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I beat it once; I can do it again.
It really helps to generally remember the flow of the quest/story, so you don't get stuck wandering aimlessly. My biggest problem is the drive for 100% completion, so I search out every nook and cranny for quests and treasure.
I'll be honest: the level gating of gear from those quests is the most frustrating thing of all time. Yay, I just trekked all over the world for the Feline gear. What do you mean I have to wait 5 levels to use it? Oh, and I have to find craftsmen of the appropriate rank, and then the gear will be obsolete for like 10 levels until I can equip the next tier. Yeesh. The game dangles this stuff in front of you like a prize and then makes it unbelievably awkward to actually use.
TW3's gear progression system is very clumsily designed is what I'm saying.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 2nd 2020 at 5:11:16 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Been playing through the game a bit after hearing all the praise for it.
I know I'm gonna get a lot of heat for saying this, but in my opinion, the gameplay is only okay, and rather bland. It's always just slashing and the occasional spell, and the only challenge comes from the level and strength of the enemies' attacks. Other than that, most of the game simply involves following the Witcher's sense from point A to B, gathering materials, and occasionally doing some light exploration.
Really, I get the sense that this title is only highly praised for the writing and story, which I do agree is absolutely superb, some of the best I've seen in any game. Not to mention how the side quests, at least from a writing standpoint, are all compelling in the way that they intertwine with each other and lead to morally grey outcomes and the like. Side quests within side quests you could say.
So yeah. Writing and story is absolutely amazing. Everything else I feel so far is So Okay, It's Average. Not saying that I dislike the game, far from it. Heck, I'd put it in my top 20 games of the 2010s simply due to how well written it is. But I simply can't bring myself to really give it glowing acclaim just because of that.
I don't know. Maybe once I get further into the game, my feelings will change. But for now, that's how I feel.
Combat mechanics in TW3 aren't super complex, nor nearly as hard as in some games (*cough* Dark Souls), but different monsters do require different attack patterns, and learning those is pretty important. There are also quite a few ways to approach combat depending on your skill allocation and preferences.
- If you want to mince people up, emphasize fast attacks and defensive use of Signs, like Quen.
- If you want to brute force and overpower, build up strong attacks and Aard to stun and break defenses. Spamming Igni is another great way to wreck human opponents, as they can't defend while burning.
- Mounted combat is actually pretty broken, and you can build that up with certain decoctions and gear choices. Overrunning and crushing your foes as they flail helplessly is quite enjoyable.
- I've found that using Alchemy and spending skill points to make oils stronger is highly effective as well.
You can boost the playstyle you want with your gear choices, particularly your choice of runestones to socket into your weapons and armor. So it's not that combat is difficult, but that you can pick your preferred style and make it overwhelmingly powerful.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 7th 2020 at 11:20:29 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Welp, I've gotten a bit more into the game, and am now just starting the Novigrad missions, so might as well give some updated thoughts on the game.
Again, I cannot stress how utterly well written this game is. Lots of Grey-and-Grey Morality, actual meaningful choices, and some of the most fleshed out characters and worldbuilding I've ever seen in a video game. The way the quests all intertwine and organically flow from one to another is also quite astounding to witness. If I were to judge the game purely from a writing and narrative standpoint, this game is indeed a masterpiece, and would definitely make my top 5 games of the previous decade.
Here's the thing though. The actual gameplay itself I feel is rather mediocre once you strip away the writing. For as well written as they are, the missions themselves are rather bland in terms of what you are actually doing in them, as they almost all involve following a set path, examining items, killing a difficult enemy, finding a set number of trinkets, or escorting someone from point A to B. Not exactly what I would call creative mission design. The combat, even with all the runes and oils, still just devolves into hacking away at the enemies, with the occasional spell here and there. Exploration is also rather bland, as it just involves going from one question mark to the next on the mini map. While you can turn off said map, the problem is that the game isn't exactly made to support that approach, as there's very little in the way of recognizable landmarks. Not to mention that it's all too easy to stumble into high-level enemies that you have no chance of beating at your current state, so it's best to just stick to the pre-determined paths and not venture out all that much.
Honestly, I think people were just so into the story and characters with how well written they were, and how much higher quality the game was compared to all the other boring collectathons that the open-world genre had devolved into leading up to its release, that everyone overlooked all the gameplay issues. For me though, you need to have extremely solid gameplay in order for me to find enjoyment, as the writing can only get me so far until I start to get tired of doing the same things over and over.
