The Witcher 2 - 12 Splendid Things

I will. I will tell you why I enjoyed the combat very much.

First an example:

In the swamps i was surrounded by some drowners and drowned dead. My health was going fast. I saw a bloedzuiger in the distance. I then did a front flip over the drowners that had me surrounded and made a run for the bloedzuiger. When I go to it i swithed to the quen sign and activated it so I wouldn't take any damage and let the drowners catch up. when I was again surrounded by the drowners I switched to my aard sign stunning the bloedzuiger and knocking down many of the drowners. With the bloedzuiger stunned i did a coup de grace and killed him then a back flip to avoid the acid as when they are killed the explode into acid. I narrowly avoided the acid but it hit the drowners killing them all. Thus I live to fight another day.

I don't know about you but to me that's fun. Throw in the fact that most monsters had to be handled in different ways (example larger monster couldn't be knocked down with aard sign plants were more vulnerable to igni (fire) sign and many others. Then add the different potions that were effective in different situations and you have yourself a pretty strategic, complex and fun combat system imo.

Yes I suppose I could have just switch to group style and clicked when the sword lit up in hopes of outlasting the drowners but I'm sure I would have died.

I agree if you went around fighting monsters by just clicking when it was time then the combat would be boring. But if you were willing to improvise and get creative there was actually a rewarding combat system there.

No it not god of war combat if that's what your looking for. I think people gave up on it to quickly without exploring what possibilities the combat offered.

I know a lot of people didn't like the combat in the witcher but I enjoyed it very much for the above reasons. Hope this gives some insite in to how someone could enjoy the witcher 1 combat.

Totally agree and I enjoyed it for the reasons mentioned (and I am not a person that enjoys mouse clicking combat by the way). What would you like as an alternative, keeping in mind you can use potions and magic during combat and you only have 5 fingers in each hand! Do you want a fighting system with a keymap infront of you just like a flight simulator to remember which keys to press?

The swordplay animations in Witcher 1 I found them to be amazing coupled with the blood splatter and the increased rage of Geralt with subsequent, synchronised clicks - very satisfying.

Each game has its style of combat that fits with its surrounding, story, character abilities and game mechanics. For Witcher 1 I felt the combat fitted perfectly. I can't remember any other good rpg with better combat to tell you the truth (Risen is just about OK, Gothic 3 - childs play, Oblivion - limited and repeated).

If you want an action/adventure game with some magic that has good combat and less buttons to press then play Darksiders, or Starwars Jedi games.

Mount and Blade offers a simple, yet effective and excellent combat system with mounting horses, but there is not magic, no acrobatics, and no potions!
 
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I thought this was well known, but GOG hasn't lived up to any of these huge announcements they frequently make. Just look at their site right now and tell me that any of the newly released games are adequate for the kind of hype and speculation they created with their deliberate ambiguous questions (besides SC2 of course, which was already legally available for free without any kind of technical expertise needed for installation). Not to mention the fact that Atari was already known as a signed publisher on GOG, making the whole situation look redundant.

Sorry, but I think most people would agree that's pretty ridiculous. If anything, GOG has actually exceeded hype. When it launched in 2008, a lot of people were skeptical if something like GOG would even work at all. They've managed to provide us with a lot of great games at low prices, and without DRM. If you've been disappointed with their recent releases then that's your personal issue.


There was also a huge hype surrounding the release of information about a console version of TW1. Just think about that for a moment. And of course, the console version got canceled later. If that isn't not living up to hype and promises I don't know what is.

Games get canceled all the time in this industry for various reasons. So you're telling me that every time a game gets canceled, that company is now guilty of overhyping something? Most of the hype I saw regarding a console version of TW1 was from fans anyways, not from CDP.
 
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From a recent article on eurogamer:

CD Projekt still hasn't officially announced the console version of The Witcher 2, regardless of how much of a 'sure thing' the project appears to be. That trepidation stems from The Witcher: Rise of the White Wolf, a console project suspended due to Atari funding problems.

"We failed due to reasons we could not have foreseen," recalled Gop, "so it seems [a game's development is] always dependent on something. But the truth is we're not holding back [with Witcher 2 on console]; we definitely know that after finishing the PC version we want to sit down and we want to start working on this," promised Gop.

That's what happened to the witcher on consoles and some insight for witcher 2 on console.
 
