know what you need until you've already played through the game.

The ingrediment for potions are universal. About normal crafting basic metarials are common in cities and can be bought from NPC. You can easily know what materials are common and which are not, so you should keep rare, and throw common if you need space. There is no lucky guesses so i think your argument is invalid. Crafting is good. You could argue that game need some kind of stockpile where you can throw anything you need. Here is the real problem.

It was the map that led me to the fog in the first place? The only other path was blocked by a wall of shrubberies that made no sense.

Ok seriously... the straightforward way to a place is trough a fog that kill you and there is no other way from the exit you are now. I check the map and i see that there are more exits from the city i check one and holy moly there is the way i needed. That was my case.
As i said earlier marks itself are made good. They show you in which direction is the place you need to be. There is no place for improvment unless you want Fable 3 where you run through the cities watching the ground.

Probably "fuck this game". Or "I quit". Or "give me a break". Or "I don't deserve this frustration". Really, pick one. He wasn't playing it to prove how awesome he is on a forum or something, just to have fun.

That's why he refused to play on easy difficulty?

 

[abija]

Quen lvl 3, difficulty hard, saw through wave and wave of enemy carelessly by simply mashing buttons.

(This not directed at the poster) Finally finished the game on hard, not seeing ane of the tactical stuff needed in this game. Drinking a potion once or twice while not in combat doesn't make the game tactical. Making your own bombs and traps doesn't make the game tactical. You can defeat most of the hard bosses with 1 damaging move.

Yes, Quen is op (Igni probably the reverse). Quen is also the most obvious choice for people who struggle with the combat at start and the reason they feel later stages are so much easier.
But that's like saying DA:O didn't have tactical combat because you can abuse all game with taunt + force field or even solo it with spirit warrior.

And I doubt W2 combat was designed to have a lot of tactical depth, just the usual action game stuff like not charging into an overpowering force, prioritizing certain enemies, use certain combos versus some type of enemy etc.
The out of combat potions were requested on their community forums a lot to keep in touch with the lore. It's about trying to bring to the game his "rituals" of documenting and preparing for the fights.

It does? Because I'm looking right now at the entry I had built after killing nekkers AND getting the required books...

The required book: http://i.imgur.com/0YoOc.jpg
And those quests do not have map pointers to force you to explore the forest. You don't to do it, don't do the quests. That's why they aren't even required to complete the game.

Wouldn't it be a bit weird to have that precise information about nests locations anyway?
Same as with that drunk soldier, why would they give you a map pointer for something npcs have no information about?

 

[Keava]

Yes, the forest, which is only 1/3 of the game world in it's entirety and represents most of the explorable area in the first act. That really narrowed it down by essentially telling me they probably weren't in the small part of the map that was the town.

You know, the purpose of forests is to be like that? Pretty much if you do any other quests around like Claws of Madness with the ruined mental asylum, or a trip towards the ancient elven garden you will stumble upon them. The idea behind RPGs was always to explore the locations rather than run from checkpoint A to checkpoint B. Maybe RPGs aren't exactly your thing then?

It does? Because I'm looking right now at the entry I had built after killing nekkers AND getting the required books and it says

Geralt learned that the local nekkers used a system of underground tunnels to move about. He thought if he could find and destroy all the entrances to these tunnels, most of these nekkers would be buried alive. . .

When you buy the book about Nekkers, which the game tells you to read after you grab the contract, it says that Grapeshot bombs are best way to deal with Nekker nests as well as that Nekkers aren't resistant to any type of damage nor magic, that you should be using quick attacks rather than strong ones, and that sometimes there is bigger Nekker leading the pack. What more do you want?
Again RPG specific - you are expected to read stuff.

While I respect the fact that some people like having their time wasted when playing games for whatever reason they choose to use, I, quite generally, resent it. At every turn this quest (and many others to be honest) refused to give me relevant information that caused me to needless backtrack time and again. Personally, I don't care for the trial and error style of game.