So yeah, the narrative and writing is absolutely superb, and if I were to rate the game purely on that, it'd be a 10/10 masterpiece easily. But unless the game does something really creative in terms of the gameplay in the future, I simply can't give it anything other than an 8/10 at most, given all the problems I just stated I have with it. Who knows though? Maybe the game will surprise me as I get further into it.
You're not completely wrong. I find that overly complex gameplay can distract from the story, so I don't mind, but the distribution of enemy difficulty across the map is just plain bananas.
I'm pretty sure this
Penny Arcade comic about the show has been posted, but I wanted to link the commentary
too.
It's funny, because I forget how much Andrzej Sapkowski hates the games. It's a very fanfic thing to be like "we don't care how the creator feels about this, we're doing something awesome anyway." It just normally doesn't come up like this because most people don't hand off the rights flippantly.
Writing a post-post apocalypse LitRPG on RR. Also fanfic stuff.Sapkowski doesn't actually hate the games. That's something of an urban legend. What happened was that he thought they wouldn't make any money, so when he negotiated the rights to his IP with CD Projekt Red, he took a lump sum payment instead of a percentage. Then, when the games got big, he changed his mind and demanded royalties. CDPR naturally told him where he could shove his demand, and acrimony occurred.
They have since settled, with CDPR agreeing to a smaller cut than Sapkowski originally wanted and in turn extending their rights to make Witcher games. Now, he might not be particularly fond of games in general as a medium, but I am not aware of any particular animus he holds towards these.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 10th 2020 at 12:57:08 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"The level distribution of the side quests and enemies can be quite odd and inconsistent - there's this Contract in Velen that requires a whopping level 30, even though you'll only be about level 10 or so when you first pick it up. I started it months ago and still haven't reached the minimum level needed for it.
Yes, it's bizarre. I suppose the intent is that you will come back later in the game and do those, although to be fair, if you're decently geared and know the attack patterns, you can take on enemies 5 to 10 levels higher without catastrophic risk. Just quicksave first.
Frankly, while the placement of high-level mobs is bad enough, the scaling of combat between you and mobs of different levels is wonky as hell. At any given level, different mobs will have vastly different hit points and pose vastly different threats, such that a level 10 water hag is much harder than a level 20 nekker, assuming your level is high enough that the nekker doesn't get a huge damage bonus.
Another thing is that the level of the quest is only sometimes relevant. Some side quests don't involve combat at all, yet they're keyed to a level for some reason, which determines only whether you get the full xp reward for completing them or not. A prime example is the Witcher gear scavenger hunts, which are keyed to the level required to equip the items regardless of what may or may not be guarding them.
The inconsistent difficulty is probably my biggest gripe about the game's mechanics.
Oh, that and the amount of farming needed for the highest level potions is disgusting. Specifically, finding the mobs to drop the super rare ingredients and then finding innkeepers to clean out their inventories of alcohol to make White Gull.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 10th 2020 at 1:37:35 PM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Man, I thought that the Battle of Kaer Morhn was indicating that the game was wrapping up, but no, there's still more fricken hours of content I have to get through.
Hate to say it, but the game is starting to grate on my nerves a bit, only made manageable by the superb writing and getting to see how my choices affected things.
Edited by LDragon2 on Jan 14th 2020 at 7:52:03 AM
"Only".
In my latest playthrough I've skipped almost all of the Skellige treasure hunts because they are, frankly, boring AF, and don't give me anything useful other than stuff to sell for money.
Edited by Fighteer on Jan 14th 2020 at 11:03:03 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Welp, I finally finished the main game (DLC still in question). Might as well paste my final thoughts on the game from another thread where I gave my last impressions.
I gotta say, I can see why the game has received so much acclaim and awards. The writing is some of the best I've seen in the entire gaming medium, not only having actual choices that matter, but having entire sidequests that are just as, if not more, well written than the main storyline. Nearly all the side characters are unique, and I love the way the quests intertwine with one another, to the point that everything in the game feels connected (side-quests within side-quests you could say). Geralt and his journey to find Ciri was also captivating, and just the amount of worldbuilding and lore that makes up this game is staggering. Heck, the open world itself is one of the most detailed and lively ones I've seen out of the genre, feeling like an actual setting rather than just a place to check off item-boxes. Indeed, I think that's where most of the praise is coming from, and if I were to rate the game solely based on that, I too would do nothing but sing the praises of it.