I will. I will tell you why I enjoyed the combat very much…
I would tend agree on that, even if I'm not sure of the "very". One major point in sword fighting is punish the players culprit of blind clicking feast. Not many sword fighting achieve that, Gothic 3 is an awful failure from this point of view. Morrowind and Oblivion are pale. The Witcher 1 has a strange way to manage the problem and in a way failed by substituting a clicking feast by a synchronized clicked feast. But in another way succeed rather well too by offering a quite fun fight system merging well many elements without to fail into the clicking feast failure.

If there are some players that played the whole game by doing all fight only with a systematic synchronized clicking, no movement, no smart timing, then I'm very sorry for them and wonder how they could have played the game more than few hours. But doing that constantly is very difficult at higher difficulty level. And by merging better movements, simple attacks, signs, chains more or less long and even sort of dodging plus some potions, the fights was more efficient and a lot more fun.

So in a way there's two sort of fights in the Witcher:
  • With a low difficulty level ie Normal difficulty and lower, plus a blind rhythmic clicking without moving (arg is really that was possible, ha well) then it's just impossible to play the whole game like that, too boring.
  • But there's also fights with higher difficulty level, if not highest, and by mixing movements including dodging, simple attacks as counter attack, small chain of hit or longer when possible, signs at right time, some potions and style change. And this sort of fight was quite well done and quite fun. I'm surprised some players succeed play the whole game without discovering that depth in fights and even how they support the game is all along they found the fights dumbed down and fully boring.

So you found the fights boring? Ok but what difficulty level? And you really played the whole game? I bet the answers are, Normal, No.
 
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Now DArtagnan run this by me again: who are the crazies? The ones who boringly clicked their way through fights or the ones who discovered how interesting combat in this game can be?
 
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I would tend agree on that, even if I'm not sure of the "very". One major point in sword fighting is punish the players culprit of blind clicking feast. Not many sword fighting achieve that, Gothic 3 is an awful failure from this point of view. Morrowind and Oblivion are pale. The Witcher 1 has a strange way to manage the problem and in a way failed by substituting a clicking feast by a synchronized clicked feast. But in another way succeed rather well too by offering a quite fun fight system merging well many elements without to fail into the clicking feast failure.

If there are some players that played the whole game by doing all fight only with a systematic synchronized clicking, no movement, no smart timing, then I'm very sorry for them and wonder how they could have played the game more than few hours. But doing that constantly is very difficult at higher difficulty level. And by merging better movements, simple attacks, signs, chains more or less long and even sort of dodging plus some potions, the fights was more efficient and a lot more fun.

So in a way there's two sort of fights in the Witcher:
  • With a low difficulty level ie Normal difficulty and lower, plus a blind rhythmic clicking without moving (arg is really that was possible, ha well) then it's just impossible to play the whole game like that, too boring.
  • But there's also fights with higher difficulty level, if not highest, and by mixing movements including dodging, simple attacks as counter attack, small chain of hit or longer when possible, signs at right time, some potions and style change. And this sort of fight was quite well done and quite fun. I'm surprised some players succeed play the whole game without discovering that depth in fights and even how they support the game is all along they found the fights dumbed down and fully boring.

So you found the fights boring? Ok but what difficulty level? And you really played the whole game? I bet the answers are, Normal, No.

Dasale I got to hand it to you obliviously love every rpg that come out dont you. I also like how you assume how people play on a lower setting. Typical hardcore snobbery.

Just because we find the flawed combat boring or just plain hate it. Gotta love the hardcore mentality that I have to play a game on the hardest setting just to have an opinion. Some of the new previews for the game state the combat in TW2 breaks down when fighting large groups. Hence its still flawed.

Will I have fun and still like the game yes just as I enjoyed the first one. Despite the flawed combat system.
 
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Dasale I got to hand it to you obliviously love every rpg that come out dont you. I also like how you assume how people play on a lower setting. Typical hardcore snobbery.
I had some doubt but now I'm sure you are a casual player, haven't you realize it's not the right forum for casual players here?

And I don't agree harder difficulty means Hardcore, it's typical console player mistake. In this game like many, the Normal difficulty is a bit easy and isn't designed to push you use most resources of the game.

So yes we agree you played at Normal difficulty and never dig the fights so end bored and never finished The Witcher 1. Ok that's exactly what I wrote.

So yes a Hardcore players put more sweat into digging a game, it's about curiosity but again you seems be a casual player so I suppose you can't get it.

About enjoy any RPG released, let say I'm more curious than you and know exploit better a game than you hence can find my pleasure better than you, yep that's how are Hardcore players.

