Witcher 2 CDPR Defends Difficulty

The Witcher 2
Are you sure? That would be pretty high for any system to reach. What are your specs?

Are we talking about the same program, Morrowind Graphics Overhaul, or were you using the Morrowind Graphics Extender?

I'm pretty sure it was the overhaul - or a similar collection of a TON of the "best" visual mods. It was mentioned here on the Watch a few months back.

My specs: Core i7 930 - ATI 5870 - 6GB ram

Well, I can't be absolutely certain - but I know I had a smooth framerate and I was happy with performance. I did have to disable 1-2 things that I didn't care too much about, but I really can't remember what they were.
 
So you were basically just going by feel then?

Like I mentioned earlier, it feels smoother than what the fps counter is showing. Maybe I just need to stop paying so much attention to the numbers. :)

Our system specs are pretty similar. You have 2gb more system RAM, but I doubt that would be a significant factor for that type of program.
 
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So you were basically just going by feel then?

Probably. I don't remember whether I checked the actual number. I can give you my personal guarentee that it was not "20 FPS" with all things off when I tested it.

When I say "consistently" it doesn't really mean that it never goes below 30 FPS - but that ~30 FPS was the "average" I got - going strictly by feel and memory.

Maybe it was 20-25 sometimes - possibly lower even than that especially at the very first town that's notoriously demanding.

I didn't test it for more than an hour, and I never wandered far. But I had pretty much everything enabled, as I just wanted to see how the game looked.

I have certain standards for performance that I never, ever, accept going under. So, what I'm basing this on is that the game was fully playable and "smooth enough" for me to play if I'd bothered.

That means ~30 FPS on average, typically. I generally don't play games that go below 25 on average - because I don't enjoy sub-par performance like that.

My eyes and my brain "knows" when it's below 25 - and I don't think I've ever been wrong about that. Doesn't mean it's precise - just that there's a certain barrier I will always detect.

Our system specs are pretty similar. You have 2gb more system RAM, but I doubt that would be a significant factor for that type of program.

No, I don't think so either.

I'm just telling you this so you know it's possible to play it with most bells and whistles on your system. How to achieve it, though, is something you'll have to figure out by yourself :)
 
What kind of CPU do you have, btw?

I seem to remember the game being very CPU intensive.
 
Heh heh... I think I'm on to something. :)

I copied the installation to my WinxP drive, and lo and behold I get an average of about 30fps outdoors, and 60fps indoors.

So there's indeed *something* it doesn't like about my Windows 7 partition. I'll probably never know what though.

It's probably better this way anyways. Considering the game's age, I'm probably less likely to run into random issues in WinXP. Especially since I'm using the retail version, not the Steam version.

@DArtagnan, I have a Phenom II X4 965.
 
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Are you sure? That would be pretty high for any system to reach. What are your specs?

See, even your system can do it ;)

In any case, good to hear - and enjoy...
 
This is really quite odd. I turned the view distance down to 4 cells, turned off all shaders, and turned off all relections and water effects, and I was still only getting around 20fps. I'm starting to think this program just doesn't like my system.

I wonder if this is a Windows 7 64 issue. I probably should have installed it on my WinXP partition. I'm tempted to do that so I can see the difference, but I really don't want to go through that install process again. :)

JDR13, I have an i5, not even an i7, and Morrowind was running pretty nicely for me while using the extended graphics extender - MGE XE (on top of the MGE) installed into Win 7 64 bit. There is a certain very specific optimal setting between the fog multiplier factor and the distant objects setting..- I can't remember the values off the top of my my head - will check it for you to try if you're interested.

But why don't you try the MGE XE anyway? I won't say it doesn't tax my system to it's fullest - it does, but I don't seem to have a significant FPS hit, and my Morrowind is looking exquisite. (With Vurt's 2nd series of foliage/grass/trees replacers, and of course the obligatory heads and bodies mods, plus a few other texture and object overhauls .)

Yes, why don't we get a TES forum - I was going to barble on about Witcher 1 and Witcher 2 but got distracted with this Morrowind talk now - don't know why Morrowind is even being compared to; :p - the Witcher games aren't even sandbox games… o_O

Oh, PS. I almost forgot - earlier in the thread Deep-O mentioned a bunch of seperate wildlife mods - these are all pulled together in a mod called "The Wild", except, I think for the Water Life mod, which is actually almost a nicer mod. Well, some of the "Wild" creatures don't really fit into the world too well, I found, whereas the creatures in the waterlife mod fits into the world seamlessly.
 
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I created a post over at the official MGSO forums. Perhaps someone over there will have a suggestion as to why it's running poorly in Windows 7 for me.

I've never heard of MGE XE. What's the difference?

We should have a moderator move this to its own thread.
 
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I've never heard of MGE XE. What's the difference?
It's an upgrade/extension for the MGE, that makes it even more powerful.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58YIZagWV8U
(Hmm, though to be quite honest, I think that my NPC, texture, foliage and light mods that I chose to install, look nicer than the guy's who did this video -just saying. :p )

We should have a moderator move this to its own thread.
Well, if you're going to ask, won't you point out, you know… that with the upcoming Skyrim, a TES subforum might be nice. Heck, even a Bethsoft subforum that includes the latest Fallouts might be nice, though I suppose it's a bit late for the latter.
 
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Moderators, could the TES discussion be moved to a new thread?

I played through most of act one yesterday, and I have to agree now that the difficulty is problematic - I spent hours beating the Kayran, and with Letho I eventually gave up and switched to easy. Mind you I had no problems anywhere in the Prologue, that took more than 4,5 retries, using different tactics. But these boss fights are too much for me. In the Letho fight I also, for the first time noted that slugishness in the controls that many people complained about - I guess because he is quite fast and I had little room to maneuver.
 