Then stick to games that fit your likes and dislikes, it's that easy. If you get caught in a hype or pretty pictures it's your fault, not the games, not designers, not genres - just your's. The game was never really advertised as game for everybody, they said many times their target is not Hack n Slash gamer but the more traditional cRPG type of players. The type that doesn't mind experimenting a little and trying to figure stuff out before he get's to understand what and how to do.

Yes. The games design failings as I see them are the fault of the game. The designers made those decisions and worked on implementing and shipped a game that included them.

My only grpe with the design flaws is little annoyances with UI and save system. Things like no Junk category, no way to save crafting ingredient setups, saves taking silly amount of disk space, some missed save spots, some places where you cant meditate for no apparent reason.

Nope. But it's also not wrong of me to dislike a parts of the game and recognize them as being poorly designed. Just like it isn't wrong of me to like a game in spite of these near damning flaws that I see around every corner of the game.

Of course you can dislike it, i dislike many games but i also don't buy them, i research the game prior to spending money on them, if im not sure i'll even watch all the presentations and DevBlogs. CDP presented combat mechanics several times prior to release.

Nope. What's more I never argued otherwise. All I'm arguing is that they made the game inaccessible not because it is inherently difficult but because they generally refuse to tell you what you need to know.

It wasn't inaccessible for me. Seemed pretty intuitive actually, yeah i died first time when trying out things but i do that in pretty much every game since my first time playing is usually "Ohh what does this button do! Ohh what happens if i click here! Ooh more shiny buttons if i press that! Wonder what happens if i run around in circles and pull all the bad guys in!" and then analyse what happened rather than go "I gotz to pwn dem HOORAH!"

 

[frobisher]

Spoiler

With the obvious exception of bosses, the game gets progressively easier as you acquire skills. This is the very definition of a backwards difficulty curve. You can easily die? Maybe. But you have more vigor, do more damage, dodge easier, your spells are better, your buffs are better, and god forbid the fight goes for longer than 30 seconds because that's when your adrenaline bar begins to fill. All of this, on top of the personal experience (and thus, skill) you've collected from playing until now.

All of this is true. And yet try standing near three gargoyles for few seconds, just like many people tend to do in their first fights in the game. They deal a lot more damage and you will die as fast as you were dying in the beginning. In many other fights it will not happen. And there will be a moment in chapter 2 when you find yourself surrounded by 9+ harpies at once and no amount of adrenaline and new skills is going to save you - your experience will.

Spoiler

You explained it poorly and with flawed logic. I don't know what "1 death" you're talking about, it was more like 20 deaths for me during the dragon part, and a lot, lot more during the entire prologue. Most of them because I didn't know what to do and how to approach the situation. Because the game didn't tell me OR show me how to fight beyond the basic controls. No, killing me is not showing me. Killing me so that I can learn is. bad. game. design. And goes against all the concepts of intuition. It's not just the game that is hard or me paying attention - it's the game having set rules and mechanics set in place that I am not aware of, and have to discover by taking punishment for not being a psychic and knowing how the game wants me to play it. The game should allow you to learn the reflex, perception or timing required before putting you in situations that require master-level skill in all these 3. That is a difficulty curve: a progressive upwards slant that grows throughout the game, gradually introducing new mechanics and new, more complex enemies later on. Instead, the game's skills are designed to make the game easier without introducing any more mechanically complex enemies.

Yes! That's the thing that makes fights truly easier - personal experience. You already know how to use timing to your advantage, how long is the distance of every roll, how long stun from Aard lasts. No tutorial will teach you this without lasting few hours. And no designer is supposed to presume how good you will be in chapter 2 or during final fight. So you can't ask for to apply uncertain personal experience into difficulty curve - that is why I saw it out of place. That is why they implemented a possibility to switch difficulty level at any moment.

If you you are playing the game like completionist, going through every quest, collecting the best armour and spending some time thinking before upgrading skills the game will reward you with powerful build that will allow you to cut a bloody path on your way to the ending while still being in danger of dying if you happen to drop your guard. It was similar in Witcher I - when I built my Geralt using non-sword skills I eventually could laugh at "click when sword flashes" combat mechanics being walking-talking Enchantment. That was what I call a proper reward for long hours spent at getting every single quest reward, every obscure recipe that helped to create a monster with 1,7k vitality. But I doubt majority is playing like that - just as I doubt majority of players are RPG buffs. Players rushing through ther game, choosing skills without thinking or making mistakes due to first playthrough still have a chance. Their punishment is present along the whole game rather than in one final boss fight they turn out to be too weak for. To be fair, they would never have such chance in Baldur's Gate.