But I don't succeed always, for example ME1 was about ok but finally got be tedious to me and I got bored, after ME2 got me a lot of fun.

I think now the modern (PC?) players are characterized by this new sentence, "I whine so I am", for me it's lame.
 
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Now DArtagnan run this by me again: who are the crazies? The ones who boringly clicked their way through fights or the ones who discovered how interesting combat in this game can be?

The latter sounds pretty much like the definition of crazy :)
 
I agree TW combat was crap, but it's an opinion. There are people who genuinely like it (crazy people, yes) - and our opinion is still not fact.

Yes, me.

Now I don't think the combat was all that awesome but I didn't like it any less that for example the combat system in NWN or DA:O.
 
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I had some doubt but now I'm sure you are a casual player, haven't you realize it's not the right forum for casual players here?

And I don't agree harder difficulty means Hardcore, it's typical console player mistake. In this game like many, the Normal difficulty is a bit easy and isn't designed to push you use most resources of the game.

So yes we agree you played at Normal difficulty and never dig the fights so end bored and never finished The Witcher 1. Ok that's exactly what I wrote.

So yes a Hardcore players put more sweat into digging a game, it's about curiosity but again you seems be a casual player so I suppose you can't get it.

About enjoy any RPG released, let say I'm more curious than you and know exploit better a game than you hence can find my pleasure better than you, yep that's how are Hardcore players.

But I don't succeed always, for example ME1 was about ok but finally got be tedious to me and I got bored, after ME2 got me a lot of fun.

I think now the modern (PC?) players are characterized by this new sentence, "I whine so I am", for me it's lame.

That is the best you can do because I dont play a game on nightmare setting that makes me a casual gamer. Seriously take a look at your post and you basically say it must be because we dont play the highest difficulty that we hate and find it boring. No The combat was just flawed.

You can say it works better on higher settings but its the just the same combat engine. Its like bioware saying play on the hardest setting it makes the game different. No all it does is raise the enemy hp and the amount of damage you take. I'll stop there For those of us who have valid reasons for saying the combat is flawed are wrong by your logic.

I get it you loved the combat and I dont that's an opinion. I told you I still played and liked the game. Now moving on the combat better be better in TW2 but as I said the previews say its flawed still.

As for I think now the modern (PC?) players are characterized by this new sentence, "I whine so I am", for me it's lame. It can be applied to you with your attitude in your post. You whine as must as a whiner my friend. It works both ways. Now I'm just waiting for your witty comeback.
 
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I fore one, always play on Normal, because I think thats how the game suposed to be played. If the game is that good, I like to go through it again, I play it on Hard.
 
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Well repeat won't help make it more clear if you haven't understood already so I'll close that point on that.
 
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I fore one, always play on Normal, because I think thats how the game suposed to be played. If the game is that good, I like to go through it again, I play it on Hard.

I agree that probably works for the vast majority of games, but I believe The Witcher needs to be played on Hard, even for the initial playthrough.
 
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I played on hard and still thought the timed combat was boring after a while. ;)

Mixing it up with sign uses made it tolerable for a bit, then it just got boring again.

But that's the same with almost all games of any appreciable length... Very few rise above combat mediocrity. BGII being one of the few.
 
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I actually played the combat on the hardest difficulty and found it pretty boring. And as far as I remember the drowner battles are actually atypical in that enemies have huge distances between them which makes actual tactical variation a possibility, not a necessity though, since simply clicking them to death was still the fastest way to end it.
Sorry, but I think most people would agree that's pretty ridiculous. If anything, GOG has actually exceeded hype. When it launched in 2008, a lot of people were skeptical if something like GOG would even work at all. They've managed to provide us with a lot of great games at low prices, and without DRM. If you've been disappointed with their recent releases then that's your personal issue.
I was specifically referring to the recent hype up with deliberately ambiguous questions there. You can't tell me games like Desperados and Dragonshard were adequate for 5-7 days of hype. The Desperados question was actually interpreted by many to mean the signing of Lucas Arts, which I personally only dismissed because it would have meant a GOG media event equivalent to a certain royal marriage.
The speculation thread at GOG wasn't even about the games but mostly about the new publisher which of course didn't materialize. For you to claim there was no disappointment and that the hype was adequate is just ignorant and arrogant.
 
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I actually played the combat on the hardest difficulty and found it pretty boring. And as far as I remember the drowner battles are actually atypical in that enemies have huge distances between them which makes actual tactical variation a possibility, not a necessity though, since simply clicking them to death was still the fastest way to end it.
So you knew that there is another way to fight mobs but decided that you prefer a boring one and than complain that it was boring?
 
