Will I like The Witcher?
 

I see the Witcher EE on sale at Atari.com for ten bucks. I tried the demo and did not care for it. Whenever I see the words "story-driven" I think of when I was watching a friend play FF7 on the ps2. It was more of a movie than a game to me, with tons of cutscenes and then a few segments in which you "played" by clicking the attack you wanted to use, watch the result, and back to cutscenes. Was dreadful to me,(only my opinion). The demo gave me the same feeling, but in case I am wrong I am asking. I play arpg's. I play them all. By far my favorite genre, but I also liked BG 1 and 2, ID 1 and 2, arcanum, arx fatalis, and am currently playing divinity 2. The combat in the demo was dreadful, just waiting for the sword icon to turn and then clicking. Is the whole game like that? Is it more cutscene than gameplay? I am a person who actually cares very little about the story in a game, if at all. I want to play. If I want a story, I will read a book. So some opinions will be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Given the history you mentioned I would suggest you indeed buy the book and read it. ;) At least one and maybe a few more of Sarkowski's books have been translated into English since the release.
I haven't played enough of it yet to talk about the whole game, but I think if you didn't enjoy the demo you'll hardly like the game.

I have played the whole game and it is a bit railroaded and cutscene driven but not nearly as bad as your examples. The middle of the game has some good combat and reasonable freedom but it does get quite linear at the end. You can turn off the sword icon hints by selecting hard, which isn't that hard really.

I didn't like the demo either, and it wasn't until about a year later that I decided to give the full game a try. Now I consider The Witcher to be among the top ten crpgs I've ever played.



You need to play the game on "Hard". That icon is only present on Normal difficulty, which is too easy anyways. There are very few cutscenes in The Witcher.

But does the combat actually get more involved than clicking at the right time? Are their combinations of skills and moves that can be strung together in sequence for differing effects?

the demo sucks, dont judge the rest of the game by it. I was only playing the game in the first place because I got a deal on it, and all the cool kids were doing it. As it turned out, once the game opened up I realized that it was of the best games I'd played in a long time. I really enjoyed it.

the combat does get better as you get more abilities and all that. A lot of the areas are really well designed and fun, and I liked the npcs. Personally, act IV was a once-in-a-gaming-lifetime xperience for me - truly unforgettable.

And well, what is it like 14.99 now? You havnt got a whole lot to lose…

Yes… and no. You *can* actually play and win by simple timed clicking, especially at Normal or Easy difficulty. That gets tedious very fast, especially since some fights will take very long as you gradually whittle down the enemies while (successfully) avoiding damage. (GothicGothicness hated the combat for this reason.)

But you don't *have to.* If you explore the different combat styles, Signs, potions, oils, and bombs, combat becomes way more varied and way more effective, but also riskier. And a lot more fun. The key to the fun was (for me anyway) when I realized that most enemies have a weakness which leaves them momentarily incapacitated, at which point you can pull a finishing move to insta-kill them. To exploit the weakness, you have to know what you're facing, and how to cause it, using the right Sign, bomb, oil, or fighting technique for the occasion; there's no magic button that works for everything.

IMO the game is flawed in that it doesn't really push you very hard to do this exploration -- if you don't bother reading the bestiaries and figuring out what Pain, Bleeding, Stun, Incineration etc. actually mean and what cause them, you'll just keep mindlessly hacking, and the game lets you get away with it. But them's the breaks.

So there ARE some tactical choices having value based on the situation, which varies. Excellent! The demo certainly did NOT give that impression, much.

You only know the three basic combat styles and one Sign in the demo, so, no. Once you get another sign or two and a few alchemical recipes, it does get more interesting.

Although you *can* play with the demo in slightly more varied ways, e.g. experiment with vaulting over your opponents in combat and such. Once you get the Aard sign, you can also do a stun-finish combo finishing off the weaker enemies.

I agree with Prime Junta - Combat in the witcher can be interesting, but you have to invest some effort yourself to make it so - if you are lazy, the combat becomes little more than a chore you wade through, and at least on average difficulty, it is absolutely no problem to win the game by simple timed button clicking. If you have the motivation to explore the options the combat offers (especially on hard) it becomes a lot more interesting.

I now do remember using the stun combo with the sign. But that was late in the demo, and it wasn't usable all the time. Wasn't even much variety at that but better than just click timing.