Unfortunately, and here's the part where I'll probably get attacked, I didn't feel that the gameplay was nearly as good as the writing. While the missions had superb narratives behind them, when you actually had to play them, the game showed its weaknesses I felt. Far too often, the combat devolved into just hacking away at the enemies, with the occasional spell and dodge roll here and there to soften them up/avoid taking damage respectively. While you have all these bombs, arrows, potions and oils, I rarely found myself needing to use them, as the standard method of attack worked just as well without needing to do all that much else. Eventually, combat started to become a chore to get through. Heck, for that matter, while you have all these weapons and armor sets that give bonuses, I found myself just sticking to whichever one dealt the most damage/gave the best defense, leaving even less reason to experiment. 90% of the Relic weapons I found for that became worthless as soon as you got to one that had better percentages, so that doesn't help things either. Doesn't exactly give me a reason to explore all those question mark icons if I'm just gonna be rewarded with something that may or may not be better than what I currently have equipped.
Granted, all of this I'm guessing is alleviated on higher difficulties, which do require the use of all those features. But here's the thing. Even with that in mind, the missions still weren't all the fun to play through. So much slow walking from one spot to another, following the red trail, investigating the red glowing items, killing stronger enemy types, and repeat. Literally nearly every mission involves this formula, and while the writing is more than good enough to keep my going, it doesn't really make up for how repetitive I found them to actually play. Feels like they spent more writing the stories for them than they did designing the missions themselves. Oh, and tiny amount of them are rather buggy as well, either not activating or having them become unable to clear because of some random glitch. That doesn't happen often though, so I can let that slide.
Exploration I also felt wasn't as enjoyable as it should've been, as it's just clearing one question mark after another, and said marks may or may not even be ones you can tackle at your current level, leaving even less incentive for me to travel off the beaten path. Granted, you can turn off the mini-map and markers, but the thing is that the game isn't really designed with that in mind, as there aren't many landmarks or clear directions to help you navigate, and it just makes it even easier to stumble into enemies well beyond your current level.
Lastly, and this is probably subjective, but I felt that the pacing took a hit after you finally find Ciri. After you do, you then recruit all the allies you met for the Battle at Kaer Mohrn, which seems to be the finale of the game. Heck, I myself thought it was, as everything was leading up to a final showdown with the main bad guys, and that seemed the perfect spot for it. Vesemir's death only gave my assumption even more reason to be correct. And honestly, I would've been perfectly fine if the game wrapped up there.
There's just one problem; no that isn't the last mission, as there's still at least 10+ hours of story left to go. At this point, the game's momentum pretty much comes to a screeching halt as you then have to do all these extra missions before you can actually get to the final level. You're basically just going to the areas you already visited before, so that makes things seem to drag on even further. While it was awesome to see how your choices changed the fates of the kingdoms, it just left me eager to get through all this so the game would end. At least the final level was really cool (no pun intended), and seeing how your seemingly small actions would effect the ending was captivating. Just wish that the lead up wasn't so much of a chore to get through.
There's no doubt that it's at least much more enjoyable than other open-world games. Heck, I'll gladly take the missions here over the cookie-cutter collectathons than permeate the genre. But ultimately, I feel that, without the writing and story, the game would be seen as just average. It's practically saved from being that because of the latter, but I don't think that is enough for me to label it as the "greatest game of the decade" like nearly every other gaming site has. And if I'm being totally honest here, I think much of the acclaim and awards it received was because the critics were so enamored with how well written everything was, and how much of a breath of fresh air for the open world genre it was when it was released, that they overlooked all the problems it had. I wish I could as well, believe me.
Now with all that I've pointed out, you probably think I hate the game. That couldn't be farther from the truth. For all my complaints that I have, I still greatly enjoyed The Witcher 3. Again, I cannot stress how amazingly written the game is, and how much thought and craftsmanship went into the world, its writing, lore, backstory, characters, choices, and relationships. Those are all some of the best I've seen in any video game that I have played. But unfortunately, the gameplay and mission design, while I didn't hate it, was just too heavily flawed for my tastes. So in the end, while I still greatly enjoyed the game, enough for me to put it in my top 20 favorite games of the last decade, and can understand its immense popularity, I can't bring myself to call it a masterpiece like everyone else does.
...........Please don't hate on me. I'm more than eager to see what you guys think of the game, and why it resonated with you.

I just binged the first half of the show, and it makes me want to revisit the Trilogy to.
But I need to finish other games first. And wait for my new laptop fan to come in...
Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.