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I was specifically referring to the recent hype up with deliberately ambiguous questions there. You can't tell me games like Desperados and Dragonshard were adequate for 5-7 days of hype. The Desperados question was actually interpreted by many to mean the signing of Lucas Arts, which I personally only dismissed because it would have meant a GOG media event equivalent to a certain royal marriage.
The speculation thread at GOG wasn't even about the games but mostly about the new publisher which of course didn't materialize. For you to claim there was no disappointment and that the hype was adequate is just ignorant and arrogant.

Well GOG has signed a new and large publisher, it just wasn't the focus of that announcement like we thought. That was a disappointment, but since its confirmed we have a new mega-publisher coming with 25 titles this summer I find it hard to be that depressed about it.
 
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I actually played the combat on the hardest difficulty and found it pretty boring. And as far as I remember the drowner battles are actually atypical in that enemies have huge distances between them which makes actual tactical variation a possibility, not a necessity though, since simply clicking them to death was still the fastest way to end it.

So why did you ask for some one to tell you why combat was good. I gave you an example and several points as to why I thought combat was good and you promptly discarded them. The drowner battles were not atypical as I could give you other examples as well but i'm sure they'll fall on deaf ears. You keep saying that you can simply click to kill monsters. That's just not true you can't go through the entire game stand toe to toe with every monster and just click until they are dead. Especially on the hardest difficulty.

You stated in an earlier post that it's a fact that tw1 had worst action rpg combat. You were giving several other tiles that people thought had worse combat but dismissed that also.

I don't think you want to actually discuss why the witcher combat was or wasn't good .You just wan't everyone to agree with you that it's bad. That's not going to happen.

I was specifically referring to the recent hype up with deliberately ambiguous questions there. You can't tell me games like Desperados and Dragonshard were adequate for 5-7 days of hype. The Desperados question was actually interpreted by many to mean the signing of Lucas Arts, which I personally only dismissed because it would have meant a GOG media event equivalent to a certain royal marriage.
The speculation thread at GOG wasn't even about the games but mostly about the new publisher which of course didn't materialize. For you to claim there was no disappointment and that the hype was adequate is just ignorant and arrogant.

As far as hype what dev. doesn't hype their games. I've seen nothing on the witcher that I haven't looked for. Unlike da2 or assassin's creed whose tv commercial are always on. Bioware, obsidian, bethesda, valve and the rest they all hype their games and never totally live up to them imo. That's industry wide not just a cdp thing. I've bought 15 gog games and usually go there about once a month to see what's new. I never saw the 5-7 day hype so i'm guessing you could easily avoid it if you want. Maybe dragonshard and The Desperados aren't worth the 5-7 days but i'm sure da2 wasn't worth the 5-7 month's.

Also, in my opinion any gog event at all is more important than a royal wedding. Unless it's in dao.:)
 
Well repeat won't help make it more clear if you haven't understood already so I'll close that point on that.

Then good I won by default.:smug:
 
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I fore one, always play on Normal, because I think thats how the game suposed to be played. If the game is that good, I like to go through it again, I play it on Hard.

I usually dont play games on normal but the remark is right. Normal is supposed to be the level of difficulty that reflects the best the balance the devs achieves.

The higher levels are very often artificially inflated to offer stronger challenges.


As to hardcore/casual gamers, different pick.

Casual gamers are players who do not spend much time on the hobby. They play and think video games now and then.

Hardcore gamers are players who spend much time on the hobby. They think and play video games a lot.

Casual gamers are often finger pointed as the cause why games are streamlined. They are one cause but not only.

Hardcore gamers are also part of the process. Because some players labelled as casual players (because they play streamlined games or so) are in fact hardcore gamers who spend a lot of time gaming but play a lot of games.

In order to keep pace, streamlined games are best, games that can be beaten straightforwardly. Any issue that does not give a direct answer gives them the impression they are losing time, time they should be spending on playing their next game.

Really like working on a chain, small tasks and all… To maintain a certain rate, tasks have to be split in easily managerable sub tasks.

The time required to beat a game has been artificially maintained for example by filling the game artificially with generic content. The challenge is not there, that is ony more of the small tasks that can be tackled easily.

So a casual gamer can want to play a game with certain depth like a hardcore gamer. The difference is that the casual gamer will only play it now and then.

While both casual gamers can wish to play streamlined games. The difference being that hardcore gamers want this to be able to play a lot of games.
 
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