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@RivianWitch- Not sure if I trust MGE XE. It's being described as an "unstable build" right now. I'd love to get my hands on that real-time shadow casting though. I wonder if that's available separately.

@GhanBuriGhan- Since you waited this long to play TW2, you should probably wait for the 1.3 patch that is due any day now. The list of fixes and tweaks is huge. *Edit* Duh...I just realized it was released a few days ago.
 
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@RivianWitch- Not sure if I trust MGE XE. It's being described as an "unstable build" right now. I'd love to get my hands on that real-time shadow casting though. I wonder if that's available separately.

@GhanBuriGhan- Since you waited this long to play TW2, you should probably wait for the 1.3 patch that is due any day now. The list of fixes and tweaks is huge. *Edit* Duh…I just realized it was released a few days ago.

I didn't wait - I'm just slow :) and yes, I am playing with 1.3 right now.
 
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All of the bosses have weaknesses to be exploited that make the fights quite doable. I had trouble with that fight myself - until I started using certain signs to overcome the challenge.

I don't recall specifically, but I do believe it was a combination of Aard and Quen that allowed me to defeat him without too much trouble.
 
There are vids on youtube that show how to defeat the Kayran in a minute or two. After I'd watched one of those, I defeated it easily. (Admittedly, I tried unsuccessfully about 5 or 6 times before resorting to Youtube.)

Come to think of it, Witcher One also had a hard boss or two - a "Witcher" trademark?

If you recall, the Kikimore Queen also had a trick to it - but there was a "long" way around that you could also defeat her - not to be recommended for the faint-hearted who don't have hours to spend, though…
Personally I still think the kikimore queen was worse than any of the bosses Witcher 2 could trow at me. :p

Ghanburighan, thanks for the reminder- dlding that patch as we speak, I also want a replay. ..and noted your "trap" tip. Can't wait to try out stacked traps! :D

JDR13, shall we just make our own Mwind thread? Myself and a friend have been using the MGE XE for a while now- there was just a certain tweak we had to make for it to run beautifully - no crashes at all. See you a bit later in a Mwind thread - if nobody else makes one, I'll just start one in a few hours time, maybe there's an existing one already, though?
 
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Yes, Witcher 1 also had that insane fight with the beast (that spirit dog thing) at the end of chapter 1 - I almost quit Witcher 1 because of that. And they got a lot of flak for it too. Think they'd learn from that... Well they learned one thing - the Kayran cutscene is skippable, unlike the one in Witcher 1! :p
I think I figured out the Kikimore queen pretty fast - at least I don't remember having much difficulty with it. But in W2 first the Endrega queens, then the Kayran, then Letho... Oh well, I made it.
 
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Combat roll-away...?

Speaking of difficulty (or bad design)…perhaps I have missed some trick, but it seems if you are every backed into a small space and surrounded by enemies you're toast. I'm sure the Witcher1 allowed you to leap/roll past any enemy. Which would be sensible given your superhuman athleticism. I'm fighting a bunch of harpies in a very narrow cave system, and I'm starting to get irritated - its almost impossible not to be backed into a small space. Can you get away? Is there something I have missed? I don't mind taking damage escaping but I think you should be able to dodge away - esp against creatures that are flying…grrrrrrr!

Edit: playing with patch 1.3 - I don't notice my controls as being any more responsive (mouse + keyboard).
 
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As imposed by the character combat style (light armoured), being cornered is bad news.
It is certainly not bad design as it is how it is supposed to work but it for sure can be tasted by everyone.

This said, apart from the alchemist path, other paths offer options to deal with space, to make/gain space, and such confined space situations.
 
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The cutscene is skipable in TW1 with the latest patch. The hound was by far the hardest fight in the entire game for me on the hard difficultly setting.

I waiting for TW2 to get fully patched/DLC'ed before I give it a shot.
 
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As the game progressed, I found bombs and signs becoming less and less responsive, which was a great pain if you'd invested in those. I'd like to see if this latest patch has improved sign and bomb responsiveness, since that was a huge irritation for me.

In any case, in my first playthrough, this forced me to concentrate on swordsmanship, and I have found one advantage of being backed into a corner could be that only one enemy attacks at a time, and if you mash your fast and slow attacks (RMB, LMB, RMB, LMB) fast enough in succession, (but never blocking) you can often manage to "break" or interrupt that one enemy's attacks for him never to get a blow in (Of course this won't work if you're surrounded).

Luckily by the time I was fighting the Queen harpy, (Ioverth's path) I had so much health (partly upgraded and partly from using mutagens in my skill tree) and I had such good armor, and armor + weapon enhancements that those harpies up there weren't that much of a problem anymore.

EDIT: Btw, importing a Witcher 1 save with a superior sword and armor HUGELY skews the difficulty. It makes the game much, much easier at the start. Importing a game can have you start off with equipment that you'll only realistically be able to get well into act 2 of the game.

Perhaps this is why the start feels hard to some players - it is much harder if you start without importing a W1 save first.
 
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After a few attempts, I beat the harpies quite easily - made liberal use of bombs and ensured that I managed to keep distance between myself and them. I still think, though, that Geralt should be able to tumble beneath them, given that they are flying creatures and attack from the air.

As for the Kayran....hm. I defeated it several times but didn't know what to do when it was badly wounded and flailing about. They could have put in more obvious clues ...which I beleive they have done now?
 
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