The Witcher 2 - Roundup #5

Well, this is stupid. In the very first battle, on normal difficulty, I die constantly, maybe almost 20 times now. I can't play this game. It's too hard. What the hell? I don't even have time to read the ultra small tutorial text to learn how the hell I even play the game. That's not hardcore, just stupid.
 
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Gaaaaah, I want to get this so bad, but I have so many other unfinished games that I'm playing. I'll just play it for a few hours, quit, and it will be part of the huge backlog of games. Sigh. Not easy being a gamer.

Oh, screw it. I was reading the GOG.com comments and it doesn't matter so I just bought it. Let's reward CD Project RED for their awesome handling of their customers and latest game.

Ha! I did the same thing. I have a few games to finish first (Divinity II, Drakensang The Rivers of Time, and Fallout NV). But I still bought The Witcher 2 from GOG on day one because I want to encourage CD project and I hope that they will have a lot of success and that other publishers will notice and start doing the same...
 
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... I think PC gamers sometimes whine too much.

Well, this is stupid. In the very first battle, on normal difficulty, I die constantly, maybe almost 20 times now. I can't play this game. It's too hard. What the hell? I don't even have time to read the ultra small tutorial text to learn how the hell I even play the game. That's not hardcore, just stupid.
Haha.

You can read tutorial texts in your journal.
 
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I hope that they will have a lot of success and that other publishers will notice and start doing the same…

Yes and also because this game looks and feels like a high quality release. They did a really good job from what I've seen so far. They deserve that success.

Haha.

You can read tutorial texts in your journal.

Okay, guilty. :) But that is very good news. I will read it all in peace tomorrow.

By the way, I was worried about the small font. I've found that it's perfectly playable on my 37" TV; I just need to lean forward for those tutorial texts. Playing with the gamepad works really well, too. And I'm playing on Ultra with Ubersampling disabled, having good framerates. GTX470 with Core i7 950, all stock.
 
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IIsn't this completely what so many here like to cry about as the death of RPGs? It's twitch based combat, you cannot be any character other than Geralt, there's freaking QTE… Yet it is getting lavished with praise here. Why? Because it has swords and is a foreign made game it's OK to like it?

I don't get it. Again, I look forward to playing it and like many different types of games.

In my case, very hard to see the connection. The quoted features do not guarantee a RPG as they do not eliminate a RPG. A RPG is always assessed in the way it enables RP, no matter the means, the mechanics used to support the gameplay.

I stated that TW was a niche RPG, very hard to play in terms of RP as you need to know about the universe quite well to undertake RP. Beside, the avatar being a well known character of the universe does not help.

This said, TW provides an environment that can support RP (in a limited way) TW2 might be the same. I havent played it yet so I cant tell.

But clearly, some people prefer playing adventure games over RPGs. They assess the games through the story quality, the difficulty of combat and other elements that are not fundamentally a warrantee for RPGs.
 
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@foxhound: The "Witcher" games have character progression that matters (although you will always play a witcher, you can develop different strengths to support different combat strategies), a clear mainquest/sidequest structure, and support multiple paths through quests and main story, overall considerable C&C. That's why I consider them still firmly rooted in the RPG genre, although clearly in the "action" corner.

@Ovenall - given your comments on Gothic 2, and the obvious division of the Watch on the combat, I am a bit worried that you will hate the combat. I would say this game is harder on normal than G2-NOTR. Maybe something to consider before purchasing. From the way the story is told and the environment is desigend it should be right in line for someone who loves Biowares work, though.
 
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@Ovenall - given your comments on Gothic 2, and the obvious division of the Watch on the combat, I am a bit worried that you will hate the combat. I would say this game is harder on normal than G2-NOTR. Maybe something to consider before purchasing. From the way the story is told and the environment is desigend it should be right in line for someone who loves Biowares work, though.

Mmm, action game too hard never been my preferences, I'm fine with hard TB but not action.

I'd suggest Ovenall play The Witcher 1 instead. It has its bag of flaws, the introduction is half good, but it has stuff to enjoy.

And about TW1, I do agree that it reflect very well the dumbed down evolution in RPG, in fact it's a clear influence on Bioware DA2, they even clearly tried make their Geralt through Hawke but replacing scars with tatoo isn't the smartest choice. But the point is TW1 has a cumulation of talents and well done points, and beside the numerous weak or dumbed down points, it develop many points very well. It's just a matter of quality level, not dumbed down or not.
 
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I played Witcher 1. I liked it quite a bit, but ultimately found it padded out with too much running back and forth and killing the same damn swamp monsters over and over.

But I did like it.
 
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You know, there's nothing wrong with playing it on easy if combat is not the main draw for you in the game. All these people screaming on various forums about the combat being too hard and yet they refuse to play on easy. I just have no sympathy for that. It's silly and it's why companies of late have bumped up normal to hard and easy to normal, because of people's silly pride. It's like selling a pair of 36 pants as 34s because they know more people will want it that way because of their pride.

I used to work in a department store years ago and men would come in with their wives to get pants. The wife would keep telling them they were a 36 and the husband would insist he was a 34 and come out trying on a pair of tights that was damned near cutting off his circulation and go 'See? It fits!' :p
 
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You know, there's nothing wrong with playing it on easy if combat is not the main draw for you in the game. All these people screaming on various forums about the combat being too hard and yet they refuse to play on easy. I just have no sympathy for that. It's silly and it's why companies of late have bumped up normal to hard and easy to normal, because of people's silly pride.

I'm not sure it's a pride issue for many of the people struggling with the combat, it's that easy is too easy, the NPCs just stand there and let you whack them, that's not fun or rewarding either. Personally I enjoy combat in games and I enjoy being challenged but I believe Normal difficulty in TW2 has a few bumps that still need balancing on the scales of challenging vs frustrating.
 
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I believe Normal difficulty in TW2 has a few bumps that still need balancing on the scales of challenging vs frustrating.
Personally I find smooth difficulty curves boring.
On hard I´ve found all non-QTE-enhanced encounters fair so far (prologue + chapter 1).
"Frustrating" is a very relative term in this context.
 
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I played Witcher 1. I liked it quite a bit, but ultimately found it padded out with too much running back and forth and killing the same damn swamp monsters over and over.

But I did like it.

TW1 is very far to be a perfect game and it's not about some design approach in the category of the dumbing down process.

I didn't get hurt by the running back and forth thing, but in the first parts of the game during first chapter. For the swamp it helps a lot never explore it at night to get involved in much less fights.

For me the swamps was one of the good area because of its exploration quality, including little stuff to find and multiple different fights. And despite the point you quote which is in my opinion not that strong. But purely fighting had its own stuff for me, I used that sort of fights to experiment new approach of fighting. For a player not enjoying the fights for themselves this area couldn't work as well than it did or me.
 
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