You explained it poorly and with flawed logic. I don't know what "1 death" you're talking about, it was more like 20 deaths for me during the dragon part, and a lot, lot more during the entire prologue.

I was talking about non-boss combat mechanics, *not* QTE mechanics - not to mention you can turn them down in options. And I assure you, I died a lot in such fights - mainly because instead of going along hit & roll path I chose to experiment a lot. In the end every time I came to my senses and went back to "sword & Aard/Quen simplicity" it was over. Dragon part (that one when you fight the guards I assume) was mostly about running when she was flying AWAY - kind of logical, even though it took me some time - but the fault was mine, for not looking carefully enough. All necessary informations were there along with common sense (dragon breaths fire, fire kills me ). I guess the problem was in automatically expecting "epic cutscenes I cannot die in" many of modern games have become. I was cured quickly and I am grateful for it.

Most of them because I didn't know what to do and how to approach the situation...

If a player is fully aware that game mechanics is new, alien and complicated then that player is presented with the only logical choice - Easy difficulty which is MEANT for people to learn as they play without dying too much and it is DESCRIBED as such. Considering how Easy looks like in many *other* games they might as well call it Retard - but that is not CDPR's fault nor they had to agree with that sorry trend. Again - there is only one case when game kills you in a way you described: in the very first fight against multiple enemies. Every other non-boss combat-related death is not game's fault - fool me once (with a mob of enemies) - shame on you, fool me twice... All other things you learn do not require your death, only being hit when you fail - if you die a lot then it is simply your own learning curve - and I mean learning about things I described in the beginning: animations' lenght, Aard effectiveness, rolling range... Things you have to experience in real-deal fights to minimize luck factor. If you feel you are lost, game presses you too hard - there is Easy. And it is gamers' responsibility - not CDPR's - to switch instead of punishing themselves if it takes them too long to learn. And please, don't tell me there is no friendly learning curve on Easy. You simply choose what to learn on your own because you are hardly in danger if you make a mistake or two - just like in any tutorial. The only thing that is in danger, apparently, is player's misguided pride. Devs were absolved in my eyes when they put a description of difficulty levels - if someone chooses Normal or Hard despite that, well... I endured, but I was fully aware I chose normal at least an hour too early.

And when I wrote about individual reflex, perception and timing I meant just that: individual skills you cannot augment in-game just as you cannot augment them during a mere week or month. You can expect artificial difficulty curve, probably castrating story along the way. Or you can create such curve by yourself, according to your individual strenghts and weaknesses mentioned above - using difficulty levels.

Spoiler

Like being shown what the shortcut to spells is in the wheel thing without having to go into the menu and memorize them all. Like having more shortcuts - the game doesn't even use the F key at all. Like being able to assign shortcuts directly from the inventory instead of having the asinine limited pouch space.
EDIT: Oh wait, nevermind. The game doesn't even let me look at the controls while i'm in it.
/facepalm

First of all - I do not recall intuition having anything in common with memorizing anything. Shortcut problem would have been a real design problem - but intstead not having one (serious flaw) you only have to do it via launcher (minor annoyance, considering you will not repeat it too often). And things like inverting mouse are already patched. That's why I am frowning at words like "serious flaws", "bugs", "design blunders" being thrown around when you consider you don't really need to sacrifice a dwarf to Dark Gods to gain access to those settings. A little patience - that is all I needed to deal with a few annoyances like these. I needed a lot more to deal with DA 2 design choices hardly any professional revewer, including Tito, had dared to call properly - or even mention.

The spell and gadget wheel. The lack of a jump feature. The list-based inventory. The screen-based character info system.

Seriously, jumping again? It is as needed in RPG experience as customisable eyebrows. Considering Geralt is flying over battlefield on his own already what is this irreplacable thing we are missing? And I think there is a bazillion of console games with jumping out there. If you mean jumping would require sacrificing another game funcion due to sheer lack of buttons I'd like to remind you there is no crawl or crouch feature either. Is it a console-related flaw as well? I would rage about console-crap as well, but gadget wheel served me well enough - and I knew I could use bindable set instead any moment I wanted to. Inventory was a hard thing to deal with - but the only irritating problem was that we were missing "junk" tab. I am sure list-based has its console-related genesis, but the thing is, you would have to show why it is significantly inferior to version from eg. Witcher I EE. Filtering is not a bad feature after all. And I am truly lost about inferiority of character screen - would you want all of these information on one page? With different set of tabs? It's not enough to point that "this is the version that is possible to handle with console as well" - I should've been clearer, but in my question I was using "consolitis" as something pejorative.

If you are too close, the prompt to open does not appear. If you're not at the right angle, the prompt doesn't appear.

You can't see a handle when you are kissing the planks

And I hope you didn't kill something next to a door and don't want to loot it.

I guess I didn't, fair point.

Spoiler

Traps don't require "a bit of precision", they require you to be on top of them, which in many cases ended up with me overshooting the EXACT place the trap was and ending up backing up holding Shift to position myself so that I can tell Geralt to collect the goddamn trap already, because, again, Geralt darts forward like a madman if I press W. I didn't say this particular thing was consolitis-related. It's just bad programming. Make the trigger area larger or don't require the player to look STRAIGHT into them.

I found out I didn't have to stand on top of them - it was possible to rotate a camera instead.

Spoiler

And maybe we should also compose poetry and sing an ode about the fallen in the sweet time Geralt takes to calmly brush his forehead with his glove. Maybe we should ponder the sharpness of our swords and the amount of poison we put in our traps, or contemplate the nature of life and the universe.
I'm sorry, this is a GAME we're playing, right? When I choose my potions, I don't want to sit out for 5 seconds while Geralt does the exact same pointless animation that I've seen a million times. I want to go in and kill some things. It's not about how much it lengthens the playthrough. It's about pointless repetitive animations that lose their novelty the second time you see them and become nothing but an annoying waste of time while by all means I should be itching to fight right about then. Even worse, the game has to take its sweet time transitioning back to the meditate screen, then transitioning back into the game.
Oh yes, it's not a problem if you just refuse to use elixirs, willingly locking yourself from one of the game's features. That's like saying "well the game never has any flaws if you NEVER PLAY IT".

After plethora of titles with unskippable cutscenes and Final-Fantasy-ish battle animations I find that particular problem so small I am able to invent a story to forgive such minor thing. Be honest - you spent way more time raging at death screen

Oh, and I actually saw one more thing - that animation means clock is ticking in "real world" as well - Geralt was forced to break his ritual during siege of Verden because attackers appeared too fast and I was too slow. That was actually impressive and in line with other features of the game that is often not waiting for you.

Oh yes, it's not a problem if you just refuse to use elixirs, willingly locking yourself from one of the game's features. That's like saying "well the game never has any flaws if you NEVER PLAY IT".]

I used that part recalling that funny guy crying through his playthrough @ youtube. His kind of crowd is not going to be bothered by elixir animations at all.

Spoiler

How about an example then? The quest "With Flickering Heart". The quest marker shows the zone you need to go to somewhere above the field of battle covered in green fog. Entering it makes the cursor relocate and showing you that it's somewhere to the north, on the other side of all the soldiers that can 2-shot you while being extremely hard to kill. Obviously an area you can't go into yet, but the marker makes it so it appears to be there. Meanwhile, finishing another main quest causes you to instantly fail this one.
The trick is to go back to town and take a route covered by the fog of war, placed in the most unintuitive location, somehow making you end up in another place of the map and skipping the green fog entirely. How you were supposed to know this beyond stumbling upon it is anyone's guess.
There were some other quests like this, but I can't remember what they were about.

I recall that one - I might have spotty memory about Verden, but I have an impression I saw quest marker @ northern gate AND @ western gate. I think I went through western one first, but quickly ran away from blue fog (not orange yet, but that was the hint from escape sequence we get at the beginning of chapter 2) when I recalled the warnings NPCs gave me earlier. And I was angry but also positively surprised when I failed quests because of advancing in the storyline - it's about time we got something better than "rescuing Imoen while spending months saving castles, hunting dragons and swimming in sewers".

Spoiler

The nekker contract. You need to kill nekkers to find the one specific item you need to use on their nests. The nests are hard to spot, do not appear on the minimap even once you've already seen them and are placed in confusing locations in a labryrinth of trees with exactly zero map assistance.
And of course, there are others. The harpy contract has had people thinking it's bugged because the objectives didn't register past one point. Turns out you had to go to a completely different area of the map to get the remaining 3 nests. Did the game ever even hint at something like that? Fuck no. This wouldn't be more asinine of they added a "go fuck yourself newbie" at the end of the quest description. Add to this that the items you need to use aren't cheap at all and there's a bug that caues you to lose some of them pointlessly if you get harpies to pick them up while all the nests in the area are cleared.

And endriaga one as well - the thing is I ran through that forest so many times pursuing various optional quests I completed it on my way using medallion from time to time to spot herbs and discovering nests/cocoons. And contracts are probably the most obscure and least appealing optionals so common sense says if someone is pursuing them, he is also pursuing nicely written "proper" optionals as well. So - on the way

Harpy contract was a ridiculous experience - till the moment I put it on my quest tracker as I was supposed to do in the first place. Then I realised counter is not progressing beyond 4/7 - then I only had to test it in every other harpy - infested area. Truth be told, there is a logic behind it - only so many nests to destroy and Geralt would knew everything in the area is gone only by wasting one more trap and not hearig "boom" in the distance. And counter updates on its own. Still, considering my experiences I was already sure it was simply a bug and I would really like a "boooom!" in the distance to be implemented.

 

[nbamaniac]

Funny that I managed to finished the game on hard using only Quen (except for the Kayran bit ofc) and two vigor bars

If there's one thing this game really taught me, it was proper use and timing of dodges, parries and ripostes, unless you want to be a piece of meat lying on one corner.

 

[Keava]

*snipped to avoid the whole wall of text feel*

I just finished the fight against the Draug. You die horribly with any strategy I tried, except if you use Yrden. Then the boss dies horribly. If this isn't trial and error, then you need to recheck your definitions.

I did the Draug fight 3 times, each time using different strategy. There is the Yrden "cheap move", there is wait for charge->roll->Aard->3 heavy hits, dodge away, there is bomber-man strategy with kiting around the rock pillar, and you can do it with more straight-forward approach but that only works if you time your attacks and doges perfectly. I did the fights on Hard/Insane difficulties.

 

[frobisher]

Wow, so many replies. Well, there goes another hour of my time.

I don't have another hour this time so I will agree to disagree on most of issues you described and cherry-pick the ones I find awkward and arbitrary.

Been there, done that. 1 dodge, mash left click, sometimes press X for fun. How challenging.

I don't recall having enough space for making even one proper dodge. Spamclicking tends to be purely luck-driven in such cases. Then again, when I was trying for the second time I accidentally set three traps behind my back, so...

You can't honestly say the game was easy because I was doing a lot of sidequests. That's saying that I have to choose between having a challenge while running full-speed through the game, and seeing all of the game's content. No well-balanced game will ever present that choice.

Not exactly - game becomes easy through full clear because you are getting better at purely mechanical side of combat. Obviously, there is no universal formulae for everyone, but common sense says that replaying set of moves over and over and over again in various settings will allow you to get better especially when we talk about fairly alien combat mechanics. And I disagree about full-clear regarding quest rewards and other benefits like few additional levels - the mere fact that fights get easier *if you completed every possible quest in order to get stronger* is not nearly enough to condemn the design - it is not a church and there is no dogma about one particular model of difficulty curve. I for one appreciate game rewarding me for my completionist mode while still preserving the feel I can die if I feel too cocky. And while others, not keen on "finding the best sword there is" are not forced to do so or face another death, death, death - this time exclusively because of artificial enhancements to opponents, or better yet - eg. wave mechanic. At the point you get your memories back you are supposed to be in completely different league than any non-boss opponent you can get. So either paratroopers or that kind of fights you got in Kaedwen camp when failing @ stealth.

Those were my first 3 fights of the game, and they were frustrating.

Now I am sure devs should've blocked players from choosing other then predefined order of responses in their conversation with Roche. I guess you can have too much freedom today

I disagree. Difficulties are based on the level of challenge one can freely choose as he pleases, not the number of times someone has completed the game. Is it too much to ask for the difficulty slider to adjust the level of challenge and not punishment?

I disagree and have a fully-fledged tradition to back it up. For many years Easy difficulty was described as "if you are new to RTS games", "if you are new to this particular game". So you are making a choice while being aware of consequences - even though nowadays some games tend to switch from Easy, Normal, Hard to Retard, Easy, Normal it is not an excuse to stop reading descriptions. And if you are adjusting level of challenge beyond your capabilities it will always result in level of appropriate punishment because you will fail or the challenge is only an illusion, like giving mobs 2xhitpoints. Do you want it to result in level of hand-holding instead? It is the way of looking at half-full/empty glass...

That's funny because I wouldn't object that a game has no jump in a game where there is no need for a jump. The Witcher is not such a game.

What is the need for jump function if Geralt performs jumps during combat as a part of an animation? Do you want a cosmetic alternative for rolling? Or cosmetic alternative for slashing? Why not a backflip ? And no, I am not looking for absurd, backflip, crouch, prone, kick-in-the-face... you could imagine a reason to use any of them and use an excuse: action RPG. What is so important about button-driven jumping then? Or what do you miss because of current state of things?

You LIKED the fact that you failed it without being able to predict its confusing patterns? ...yeah. Refer to what I said above.

I LIKED the fact the game was not all about ME. I liked the fact certain events would render OPTIONAL quests immposible to complete because Geralt was not clairvoyant. And the fact my failure is usually reflected in the story itself, not just "few xp I will not get". And the fact you get that effect only in few quests, so choice-consequence is still mantained. I am a completionist - but that does not mean I am vain enough to think I have a right to succeed in every minor aspect just because I feel entitled to. Game does a good job in creating a world that lives independently and changes according to many other things than your actions. It is definitely consistent to hit you in the face from time to time to remind you that despite your achievements you are only a part of the world. Story does this rather well, after all. And since there are appropriate journal entries about failures with explanation - this small part was design choice, not a lack of polish.

Ha, but could it be about negative emotions instead? Quest failed, bah! Imagine this design choice: when such troublesome sidequest reaches a point of failure it is marked as "solved" instead. It simply gives slightly less berating description and during next playthrough you are bound to get surprised when you discover there is completely different resolution available. So... is it about negative emotions or not?

A logic that is never explained.

I acknowledge lack of subtle hint, but this is not DA 2 - you don't have to collect a pile of gold to advance in main story so you can afford looking for answers by burning a part of your gold. And many quests are being resolved in other chapters, so expecting resolution in other *area* is not exactly particle physics. Lack of polish - yeah. Game - breaking? Hardly - considering their budget, if any cutting corners took place they chose the marginal part. After Empire Strikes Back type of ending (and the fact that entire Chapter 3, excluding sidequests, felt like the proper ending itself with the amount and importance of decisions you were forced to make) I'd like them to focus on a proper expansion, minor tweaks to UI and bugfixes are in totally different league and it will be patched in on the way. At least that's what they've been doing so far.


Oh, and about Draug - "bomber man strategy" was quite valid when you were using it while having +100% to bomb/trap damage. I remember failing hard during Letho fight - but no wonder, I was trying that without even one level of that skill and with weak traps.

 

[Keava]

]Ok. So you have a marginal chance with a few more strategies if you try really hard. Guess that invalidates my entire argument?

Marginal? Not really, except the straight-forward one all are relatively easy to execute if you pay attention, it's not hard to roll to side when the big bad guy telegraphs his charge. In pretty much every game you will find that one strategy that just is easiest to execute and has lowest risk factor, even in multiplayer oriented games you always have so called FotM strategies/builds/set ups. Until we progress greatly in terms of AI development it's unavoidable.