On Hard difficulty, You pretty much have to utilize Alchemy and Signs along with your sword, or there's quite a few battles where you're going to get stomped on a consistent basis.

Thanks for posting this OP … saved me $10 :)

Combat makes or breaks an rpg for me, and I now remember the loathing of the demo.

A lot of people originally loathed the demo. Like some here have already stated, the demo does a poor job of representing the quality of the full game.

I ordered it. The price is right and while it may not be my favorite game, I think I can get ten bucks worth of enjoyment out of it. But maybe like JDR it will surprise me and be one of the best I've played. We will see. Thanks for the input. Greatly appreciated.

Did you read the other posts in this thread?

Be sure not to rush, and do read a lot. The real fun for me started in Act 2. Before that I felt kinda lost and/or overwhelmed.

Also, if you are like me and prefer to play particular, specialized classes, you need to accept the fact that you are really playing a Witcher. This means: Melee + Magic (+ Alchemy). You can lean towards one direction a tiny little bit, but I wouldn't call that specialization. It's all about being a Witcher. Good lore, though.

Combat is certainly the weakest part of the witcher. I find it worse than diablo's. The annoying thing is sometimes the camera will jerk just a little but that is more than enough to break your combo.

My favorite class to play in any type of rpg is a "Battlemage" type character. so I think that will be easy to do. However I have never used or taken "alchemy" as a skill, so that's going to be new to me. Hopefully not too difficult to pick up on.

This is interesting…Act IV is actually where I got bored and stopped playing. All the momentum at the end of Act III was brought to a screeching halt…I felt like I was back in Act I tediously running around doing pointless busywork.

Does it pick up again?

Anyway it was still worth the $20-30 or so I paid for it.

Chapt4 did exactly the opposite for me - I thought it was great to get out of the usual main questing for a little while and solve for example the mystery of the lake, the noonwraith who didnt know she was dead, etc. Look at that environment, those sweeping fields, all that. I was loving it. The crypts in that area were pretty scary and fun, there was some good questline activity w/ Dandelion, then battling Dagon and being beknighted by the Lady of the Lake… no way dude, I was loving every minute.

Same here. Chapter IV was easily my favorite in the game. Beautiful interlude with some of the best writing, plotting, resolution, and lore in the whole game, and for once sort of cooling your heels while doing sidequests actually made sense in terms of the main story. The usual trope of urgently having to Save the World from Certain Doom Right Now, but then going off to help random strangers do completely unrelated things always mildly irritated me.

I really liked Chapter 4 as well. The only thing that bothered me a bit was how they integrated other works of fiction into it. As much as I thought having Dagon there was cool, part of me wondered why they needed to take lore from somewhere else when The Witcher universe obviously has so much of it's own. Same thing goes for the Lady of the Lake.

I especially enjoyed the metafiction in Ch IV. The spoof of the Da Vinci Code, that totally tongue-in-cheek encounter with the Lady of the Lake, the upside-down Lovecraftian thing, the beautiful Slavic folktale of the two sisters and the wedding… It was just emotionally compelling enough to sweep me along, and just light enough to be fun.

(By the way, The Witcher was chock-full of that sort of thing, and not just Ch IV -- the hard-boiled detective story spoof in Ch II, the drugged-out hippie druids, the other Lovecraftian storyline in the swamp, that whole Great White Hope boxing thing, and so on.)

Oh I caught most of those things, it was just using Dagon and LotL that surprised me a bit, being that they're unique individuals rather than themes.

Yeah, you're right. When looked at in that way, they are a bit jarring. I didn't experience it that way at the time, though -- I just thought they were laugh-out-loud funny.

That's the key to fully enjoy the Witcher, even if the game has much more to offer than only this, it's still a big flaw in its design to allow boring fights. But thanks you can explore and experiment different path that trigger a very fun fight system.

One tip I would add to Prime Junta fights advices is to try use movements much more and at your advantage during your fights, it boost their fun.

