The Witcher 2 - Insane Difficulty Revealed

Dhruin

SasqWatch
Joined
August 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
Eurogamer has news of an Insane Difficulty for The Witcher 2 with permadeath and no save reloading on death. I'll stick with plain ol' Hard but here's a snip to explain:
The Witcher 2's insane difficulty is just that – if you die you have to start the game again from the very beginning.
"You can save the game, but when you die the saves are disabled," explained lead gameplay designer Mateusz Kanik to Eurogamer.
"Of course we plan to have a resurrection scroll, maybe DLC or something. You'll see."
The 2011 fantasy role-playing game includes four difficulties: easy, medium, hard and insane.
More information.
 
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
11,842
Location
Sydney, Australia
Would *anyone* be interested in playing the game like this?
If the game is good, crash-free, and replayable enough, yes, eventually.
Insane difficulties are usually way too misnomer-ish.
Here´s hoping the game will be adequately challenging on hard as well. Original was way too easy.
Their resurrection scroll scheme seems like a cool exploit, haha.
 
Joined
Apr 4, 2008
Messages
2,437
Location
Prague
Would *anyone* be interested in playing the game like this?

Yes, on my second playthrough.

Ever hear of ironman? Last AAA (I know of) that had that was Wizardry 8. Mostly it's just used in Rogues and indie rpgs now. AAAs are too scared to include it.

Edit: Almost forgot about the online version of Sacred. They had "hardcore" or "ironman" as well. I don't know if Sacred 2 had it. I didn't play that one online at all.

Like DeepO mentioned, if the game is crash-proof then I would be interested in playing ironman. If it isn't then I won't play it because nothing would make me more frustrated than losing my character due to "technical difficulites"
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2007
Messages
5,347
Location
Taiwan
Hahahaha, you're new to RPGs huh? Any vet will tell you games today are FAR easier than they ever used to be.

I've been playing RPGs for 20 years now. I like challenges, and am currently annoyed by the fact that NV is so easy even on the hardest difficulty level, and with the hardcore mode switched on. However, I would hate having to start a new game once I die.
 
Joined
Dec 24, 2008
Messages
557
Location
London, UK
If it was realised during gameplay that maybe one of the sixteen endings...

http://www.rpgwatch.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11968

...could only be achieved on the insane difficulty setting then it would all fit in and make some sense. This in itself would perhaps make a competent gamer give it another try and go for max'......but you would somehow have to learn or know of this on completing the game at a lower (non-insane) difficulty setting.

...just a rambling thought.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
1,105
Location
North-West England
I prefer games with no difficulty settings at all. Take Severance: Blade of Darkness (not an RPG I know), you got one choice; you can play the game on very hard or you could put it up and go play mario cart.

I know the disabling of saves adds a new dimension but I prefer when you just pick up the game and play it at the intended difficulty. A game should be challenging to begin with IMO.
 
Joined
Jan 1, 2010
Messages
168
Location
Saint Louis, MO, USA
If it is as "hard" as the original games hard..... there is going to be no difference between playing insane and easy as you never have to load anyway :D
 
Joined
Oct 25, 2006
Messages
6,292
I prefer games with no difficulty settings at all. Take Severance: Blade of Darkness (not an RPG I know), you got one choice; you can play the game on very hard or you could put it up and go play mario cart.
I disagree. The more difficulty options the better. In fact, I dislike easy/normal/hard options because it's far too limiting. System Shock (1) did it well. It had easy/normal/hard presets but they just automatically set the actual difficulty sliders. Those sliders allowed you to control specific difficulty settings. For example, I liked playing it with all sliders to max difficulty except the one that added a time limit to the game, as I liked playing it as a slow, careful stealth game even though stealth wasn't implemented. I'd have enjoyed it less (all those many times I played it through) if I had had to set all of the sliders to 1 short of max because of the one time limit setting.

I can't list the number of times that games would have features in multiple difficulty levels that I wanted at the same time (e.g. player HPs, player damage, enemy HPs, enemy damage, friendly AI quality, enemy AI quality, save limitations, etc.). For example, I like playing shooters with realistic game-play and damage (ArmA), but most people seem to hate that (Call of Duty). Flight simulators tend to get this right as well, sometimes with pages of configurable settings but also simple presets for people who don't want to get their fingers dirty.

Often I have to go to the hassle of modding games just to get the experience I want. Crysis was like that, it had very limiting difficulty settings but fortunately you could tune them just to your liking by editing some text files. For the Hitman games, not being particularly mod-able, I had to hack to get the game-play I wanted. It was a big hassle but it was worth it.

There's no way for the devs to know how I like to play a game, so giving me the flexibility to choose is a great big win for me.

As for Witcher 2, I rather enjoyed The Witcher's hardest difficulty - it wasn't hard but it was entertaining. I don't think I'm likely to play Witcher 2 in ironman mode, to be honest, but it's good that it exists for those that do.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
319
I've been playing RPGs for 20 years now. I like challenges, and am currently annoyed by the fact that NV is so easy even on the hardest difficulty level, and with the hardcore mode switched on. However, I would hate having to start a new game once I die.

And you've never heard of iron man play styles?
 
Joined
Jan 1, 2010
Messages
274
Location
Toronto, Canada
I disagree. The more difficulty options the better. In fact, I dislike easy/normal/hard options because it's far too limiting.

Agreed. Space Rangers 2 also had difficulty sliders that let you customize exactly what you wanted to be more difficult or easy. I would make some options extremely difficult while making some others very easy. Like I'd make my luck the best, but make scientists extremely dumb and make the enemy very hard.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2007
Messages
5,347
Location
Taiwan
I prefer games with no difficulty settings at all. Take Severance: Blade of Darkness (not an RPG I know), you got one choice; you can play the game on very hard or you could put it up and go play mario cart.

I know the disabling of saves adds a new dimension but I prefer when you just pick up the game and play it at the intended difficulty. A game should be challenging to begin with IMO.

Yeah BoD was brutally difficult and dying was a equal function of enemies and horrible camera controls. No WAY I'd play a game with perma-death given almost everything has a glitch here or there.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
3,593
Location
Boston MA
I hope they change the combat mechanics in Witcher 2, I personally was extremely disappointed at how they implemented it in the first game. I know that games should be as accessible as possible in order to cater to larger audiences but in my opinion they overdid it. Anyhow, speaking of multiple difficulty levels, I find it a good thing since everyone will have chance to find the right difficulty setting for him.
 
Joined
Dec 19, 2010
Messages
44
The resurrection scroll completely kills it for me (the DLC idea is even worse).
 
Joined
Sep 6, 2009
Messages
137
I hope they change the combat mechanics in Witcher 2, I personally was extremely disappointed at how they implemented it in the first game. I know that games should be as accessible as possible in order to cater to larger audiences but in my opinion they overdid it.

I had no problem with the combat mechanics in The Witcher, and I don't see how it was overly accessible. The only issue I had with the first game was that it was far too easy on 'normal' difficulty, but that was easily remedied by simply playing on 'hard'.
 
Joined
Oct 21, 2006
Messages
39,130
Location
Florida, US
Back
Top Bottom