 

[abija]

Because obviously, the first thing you expect from the first fight in the game is a forced, in-depth analysis of the situation.
Come on. You know the fight. Narrow corridor, no room to dodge, limited block, enemies which keep pounding on you. Takes a few tries to get over the first fight, few more to figure out when to rush out of the building, few more for the second and the third is just ridiculous. This is all assuming you darted to the right building in the first place. You have no defense for that fight.

Or you let your companions go in front, notice the dragon on the left when it stops breathing and do it in 2-3 tries randomly pressing M1/M2. Which makes it a lot easier than most of the game as far as combat is concerned.
But ofc, when you are followed by 3 npcs all armed, letting them lead the way is obscure design. And anything that doesn't work as you think it should it's obviously bad or broken.

 

[Kahunaburger]

snip

Honestly, I'm not getting the trial and error complaint. Yes, you have to read up on monsters before you fight them, but that's a good mechanic, not a bad mechanic. Once you know what the monster is, what kills it, how many of it there are, and (through recon) where it lives, it's just a matter of effectively applying your massive arsenal.

And it's this last bit where witcher excels, especially in a market where most devs seem to think "tactical" means "spamming the same tactic over and over."

I'm talking about the paricularities of combat that you don't know at the beginning of the game, and there's no way to practice them without dying over and over. I'm not talking about reading up on monsters, that doesn't bother me. All of my friends (plus the guys at Penny Arcade) died dozens of times at that first part of the game with the dragon. That is important. Ask any game designer and they'll tell you the beginning of the game leaves the biggest impact on anyone who plays it. Someone who wasn't inclined to die 20 times on that part would simply quit the game and get the impression that it's too obnoxious (and in case of one of my friends, they DID. And he's one of the best PC gamers I know, used to make money out of betting random people in internet cafes that he'll beat them at any game they choose).
All throughout the prologue, it's the same idea. You try new things you think will work, then you die because they don't. A good game doesn't kill you for not doing things how it wants you to. Not at the beginning, at least.

Well, I have no idea why some people had such a hard time in the prologue. I did it on hard, died a few times, learned to stay mobile and how to use signs, and was fine. That's no more "trial and error" than games like Minecraft, Metroid Prime, and Resident Evil 4 (a game that, btw, also has a massive difficulty spike at the beginning.) If you're having a really hard time, just set it on easy - the devs said it's roughly equivalent to "normal" in a different game.

But yeah, I agree with you that they should have included a tutorial. Considering that work-arounds for this issue include changing the difficulty setting and/or RTFM, I think that this is a legitimate problem with the game, but not a problem worth 1.5 points on a 3.5 point scale*.

*note: I have no problem with this reviewer having his own opinion and reviewing accordingly - I just don't agree with that opinion

Oh sure, just IGNORE everything I said about the insta-kill skills and everything that makes your life easier. Just ignore how I'm utterly destroying everything 5 vs 1 around me without needing to block, just mashing left click with no use of spells because my attacks hit everything around me and interrupt them from attacking. No, that doesn't matter! It's just what I think! Opinion! Not easy at all, in fact quite challenging! I'm just more skilled... at mashing left click!

You mean that if you build a character around using sword attacks, sword attacks are effective against basic enemies? Give me a second while I pick up my monocle.

But yeah, many acclaimed and loved games have this difficulty curve. To throw a few examples out there, Super Metroid is like this, basically every Zelda game is like this, Morrowind is like this, Dragon Age: Origins is like this, Minecraft is like this, and so on. Basic enemies start out as a serious threat, then as you get more dakka and/or choppa, you get better at dealing with them and they become kind of trivial. By the end, the only fights that really threaten you are boss fights. It creates a sense of progression and makes the end of the game faster-paced. It's a time-honored way to set up a game, and one I prefer a lot more than MMO-style auto-leveling.

Other that that, most of the issues you have seem to be minor UI preferences and a couple bugs, which may have already been fixed by patch 1.1.