Woo I didn't realized all of this, but it's been clear for me anyway that The Witcher writing is a lot superior to any other RPG ever released… cough cough well those I played. :)

So I should play on hard so it turns off the little idiot light that tells you to "click now"? Or would it make it too hard… ;)

you get to recognize the rythm of the movement and telltale swoosh of his blade when it's time to shift into 2nd gear

ya, i did …

"Yes… and no. You *can* actually play and win by simple timed clicking, especially at Normal or Easy difficulty. That gets tedious very fast, especially since some fights will take very long as you gradually whittle down the enemies while (successfully) avoiding damage. (GothicGothicness hated the combat for this reason.)"

and

"IMO the game is flawed in that it doesn't really push you very hard to do this exploration — if you don't bother reading the bestiaries and figuring out what Pain, Bleeding, Stun, Incineration etc. actually mean and what cause them, you'll just keep mindlessly hacking, and the game lets you get away with it. But them's the breaks."

After reading all the praise heaped on Chap. 4 I've decided to give 'er another go. Enjoying it quite a bit. I think some time away from the game has helped, and that I've found the more interesting quests in the chapter.

I still resent the forced heel cooling. I guess I should give them points for providing some kind of rationale. Also, while some of the posters seem to appreciate the beauty of the fields, I'm more apt to appreciate their size while repeatedly running across them.

Yes you can win just by clicking on the easier difficulty levels, but if that's a concern then simply don't choose those levels.

I'm replaying on hard, which is really the best difficulty to play this game on. On hard your normal beasties are still easy, but you need to do a lot more preparation for your bosses.
This game has a rich lore, and yields more the more you dig.

It depends on what you call 'strategy'.
If you wanted it to be console-like mashing of different buttons, you probably won't be entirely satisfied, since timing your combo's and tumbling forward or backwards etc. (jumping all around the place ;) ) is mainly the only action addict's element.

The other elements of strategy is knowing which sword and which style to use for which enemy, the brewing and use of potions, sword preparations and bombs; and yes, you do have to research your in-game info a bit for that. I don't understand the complaints about this, unless you prefer games that totally spoonfeed you. In that case games like Oblivion or Sacred 2 or Titan's Quest would be more your cup of tea.

I've just become very irritated by a gamer on another forum - a person with experience of shooters and RPG's say the following:

and

Well, bless my soul. I thought fighting and strategy was mainly what RPG's and Action RPG's were all about… i don't quite get what this guy was expecting from the game; if the "story-driven" tag made him to expect there would be no combat in the game? :thinking: <_<

Btw, this guy ditched the game in disgust because he couldn't beat the beast on "easy".

I must admit that i think it was a silly design choice to put such a relatively hard boss so early in the game. That Beast seems to have pissed many gamers off before they even properly got to taste the game in it's fullness.

Anyway, the guy's rant has now set me wondering. If you see a game tagged as an "RPG" or action-RPG, should you not expect it to be combat-heavy? I know some older games like Planescape: Torment was not combat-heavy, but at least it did have some combat at least.

Are there any RPG's out there that have no combat at all? (Not a rethorical question; I'm hoping to get an answer for the latter question.)

Hmm, I wonder if one could count the type of "combat" you get with some JRPG Console games such as FF to be proper combat, -but still, even in FF there are a few combat choices to be made here and there..
*sigh* we really need a better classification system for the different types of RPG, you know. :/

Heh heh… http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6666

Still, it's a relatively small blemish on an otherwise incredible game.



Btw: That gamer from the other forum needs to change his tampon, and go back to playing Torchlight. ;)

There's the Harvest Moon series for consoles, although it's more sim than RPG imo. I can't think of any crpgs that are completely devoid of combat.

:lol: I see I also added my 2c in that thread… Actually, they should release a patch to decrease the difficulty for that fight. They're losing fans who might have loved the game, were it not for that fight.

That guy should be ashamed, there are for real little old ladies who play TW and drool over Geralt. :biggrin:
Anyway, I've noticed him exchanging Oblivion mods and cheats with another guy, so I can imagine them playing it on easiest setting with god mode on. :P

They probably cheat themselves more cash too. ROFL

I am playing on easiest setting with god mod on , so what?

Easy mode = everything one hit dies or it isn't easy , as far as i know this isn't the case in the witcher .

I wouldn't know, I've never been silly enough to waste my time even trying to play Oblivion on easy with god mode on, but I'll take your word for it. ;)

..and here I'd just taken it for granted that Greek men had lotsa balls. :biggrin: